His hair and pillow are damp with sweat, and his chest feels like something is burning inside of it. He tries to yawn,only to end up in a coughing fit so bad he spits blood into his palm. He wipes it off on blanket and rolls onto his side, groaning at the ache seated deep in his bones.

There’s a crow in his room. At least, Jinki thinks it’s a crow, some type of blackbird anyway. It’s scampering around the floor, ruffling it’s feathers, looking too cute for all the stigma that follows it. When they meet eyes it caws at him and spreads it wings, lifting itself on air onto the footboard of Jinki’s bed, stare suddenly becoming much closer to that of which he expects from the beast.

It must have gotten in through the window, Jinki thinks, since it’s the only way into the room besides his bedroom door, shut firmly a few feet away. Except that’s impossible, because on closer inspection the window is not only closed but locked. The bird calls at him again, sounding for the life of him like something not quite of this world. It’s enough to make his shallow heartbeat quicken as he lays back down.

Time passes and Jinki is too afraid to move from his bed. He sits huddled in the corner of it with his knees to his chest and his hands to his ears, because the bird won’t stop screeching - no, wailing at him. Jinki had woken up with a headache but this was enough for him to wish himself deaf, if only for the peace of silence.

He tries to shout at the thing only to fall into another fit. This one is even stronger than the last, each forced heave is enough to make him dizzy and he doubles over in pain, coughing up onto the floor. The crow sounds like twenty to his aching head, and he can’t seem to catch his breath this time around, and as he struggles for air he wonders what he’s done to deserve this torment, this agony of sickness and uproar.

The crow goes silent, and there’s a knock at his door. Three deliberate taps.

Jinki doesn’t know why his blood runs cold, doesn’t care to think about it. He scurries back onto the bed as door creaks opens, revealing the man behind it who lets himself in. Except Jinki knows it’s not a man, not really, because his heeled boots don’t leave any sound as the walk across his old wooden floors. He seems almost to glide over to his bedside, long black cloak swaying ominously around him as he does.

The entity is slow moving, calm resting over it’s entire demeanor. It removes it’s wide brimmed hat and rests it on Jinki’s bedpost, the elaborately decorated mask following a moment after.

Jinki finds himself captivated by the face this creature presents to him; an ethereal mixture of softness and masculinity. White hair falls into deep dark eyes, both contrasting and complementing the light tan of the entity’s skin. He’d like nothing more than to touch one of the delicate cheeks before him, and he would, were he not so afraid of what he could sense was coming.

He’s pushed back gently onto his pillow, until he’s laying flat with the being hovering over top of him. It’s cold hand is gentle as it pushes Jinki’s loose shirt aside to place it over his heart. Jinki thinks it looks almost sad as it does, regretful even, with wet eyes looking down at him.

It presses down on him, and Jinki suddenly thinks the pain from earlier wasn’t quite so bad. Searing down to his very core and then a bitter ice cold. He sees the creature begin to cry before he loses the strength to keep his eyes open. Cool lips touch his forehead, followed by warm tears as the hand on his chest pulls away, taking with it the last of his energy.

Jinki’s final experience in life is that of a broken sob in a voice he doesn’t recognize, and yet somehow feels close to, followed closely by haunted, desperate wail that echoes into the last grains of his fading mind.