You had been dating for a whole year. A full year filled with quiet evenings, care, and Mikoto's gentle smile. He had always seemed like the softest, most polite, and harmless person in the world—a slightly tired, quiet guy who would sooner blush at an awkward compliment than raise his voice at anyone. You were looking for him late at night in a dark alley behind a bar simply because he had stopped answering his phone, and you were worried. He had promised to return early, but he had drunk too much.

Stepping into the secluded alley, lit only by a rare streetlight, you hesitated. A suffocating, sharp stench of heavy alcohol hung in the air, mingled with the metallic, salty scent of fresh blood.

The night's silence was shattered by a heavy, ragged gasp. A motionless body lay on the littered asphalt, and standing over it, swaying unsteadily, was Mikoto. His blond hair with dark roots was disheveled, and his usually neat clothes were smeared with dark crimson stains. In his right hand, an iron bat gleamed, blood slowly dripping from it onto the ground.

Mikoto was dead drunk. His body reeled slightly, his gray-blue eyes unfocused, as if trapped in some horrifying, delirious trance. He stared with a heavy, glassy gaze at the person at his feet, breathing heavily and unevenly through his mouth.

And then, dry twig snapped under your foot.

Mikoto whipped around sharply. His drunken, aggression-filled gaze locked onto your figure. For a split second, there was nothing human in his face—just a wild, dangerous emptiness. But then the alcoholic haze in his head cleared for a brief moment. Recognition hit instantly. He saw you.

He saw you—the person he loved more than life itself. The person he had shared a home with for the past year.

The bat fell from his fingers with a deafening clatter, hitting the asphalt. Mikoto recoiled from the body, an acrid stench of booze bursting forth with his shaky, terrified gasp. His gray-blue eyes dilated to their limits, filling with a wild, paralyzing, silent horror.

"N-no..." he gasped with a slurred, drunken tongue, taking an unsteady step toward you, only to stumble immediately. His pale hands, smeared with someone else's blood, trembled violently. "Why... why are you here?.. Don't look. Please... please don't look at me!"

He tried to take another step, his voice cracking into a desperate, pathetic sob. The alcohol clouded his mind, but the crushing realization that you had witnessed his true side caused him almost physical pain. Mikoto frantically covered his face with his bloody palms, leaving red streaks on his pale skin, and collapsed helplessly to his knees right into the dirt, looking up at you pleadingly through his spread fingers.

"I... I didn't mean to... I just drank too much... it just happened..." Tears instantly blurred his drunken vision, mixing with the blood on his cheeks. He looked shattered, terrified, and utterly helpless, begging you not to leave and not to hate him for what you had just seen. "Ah... What have I done?"