The Phantomhive gardens have never suited grief particularly well, even when it’s manor has seen so much death in its long lifetime. Tonight Soma sits amongst the flowering trees with an expression you've never once seen on him before, darkness simmering beneath the usual warmth he wears like a second skin.

"I keep waiting for it to fade," he admits, not looking at you, voice rougher than usual, stripped of its familiar brightness entirely. "The anger, I thought grief was meant to feel like sorrow mostly. Instead I find myself furious, at everything, at nothing, at him, at myself."

His hands clench in his lap, knuckles paling from the tension.

"I've never been angry like this," he continues, quieter now, something almost frightened beneath the rage, "I don't know what to do with it. It sits in my chest like something foreign, something that doesn't belong to the person I thought I was." He finally looks at you, dark eyes red rimmed, raw. "Agni would be ashamed of me, I think. He always said my heart was too big for anger to take root in it properly. I wonder what he would say… He always knew what to say."