Chapter 5 Fever Petals

It began with a kiss, but it didn't end there.

Victor's breath was warm against Evelyn's neck as they lay tangled in the narrow bed of his private dorm apartment-an off-limits corner of campus that felt like a secret pocket of the world. The old radiator hissed like it knew what was happening behind those thin walls. His fingers traced her hip bone like he was memorizing it. Outside, the cherry tree shivered, petals fluttering like voyeurs at the window.

He pressed his forehead to hers. "You're burning."

Evelyn's skin flushed deep rose. "I've been burning since I met you."

They didn't speak after that. Only moved.

Their bodies found each other as if they'd done it a hundred times before-which, maybe, they had. There was no awkwardness. No stuttering uncertainty. His touch felt like an answer to every question her body had been asking in secret.

The way he looked at her?

Like he was starved. And she was holy.

After, they lay in silence, Evelyn's bare back curled against his chest, their limbs braided under his thin dorm sheets.

Victor ran his fingers down her spine like it was scripture.

"Did you feel it?" he whispered.

Evelyn blinked into the dim light.

"The heat. That... pull. Like something inside us just unlocked."

She nodded slowly.

"I dreamed of this before I met you," she confessed. "Not just the sex. Us. The exact feel of your arms around me. The scent of your skin after rain. The way you say my name like a prayer."

Victor pressed his lips to her shoulder. "You're not losing your mind. And neither am I."

Outside, the wind shifted. The petals stopped falling. For now.

The next morning, Evelyn skipped class.

Victor brewed bitter coffee in silence, still shirtless, his jeans slung low on his hips. Evelyn sat on his windowsill in one of his oversized button-downs, the scent of his skin still clinging to her thighs. There was a bruise at the base of her neck-soft and accidental.

"I think the dreams are changing," she said quietly.

Victor turned.

"Last night... it wasn't just a memory. I think it was a warning."

"A warning of what?"

"Of what happens when we try to stay together."

He crossed the room and took her chin gently between his fingers.

"Then let it come. I'm not letting you go."

Evelyn bit her lip, heart thundering at how serious he sounded. Like she wasn't just a girl he was seeing, but someone he was already mourning.

They returned to the tree that afternoon.

The Crimson Tree had shed its bloom again-bare branches twisted like claws. Evelyn stepped close, letting her fingers hover above the bark.

"I've touched this tree before," she murmured.

Victor glanced at her. "In a dream?"

"No," she said. "In a life."

Suddenly, the bark beneath her palm shifted-like breathing flesh. Evelyn gasped, jerking her hand back, but the tree had already responded. From the branch above, a single blossom bloomed out of season.

Blood-red.

Victor reached up and plucked it.

The petal fell apart in his hand, turning not to pollen-but ashes.

That night, Evelyn's body ached-not just from Victor, but from something deeper.

She stood in the communal dorm shower long after everyone else had left. The water had long since turned cold, but she couldn't stop touching her body-marking every place his lips had kissed her, every place that remembered him before she did.

In the steam-misted mirror, her reflection shimmered.

And in that moment, she didn't see herself.

She saw the maiden-white-robed, wide-eyed, lips sewn shut.

A voice echoed behind her ear.

"The bloom opens with blood. The body remembers. And the price will always be him."

She spun.

No one there.

Victor wasn't safe either.

In the library basement, he researched until close to midnight, searching for anything about the Binding Rite. Most of it had been erased-redacted files, corrupted entries, false cataloging.

But then he found a sealed box mislabeled as "East Asian Ceremonial Textiles."

Inside was not cloth.

It was a scroll-preserved and protected in a silk case.

He unrolled it.

An ancient ink painting bled across the paper: a temple, a maiden in white, a priest on his knees with his chest slit open. Cherry blossoms falling like blades.

Above them, calligraphy read:

"Those who awaken the Binding Rite must burn the blossom or be bound again."

Victor swallowed hard.

"Burn the blossom..."

He thought of the tree.

Of Evelyn.

Of their night together.

And he realized-too late-that he may have just triggered the final phase of the curse.

That night, Evelyn stood outside in a thin robe, staring up at the moon.

She had no memory of walking there.

The petals were falling again-shimmering in the moonlight like razor-thin silk. She stood barefoot beneath the tree, breathing hard, body trembling like it was about to split open.

A voice hummed in her skull.

A voice that sounded like hers-but older. Broken. Sacrificed.

"The bloom demands blood."

Evelyn dropped to her knees.

From the shadows, a figure stepped forward-dressed in ceremonial robes. Not Victor. Not a professor. Not anyone she knew in this life.

But him.

The priest from the dream.

The man who had once been Victor.

He spoke, but his lips didn't move.

"You must choose, beloved. Love him... or free him."

Evelyn screamed.

She woke in Victor's bed, gasping, drenched in sweat.

He held her, trying to calm her, but she pushed away, staring at her hands.

They were streaked with blood.

Not hers.

Victor stared, too stunned to speak.

She looked him in the eyes.

"He's waking up," she whispered. "The other you."

And as the clock struck midnight, the cherry tree outside the window bloomed black.