#stalker!reader

…and you make him your little plaything, walking him like a dog, forcing him to cum inside you, keeping him as your own personal dildo.

But Ghost loves it, because he’s just as fucking crazy as you are, allowing you to think you have the upper hand in this dynamic. He let’s you have your fun, waiting for that perfect opportunity, flipping the power balance, dragging you back to his place.

Now you’re his plaything. Keeps you gagged, naked, tied up in a special room he made just for you in his basement. Fucks you however he wants, puts you in a pretty collar, keeps a vibrator taped to your clit so he can turn it on wherever he is, forcing orgasms out of you until you pass out so he can have sex with your unconscious body.

If you’re a good girl he might let you out. A little “thank you for coming inside me” earns you a mattress. A “fuck me again, master” earns you fresh water and a meal. You stay on your knees, present your pussy when Ghost enters the room. You’re a good little pet, earning those treats, earning enough trust for Ghost to bring you upstairs.

That’s the first mistake, giving you space to roam. It takes all but a few days to plan your escape, to subdue him and punish Ghost right back.

But Ghost knew you would.

He was waiting for it.

And what’s the punishment?

Back in the basement, restrained with a doggy style spreader bar. You’re a hole now, and Ghost is looking forward to breaking you in.

You love love, but somehow it has never loved you back…never enough, anyway.

It was unintentional, but you have always found yourself as the giver in relationships — constantly the one to pull the rope for both parties; always sacrificing and compromising for their comfort; crossing lines and getting your hands dirty just so the other person was satisfied.

Obviously, they had never asked you directly for it. But that was the thing. Isn’t it nice to have a partner who was willing to do things for you without you having to ask for any of it? Isn't it nice to languidly lie back with wishes hanging from your lips yet never spilt because your wildest dreams were already served on a silver platter?

Unfortunately, you have never been on that other end. You were constantly the one to love loudly and openly. But an engine could only run so far without any oil to refuel it. Soon, the honeymoon stage would fade, and you would eventually realize how lacking your situation was and that your partner was not even trying to match the same level of affection. On top of that, doubt is a parasitic disease. Once it is there, it is bound to eat away at your devotion, making you question everything.

But the thing was that you had always felt “under-loved”. The things your past lovers have done felt underwhelming compared to the things you have done and the things you were willing to do for them. It was exhausting chasing the kind of love that made you feel like you were insane for simply trying relatively above average.

Despite this self-awareness, you once again found yourself in the same situation. You pursed your lips at the thought.

You have done so fucking much for Luke Castellan.

Your eyes swept over the figure resembling the object of your monomania, standing clueless under your gaze — not that he could see your eyes.

Halloween night has always been dull at Camp Half-Blood to you, with annual bonfires that usually die out sometime past midnight. But this year, things have switched up, apparently. Somebody managed to put together a party. Initially, you were not going to attend, but after learning that a certain Demigod was going to be there, you felt obligated to. After all, how could you miss any chance to see him?

You deliberately dressed up as a famous masked serial killer character. That way, your eyes and face were concealed, allowing you to openly observe the Hermes cabin counselor. There were a couple of others at the party with the same costume too, so even if something were to happen, they would not be able to pinpoint you.

Trailing your eyes down from head to toe, your heart hiccuped at the sight of him. You once again fervently traced out every detail about him: those plump lips that you’ve seared the outline of into your mind; the eyes that you wanted to solely be pinned on you; the hands that you wish made home around your throat.

Your chest rose and halted as he swept his eyes over in your direction for a split second. You could have sworn those dark brown eyes had lingered on you for a moment. However, as much as you wished that that was true, you knew it was impossible.

He doesn’t even know your name yet, but you were working on that. In fact, you have crafted the perfect way to enter his life, down to the tiny detail.

Now…why Luke Castellan? You were not entirely sure, but he was a surface-level fascination that quickly bled into an obsession, like an open wound gushing out blood.

It has not been that long since the first time your heart had screeched for him like a vulture who has found its next corpse to devour. You think maybe what had changed was when you first locked eyes with him a few months ago, marking your first “interaction” with him despite residing at the same camp together for three years. In that moment, you noticed a splinter of sinisterness in his eyes and it intrigued you greatly that nobody else had noticed it. You even thought that you had hallucinated it, but after the second time of spotting that same shadow of malice, you knew there was a hidden side to Luke that was much less perfect than Camp Half-Blood had painted him to be. Only then did you become fascinated and pulled into this endless pit of obsessive longing.

