Shots went off in the night, but nobody screamed.

Akaashi woke up with the sun and vomiting blood. Listlessly, he gazed as his front. It's happening. Within the last twenty-four hours, the majority of the camp refugees had perished from severe radiation sickness. The invisible fog stretched across the landscape, rolling over the hills and out into the countryside of Kanto. There was no escape without a plane or a helicopter.

He glanced over his shoulder. Kuroo was still fast asleep.

Cuddled to his chest was the baby.

Akaashi's trench coat was half-draped around the infant's body, and he pulled it back some to observe the baby's sleeping face.

It was still.

Too still.

His stomach dropped.

Kuroo opened his eyes. "Akaashi...? You're awake?"

Akaashi's hand moved slowly, covering the baby entirely. "You were right."

Kuroo only had to look at his bloody hand to realise what he meant. "Ah. I hate it when I'm right." His speech was casual, almost, but there was acceptance within it. "Is..." He never stopped looking at Akaashi. "Is he... You know..."

"He's dead." Akaashi didn't mince words. "It seems... he didn't make it through the night."

He sat up, feeling thirsty but not bothering to seek out any water. There was none in Tokyo's disaster zone anyway, not unless the government decided to spend more money on sending in supplies.

We're dying. We're dying and nobody cares.

Was his life truly this insignificant? In high school, he and Bokuto had been stars in their own little world. They'd been the protagonists—invincible as youths tended to delude themselves to be. In the end, Akaashi was barely a person—in the end, he would only be a number on someone's computer. He would never be a name or a personality or even a figure of tragedy. Just a statistic studied by someone twenty or so years in the future.

Kuroo held the child and trudged forward. Silent as a ghost, Akaashi followed him.

He didn't stop walking until he came upon an empty plot of land.

Then he began to dig with his hands.

"What are you doing?" asked Akaashi, though he knew precisely what.

Kuroo didn't answer.

He dug a shallow hole and placed the dead infant inside it.

Akaashi thought that would be the end of that, but Kuroo started to work on another hole in the ground, paddling at the dirt relentlessly. As if hearing the question that only existed in his thoughts, Kuroo turned around and said, "It'll be our turn soon. We have another day at most."

At some point, Akaashi joined in.

He didn't know how long it took, but, eventually, there were two adult-sized graves in the middle of the land. Poison thrummed through their veins as they rubbed sweat off their foreheads, smearing soil over their faces.

Click.

He turned.

"Sorry." Kuroo beamed, blood dripping from his mouth as he held the gun to his head. "There's only one bullet left."

"Oh," said Akaashi, numb. "That's—"

He pulled the trigger, sending his brain splattering across the ground and his body falling neatly into the grave.

"—alright."

For a while, he just stood under the burning sun. Then he picked the gun off the ground, holding it up to his head and hoping for mercy. There was none. He chucked it away. Kuroo'd been telling the truth.

So Akaashi sat down and waited for death.