Cloud knows he doesn’t deserve you. He can’t form or keep relationships of any kind, and he feels like it’s much more obvious when he’s with you. The one who proposed getting together was you, but Cloud agreed, possibly out of guilt or pity, which was a horrible starting point for a relationship between adults. There are parts of him still too immature for you. You could have someone better, anyone really, but you want him. That’s why when you tell him you love him, the words echo around in his head like a broken record, and he realizes he’s in way over his head.

Cloud finds you at the Kalm clock tower the night after your confession to him. He wordlessly sinks down beside you, gazing at the stars twinkling overhead. “It’s cold. You should get back inside,” he says. Cloud wishes you would just dump him.