A/N:OKAY SO YOU WANNA READ THIS CHAPTER? Turn around, go and search up 'Terrible Things' by Mayday Parade and LISTEN TO IT while reading this. I swear. Like this chapter isn't half as good without the mood music.

Also, sefkfehfehsil this story is coming to an END and a part of me is like "FINALLY," and another is like "Huuuuuuuuh? Didn't I start this just the other day?"
Suffice to say, it's a strange feeling. I almost feel... lost? Because I've been driven by this for the past month and now there's only an itsy-bitsy chapter and an epilogue left.
Oh well. I will definitely not stop writing after this, you've far from seen the last of me yet! You know, I think I'll be doing an 'Author Q and A' or something on my tumblr, which is .com. Hit me up with prompts, any points of clarification you want on the story, anything you want to discuss about any topic under the sun.
Enjoy this little feeling slayer~

Kirishima hadn't wanted to count.

He hadn't wanted to know thirty-seven when he found himself unable to walk around for extended periods of time.

He hadn't wanted to know twenty-four when he took to editing his manuscripts from his living room sofa rather than going to the office, phone ringing off the hook, Hiyo rushing to bring him this or that as soon as she was home.

And he didn't want to know sixteen, today, as he silently, ponderously made his way to Marukawa Shoten for the final time.

He hadn't wanted to cross off days on his mental calendar until his life would become little more than an ephemeral entity, but, somehow, he'd ended up doing so anyway.

He already felt like a ghost the moment those achingly familiar sliding-glass doors opened to accommodate him, like a time-lapsed spirit gathering memorable figments from his past. The letter he held felt peculiarly heavy in his hand as be boarded the lift, nostalgia, wasn't it too early for this bullshit?, hitting him like a punch to the gut when he stepped out onto the fourth floor. His floor.

The shonen manga department was plunged into dead silence as soon as he entered the workspace. His subordinates all knew, of course, the reason for his absence from the office, and had almost certainly guessed the reason for him being here today. What was he supposed to say to alleviate the sudden oppressive gloom that had spread out from his heart and manifested itself in a thundercloud over the room?

He settled for nodding briefly to them as he strode past the shonen department and over to the Director's office.

"Isaka-san," he said, knocking on the door and entering. The Company Director's disinterest demeanor instantly sobered down when he recognized his visitor.

"Kirishima," he said, blinking for a beat before motioning to the chair in front of his desk. "Come, have a seat."

"That won't be necessary," Kirishima said, putting the envelope that had been burning a hole through his hand down in front of the seated man. "I had just come to give you this."

"Your resignation, I presume?"

"Yeah. Thank you for taking care of me," Kirishima bowed his head, then abruptly turned around, feeling like he couldn't stay there an instant longer. "I'll be taking my leave now."

"Wait," Isaka said, getting out of his chair. Kirishima turned around, only to find a hand descending upon his shoulder, squeezing momentarily. "You were the best goddamn editor Japun ever had."

"Thank you," was all Kirishima could muster, throat suddenly choking up.

He hurriedly left the office, making straight for the elevator when he suddenly realized that none of his… former subordinates were sitting in their cubicles. They had all come to stand on the sides of Kirishima's pathway, with Hitomi and Kasagawa standing right at the end of the workstation. As he passed them, each and every one handed over a token, a remembrance.

When he finally reached the end of the excruciatingly long corridor, he didn't know how he felt.

He didn't know how he felt when Hitomi, with tears openly streaming down his cheeks, and Kasagawa, with the mask of stoicism icing over his features, handed him a shonen department group photograph, Kirishima as the editor-in-chief grinning happily in the middle.

You will be missed, Kirishima-san.

And he didn't know how he felt when, the news of his arrival and resignation having spread like wildfire, the halls he walked through on his way out fell instantly subdued, deathly quiet. Every inch along the walls was occupied by an employee who stood in a final, wordless tribute.

And maybe he'd have felt touched, had there been anything left inside him to feel.

It was honestly like the winter that was definitely in the air now had numbed all his senses, his feelings with its icy fingers as he stepped out into the cool rush of the wind, of the revitalizing air that nonetheless burned his lungs. Everything burned his lungs, and he just wished he could feel something besides their struggle for survival and void.

He could barely lug the gifts and cards that had been heaped upon him to his waiting car, leaden tears weighing them down. What do you even say on a card addressed to a dying person? See you on the other side?

The quiet rumbling of the car calmed the smarting in his chest that had nothing to do with radiation, that had started right when he had pushed that letter across Isaka's table, and his dreams withal. He drove in silence for a while, following a familiar route, savoring the quiet unpunctuated by radio music.

The car came to a standstill in front of the forest as Kirishima pulled the key out of the ignition. He knew easier ways to get where he wanted, but this traversal had seemed to him like a pilgrimage he must make.

He took a moment to revel in the crunch of the long-since shed autumn leaves underfoot, hands in his pockets. It he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that this was normal, that he was simply there for another visit and he'd go back home and everything would be just fine.

But he wouldn't. He had come here in the search of some counsel, and counsel wasn't an escapist desert.