You continued loitering in the corner, water-filled red cup in hand, because you needed to be vigilant. You needed to be sober to keep an eye on your favorite counselor. Especially w—

A girl stumbled towards Luke, her accidental tripping reflecting some D-class drama skills. She blurted out a shameless giggle that your ears picked up over the noise. It was a sound that made you want to tear out her voicebox. She pulled Luke down by his shirt to whisper something in his ear before handing him a note, rubbing his arm as a last lingering remark.

Every thought dropped dark as your mind grew pitch black. Every muscle stiffened while your heart dropped, shattering like broken chandelier shards scattering everywhere endlessly and defensively sharp. The plastic cup around your hand suddenly felt like the perfect anger outlet, but you held your control. It took a bit of extra effort to keep your hands from shaking, but you had managed. Your eyes left Luke for the first time that entire night; instead, they followed the girl who had the guts to lay one singular finger on him.

Your attention finally turned back to Luke, and you wondered where he had kept that note she had handed to him. You took a sharp breath, feeling as if he had used a knife to stab you in the heart over and over again because the pain was echoing into an endless tunnel, aching all your nerves away.

He fucking took it.

He took her note. He looked at her with those sweet eyes of his that you now want to carve out so they couldn’t be anywhere but on you. You needed that fucking note. You needed to know what she wrote to him. You contemplated what you would do to that nasty piece of paper. Burning it felt like it would be too easy. Perhaps you’ll shove it down that bitch’s throat. Or…just maybe, you could masochistically keep it in the box under your bed, known as the closet of merchandise related to Luke that you have collected using stealthy hands. It might be a hurtful reminder, but the note was still related to Luke after all.

See? No lovers have sufficed in loving you back just as much as you love them. You had a box dedicated to Luke fucking Castellan and yet, he wouldn’t even bat an eye at you. Instead, he took her note.

Scheming consumed your mind, but your eyes functioned its only purpose — mulling over the only thing worthy of your attention. But instead of sole fondness, you could feel resentment mixing in the cauldron. Longing was exhausting, perhaps your heated gaze would be able to burn holes through his head to punish him for even looking at her.

But Gods, he was fucking divine. You could not even stay mad at him for long. Not when he looked like that. Not when he smiled like that.

However, your gaze swayed again when you noticed the same girl from earlier departing from the party. You didn’t want to leave the Hermes cabin counselor out of sight, but regardless of your wants, there were things that needed to be done. With one last longing look, your eyes once again left Luke. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You knew this was wrong. You knew the temptation for bloodshed and this addiction was not normal. But like many poets and songwriters have said, “love makes people insane.” If so many were preaching that, it must not be as strange as you were thinking it is. Besides, what a foolish girl. You were sure that in another timeline, she would have had a much longer life. Shame it was just not this one.

You hid the shovel where you usually kept it.

Yet, they said romance is dead. You believed that was only because those who say so had never felt the same consuming desire you did, the one that made you kill for love and that instinct lived in your veins like water in oceans.

You made your way back to the party just in time to see Luke Castellan leaving it. Moving swiftly, you took position around the corner to observe where the boy was going.

There he was, walking alone, not even glancing around to check if anybody was following or not. Rather amateur, really. You stayed a safe distance behind, tailing him with practiced movements. Eventually, Luke stopped in the middle of nowhere. The boy then bent down and started brushing leaves aside on the ground. Your brows shot up at the thought that maybe he had something buried. But just as quickly as that theory came, it was refuted when he hooked his fingers through a ring before pulling it upwards, revealing a wooden underground door opening up.

How the fuck did you not know about this?

Your eyes narrowed, feeling displeased again today, but this time because you had managed to let something this big slip past you. The way Luke navigated here seemed too familiar for it to be his first time. So the question was what had he managed to hide from you? Behind the mask, your jaw clenched before your lips pursed at any of the ideas your mind was conjuring up.

