"Some people fall in love.Others fall into obsession.I was already falling when I realized—I didn't know which one it was."
It started with a laugh.
Soft. Muffled. Somewhere beyond the wall.
Nawin had never heard the man laugh before—not once. And something about it made his skin crawl. Not because it sounded wrong. But because it sounded… like it wasn't meant to be heard.
Like someone else was there.
He told himself not to care. Again.
But he started keeping the lights off earlier. Listening harder. Watching closer.
He began to notice things:The man never left for work.Never had visitors.Never got food delivered.
Once, Nawin swore he saw him standing in the hallway at 2 a.m., barefoot and still. Just staring at his door. But when he looked again, the hallway was empty.
The next morning, another note appeared.
"I can hear your breathing at night."
Nawin dropped it like it burned him.
That wasn't sweet. That wasn't romantic.
That was wrong.
He tried not to answer. For a week, he said nothing. Closed the blinds. Left the apartment only when he had to.
But isolation had a strange gravity—it pulled you toward the very things you were trying to escape.
And the man had already become a habit.
On the eighth day, Nawin gave in.
He knocked on the man's door.
One tap. Then another.
It opened immediately.
Inside, the apartment was too clean. No dishes. No clutter. No photographs. It looked like a place someone was pretending to live in.
The man—Than—stood barefoot on the cold tile, staring at him with eyes that didn't blink enough.
"You stopped watching me," Than said.
Nawin's mouth went dry. "I needed space."
Than tilted his head. "But I gave you space. The wall between us—that was yours. I respected it."
Past tense.
That was the night Than said his name. The night he let Nawin play his guitar. The night he told him about the scar, about the accident, about the person he lost.
But something in the story felt rehearsed. Like a script.
And Nawin noticed a picture frame on the shelf—facing backward.
When he reached for it, Than stopped him. Gently. But his fingers trembled where they touched Nawin's wrist.
"There are things I'm not ready to share."
"I think there are things you'll never share."
Than didn't deny it.
He just smiled—sad, fragile—and said:
"I don't want you to be afraid of me."
But Nawin was afraid.
Not of Than.
But of the part of himself that still wanted him anyway.
The final scene of the chapter:
That night, Nawin wakes up again. The hallway is empty. But on the wall just outside his door, written in black marker, is a question:
"If I told you what I've done, would you still look at me the same way?"
He doesn't sleep after that.
He just sits in the dark, watching the window, waiting for the man next door to move.
But Than never appears.
Only the reflection in the glass does.
And it's smiling.