It seems like you drew me to you, again, Sakura, you always had a penchant for that, he followed the path carved out by years of use through the trees, and I don't men just to this place.

"Look at me," he laughed bitterly, reaching the old, thick sakura tree right in the middle of the wood, tracing his fingers over the rough letters carved into his bark, Z+S. "Isn't this called Fate, Sakura?"

A deluge of memories engulfed him as his fingers touched the letters, of sunlit days and secret meetings and young, foolish love. Because those childish alphabets had been etched, not into old wood, but into Time itself.

But Time is a universal constant, which meant that those stolen moments weren't Kirishima's alone. Not any more. They were all of young love's, every one youthful and reckless and happy, who ever had been in love or was in love or hoped to be in love.

What were his, though, were tactless, stuttering, red-faced confessions and a quick temper and eyes that were at once the gray of a tempest and the blue of the sky.

He finally understood, in all it's entirety, what Yokozawa had meant when he'd said that it hadn't ever been a choice between Sakura and him.

Rather, there had been only one choice, and that had already been made for him.

Because, with every stinging, itching breath, with every scrape of his hand over rough bark, every touch, every brush of skin against Yokozawa's, with all those little things that had sustained him without him noticing, his conviction had grown stronger and stronger.

He wanted to live.

He wanted to live and spend the rest of his life with Yokozawa.

The brown-eyed man turned away from the tree, and, burying his hands in his pockets, set off on the path again.

Kirishima knew this like clockwork.

Every year, he trudged out of the woods, made his way to the little clearing just alongside it, and walked over to the third plot from the wicker fence that ran all around the graveyard there, bearing the white, wooden nameplate of Kirishima.

And every year, he placed a single, white chrysanthemum at Sakura Kirishima's marker.

But this was the first time he turned around at a sound behind him to find Yokozawa standing behind him, posture awkward but head sincerely bowed in prayer.

"Hey, Yokozawa, remember that time I gave you my key for the first time?"

"What about it?"

"Do you remember the… proposal I made along with it?"

"…."

"What if I were to ask you again?"

"It's gone," Kirishima said, dully, whether to Sakura, Yokozawa, or himself, he wasn't quite sure. "Everything I loved doing, my passion, this has taken even my dreams from me."

There was silence in the open clearing, so tangible that it seemed to push the heavens themselves to respond. Big, white flakes fell from the sky, softening the harsh contours of the land into downy white.

"Will it stop at nothing? Must it reduce me to this— this shadow before it takes me?" The cavernous, aching emptiness that had opened up inside his chest found a voice in the sudden vehemence that burst forth from Kirishima.

The shock seemed to shake Yokozawa out of their shared reverie.

"Yes," he said, abruptly, blushing to the tips of his ears and avoiding Kirishima's gaze before seeming to compose himself and catch it again. "Your proposal. I accept it."

And this was the first time Yokozawa had looked at him like this, straight in the eye with such intensity as he reached out a hand for the taller man to take.

Kirishima walked to where his lover was, almost in a daze, hyperaware of each shift of emotion in the younger man's eyes, every move he made, as well as of the small, nondescript box that currently resided in his jacket pocket.

"I, Yokozawa Takafumi, take you to be my husband," the grey-eyed man began, blush still fevering his cheeks, but blazing eyes focused unwaveringly on Kirishima as he spoke.

"I, Kirishima Zen, take you to be my husband," the older man echoed, and, for once in his life, he knew that his own color was rivaling the younger man's.

"To have and to hold, from this day forward."

"In good times, and in bad."

"In sickness, and in health."

As the words left Yokozawa's mouth, his face contorted in pain as he cupped Kirishima's face in his hands.

"For richer or poorer," Kirishima brushed away a snowflake that had alighted on Yokozawa's cheek, voice tender, comforting as he covered the shorter man's hands with his own.

"To love, and to cherish."

"Until death do us part," Kirishima whispered, a tear trailing its way down over his cheek, over both their hands.

"I will love and honor you all the days of my life," they said together, voices mingling, and in that moment, Kirishima knew that this unseen, unrecognized union, had become Time's own indelible secret.

And then, so softly, tenderly, it hurt, their lips came together to build a slow, sweet kiss, cemented in that little forgotten wood as the snowflakes, an untainted white, drifted down, as the cemetery around them became a shimmering carpet of white.

It might be short-lived, and it might be ill-fated, but even the snow gathering around them couldn't hold a candle to the purity of what they had.

After a long, long moment, when they finally, quietly, pulled away, Kirishima took out the box from his pocket, opening it to reveal a simple platinum band. Yokozawa did the same, and they watched the scant sunlight glint of the gold in his hand.

And it was almost an ethereal moment, so similar to the one eleven years ago and yet, utterly different, as Yokozawa took his hand, and slipped the ring on, as he did the same, both of them feeling the suppressed trembling of the other's.

It was so strange, having that weight on his ring finger again, having that weight entail something again. From Yokozawa's strange, almost pained expression, Kirishima knew he felt the same way.

