The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Cixi placed her purse on the black tile kitchen island and walked straight toward the bathroom as if her body had memorised the path without her mind needing to guide it. When she stopped before the mirror, she first studied her reflection in silence.

There were stains of dried red across her cheekbones.

Her eyes slowly travelled downward toward her shoulder. Even though her dress was crimson, she could still distinguish the darker patches where blood had dried differently from the fabric’s colour.

Her fingers moved to the thin straps of her dress. Slowly, almost absently, she peeled the fabric away from her skin and let it slide down her body. The red cloth fell soundlessly onto the white tiles at her feet.

As she removed each remaining layer, memories of the club followed the same rhythm. They seemed to strip away another moment — the screams, the gunshots, the smell of smoke, the fear in the crowd.

Only one memory refused to disappear; it was the memory of Cassian Crown.

Once she was bare, she once more looked at herself in the mirror. Instead of seeing her reflection, she saw him.

Cassian stood there, watching her, occupying her reflection, his dark eyes moving slowly over her bare form from her loose hair to her face, to her lips, to her neck, her every curve, with the same possession she had seen earlier.

”Am I hallucinating?”

She blinked hard.

Then twice.

Then again, the third time. Yet he remained there.

Her breathing grew shallow, watching him, watching her, her nakedness.

She swallowed slowly.

”Who are you...? My destruction? My peace snatcher?” She murmured under her breath. ”Why am I imagining you? Or can you really see me through the mirror?... Heaven, have I lost my mind?” she asked the mirror quietly.

Her bare feet carried her forward without permission. She took each step cautiously, as if she feared the image might move if she startled it. She lifted one hand slowly and touched the cold glass.

The moment her fingertips met the mirror — He disappeared.

Then her other hand joined it, palms flat against the surface, as if she were searching for something that had just slipped beyond reach.

For a long moment, she simply stood there, staring at her own reflection as if she were seeing herself for the first time.

Her brows drew together slightly in annoyance. ”Cassian Crown, you are bad news!” she muttered quietly.

Turning away, she moved toward the bathtub. She twisted the faucet, and hot water gushed out.

Steam began to rise.

She stepped into the porcelain tub and moved directly beneath the shower without waiting a moment.

The hot water rushed over her skin, carrying away the dried blood and invisible tension clinging to her body. Strands of her golden hair darkened under the weight of the spray, clinging to her neck and shoulders as water traced slow paths across her face.

Droplets gathered along her lashes before slipping downward, travelling along the bridge of her nose and resting briefly against her lips before continuing their quiet journey.

Water streamed down the elegant line of her throat, along her collarbones, over the natural curves of her body, and along the length of her legs before dissolving into pale pink streams that spiralled toward the drain.

Yet even under the heat, her thoughts refused to empty.

One image remained.

’Cassian.’

The slow way he held a cigarette.

The storminess in his eyes.

The movement of his lips when the filter touched them.

Her mind betrayed her by replaying it again. The cigarette had rested between his lips, yet the memory contorted strangely in her thoughts. For a moment, it didn’t look like tobacco being smoked but something more personal — as if he consumed everything around him with his arrogance.

She turned the faucet off abruptly, and silence returned with the falling water.

Wrapping a soft towel tightly around her body, she stepped out.

Another towel twisted into her damp hair as she dried herself with slow movements.

She slipped into a long white bathrobe and stepped out of the bathroom. She walked to the kitchen for water and nearly screamed.

Her breath caught halfway in her throat.

Standing near the kitchen island was a tall figure draped in a dark cloak that brushed the floor like shadows made solid. His one hand rested on the handle of a massive, ancient-looking scythe.

A Grim Reaper.

Her hands flew to her face instinctively. She rubbed her eyes once. Then again and again. The Reaper didn’t vanish.

Taking a long breath, she finally asked, ”Is it you?” Cixi whispered. ”The one who cursed me?”

The Reaper did not move at first. When it did, it walked past her and lowered itself onto the small couch in the living room.

Cixi’s fingers tightened around the edge of her robe. ”It’s considered rude to come to someone else’s home without informing them first,” she stated. She felt the same familiar energy around this peculiar grim reaper who had cursed her simply because she disliked her name. Cixi fully turned to face the Reaper.

”Do you know how many times I looked for you?” Her throat tightened. ”You only appear when you want to, ignoring my silent requests.”

Silence answered her again.

”If I am cursed,” she continued with her frustration rising, ”then I deserve to know why. Last time you said it was because of my name. What does that even mean? How can a name be a crime? Don’t you think for a Grim Reaper, you are racist?”

The Reaper slowly lifted its skeletal hands and pulled back the hood.

And Cixi froze as well, her breath stopped.

The Reaper’s face looked as if skin had been stretched too thin over bone. Her eyes glowed deep red, like embers buried in ash.

Not dead...

Not alive...

Something in between.

Then the Reaper spoke. ”You dare to disrespect the name you carried with you.”

Cixi frowned. ”I... I don’t understand,” she stammered, struggling to regain her composure as her gaze lingered on the Reaper’s face.

”I was once known as Empress Dowager Cixi of China,” the Reaper slowly revealed her past life. ”A woman surrounded by betrayal, rebellion, humiliation and collapse. Yet even when my empire crumbled around me, I did not choose death. Even when fate turned against me, I clung to life.... You,” the Reaper continued, ”who carried that same name... but chose a cowardly path. You tried to abandon life. You stained my precious name that once fought to survive...”

Cixi’s lips parted to say something, but nothing left her throat. She was caught off guard by the Reapers’ past life identity, as well as that, because her name was Cixi, and tried to commit suicide, so she was cursed because the Reapers felt offended.

”I-I was tired...” she whispered. ”I wasn’t strong like you.”

The Reaper’s red gaze did not soften.

”Strength is not given. It is chosen in the moment one decides whether to breathe again.”

Cixi’s eyes burned unable to accept the reason. ”So this is punishment?”

”No,” the Reaper added. ”This is a correction.”

”And when does it end?”

”That depends on you!”