Aiden stared at the screen for a full minute before his brain decided to function again.
There it was — the photo.
His own bedroom. His own messy hair. Taken from the corner where the old standing mirror stood.
And the timestamp? 3:33 AM.
He swallowed hard.
No one had entered his penthouse. His security system would have screamed bloody murder if even a mosquito had wings too loud.
So who took it?
Kenji would've blamed ghosts. Mina would've blamed Aiden's "expensive sense of humor."
But Aiden Zhou didn't believe in ghosts.
He believed in passwords, encryption, and three layers of digital firewalls.
So he did what any modern man haunted by a supernatural stalker would do —
he called I.T.
"Bro, calm down," Kenji said through the phone, half-asleep and entirely unhelpful. "You got hacked. Or pranked. Or both."
"It's not a prank," Aiden muttered. "Unless the hacker broke into my house and took a photo of me sleeping like some horror-movie influencer."
Kenji yawned. "Was it a good angle at least?"
"Kenji!"
"Okay, okay. I'll check your servers tomorrow. But dude — you sure you didn't take the photo yourself?"
"Why the hell would I—"
And then he stopped.
Because something about the photo was off. In the reflection of the mirror, behind his sleeping figure, there was a faint shape — like a person standing in the shadows, wearing red.
A girl.
Morning came, but it didn't feel like morning.
Mina texted him good morning with a photo of her breakfast. He typed a reply but deleted it halfway through.
He didn't want to lie, but how did you tell your girlfriend, "Hey, a ghost sent me my own picture last night"?
Instead, he went to class. Economics lecture, same as usual. Only today, something strange followed him — the scent of sakura blossoms. It lingered even when he moved across the room.
His professor stopped mid-sentence. "Mr. Zhou… is someone burning incense?"
Everyone looked around. Only Aiden smelled it.
He forced a grin. "Sorry, sir. Must be my cologne. New edition — 'Possession by Dior.'"
The class chuckled, and the tension broke — for everyone except him.
That evening, Aiden returned home and decided to confront whatever was happening head-on.
He searched the photo again. Enhanced the brightness, zoomed in on the mirror.
The girl's reflection was clear now — pale skin, long black hair, eyes soft but empty, and lips slightly parted as if whispering.
Then — his monitor flickered. The lights dimmed.
Her reflection moved.
The woman in the screen slowly turned her head — looking straight at him.
Aiden stumbled back, heart racing.
The screen went black, and then white text appeared:
"You're awake. Finally."
He froze. "Who are you?" he whispered aloud, even though he knew how ridiculous that was.
The text appeared again.
"You know me, Aiji."
"You said you'd wait."
"Wait for what?" Aiden asked, voice shaking.
"Our spring."
Then the monitor turned off by itself. The entire room fell silent.
For a long minute, Aiden didn't move.
He could hear the city outside — the hum of traffic, the faint rhythm of rain against glass.
Everything normal.
Everything real.
And yet, deep down, something inside him whispered the same words he'd heard in that dream garden.
"You finally came back."
He ran a hand through his hair, laughed nervously, and said to the empty room,
"Okay. Fine. You win, ghost lady. But if you're going to haunt me, at least make coffee in the morning."
Somewhere, a faint giggle answered.
He froze.