When he sleeps, he dreams of coffins. They're planted in the ground, but not to grow. Everything else that's planted is meant to grow. The seeds inside them twist and turn and try to face the right way up, but the weight of the soil holds the lids down and the people inside can't sprout. Everyone has someone sitting on their coffins, weighing them down. Nightmares, he thinks, because the seeds are asleep and not growing. Cats to suck their breath out.

He wakes in stale air, sterilized air, tubes in his arms keeping him going, and knows he's going to die. The only things left to wonder are how (painfully) and when (soon).

It begs the question: If you know you're going to die, how do you want to do it?

He asks for news of her every chance he gets. Most people haven't heard much. The End of the World comes to talk with him, sits beside his bed and passes photos over. Her face has changed; she's solemn, angry, closed, and not growing at all.

"Why?" he asks, or thinks he asks; his voice is weak lately.

The End of the World tells him.

It takes him some time, but he manages to tug the IV tubes out of his arms, stretch them, rise. It hurts; every movement aches. But he can bear his own weight, and move, and that's not something that'll last much longer. He's going to die anyway, he thinks, and If you know you're going to die, what do you want to do first?

It takes effort to fight, but he fights. It takes effort to smile and do his work, but he does it. He can't eat, can't bring himself to. Nobody notices. It seems, he thinks, that this is a place where many people don't notice very much at all.

He hates Shiori from the first moment he sees her.

Shiori's not worthy -- that's his big issue. Shiori's selfish, and self-centered, and petty, and whiny, and a liar. These are not always bad qualities, and on some levels, Shiori's not even a bad person. Dating Shiori is uncomfortable at best, but he's only got so much time to get done what he has to get done. Under other circumstances, he might enjoy it, but not these.

Shiori weighs her down like a yoke around her neck, leaving her chained. And she doesn't see that. All she sees is Shiori. The sight of Shiori's face through the coffin lid is enough to make her not even try to move.

He's been there, been the one staring at the face of someone who will never see him, can never see him. He thinks he couldn't live if she hated him. But he's going to die, and making her hate him is part of what might free her. If she can be freed. If she wants to be freed. At least he won't have to live with it. And so he sets out to make her hate him more and more.

Perhaps if she can get caught up in a different feeling, if she can see someone else at all, then she'll lift the lid away.

On some selfish level, he wants her to see how he feels. It's always been like this. He knows better. He knows he's going to die. He lets her see that he wants her. He doesn't let her see in what way. Or why. Or how.

She needs to learn resentment, he thinks, and hate. If she can manage them for him, perhaps she can manage them for the things that bind her, and learn to oppose them. And by opposing, end them.

They fight, and her chain snaps, and she's free, she's free, she's free and she doesn't know what to do with it. She grasps at her throat as if she could put her fetters back. She inhales rain as if she's clawed her way to the surface and doesn't know how to breathe air, only dirt. He can't help her from here. He can't push her any further. He stands behind her and realizes that he'll never see how it'll work out.

But at least he did something.

He's tired now, tired, aching all over, malnourished, ready for the first spadeful to fall. He wants to go to bed. He wants to sleep. He wants to let them fill his bed with earth, a replacement for what he really wants.

"It's going to be okay, Juri," he whispers to her. He hopes she can hear him, hopes she will let go of what binds her, hopes she will learn. "It's going to be okay."