However, an opportunity descended into your palm as Luke suddenly searched his pockets for something before sighing and cursing at himself. Within the same moment, he quietly closed the ground door again and evened up the leaves on top of it.

Double-checking your surroundings, you emerged from your place of observation and moved towards where the boy had previously stood. It didn’t take long before your hand felt the cold iron ring that acted as the doorknob to whatever secret was beneath. With ease, you lifted the wooden entrance up, allowing you to peer down into the depth of darkness. Your eyes narrowed once more as you wondered what could possibly be down there.

Your foot slowly placed itself on the wooden stairs that led to what seemed like a bottomless pit of nothing. For the first time in ages, you could feel excitement and thrill course through your veins like an infectious disease. Perhaps this was the gateway that would allow you to peer into the darkness that Luke Castellan has concealed so well from the rest of camp, the one that you had so desperately been wanting to see and soak in. With that, your legs took you down further, the jet black air slowly swallowing any bit of moonlight left.

The pitch black surroundings and ominous air tingled the hair behind your neck as you reached the bottom, but your lips curled at that. Relying on touch, you waved your hands around in hopes that you would be able to touch something. After a bit, you found a switch on a nearby wall. Without much thought, you flipped the button.

Eerie lights began flickering and your visions were flooded with glints of images. You grunted quietly as your eyes adjusted to the blaring brightness that stung your vision. But just as you had gotten used to the new level of lighting, your eyes widened once the view in front of you was fully presented.

What. The. Fuck.

Your heart dropped as the sight before you finally stilled, the lightbulbs no longer flickering. Almost immediately, you tore the Ghostface mask off your face, eliminating any visual obstructions. But the view itself almost became more frightening when you got yourself a clear line of sight.

Surrounding you were four walls packed with thousands of images of you, like a tapestry for worship.

Printed photos of moments where you were unaware that you were being watched. Images of moments you were alone. There were occasional red marker scribbles with obsessive analysis and notes. But the room’s collectibles did not stop at images. On the desk at the center of the box-like room were things you owned that went missing. They were items that you blamed yourself for losing despite your lack of carelessness. Then there were also drawings, such as sweet doodles like hearts around certain frames of you.

Unbeknownst to you, you had stepped foot into your own shrine.

You could not tell how you were supposed to feel.

Fear?

Your heart stuttered.

Thrill?

You licked your lips.

Admiration?

You took a step bac—

Your back hit something soft and warm, swarming your senses with the smell of his cologne. Almost immediately, you felt him lean his head forward. His chin brushed against your shoulder and you could tell he was holding himself back from simply burying his head into your hair. You have never felt such an intense wanting from someone else without even needing to look at them. His desire felt like a sheer force that was threatening to drown you whole.

You stiffened at the long-anticipated moment that came crashing at you like this. This was not how you imagined your first actual interaction to be. Your mind trailed back to the room itself. You had him in a box and he built a secret room to display his devotion to you. This was the great love you had been waiting for, and you didn’t have to chase it for once. No, it came to you, pulling you into its arms.

Oh, how desperate Luke Castellan was to pull you into his arms right now.

Luke doesn’t do love, not for anybody and especially not for you. No, for you, he was infatuated, bewitched and obsessed. Love, to him, was not a big enough term to capture the extent of his feelings.

You deserved more than just love. Love was a weak vow that the passage of time has diluted down to simply a terminology that many teenagers spewed carelessly over someone they wouldn’t witness the next milestone with. Being a spectator to such casual states of “love” at camp only pushed Luke further into detesting the modern idea of it. No, the boy was not looking to give you that. Neither was he looking for promises along the lines of till death do they part.

How finite. How disposable.

He was looking for lifetimes with you, something even measly overused words like ‘forever’ couldn’t define. When the time comes and when you both take your last breaths, he will spend every second finding you in the next one. It was you infinitely or no one. Simple as that. Reincarnations were only worth it to Luke as long as you – the one constant variable Luke ever needed in life – were in them. He’d live different lives with different fates so long as you were also walking the same existence.

His eyes swept over the room that he spent all his time in when away from watching you.

Before, Luke was long over his devoting days. Forced to make burnt offerings to Gods ever since he joined Camp Half-Blood, he didn’t see much meaning to sacrificing and worshiping until you. So, aside from the twelve cabins belonging to the main Olympian Gods that gave residence to their children, there was now one more. Right in the middle of the forest was a carefully crafted man-made ‘cabin’ dedicated to you.

