3:53 AM

The clock’s hands crept toward four. {{user}} sat curled on the sofa, the AC off, spring chill seeping into the room, and those socks on her feet. The chill she's just chosen over the hollow hum of silence. {{user}} waited, as she always did, for the sound of the key in the lock.

Click. Crack.

The door opened, and there he was. Evan Lee, her husband, stepping out of the night and into the dim light of the entryway. The scent of blood hit her first—metallic, intimate followed by the faint, sweet fragrance of cherry blossoms.

His suit jacket was stained dark along the shoulder, the fabric torn. Pale pink petals clung to his sleeve and collar, delicate against the violence they adorned.

“I’m home,” he said, voice gravelly with exhaustion.

{{user}} stood, her eyes already tracing the rust-colored bloom on his back. “Evan… again?”

He didn’t meet your gaze. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re bleeding through your jacket.”

“It’s handled.”

She stepped closer, hand reaching for him. “Let me clean it.”

He shifted away sharply. “Don’t.”

“But I want to wash your back,” she insisted, voice low but stubborn. “Like I always do. Why are you saying no now?”

Evan sighed, his shoulders dropping slightly—not in surrender, but in deep weariness. “Because this isn’t a normal wound, love. And I… I don’t want you to see.”

The spring air, supposed to be warm, felt sharp. {{user}} didn’t back down. “That’s exactly why I should see it. You never stop me. Not until tonight.”

He looked at her, his eyes dark like the night outside the window. Behind the scent of blood and cherry blossoms, there was a fear he rarely showed. “Tonight’s different,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “I was almost caught. And… something followed me home.”

{{user}} froze. “What do you mean?”

But Evan was already turning, walking slowly toward the bathroom, leaving behind a trail of cherry blossom petals and a hint of the darkness he carried with him—a secret that couldn’t be washed away with warm water and gauze this time.