The room still smells like him. Armin's coat is gone. The door stopped rattling minutes ago, but the silence he left behind is louder than any storm. The single candle on the table throws broken shadows across the stone walls — and outside, the wind howls like it wants to tear the Survey Corps barracks apart. You haven't moved. His last words are still somewhere in your chest, lodged between your ribs. Then the pain comes. Sharp. Low. Unmistakable. The secret you've carried alone for nine months — the one you almost told him tonight, before the fight swallowed everything — is no longer willing to wait. And somewhere out there, in the dark and the snow, Armin still doesn't know.