This underground room was a sanctuary and you were his God.

Your breath halted as Luke’s fingers grazed your leg, his touch leaving a trail of heated anticipation in its wake. He stopped up your thigh before reaching just what he was searching for.

“You know, you didn’t have to get your hands dirty for me,” he lifted the sharp object that Ghostface usually used to end their victims, removing it from the holster around your thigh. “Bertha was no threat.”

“You know her name?” You twisted your head a little bit at that to have a better look at Luke. You noticed he had already changed shirts. The one he wore earlier—or the one that Bertha had touched—was now in the bin that you could spot in your peripheral vision.

“I know the names of all your victims.”

Everything was centered around you for him. He couldn’t give a flying fuck what that girl’s name was. He only knew her name because you had graced her an ending. Nothing was worth knowing or doing to him unless it was in relation to you. Why did he become the best swordsman? To be worthy of you someday, and to protect you if time ever comes. Why did he become a camp counselor? So it would be less suspicious if he was spotted out late visiting this room that he had created and shadowing you in whatever you were up to, protecting you from afar. Everything. Everything that he had done and pursued in the last three years had been just for you.

Everything else was an afterthought compared to you.

Cold fingers lightly moved from your cheek down to your chin before holding there delicately, redirecting your gaze towards one corner of the room. Your eyes widened at the content there. The space he wanted your attention on was littered with names of certain people who have “disappeared” from camp. The left side was labeled “Mine” while the right side had the first letter of your name scribbled on top.

The same hand that handled more Demigods than you ever did slowly caressed your cheek with care.

“But I guess she should have known better than to touch what was yours,” Luke whispered softly, yet so steadily and surely as if that had been an established fact all along, sewn onto the fabric of fate. “I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear enough that I knew.”

Reassurance in a relationship is hot. Something that you severely lacked in previous “relationships.” They never knew to make you feel secure, yet here Luke was, casually worshipping you like his world had not existed before you and would cease to be without you.

You realized then that Luke Castellan had wanted you for a long, long time, maybe even before you had even noticed him, and unlike anyone you had been involved with in the past, he had worked for it. He spent ages watching you, memorizing every detail to the point his body felt like they were only atoms made of facts about you, his brain bound to thoughts of you. He was the devotion you had been wishing for but never knew you already had.

You knew he wanted you, and you knew exactly what you wanted too. You wanted him. But what had you dazed was how willingly he was putting himself on the altar as an offering. He was offering his devotion and everything he had to you. You finally had what you wanted, him right in front of you, all yours. Yet your past experiences held you back.

You had always been the one to confess first. You had never been on the other end, which meant you always let your past lovers set the pace. Here you were, in their shoes and you really did not want to mess it up. Theoretically, you know slow and steady is good. However, right that second, you wanted to kiss Luke so badly and what you had in mind was anything but short and sweet. But what if that was too much? What if he did not even want to kiss right now? You didn’t want to mess this up or scare him off and lose him by doing something that was too much. The idea of losing Luke Castellan with barely a taste of him felt like a punch in the gut.

“Stop thinking, just take whatever you want,” Luke whispered when he could sense your brain overworking.

“Don’t give me such free rein,” you grunted a small complaint.

“Alright…what do you want from me right now then? What is the first thing that popped into your head when I asked you that?”

“I want…” you grew shy all of a sudden. How ironic, considering you could off someone without batting an eye. But then again, you never had someone actively seeking out what you wanted so you never had to voice your desires out. You took a deep breath. 

“I want to kiss you right now…” your voice was low and super quiet. But you knew the boy had heard you from the way his eyes dilated further from your words. He steadily took a step closer, cutting down the distance between you two. Again, his cologne engulfed your personal space.

“How do you want to kiss me, sweetheart?” Luke asked, his voice was hoarse. Your eyes snapped back to him at his question.

Flashes of scandalous images flooded your mind as you envisioned exactly how you wanted to kiss Luke. Your mouth grew dry at the idea of describing exactly what you had imagined, and he could tell by your flusteredness.

