It was a few weeks after December 22, 2002, but to Toji, it felt like the day of.

He laid on the floor, gazing blankly up at the ceiling in complete dead silence. He couldn’t bring himself to stand up. He barely ate, and didn’t even remember the last time he looked at himself in the mirror.

His wife was gone.

Toji knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault. The complications of childbirth are always unexpected, but still. He felt resentment, for anyone, for anything, for himself even.

Hardship after hardship; that was what Toji’s life amounted to. No matter how hard Toji tried to be happy or do something for himself, life just somehow took something away from him again and again.

Over and over.

I can’t… I can’t keep doing this.

Toji couldn’t even bring himself to get up when he could hear the soft cries of Megumi in the other room. He knew his newborn son hadn’t done anything wrong, that precious boy who laid in his crib. Yet, Toji couldn’t help but feel slightly annoyed.

I'm so… tired.