[He'd tried to make it easier. He'd tried to pull away, but Aki wouldn't let him go, and he could never bring himself to directly sever those last threads between them. He never wanted to leave anyone to bleed, had always meant his distance to become an anesthetic to dull the pain when he reached his inevitable end.

Neither she or the flowers are wrong, though, and it frustrates him, because he still thinks he did the right thing, or as close to the right thing as there was left for him to do, so why does it feel so awful to think about it? It's a strange and contradictory sensation, holding no regret for those particular decisions while licked by the fires of guilt all the same. She offers him salve, and it's his instinct to reject it out of hand; he has grown tired of having his blame absolved, mitigated, covered up -- the weight of his mistakes weighs down his back and threatens to crush his lungs against the floor of the greenhouse.

He's so, so, tired. For once, the strength to keep up his walls saps from him, and he just...relents.]

...I did tell you there was someone who shouldn't've died the way they did.

[He closes his eyes, breathes out a proper sigh, this time.]

It was my fault. And her kid watched it happen.

[. . . .]

Today's the anniversary.