“Too shy to tell me? Show it to me then.” As if that was easier. You were growing slightly irked and embarrassed by his suggestion. Your eyebrows furrowed and once again, he seemed to clock into the frustration.

“Come on, you wanted me to know I’m yours, right? You spent months doing it from afar, but can't show it directly to me?” Luke strategically pushed your buttons on purpose. He hummed after a moment of silence from you, smirking when he saw your eyes narrowed at his words.

“You know, I had better expectations of you considering your kill count and possessive behavior. But maybe it’s all for show then, or maybe it’s just fake confidence and for the chase. They do say “fake it till you make it”, but I guess sometimes that just doesn’t happen.” Just to rub more salt to the wound, the boy added “I guess I’ve over-estimated you but that’s alright. What a shame though…”

That did it for you, because the next thing Luke knew, you had shoved him hard. The boy landed in the swivel chair behind him with a loud thud, air slightly knocked out of his lungs. Despite the momentary shock, his eyes immediately snapped back to you, because where else do they ever look?

Luke could feel the impatience and rage in your footsteps as you diminished the distance between you both. You placed a hand on Luke’s chest to push him and the chair back against the table. The boy’s eyes flicked down when you hiked a leg up and placed your knee onto the furniture on one side of him. Almost automatically, Luke’s hand raised to settle on your thigh, but you slapped his hand away harshly.

He did not deserve it, at least not right now.

Heat consumed Luke’s eyes as he registered your action, but he did not fight against your decision. He was well aware of the potential consequences of his actions. Before he could think further, Luke felt fingers trail from his collarbone around to the back of his neck before they aggressively grabbed onto his hair and yanked back, forcing him to look up at you. The action caught him off-guard, causing a gasp to fall out of his lips, but the noise was quickly swallowed away by your own as you clashed your mouths together.

His mind blanked.

Then, the second Luke finally realised what he had longed for for years was coming true, his mind was breathed back to life. His hands flew to your waist like they were magnetized to and he started returning your kiss with three years of unspent yearning. He was fervently pressing his lips against yours as if passing every unspoken confessions and thoughts into this shared moment. Luke was not sure if it was possible to go through withdrawal without an addiction to begin with, but he was consuming the kiss like he had been parched for decades and you were his oasis. Yet, despite his fervidness, the boy knew he was still in the backseat when it came to this kiss.

You were taking the lead, and Gods, were you making sure it was torrid and messy. Your hand was still tangled in his hair, tugging it in such an enticing and punishing way. But then you took a step further by snaking your other hand around his neck slowly. The delicate touch left anything but a soft effect on the boy because a groan immediately echoed against your lips. Luke had never been in this position before, but Gods did it feel good with you. More so, if it was something you wanted, he was wholeheartedly ready to grant it. He squeezed your waist once to ask for more. At his greenlight, your fingers gently tightened teasingly, and the action unleashed scorching pleasure across the Hermes cabin counselor’s body, drawing something almost like a moan from him.

“That’s it, baby…” sweet praise soaked against your lips, then came a soft urging, “Keep taking…”

Because all you’ve ever done before was give.

For once, you let greed consume you, and you took his lips as yours with pure selfish needs. You pushed him deeper into the chair, licking his bottom lip.

“Open.”

He eagerly opened his mouth without hesitation at your command. In fact, he seemed pleased at being ordered around by you. His hands were squeezing your waist ardently as you continued kissing him.

Quite frankly, the Hermes cabin counselor found that his life consisted of only two parts: before you and with you. The second half had long made him forget what the former was like. Not that that was a big deal, considering he had no desire to remember either.

Time became irrelevant as you continued bruising his lips with your own. When you were assured that his lips were swollen enough, you pulled away, feeling fulfilled and that your longing had been satisfied. However, your withdrawal drew out a wrecked, tantalised sound from the Hermes cabin counselor, almost like a whimper. His lips chased after yours as if they could not bear another second away from home. But Luke didn’t push for more. He didn’t take. He simply sat there, sucking in deep breaths like he had been underwater for too long. Though his hands remained on your waist, slightly sliding down to your hips before settling there as if they had found their new favorite place.

Then, for a minute or so after that, none of you said anything. The room was just filled with heavy breaths and quiet looks. Your fingers that were gripping his hair earlier were now gently playing with Luke’s dark locks. You watched as his eyes fluttered shut from your actions, his lips curled in an almost pleasing smile. 

