1
The heavy oak door creaked open, breaking the stifling silence of the room like a gunshot.
Rak flinched, his shoulders instantly hiking up to his ears as his bare feet pressed hard against the cold floorboards. His pulse thrummed violently in his throat, a frantic little bird trapped behind ribs that felt entirely too fragile.
A shadow spilled across the threshold first.
Then came the sharp, polished leather of shoes clicking against the floor.
T walked in.
He didn't rush. He didn't carry himself with the frantic, sweat-soaked panic of a kidnapper or the ragged edge of a criminal running out of time. He moved with the terrifying, unhurried ease of a man who owned the building, the street, the air, and everything breathing inside of it.
His dark coat was unbuttoned, revealing a crisp white shirt beneath. His dark eyes found Rak immediately, tracking every micro-tremor, every desperate inch Rak tried to put between them.
"You're awake," T said. His voice was smooth. Too smooth. Like silk wrapped around a blade.
Rak’s chest rose and fell in jagged, uneven rhythms. His fingers curled into the fabric of his trousers, desperate for something—anything—to anchor him. "What do you want from me?"
T didn't answer right away. He didn't even blink.
Instead, his gaze drifted downward.
Straight to Rak's left arm.
The heavy, clumsy plaster cast that Teer had gently helped him into just hours ago.
"Does it still hurt?" T asked softly.
The air left Rak's lungs in a cold rush. A prickle of pure, ice-cold dread raced down his spine, raising every tiny hair on his arms. He slammed his back against the nearest wall, his breath catching.
"How..." Rak whispered, his voice trembling despite every ounce of pride he tried to claw back. "How do you know about my arm?"
A ghost of a smile touched the corners of T's mouth. It didn't reach his eyes. His eyes were dead, bottomless wells of quiet obsession.
"I know a lot about you, Rak."
"Who are you?" Rak shouted now, the fear finally fracturing into raw, defensive anger. "Who the hell are you?!"
"Call me T."
Rak let out a wet, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. "T? That's it? That's supposed to mean something to me?"
"It will," T replied, stepping just an inch closer. Just close enough for Rak to catch the faint, sharp scent of rain and expensive cedar on him. "It already does. You just haven't realized it yet."
"I don't know you. I've never seen you in my life before today at the airport."
"You think that," T said, his tone infuriatingly gentle. "Just like you thought you were completely alone when you sat by the fountain at the end of October three years ago."
Rak froze.
The words hit him like a physical blow.
His mouth parted, but no sound came out. His mind careened backward, violently tearing through years of memories, faces, streets, rainstorms, and empty nights.
October three years ago.
Before Teer. Before the gilded cage of the penthouse. Before the fake smiles and the suffocating secrets.
"What... what are you talking about?" Rak breathed, his voice cracking.
T took another step closer, closing the distance between them until Rak could see the exact shade of dark amber flecked in his otherwise black eyes.
"You were wearing a gray sweater," T murmured, his gaze dropping to the floor between them as if he were watching the memory replay in real-time right there in the dust. "You had just come out of that terrible little coffee shop on the corner of 4th Street. Your shoelace was untied. You tripped on the third step, cursed under your breath, and then sat down on the bench by the oak tree."
Rak’s vision blurred at the edges.
The coffee shop. 4th Street. The gray sweater.
He had never told anyone about that day. Not his friends. Not even Teer. It was a stupid, insignificant moment of pure embarrassment that he had buried away and forgotten.
So how...
How did this stranger—this ghost standing in front of him—know the exact color of his clothes?
"Stop it," Rak whispered, pressing his palms flat against the wall behind him as if he could melt right through the plaster. "Stop it right now."
"I didn't stop," T said, and there was a strange, haunting warmth in his voice that made Rak want to throw up. "I couldn't. I watched you drop your keys. I watched you stare at your phone for twenty minutes waiting for a text message that never came. I watched you cry when the rain started because you didn't have an umbrella."
T's eyes lifted, locking back onto Rak's terrified gaze.
"I wanted to walk over there," T continued, his voice dropping to a low, intimate hum. "I wanted to hand you my umbrella. I wanted to wipe the rain off your face. But I knew you'd look at me like you're looking at me right now. Scared. Defenseless. Ready to run."
"You're insane," Rak choked out, tears of sheer panic finally spilling over his eyelashes and tracking hot lines down his cheeks. "You're out of your mind. You've been... you've been stalking me?"
"Following is such an ugly word," T repeated, the exact same phrase he’d used at the airport, spoken with an eerie, rhythmic precision. "I call it... being thorough."
"Why?" Rak sobbed, his voice breaking entirely as the weight of it all—Teer's rejection, the flight, the airport, and now this—crushed down on his chest. "Why me? What did I ever do to you?"
T raised a hand.
Rak flinched violently, squeezing his eyes shut, bracing for a grip, a blow, anything.
Instead, he felt the light, feather-soft brush of knuckles grazing his cheek. Brushing away a single tear.
"You didn't do anything, Rak," T whispered softly, his fingers lingering just a fraction of a second too long against his skin. "You just existed. And once you do that... how is a man supposed to look away?"
Rak opened his eyes, trembling from head to toe, trapped between a monster he didn't know and a life he had just been forced to run away from.
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— Prim 🖤
