For three days, she told herself it was just paranoia.
She started walking faster at night. Checking over her shoulder more than usual. Keeping her phone in her hand with her thumb hovering over the screen like it could protect her. Still, nothing happened. No more gifts. No more notes.
But she couldn't stop thinking about the photo.
The angle. The framing. The intimacy of it. Whoever took it had been close. Too close. And quiet. She hadn't felt a thing.
On campus, she found herself watching them — the boys who hovered too long, who laughed too loud, who looked at her for too many seconds before turning away. There was one who stood out. He was in her bioethics class, always early, always neat. His name was Lukas. Polish, maybe. Or Austrian. She wasn't sure.
He smiled too easily. Asked too many questions. He once offered to share his notes even though she never missed a lecture. At the time, she thought he was just polite. Now, she wasn't so sure.
One day after class, he waited for her by the lecture hall doors.
"You dropped this," he said, holding out her pen.
She didn't remember dropping it.
She took it with a polite smile, eyes sharp.
"Thanks."
"You looked tired today," he said casually. "Long shift?"
Her chest went still.
"How'd you know I work?"
"You always wear your café shoes on Thursdays," he said with a shrug, like it wasn't strange at all.
She nodded slowly, letting the silence stretch.
"Right. Yeah."
That night, she messaged Sanyu:
Me:
Do you remember Lukas from ethics class? Blonde. Always carries that stupid water bottle.
Sanyu:
Yeah. The one who says 'technically' before every answer 😂
Me:
He's been... weird lately. Too observant. I think he might be the one leaving things.
Sanyu:
You want me to check him? I can sit behind him next lecture. Eavesdrop like a CIA girlfriend.
Me:
Lol please do.
She laughed at the message but didn't feel safer.
Instead, she kept the curtains closed that night. Slept with her phone under her pillow. And put the photo back in the envelope, which she tucked behind her physics textbook on the shelf.
Maybe Lukas was the type who watched girls too long.
Maybe he just liked her.
But deep down — somewhere below the reasoning, the doubt, and the jokes — she knew one thing:
The person who took that photo wasn't just watching.
They were waiting.
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