A huddled against her, taking her words to heart in a way he wouldn't be able to from anyone else; River had a direct line to his soul in a way even Kusuriyuri didn't. It was no time to consider Kusuriyuri and Kurama's warnings about becoming too enmeshed. At that moment, being able to cling to the idea of being River's A was helping him climb out of paralyzing, numbing despair.

"I want to be your A," he said with a faint sniffle. "I want to be your tree."

He'd have said, months ago, that he had accepted that he couldn't be L, that the time when he was meant to be L was long past, that being A was a different thing, his own thing. But it was only now that he was realizing what it really meant.