The room smelled faintly of perfume and flash powder, the air soft and heavy like incense after prayer. Lights pressed against the walls, brushing through a young woman's blush-pink hair until it glowed like a halo. Cameras clicked. The crowd murmured her name like a prayer.
"Miss Airi Fujimoto! Over here!"
"Your latest novel—it's beautiful!"
Airi smiled, tilting her head just enough to look soft and approachable. Her lipstick was the color of camellia petals—red, but gentle—set against skin as pale as porcelain. Her eyes, however, could cut glass.
The interviewer leaned forward. "Your books always end in tragedy. Why do you think readers love the pain so much?"
Airi laughed softly. "Pain is honest. Any other expression can lie." She smiled faintly. "It's what makes love feel real."
Applause swelled—warm and endless—wrapping around her like silk. For a moment, she basked in it, the adoration washing over her like sunlight through rain.
Then—a whisper brushed her ear.
"Do you really believe that?"
The applause faltered. Lights flickered. Faces blurred.
Silence.
Only rustling leaves and the faint scent of sakura wilting into something heavier. When Airi turned her head, red petals drifted across her shoes—spider lilies, curling and bleeding against the floor.
They trailed her home.
Her apartment greeted her in stillness, faintly sweet with decay. She stood in the doorway, heels still on, hair falling loose from its careful styling. The hum of the air conditioner, the faint ticking of a clock—ordinary sounds that suddenly felt too alive.
Her eyes caught the book on her vanity—the one she had poured her sleepless nights into. The one that had made her.
She picked it up, her reflection shimmering faintly on the glossy cover. Her name gleamed below the title, sharp and elegant. Flipping through its pages, she opened to the "Cast of Characters."
Her fingers stopped. Between names she knew by heart—one she'd never written:
Airi Fujimoto — ???
The letters pulsed red, like blood beneath thin ice.
"Airi."
The voice again. Closer.
She turned.
A man stood by her nightstand—white hair tinged with lavender, eyes of faded gold. A single white spider lily in his hand.
"Shion…" Her lips trembled.
He smiled, soft and hollow. "You're finally here."
His hand hovered, hesitant, then firm—as though he'd done this before. She remembered writing that gesture once, in a deleted scene. The way he looked at her now was the same: like a man welcoming home his ghost.
He stepped closer, tucking the lily behind her ear with a tenderness that hurt. "It suits you."
The room shuddered. Wallpaper bled into pages. Ink pooled across the carpet. Voices rose—her characters calling her name.
Shion brushed her jaw, gold eyes gleaming. "Our story," he whispered. "Didn't you promise us love?"
The world folded inward, trembling. The book turned warm—then wet. Her name bled across the page.
And as the ink of her stories filled the room, the horrors she had written came to life around her—and Shion's voice trailed her into the dark.