Interlinking their fingers, a thrill running through him at the feeling of their rings clinking against each other, Kirishima turned the two of them around.

"Sakura," he said, holding up their hands. "This is Yokozawa, my husband. Yokozawa, this is Sakura, my wife."

And it might be morbid, exchanging marriage vows in front of his wife's grave, his… husband, now, bowing to her marker, with a fervent please look favorably upon me, but Kirishima was convinced that there was no other way, without her spirit watching over them, that it could have been done.

When he had twelve days left, Kirishima, with unsteady hands, called his lawyer. He took some comfort as Yokozawa signed for legal guardianship of Hiyori.

At least this much, he could give him, especially since the younger man had vehemently refused to accept any money Kirishima had wanted to leave him, snapping out a terse, "If you're rich enough to be doling out money left, right and center, maybe you should focus on the higher education of your child!"

After a long debate, they had finally compromised of Yokozawa remaining in-charge of the money until Hiyo came of age.

Their bickering over it had sounded so normal, that Kirishima had broken out into an involuntary smile.

When he had eight days left, Yokozawa tried to literally drag him into admitting himself to the hospital after he'd begun coughing copious amounts of blood, but Kirishima remained adamant. He would not prolong his suffering for a few more days, would not put all three of them through that for nothing.

So at home he stayed, and Hiyo took a break from school to stay with him. It would be madness to send her there in such a state as she was in. Kirishima scarcely knew which of them felt worse- him, who had to look at the child inside her fade away, or her, who was watching her father die, slowly and painfully. The horrible poesy of it was that they both knew that they were the cause of the other's anguish, but couldn't do a thing to alleviate it.

So Kirishima clung to her as often as she clung to him, somehow, irrationally hoping she'd get enough while he was still there.

Despite Kirishima's protests, Yokozawa took a week of paid vacation as well, fiery eyes of grey-blue saying shame on me if I can't stay by your side these few days and brooking no argument.

Neither of them had taken their rings off.

When he had two days left, the three of them curled up together in bed that night, as they were wont to do most nights now, and acted like nothing was wrong.

"So then Kagayama found out that William was actually Sairi in disguise, but it turns out that Sairi is working for Kimihiro and has been deceiving him all along. But check this out, after she's found out, Sai-chan kills both Kaga and Hiro, and takes over all of Drogoren!"

"H-hey, that's just totally impossible! Do you realize how many guards Kimihiro would have—"

"Awwwww, come on, oniichan~ Play along~ Look, I'll go next. Okay, so Sai-chan might be queen, but what she doesn't realize is that Iori is a distant descendant of Kaga-kun's and has vowed to take revenge!"

"And then everyone dies because the kingdom catches fire. End of story."

"You're so mean!"

"I must say, that's unimaginative, even for you, Takafumi," Kirishima teased, from where he was reclining between Yokozawa, sitting stiffly on one side, and Hiyori with her head on his shoulder on the other.

"It's a virtue," the younger man retorted, and his lover began to laugh, until it dissolved into another violent coughing fit. Yokozawa quickly reached out to the bedside table, grabbing a couple of tissues from the box on it and handing them to Kirishima, who accepted them gratefully.

"Watch out!" he snapped as the older man's coughs subsided and he wadded the tissues up and threw them into the bedside dustbin. He was as white as a sheet, and when Kirishima grabbed his hands, they were trembling violently.

"I love you both so much," he suddenly felt it slip out. He felt immensely tired from that attack, like he'd inhaled steel nails. The pain and the sleepiness were making him woozy. "And even if I'm not here anymore… soon, I need you to promise me. Promise me you'll live your lives for me. Promise me you'll live like I'm there encouraging you every step of the way. But most of all," here he squeezed Yokozawa's hand tight, "Promise me you'll move on."

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then, Hiyori buried her face into Kirishima's chest.

"…I promise."

Her father stroked her hair, and the Yokozawa, seeming to have found his voice, ripped his hand away from the older man.

"What- stop talking such rubbish. You're going to be here for a while yet, yeah?" he said, looking anywhere but at his lover, who simply dimmed the lights.

"Good night, everyone."

"Good night, Papa, oniichan."

"…Good night."

Does he understand at all?

A few uneasy moments later, Kirishima felt Yokozawa's head coming to rest softly on his shoulder, and his body instantly relaxed. He stroked the younger man's hair, and when Yokozawa, of his own accord, came up to claim his lips in a bruising, lingering, haunting kiss, the brown-eyed man knew his message had gone through.

Maybe they didn't suck so much at this whole 'non-verbal communication' thing.

It was just a pity they were realizing it just now.

It was just a pity they were only trying just now.

He tasted salt between their lips, and he knew they were both silently crying.

"Zen," Yokozawa was whispering, soft, and so fragile it threatened to break any moment. "I love you."

Their fingers interlocked.

"Takafumi," Kirishima breathed out. "I love you too."

The last thing Kirishima saw was their wedding bands glinting off each other in the moonlight. The last thing he felt was Yokozawa's skin against his, his lover's warm tears on his tongue, and his fingers carding through Hiyori's hair.