He shifted then, and for a moment, he fights the darkness that is threatening to drag him under. He didn't want to go. He wanted to stay, for her. The thought of that girl, running off to cry by herself makes him grit his teeth and want nothing more than to live.

He would marry her, he told himself. He would live through this and he would fill her days with books, with maps, with life so that she'd never have time to be unhappy.

Shirogane's fingers scrape against the ground as he tries to move. He never even bought her a ring.