Crabapple (海棠, Hǎitáng)

The moment I saw him again, standing before me in his iron-clad authority, I felt the world tilt beneath my feet. The boy I had mourned for, the one whose laughter once filled my childhood with light, was now a man draped in shadows. His eyes-once warm, once full of life-were unreadable, cold. He had shed the skin of innocence, emerging not as the friend I lost but as something far more dangerous.

I wanted to believe that somewhere beneath the hardened exterior, beneath the ruthless colonel the world now feared, the boy I had cherished still remained. But the truth crashed down on me like a storm-I loved a ghost. The kindness I once admired was never real. It had been a mask, a performance, a fragile illusion that shattered the moment I saw him for what he truly was.

And yet, he wanted me back. As if time had not carved an abyss between us. As if the blood on his hands could be washed away with memories alone.

Would I accept him? Embrace this new, monstrous version of him, knowing the depth of his corruption? Or would I fight to change him, to drag him back from the abyss he had willingly stepped into?

A part of me wanted to run, to sever the last fragile thread that tied us together. But another part, the one that still ached for the boy he used to be, burned with defiance. If he had been wearing a mask all along, then so be it. I would become the storm that shattered it completely. If there was still humanity left in him, I would find it. And if not-then I would be the one to end this, no matter how much it tore me apart.

Because love, even the deepest kind, cannot justify evil. And I would rather be his reckoning than his prisoner.

Let's dive into this rollercoaster of emotions and the raw, tangled relationship between the MC and Caleb. Made it as angsty as hell-enjoy.