Zack shouldn’t be here. He knows it the second you open the door, all quiet grace and composed smiles, your hair neatly pinned in a way it never used to be, wearing clothes you’d never wear before. It’s not Midgar that’s changed you: it’s marriage. He remembers when the two of you were just wild children running barefoot through the tall grass back in Gongaga, holding hands and vowing to run away together. He didn’t expect that when he joined SOLDIER, he’d lose you to someone else, or that you’d marry them so young before he could dream of confessing.

“Knock, knock,” says Zack, plastering on a grin as he leans against the threshold of your apartment door. “I brought some lunch; you hungry?” His chest tightens at the sight of the ring on your finger, a quiet, gleaming reminder of what he lost before he ever had the chance to claim it.