“I like you,” you whispered almost hesitantly. However, you wanted and needed to put that out there. Luke slowly opened his eyes again and you noticed somehow his pupils seemed to enlarge even more.

“I know…you have a box for me,” your lips curled at the mention of your box that had things of his and things related to him in there.

“I do. You know about it?”

“I’ve seen it.”

“I should have done more if I knew you built all of this for me.”

“It’s okay…nobody can be on my level on the get-go. But practice makes perfect, sweetheart,” you wanted to scoff at his cocky reply, but you knew he was joking. “But hey, the box is perfect. I love it. You put a lot of effort into it, thank you,” he added, but it was the kind of validation and acknowledgement that somehow no other lovers of yours had put forward.

His reply felt like a defining moment for you, sealing the deal. You imagined for a second what it would be like this time around. You would like to think Luke would accept you for who you are. At the same time, you knew that you tend to become too intense and lose control sometimes, shedding blood in the name of love.

“I’m scared that I’m too much…or that I’ll be too much for you to handle,” you whispered out in honesty, eyes leaving him.

“Nonsense,” he scoffed lowly immediately, as if the idea that you were thinking that was already enough to upset him. “So what? I love handling you. Keep taking the lead, keep taking. I’ll give you whatever you want to take. Besides, have you not seen what I’ve done for you?” he gestured to his kill list on the wall as opposed to yours. You might be taking the lead right now, but he was for sure taking the lead there.

Luke smiled softly up at you before pulling you down onto his chest. He then wrapped both his arms around you to embrace you, keeping you safe and secure. For once, you were content with the silence. Vicious, insecure thoughts were no longer spinning in your mind. You didn’t feel any worry that usually gnawed at you to question whether the other person was just as enamored as you were. You were at ease and your eyes fluttered shut.

“No more doubts?” Luke’s voice lulled you into a warm blanket of security.

“No more doubts,” you echoed back softly, yet surely, before pulling him in for another kiss.

You used to love love, but somehow it had never loved you back…

Yet, that did not matter much to you anymore, not when Luke Castellan could prove that love wasn’t worth your attention, but he does and so does whatever feeling beyond love that he was planning to drown you in.You and him were the proof that romance is far from dead.

・┈・┈・┈・┈・┈・

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The Chuupet came the next class. You told yourself that one didn't count either, mostly because you'd run out of ways to make the sentence sound true and had stopped bothering to fully believe it. It required knowing something no one should reasonably know about a stranger's snack preferences, something you'd learned weeks ago by accident, catching sight of the wrapper poking out of his gym bag and filing the detail away the same unthinking way you filed away everything else about him now. Automatically. Hungrily. Like your mind had simply decided this was what it did.

You left it in the same spot as the coffee. He picked it up between two fingers this time, studying it like it might be a joke at his expense, and looked around the room again, slower now, the way a person looks when they've started to suspect a pattern rather than an accident.

He still didn't find you.

He ate it twenty minutes later anyway.

The vending machine alcove outside the gym was empty when you arrived, which was the part you'd been counting on. Practice would end soon, and you needed a reason to be standing there when it did, something with the shape of coincidence rather than intent. You were scanning the selections, already reaching for the right change, when footsteps rounded the corner and stopped with the confident energy of someone who hadn't considered the space might already be occupied.

"Oh," said the arrival, recalibrating quickly. "Hey."

You glanced over. Tall, blond, the kind of person who filled a room through volume rather than effort. You recognized him vaguely, one of the two brothers who occasionally wandered into your sports psychology lecture and spent the hour needling each other instead of taking notes.

"Miya Atsumu," he said, as though the name alone might accomplish something.

"Okay," you said.

He blinked, visibly recalculating. "That's it? No, like, recognition?"

"You go to my psych lecture. Sometimes." You pressed the button for a bottle of strawberry lemonade.

"Right, but I'm also—" He gestured vaguely at himself, the gesture of a man used to the gesture doing most of the explaining. "Volleyball. National level. You've never noticed?"

"I've noticed you talk a lot during lectures."

