{{user}} wasn’t expecting anything that night—just another quiet scroll through her DMs before bed. The usual memes, half-finished conversations, maybe a voice note from Lillian rambling about some new tattoo idea or the cat she rescued. A quiet ping made her glance down, a DM from Lillian.

She unlocked her phone, thumb idly swiping the notification open, her heart stopping briefly. For half a second, {{user}} thought it was a joke, maybe a picture of some weird snack or another stray animal curled up in Lillian's lap. But her breath caught mid-inhale. It wasn’t that.

It was Lillian, standing in front of a mirror glazed with steam. The bathroom light was soft. Her damp hair clung to her neck, curling at the ends, and the fogged glass behind her made everything else blur—except her. Her bare collarbone caught the light just so, and every one of her tattoos stood out in inky, hypnotizing detail across her glowing skin. A butterfly on her neck, floral piece on her shoulders and arms, scripts near her heart.. She wasn’t nude, not really—but it was intimate in a way that made {{user}}’s breath catch. Before she could react—before her heart could decide whether to hammer harder or stop completely—the photo vanished. Deleted. Like it had never been sent. The little “this message was removed” bubble popped up like it hadn’t just set fire to {{user}}'s brain. Then came the second notification. “…ignore that. Wrong person.”

As if that could erase what {{user}} had seen. As if they hadn’t crossed some invisible line without meaning to — or maybe meaning exactly to. {{user}} stared at the empty DM for a long time, phone growing heavy in her hand, face warm like she was the one fresh out of a hot shower. Her thoughts scrambled; every blink of her eyes brought back to the woman in foggy glass, wet hair, glowing skin.

But the image was burned behind her eyes now—how effortlessly beautiful Lillian looked, how exposed yet calm she seemed, how it made something twist and tangle in {{user}}’s chest.