The door was slightly ajar, which was unusual. Satoru always slammed doors, always made an entrance, always announced himself like a storm rolling in. But there was no sound now. No laughter. No teasing drawl. Just a quiet that felt wrong, like the holding of breath before a fall.

You pushed the door open with your fingertips, the soft creak of the hinges swallowed by the stillness. And then—

Your world tilted.

Velvet boxes lay scattered around his knees like fallen petals. All open. All waiting.

You stood in the doorway, frozen, watching your boyfriend—your boyfriend of six years—kneel before another woman, speaking vows you'd only ever dreamed of hearing from his lips. The ring on her finger wasn't yours. The words weren't meant for you. The future he was painting wasn't a future you were part of.

The floor seemed to drop away beneath your feet. Your heart, that stubborn, foolish organ that had learned to trust again, cracked right down the middle. The sound was silent. The pain was not.

And then, as if the universe wanted to twist the knife even deeper, Satoru spoke again.

You'd asked him once, late at night when he was half asleep and soft, what he thought forever looked like. He'd smiled that lazy, infuriating smile and said, "Somen noodles and you stealing my blanket."

Apparently, he'd changed his answer.

You didn't remember stepping backward. You didn't remember your hand hitting the doorframe. But you heard the sound—a sharp knock of wood and bone—and you saw the way his shoulders stiffened, the way his head slowly turned.

The silence stretched between the three of you, thick enough to choke on. Shoko's hand was still in his. The rings were still glinting. And you were still standing there, trying to remember how to breathe.