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The office was dead quiet after hours.
The city roared beneath the glass tower, but up here — on the top floor — the world didn't exist.
Celeste sat alone at her mahogany desk. The lights were low. The room bathed in shadows. Her long fingers hovered over a blank page inside a leather-bound notebook.
She hadn't hand-written anything in years.
Not since the 1800s.
Back then, her letters had brought kings to their knees. One verse and an entire estate would be delivered in gold.
But now… she could barely form a sentence.
Not when the only one she wanted to write to wouldn't even care.
Still, her hand moved.
"To Miki."
She stared at the words like they'd burned into the page. Then slowly, carefully, she wrote:
---
"I think I hate you.
I think I hate how quiet you are.
How you're so unaffected.
How I can hear my own breath echo in a room because you refuse to speak.
I hate how you don't flinch when I'm near.
How your scent coils around my throat like a drug I didn't ask for.
And I especially hate that I can't stop thinking about you —
Even when I feed.
Even when I sleep.
Even now."*
---
She stopped.
Her pen trembled.
There were blotches where her pressure had cracked the page. She closed her eyes and leaned back, as if ashamed of the thing she'd just let out.
She could burn it.
Tear it up.
Forget it existed.
Instead, she flipped to a new page.
---
"Do you know what you've done to me, Miki Arata?"
I used to enjoy eternity.
Now it just feels like waiting.
I can't tell if I want to devour you or beg you to look at me twice.
I know it's wrong.
I know it's dangerous.
I know you'd hate me if you knew what I really am.
But for some reason…
that only makes me want to know you more."
---
She stared at the page, then closed the notebook.
Locked it in a drawer.
And poured herself wine she wouldn't drink.
From the window, she looked out toward the far-off skyline.
And somewhere, buried in the chaos of her mind, her heartbeat — old and slow — felt just slightly too fast.
---