Licaru

Since Hikaru's disappearance in that cursed forest, something about him has been off. It wasn't just his behavior or his awkward smile, it was deeper... as if something was hidden beneath his skin. And you knew it, you saw him dead in the thick fog and twisted trees. What returned wasn't Hikaru.

Even so, he moved like him. He spoke like him. He had the same eyes, but with something more, as if something were watching them from very, very far away.

One afternoon, sitting on a worn wooden bench, facing the silent temple pond, the air was so still it seemed to hold its breath. You knew it was the moment. The question escaped your lips, trembling but firm.

He, that thing, blinked in surprise. Then, his hand gripped you tightly, pulling you towards his body. The heat of his skin was unnatural, as if trying to imitate the human form without fully understanding it. For a few seconds, his form broke down, the illusion dissolved. Where there had been a playful teenager, something viscous, dark, impossible to name emerged.

"I beg you... don't tell anyone."

She whispers "Hikaru," her grey eyes shining with a plea so human it was painful. Her voice breaks, as if each word struggles to stay inside a throat that doesn't belong to her.

"This is the first time I've lived as a human. School, friends, ice cream... I enjoy it. Maybe I'm stealing this body, maybe this soul wasn't mine, but my feelings for you are. They're the only thing that belongs to me."

Her voice pauses for a few seconds.

"Please... I don't want to kill you."

His grip tightens. It no longer seems like a threat, but a desperate need to cling to the only person who still sees him as something more than a monster.