"People fear demons for their cruelty. But the cruelest demons are the ones who know exactly what they destroyed and mourn it every day."
"I killed spring."
That's the only sentence that matters now.
The only truth that doesn't fade like a dream when I close my eyes.
The only thing that still smells real —
like blood and broken plum blossoms.
I snuffed out the scent of gentleness in a world that already reeked of rot.
Do you understand?
Her name meant "like fragrance."
Now the only scent left is ash.
Now the only thing that lingers where she stood is absence.
And now — nothing smells like spring.
Not even the blossoms.
Not even the wind.
Not even me.
"I killed spring."
Say it again.
Say it until it sounds like someone else's voice.
Say it until it doesn't tear something new every time it echoes in my throat.
But it never stops.
It never gets easier.
She wasn't just a girl.
She was the only candle that ever dared flicker in this ruin I call a soul.
And I — I snuffed her out.
With these hands.
With this rotting thing inside me that pretends to be a heart.
Why?
That question hangs in the air like old incense.
Why did I do it?
It loops endlessly.
A noose spun from the sound of her laughter.
But the answer…
It's worse than rage.
Worse than hatred.
It was fear.
Not of her.
But of the impossible thing she gave me.
Hope.
She looked at me like I could be more.
More than filth scraped into the shape of a man.
More than a knife in the dark.
More than rot in a soul-shaped cage.
She looked at me like I could be good.
Do you know how violent that is?
How devastating it is to be seen not as what you are — but what you could be?
Because if she was right...
If I was more than the hunger, more than the violence, more than the curse...
Then everything I've done wasn't fate.
It wasn't the world's fault.
It wasn't Heaven's decree.
It was me.
I chose this.
I chose to become the monster — not because I had to. But because I was afraid of what I might be if I wasn't.
And that realization…
That truth…
It shattered something in me far deeper than any blade ever could.
Because if she had lived —
If I had let her love me —
Then all the lies I wrapped around myself would unravel.
Then I'd have to confront the unbearable possibility that I wasn't damned.
Just afraid.
Afraid of being known.
Afraid of being held.
Afraid of being saved.
So I did what cowards do when they see the sun for the first time.
I reached for the darkness.
And I killed her.
I killed hope.
With my own hands.
What is a demon?
Is it the beast who butchers and laughs?
Or the boy who kills softly and then drowns in the wreckage of what he's destroyed?
Is it the thing with claws and teeth and fire?
Or is it the child who washes his hands until they bleed — not to erase the act, but to erase himself?
I used to think a demon was born in the blood.
When the knife falls.
When the flames rise.
When the screaming starts.
But now?
Now I know the truth.
That's not when the monster is born.
That's when it's revealed.
Because I didn't begin with slaughter.
I began with her.
With Ruoxin.
The softest voice in a world that only ever screamed.
The warmest hands in a life made of frost.
A girl who talked to plum blossoms like they were old friends.
Who drew flowers in the margins of her little diary as if the world couldn't take that from her too.
And I took her.
I silenced her.
I never cried when I was hungry.
Not when frostbite took my fingers.
Not when they broke my ribs and called me less than dirt.
But now?
Now I scream — and only silence comes out.
The only sound left inside me is her name.
Ruoxin.
And even that…
Even that feels profane now.
Why didn't you hate me?
Why didn't you run?
Why, of all the stars in the sky, did you believe there was something in me worth reaching for?
You should've cursed me.
Spat at me.
Fought.
Begged.
Instead — you smiled.
As if even your final breath was a gift.
As if you knew I would need that smile to survive the emptiness afterward.
And I—
I didn't deserve it.
I don't deserve it now.
The world didn't need jade towers or golden palaces.
Didn't need sects with celestial names or heroes with Heaven-blessed swords.
It needed you.
Just you.
The ordinary, sacred miracle of your voice.
Your stubborn joy.
Your gentle hands.
And I—
I buried it.
I buried you under fear.
Under cowardice.
Under guilt.
I tore at my soul like a man digging for something he's sure is there.
A scrap of light.
A fragment of warmth.
Something to prove you were right.
But there's nothing.
And so now I carry your death like a second spine.
Crooked.
Heavy.
Permanent.
I made a god of my pain — and sacrificed you to it.
And still…
Still I think you'd forgive me.
You'd pray for me.
Still believe in something broken enough to kill you.
And that ruins me most of all.
I thought I had known solitude. Thought I'd mastered it. I wore it like armor. Slept beside it like a familiar ghost.
But now?
Now it's not just around me.
It's inside me.
It's in my marrow, in the hollow places where her voice used to echo.
There's no more light to extinguish.
