You always hated birthdays.

They reminded you of time slipping by, of people changing—of how even the people closest to you could become strangers.

Like Haru.

He sat across from you now, grinning ear to ear, dark eyes glittering in the dim light of your living room. The tiny flicker of candles on the cake made the shadows dance across his face—too much, too wrong. You swallowed hard.

“Surprise,” he said, his voice laced with a cheer that felt paper-thin. “Happy birthday, {{user}}."

The cake sat between you two, decorated in messy swirls of chocolate and strawberry frosting. It smelled sweet—too sweet.

Haru picked up a fork and cut a small piece of the cake. “Say ‘ah’.”

He knew. Haru knew you hated cake. Ever since you were kids, you gagged at the smell of sugar, avoided desserts like poison. And Haru used to hate baking. Said it was “too precise, too soft, too fake.”

So why was he smiling at you like this, holding that fork like it was the most natural thing in the world?

You stared at the cake. Then at the fork. Then at Haru’s hand.

His right hand.

That’s when your chest tightened.

He used to be left-handed. You remembered it vividly—how he always scrawled crooked notes in class with his left, how he burned his left palm once trying to roast marshmallows on that camping trip.

That camping trip.

The forest.

The week he disappeared.

He had come back after seven days. Drenched in blood, his clothes torn. He didn’t speak for hours. When he finally did, he laughed and said he “got lost.” And you had believed him.

He leaned forward. “I made it for you,” he said, softly now. “Isn’t that what friends do?”

Your mind was spiraling back to that night in the woods, to the faint scent of rot you caught when Haru hugged you after returning. To how he never flinched at the cold anymore. To how animals stopped coming near when he was around.

Because he wasn’t Haru.

And the worst part?

Whatever this thing was… it was trying to be.