The silence in the room was soft almost sacred.
Moonlight rested across Henry's bare chest as Seraphina slowly traced idle circles with her fingertip. Her other hand lay over the photo of Elira, the elf girl whose memory still clung to the room like incense.
"You ever going to tell me what your life was like?" Seraphina murmured, voice barely above a whisper.
Henry's smile didn't fade. But something behind his eyes changed like a crack in the sky just before a storm.
He exhaled.
And then
"It was... different."
---
Earth, 2024.
Suburbia.
An apartment that smelled like socks and despair.
Henry lived in a one-room cave of sin. The walls were covered in anime posters: waifus with deadly thighs and personalities made of sunshine and tsundere. There were at least four body pillows scattered across his stained mattress, each named. Each respected. Each... seasoned.
An alarm buzzed at 10 AM.
Not to wake up he'd been up since 4.
Gooning.
And he wasn't subtle about it.