Only the memory of it.
And that memory burns.
Not with guilt.
Guilt is soft.
Guilt says "maybe you didn't mean to."
Guilt leaves room for redemption.
No.
This is loathing.
I loathe myself.
I tear through every moment she gave me, and I spit on it.
Because I didn't deserve it.
Because she should have hated me.
Because if she had screamed—if she had cursed—then maybe I could still pretend I was the victim of something greater.
But no.
She died without hate.
And that mercy has become my executioner.
Do you understand what it means to live in the aftermath of grace?
To be spared, when what you needed—truly needed—was to be damned?
I wanted punishment.
A divine fire.
A blade from Heaven to come down and name me monster.
Instead, I was forgiven.
By her silence.
By her eyes.
By her final, unbearable kindness.
And now I can't move without stepping on ghosts.
I can't breathe without dragging her death through my lungs.
I can't look at my hands—these wretched, blood-warm hands—without imagining how hers once fit between them.
What do I become now?
Not a man.
Not even a demon.
Just a graveyard in human shape.
I walk. I eat. I breathe.
But nothing inside me lives anymore.
Because everything good that ever looked in my direction.
I ruined it.
Not accidentally. Not impulsively.
But with full knowledge of what I was doing.
I looked at the one pure thing in my life—
and I chose to unmake it.
And the price?
The price is that I will never again be whole.
There is nothing that can fix this.
I don't need a punishment.
I am the punishment.
This life—this cursed continuation—
is nothing but a long, slow rot.
And I deserve to feel every second of it.
But if this is the punishment…
If living is the sentence…
Then what comes after?
Do I rot quietly beneath the weight of what I've done?
Do I let this guilt harden into stone and drag me into the abyss.
Or do I—
Do I try?
Try what?
Try to claw some shape of meaning from this devastation?
Try to make her death… matter?
The thought revolts me.
It feels blasphemous.
Like using her bones to build a shrine.
Like standing atop the ruin I caused and daring to call it a foundation.
But maybe that's all I have left.
I don't deserve peace. I don't deserve forgiveness.
But maybe I can suffer forward.
Maybe I can carve purpose from this pain like a man scraping warmth from embers long cold.
Maybe I carry her not as a weight—
But as a flame.
Not to ease my shame.
But to make sure no one else like her ever dies in the hands of someone like me.
Because the world doesn't kill people like Ruoxin.
People do.
Cowards like me. Monsters too afraid to be seen. Too afraid to hope.
But I know this.
When I close my eyes…
I still see your smile.
And it breaks me.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until maybe — just maybe — I'll bleed something that resembles atonement.
Not redemption.
Never that.
But a shape of meaning, carved from ruin.
And if I ever become something more than this —
If I ever become someone worthy of the memory of spring —
It will be because you loved me first.
Even when I didn't deserve it.
Especially when I didn't.
.......
He buried her beneath the plum tree.
The one she called her second heart.
The one that only bloomed when she sang to it.
Even in death, he couldn't bear to keep her far from the only thing that had ever made her smile in winter.
She once said the tree listened.
That it bloomed not because of sunlight or season, but because it trusted her voice.
Now, it stood barren.
Silent.
Mourning.
He dug the grave with trembling hands, each scoop of earth another prayer he didn't know how to offer.
And when the final stone was placed, he set the blue ribbon atop the mound.
He laid it there like an offering to something older than gods.
And with it, buried the last thing inside him that was ever innocent.
Then he left.
Not out of resolve, but because he no longer knew how to stay.
He wandered for days after that.
No direction.
No light.
No peace.
He walked through frost and mud and fields of blooming flowers that mocked him with their life.
He crossed streams that once might have cooled his skin, but now only reminded him of her humming voice beside the water.
Blood dried on his hands.
His breath reeked of iron and grief.
Every time he exhaled, he expected to choke on her name — but even that was too sacred for the ruin he'd become.
His steps left no mark on the earth.
As if the world itself refused to remember what he'd done.
As if existence recoiled from him.
Even the wind, once gentle in spring, seemed to cut.
But deep in his soul— a Sin Brand bloomed.
It did not come like thunder.
It did not roar.
It unfurled quietly.
It didn't erupt from hatred.
Not from rage.
But from the annihilation of something gentle.
From the desecration of someone holy.
From the murder of spring.
A single, black spiral etched itself in the depths of his core — not glowing, not pulsing, just there.
Heavy.
Irrevocable.
Permanent.
The first mark of the Rootless Soil.
A sin that had no justification.
No redemption arc.
No divine excuse.
Only this;
He had killed the girl who made flowers bloom by singing.
And now, no song would ever sound the same again.