"That's fair, actually." He said it with real satisfaction, like a compliment had been smuggled in somewhere. He leaned against the machine, undeterred. "So what, you here for practice? You a fangirl? Here to see the Miya twins? Best setter in the prefecture, for the record. Well. One of us, anyway."

You looked at him, then back at the machine, and pressed the button for your own drink. "That's nice," you said.

"That's, nice?"

"Mm."

"You're supposed to be at least a little starstruck. That's usually how this goes."

"I don't follow volleyball," you said, which was so thoroughly untrue you nearly laughed at the ease of it, though the beauty of a lie like that was precisely how completely it closed a conversation.

"No way. Seriously? Not even a little?" He studied you with the particular interest of someone whose usual approach had just failed for the first time in recent memory. "So what are you into, then?"

You collected your drink, slid it into your bag without ceremony, and straightened. "Leaving," you said, pleasantly, and did exactly that, leaving him standing in the alcove mid-sentence, one hand still raised like he'd been about to make a point that would have changed everything.

"Hey, wait, I didn't even get your—"

You didn't look back to see how long it took him to give up. You already knew Suna would be out within the next ten minutes, and you intended to be positioned for it.

The note was different. You understood that even as you wrote it, folding the small piece of paper with more care than the words probably warranted, tucking it into the gap at the top of his gym bag where you'd watched him keep a spare towel often enough to know exactly where it would sit.

You shouldn't dry your hair so roughly. It's not good for you.

You wrote it in your neatest hand, the kind reserved for things that mattered, and told yourself once more that this was simply an observation. You'd seen it through the gap in his blinds one evening weeks ago, towel around his shoulders, scrubbing at his hair with more force than it needed, the kind of careless motion that would thin it early if he kept it up for years. You hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since. A small thing. A caring thing, if you didn't look too closely.

It wasn't until you were walking away from the locker room, pulse loud in your own ears, that the full shape of what you'd done arrived all at once, with nowhere left to hide from it.

You hadn't seen that from a street, a bus stop, a park bench, any of the places you'd quietly convinced yourself counted as public, as accidental, as almost coincidence.

You'd seen it from outside his window. Close enough to see through blinds that were never meant to be seen through.

You stopped on the sidewalk outside the gym and let the word sit in your head, finally, without immediately arguing yourself out of it.

Stalking.

You didn't cry. You didn't feel the relief people always described, the release of finally naming something you'd been circling for weeks. What you felt instead was colder than that. Steadier. As though naming it hadn't changed anything at all, except that now you understood, with total clarity, that you were going to keep doing it anyway.

Suna found the note before practice, reaching for his towel with the same unthinking motion he used every day, and went still when his fingers closed around paper instead of terrycloth.

He read it twice before allowing himself to react to it at all.

You shouldn't dry your hair so roughly. It's not good for you.

The handwriting was neat, deliberate, almost soft-looking, though there was nothing soft about the fact that it existed. He didn't dry his hair roughly in public. He didn't dry his hair anywhere but his own bathroom, alone, door shut. Blinds he was fairly sure he never bothered closing all the way, because his apartment faced an alley, and who would be looking.

He didn't panic. Panic wasn't really in his range; he'd been called unbothered by enough people, often enough, that he'd started to believe it himself. What he did instead was think, methodically, the same unhurried way he processed a blocker's footwork or a setter's tell, running the note back through everything he knew and coming up short.

He looked around the locker room out of habit more than expectation. Osamu three lockers down, mid-complaint about a professor. Atsumu loud about something on the far side of the room. Nothing out of place. That, if anything, was the part that stayed with him.

He folded the note twice and put it in his bag rather than his pocket, as if distance from his own body might make it easier to examine later.

He didn't feel watched here, in a room full of familiar noise. Whatever this was, it hadn't come from inside these walls. Which meant, if he followed the thought all the way through, and he did, the same patient way he followed everything, that whoever had written it had been watching him somewhere he'd never once thought to check.

He said nothing to anyone. He got dressed. He went to practice, served, blocked, let Atsumu's noise wash past him as usual, and if his eyes drifted toward the gym windows more than the drill required, no one seemed to notice.

He noticed, though. He noticed everything. That was the problem, and he intended to keep noticing until it stopped being one.

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a/n : thanks for reading — 🐇 ♡

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