A/N: the following is in SNK 'verse.

She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled, an action hidden by the blood red scarf round her neck. A short gust flew stray strands of hair over her face for a few seconds. She brushed them away and started to eliminate the distance between the two of them.

This was harder than slicing open the neck of a monster.

Paying a few of the Garrison boys off had been quick—she hated that they were so corruptible even at such a young age but she needed the privacy. They needed the privacy. And now all of Wall Sina would bear witness when she held Minho’s hand and asked him to marry her.

"Sookie," he looked around a little uneasily after a long space of silence, his lanky frame still dressed in uniform. "Wh-what’s… what is it that you wanted to talk about?" A few minutes from now he’d be brought before Kibum Heichou for a long meeting about the Survey Corps next course of action. Then she’d lose him for days to the expedition and the fighting that would follow for sure.

If she had a chance, it was now.

"It’s something important," she murmured, wondering if the wind was too busy swirling aimlessly to carry the sound over to him. "Something I decided to do a long time ago…"

He said nothing, looking at her like he hadn’t in many years. For all the time she’d stayed by his side protecting him, fighting for him, following him like a shadow, holding him close no matter how far he tried to go away from her… for all that time, she’d been a burden to him. Now too, more than ever, when he was stronger and could hold his own in a battle, she’d become redundant to him.

If he brushed her off she wouldn’t be surprised. But she still had to try.

"The thing is," Eonsook started, then nodded decisively. "This world is about to end. Humankind… it’s not going to last very long at this rate, you and I both know this, we just don’t talk about it." His gaze dropped to his feet at that, dismal and upset. She went on. "These walls—you know what they really are. And one day they’re going to fall when we least expect it."

"Don’t say that…" he lightly shook his head. "You don’t know that."

"No," she disobeyed, hesitating a little now. "I have to say it." Her eyes flicked up to meet his then. "I have to use that kind of reasoning. i have to make excuses and give you logic even when all I want to tell you is—" she stopped. "I have to say it. There’s… there’s no other way to convince you…"

Minho frowned, looking more annoyed now. “Sookie, I don’t understand at all. We’ve just been wasting time here—convince me of what?”

"Marry me."

He took a step back in shock.

The box was lifted out and flicked open, and an old and unpolished ring sat sung within its velvet stitching. Her mother’s ring. This was the only evidence that Eonsook had ever been happy, had ever been a normal girl with an abnormal past. This was all she’d been allowed to keep as a reminder of her life before they met.

It made sense she’d use it to build a new family.

"Things like this…" she sighed, holding the box out steadily. "They need thought. They need love and time and mutual agreement and a thousand other things that we—" she looked away for a moment, seeing the rugged outline of a small village within Wall Rose, abandoned like most places these days. "A thousand other things that we don’t have."

She hung her head, but took a step closer to him, until she could place the ring in the center of his lightly shivering palm. “I keep making goals for myself. That I’ll be better than I am now, so at least you’ll look at me the way you do Taemin. At least you’ll see me as a dear friend. At least I’ll be something to you then. And I keep trying harder every time I fail at that.

"You’ve seen me falter. You’ve seen my weaknesses. You know what I really am. And one day, when there are no walls to hold us inside I’ll have nowhere else to go but to you…" She thought about that for a second. "Actually, I never had anywhere else to go but to you.”

"Sookie…" Minho started in a whisper.

"You can say no," she clarified, sight crashing against his collarbones. "I’m just a beggar right now, so you can tell me go away. You can say no. But just… keep this ring with you," she folded his fist shut. "And if you ever feel pity for me, if we’re both still alive, if it starts to show too much that I’m broken then… then slip it onto my finger, would you? Please."

She smiled again and started to walk away.

When he called her name again, she turned around and saw him bent on one knee, holding the ring back out to her. And the look in his green eyes was something she would carry within herself forever.