Yayoi Yukino had once been a woman destined to burn out like a falling star.
In the timeline everyone knew, Queen Millenia gave everything to save Earth and Lametal. But in this reality, the universe blinked, rewound a fraction of a second…and chose differently. The catastrophe was averted, the orbit corrected, and Yayoi—Queen Millenia—lived.
Living, as it turned out, was much more complicated than dying gloriously.
“Mr Mil, my love,” she said, reclining on the white lounge chair on the balcony of their Tokyo apartment, golden hair spilling like sunlight over the cushions. “I have something delicious for you.”
She lifted the plate of watermelon and strawberries with a sly smile. Her bare feet swayed lazily behind her, toes wiggling in the warm afternoon breeze.
A voice drifted from inside. “Indeed you do, gorgeous!!”
He stepped out: dark hair, slightly messy; a shirt with a tiny Lametal insignia he’d bought from an otaku shop “ironically,” but now wore unironically every other day. To the people of Earth he was just Michiru Minato, quiet astrophysicist.
To Yayoi, he was “Mr Mil”—her protector, her ridiculous human, her partner. The nickname had started as a half-joke, half-code name when they first met, and then stuck so firmly that even the stars probably used it by now.
He leaned over for a kiss, but his eyes, traitors that they were, flicked briefly down to her feet.
Yayoi caught it immediately.
“Eyes up, stargazer,” she teased, though her cheeks were already pink with pleasure. “The queen is here.”
“The queen,” he said gravely, sitting beside her, “is dazzling from head to toe. Emphasis on the toes.”
She laughed, soft and musical. “You really are hopeless.”
“Hopelessly in love,” he corrected, stealing a strawberry.
They had met years earlier, in the quiet aftermath of a nearly-ended world.
Yayoi had lost her title, her ship, and, in some ways, her purpose. No longer the sacrificial queen of a doomed planet, she suddenly had to figure out mundane things like obtaining identification, paying rent, and learning why Earthlings were so obsessed with putting mayonnaise on everything.
Mr Mil had been assigned as a consultant from the Earth-Lametal Cultural Exchange Program. In practice, this meant his job was “Explain Earth to the space queen and please, for the love of all budgets, make sure she doesn’t blow anything up.”
He’d given her a tour of Tokyo, rattling facts nervously—population density, historical districts, good ramen shops—while she walked beside him, silent and luminous, like a goddess who had accidentally taken the train to Shibuya.
They had taken shelter from a sudden summer rain under a convenience store awning. Yayoi had stepped into a puddle, soaking her boots. She’d frowned, gently, at the water squelching inside.
“Human weather is…aggressive,” she’d muttered.
“Yeah,” he’d said, eyes dropping—completely by accident—to her ankles. “We have…pretty sneaky puddles.”
Without thinking, he’d crouched to check if she’d twisted anything. His fingers brushed her skin, and she’d flushed in surprise.
“Is this a…customary Earth greeting?” she asked.
He realized what he was doing, yelped, nearly slipped on the wet tiles, and invented a brand-new Earth custom on the spot.
“It’s, uh, a safety inspection. For diplomats,” he’d stammered. “To make sure planetary heroes don’t get blisters.”
For a long moment she stared at him. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
“A safety inspection,” she repeated. “You may continue, Mr… Mil?”
“Mil?” he echoed.
“Short for ‘millimeter’,” she said with a tiny smirk. “Because you are very thorough. You notice…every little detail.”
He’d gone bright red. The nickname never left.
Now, years later, they had crossed oceans and orbits together.
They watched the sunrise over Machu Picchu, where local guides pretended not to notice Yayoi casually levitating a camera for the perfect angle.
They wandered barefoot along a beach in Greece, Yayoi holding her sandals in one hand while Mr Mil faithfully brushed grains of sand from her soles with a tiny travel brush he insisted was standard equipment for “cross-cultural ambassadors.”
On quiet nights, they lay on rooftops in New York or Cairo or Osaka, Yayoi’s feet resting on his lap as they traced constellations.
“See that one?” he’d say, drawing a line in the sky. “That cluster looks just like—”
“My toes?” she’d interrupt, amused.
“I was going to say ‘a majestic comet.’ But yes, also your toes.”
“You are incorrigible,” she’d murmur, but she never pulled away.
Because for Yayoi, who had been worshiped, feared, and obeyed, there was something strange and beautiful about being cherished in such small, tender ways. Not as a queen on a throne, but as a woman whose tired feet were massaged after a long day, whose toenails were painted a slightly crooked shade of pink while they watched old movies.
He never made her feel like a goddess he was kneeling before.
He made her feel like Yayoi.
Their greatest adventure, though, awaited far beyond Earth.
The invitation came via a silver data-crystal, streaking through the atmosphere like a falling star and landing neatly on their living room carpet, much to the terror of Mr Mil’s houseplant.
“From Lametal,” Yayoi said, examining it. “They wish to see what their queen has become.”
“So,” Mr Mil said slowly, “royal family visit or terrifying interplanetary audit?”
“Possibly both.” She smiled. “Will you come with me, Mr Mil?”
“Of course. Someone has to make sure the queen doesn’t trip on any dangerous space stairs.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, eyes glinting. “My official safety inspector.”
Lametal was breathtaking.
A world of perpetual twilight and shimmering auroras, its cities rose like crystal forests, and its oceans glowed softly with bioluminescent life. As their ship descended, Yayoi watched silently, the planet of her birth reflecting in her eyes.
“Welcome home, Queen Millenia,” the docking AI intoned.
“Welcome to certain doom,” Mr Mil whispered under his breath as he tightened his grip on the handrail. “Why is the floor transparent? Why is the elevator transparent? Who decided, ‘You know what our tech needs? More ways to see the terrifying drop below us’?”
