Prologue

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I fell in love.

Not the sweet kind you see in movies. Not the type with flowers and smiles and notes in lockers. No—it was heavier than that. Messier. Warmer in some places, colder in most. It started slowly, like a thread being tugged at quietly until my whole world unraveled and reshaped itself around him.

His name was Aki Hana. Sonzo High, class 210. He wanted to go to Osaka University—said it with this glow in his eyes like he believed he’d actually make it out of this place alive. I knew that because I listened, even when he wasn’t talking to me. We were in a few of the same classes. He sat three rows ahead in math, I think. He played volleyball, too—I used to watch his silhouette against the gym lights from the hallway, like a scene from a dream I wasn’t supposed to be in.

And he saved me. Once. From the people who treated me like I was less than dirt. He didn’t know me—didn’t owe me anything—but he stood between me and them, his voice calm, sure. He told them to back off, and they did. They actually listened to him.

After that… he became everything.

I never meant to bother him. I didn’t plan on getting obsessed. I didn’t wake up one day thinking, I’m going to orbit around a boy until I forget where I end and he begins. It wasn’t like that. It was more like falling through a hole in the floor and not hitting the bottom.

But I like him. A lot. More than a crush, more than admiration. He was my calm. My storm. My safety. My fear.

He was—he is—my fixation.

...Fixation....

It’s a funny word, isn’t it? It sounds harmless. Like a favorite snack or a weird little hobby. But it’s not. Not always. Sometimes it’s a wildfire with no windbreak. Sometimes it’s the only thing keeping you standing.

Everyone has a fixation with something. Some people fixate on music, on celebrities, on the perfect version of themselves that they’ll never reach. Some people don’t even realize they have one until it’s taken away. But a fixation with a person?

That’s a different beast.

When your fixation has a heartbeat, a voice, a scent, a way of laughing—when they exist in the same hallways as you, breathing the same air, walking three feet away and not even knowing you ache—it becomes something else. Something louder. Something dangerous.

People call it obsession. And maybe they’re right. Obsession, infatuation, delusion—use whatever word makes you sleep at night.

But for me, it wasn’t about fantasy. It wasn’t about wanting to own him or trap him. I just wanted to be near him. To matter. To be seen, even if just for a second.

I didn't even know it was a fixation at first. I thought it was admiration. Gratitude. I thought, Of course I want to be near the only person who ever looked at me like I wasn’t broken. I didn’t realize how far I had fallen until it was too late—until I was drowning in thoughts of him. Until every little thing he said became gospel.

If he said I looked good in blue, I dyed my hair that night.

If he mentioned liking piercings, I came to school the next day with silver on my face.

If he liked a band, it became my favorite.

If he hated something, I suddenly hated it too.

It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t even romantic. It was survival.

Before him, I was nothing. At least, that’s what the world convinced me of. I was the joke. The punching bag. The weird, quiet boy with empty eyes and a voice that stuttered when it dared to speak. I had no dreams because everyone told me I shouldn’t.

“You’re useless.”

“You’re a waste of space.”

“You’re nothing.”

They said it so often I carved it into my bones.

But then came him.

And he was light. And warmth. And noise. And he saw me. He looked at me like maybe I wasn’t a mistake.

I started doing little things to stay close. Harmless things, at first. Joining the same clubs. Sitting nearby. Smiling when he smiled, even if it wasn’t for me. I helped him with his art supplies in the clubroom. I laughed at his jokes. I offered him things before he asked. And when he said I was talented… when he complimented my photography and told me I had “real potential”—it nearly killed me with joy.

That’s when I started taking pictures. Secret ones. Candid shots of him laughing in class, of him tying his shoelaces, of the way the sunlight touched his cheek when he looked out the window. They were just… memories. Proof he existed. Proof I had been near something good.

I never meant for him to see.

But one day, the flash went off.

He saw.

He knew.

Everything came crashing down.

And that’s where this story begins, really. Not at the moment I fell in love, but the moment he saw me for what I was: a shadow that had gotten too close to the sun.

People think stalking is some dramatic, criminal thing. And sometimes it is. But sometimes?

It’s like this:

...Stalking...

When two people go on a long, romantic walk together... but only one of them knows about it.

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