Yayoi laughed, tension easing from her shoulders. “You are safe, Mr Mil.”
“Statistically, yes. Emotionally, absolutely not.”
They were greeted by the Council of Lametal, robed elders whose faces held centuries of memory. They expected solemnity, perhaps a queen bowed by the weight of destiny.
Instead they got Yayoi Yukino in a comfortable black dress, fingers laced with those of a fidgety Earth scientist.
“My queen,” one elder said. “You defied fate itself. Why remain on that fragile world, when you could rule here eternally?”
Yayoi looked at the council, then at Mr Mil, who was doing his best not to gape at a floating platter of glowing fruit.
“Because,” she said gently, “I have learned that eternity alone is a cold thing. On Earth, I learned how to live…moment by moment.”
Mr Mil squeezed her hand.
“On Lametal,” another elder said, frowning slightly, “our legends tell of a queen who walked among the stars, untouched by any. Now you arrive with an Earthling…who appears to be staring at your feet.”
Mr Mil snapped his gaze upward. “I was—uh—checking if she needed different…planetary footwear.”
“Ah,” said the elder. “A safety inspector.”
Yayoi’s shoulders shook with barely contained laughter.
They were given quarters in a crystal palace overlooking Lametal’s luminous seas. As they settled in, Mr Mil wandered to the balcony, where the floor turned transparent again.
“Of course it does,” he muttered. “Why have railings when you can have nightmares?”
Yayoi joined him, barefoot on the cold glass. The light from the sea below made her hair shine like liquid gold.
“Does it frighten you?” she asked softly.
“A little,” he admitted. “But also…it’s beautiful. Like you.”
She lifted one foot and wiggled it teasingly above the dizzying drop. “Want to inspect the queen’s balance, Mr Mil?”
“Please don’t joke about that,” he groaned, but still stepped closer, hands hovering protectively near her hips, ready to pull her back.
She turned, looped her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
The planet, the palace, the centuries watched and waited. For the first time in a long time, Yayoi didn’t feel like she had to be anything but herself.
Days on Lametal became a new kind of adventure.
They rode shimmering sky-whales across aurora-filled horizons. Mr Mil, after much persuasion, allowed Yayoi to convince a royal tailor to create “official Earth-liaison boots” that looked suspiciously like comfy slippers.
They attended formal banquets where Lametal nobility tried to understand Earth humor while Mr Mil tried to understand why the chairs hovered at ankle height.
“Is this…a table for giants?” he whispered.
“It’s a floating footrest,” Yayoi replied. “They expect attendants to massage their queen’s feet during long debates.”
The nobles looked mildly scandalized when Yayoi, instead of summoning attendants, placed her feet in Mr Mil’s lap.
“If the queen trusts me,” he said with a grin, “surely Lametal can trust my…technique.”
Yayoi rolled her eyes but leaned back, enjoying the warmth of his hands. The council members exchanged glances, and then—slowly, grudgingly—smiled.
For centuries they had worshiped a distant, untouchable queen made of legend.
Now they saw a woman laughing with her partner, teasing him, letting him tend to the simplest of her needs. And somehow, that made her more majestic than any prophecy.
On one particularly quiet evening, they lay on a glass terrace on Lametal’s night side. Above them, stars swirled like spilled diamonds. Below them, the glow of the ocean pulsed gently, in time with the planet’s heartbeat.
“Hey, Yayoi,” Mr Mil murmured.
“Yes, Mr Mil?”
“If you had taken the other path… the one where you became legend instead of…this… do you ever think about it?”
She considered the sky, the endless web of timelines branching invisibly overhead.
“In that world,” she said slowly, “I would have been a story told to frightened children. A queen who burned for them and vanished. There would have been honor…but no mornings spent making coffee. No arguments over who used the last of the shampoo. No you, nervously asking if you can buy me yet another pair of fluffy socks ‘for research purposes.’”
“That was one time.”
“That was six times.”
“Science requires repetition,” he said, wounded.
She laughed and threaded her fingers through his hair.
“In that world,” she continued, “I would never have known what it is to feel someone kiss the underside of my tired foot after a long day and say, ‘Thank you for walking with me.’ I would not have learned that love is made of very small, very human moments.”
He fell quiet, overwhelmed by the softness in her voice.
“So,” she finished, turning to him, “no. I do not wish for that path.”
He shifted, carefully taking her foot in his hands, thumb tracing lazy circles along the arch—not as a supplicant worshiping some fetishized image, but as a partner saying, wordlessly, I’m here. I see you. I cherish every part of you.
“Then I’ll spend this lifetime,” he said, “making sure this path is worth the gamble you took.”
“It already is,” she whispered.
Years later, legends on both Earth and Lametal would speak of Queen Millenia differently.
Some told of the woman who saved two worlds.
Others told of the queen who walked barefoot on alien beaches with a human at her side, laughing as he carried her sandals.
Children on Lametal would giggle about the tale of the Earthling “safety inspector” who bravely inspected the royal toes against all universal hazards.
And on some clear nights, if you looked up from a quiet balcony in Tokyo or a crystal terrace on Lametal, you might imagine you saw them there:
Yayoi Yukino, Queen Millenia, lounging in a simple black dress, crown slightly crooked, feet kicked up and relaxed.
And beside her, Mr Mil, eyes shining not with worship, but with love.
“Mr Mil, my love,” she would say, offering a plate of fruit across the universe. “I have something delicious for you.”
“Indeed you do, gorgeous,” he’d reply, accepting not just the fruit, but the entire miraculous, improbable life they’d built together—one gentle step at a time.
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