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( link to my Aglaea/Anaxa playlist on spotify. )
He sees her often, yes. He's been visiting the bathhouse more recently, merely to soak in the warm baths.
Seeing her was just a pretty bonus.
How could he ever admit — even to himself — that he wasn't really here for the baths, but her? He'll have to acknowledge it sooner or later.
It's innocent enough. A lovesick puppy subtly trying to spend time with his favorite person. He sees her at the bathhouse, he talks to her sometimes, but he is just fine with watching her from afar.
For a long time, he simply watched her from a distance. That 'being just fine with it' turned into it being his preference.
That turned into a want to watch her.
That turned into obsession.
He couldn't wait to go see her. He was nearly trembling at the thought.
He needed to go see her.
He knew her schedule, she wasn't likely at the bathhouse right now. He'll just stop by her house.
He could collect a few fruits or vegetables and bring her a basket of them so he would have an excuse to come visit her, but...he wasn't thrilled by that idea. He had a few other ideas, but nothing seemed to fit quite right.
He didn't want to have to talk to her, he didn't want to be acknowledged. He wanted to watch.
He told himself it was the path that carried him there, but the truth felt less gentle than that.
It was not the stones guiding him. It was the pressure in his chest that would not ease until he moved. It had been building all afternoon, a thin, needling sensation beneath his ribs, as though something small and frantic were trying to burrow out. The baths had stopped soothing him weeks ago. The steam no longer blurred the edges of his thoughts; it only made them louder.
He had tried to wait for a proper hour, a reasonable hour. He had sat on the edge of his bed and counted the beats of his pulse until numbers stopped behaving like numbers and began dissolving into her name. He had pressed his palm to his eye until he saw colors. None of it softened the insistence.
So he walked.
Her house seemed different at this hour, not because it had changed, but because he had. The walls appeared thinner. The windows more translucent. As if the structure itself were fragile and he might see through it entirely if he only looked long enough. He lingered at the front longer than he meant to, studying the lines of the roof, the angle of the door, memorizing them again as if they might rearrange themselves when he wasn’t watching.
He did not bring fruit. The idea of knocking felt obscene now, like an intrusion into something sacred. He did not want the heaviness of her gaze landing on him. He did not want to have to arrange his face into some expression. Watching required no performance. Watching asked nothing of him except stillness.
He slipped silently to the side of the house between brick and fence and felt the relief of enclosure. The narrowness steadied him. It squeezed the air from his lungs in a way that felt almost clarifying. Here, there was only one direction to look.
The kitchen window glowed faintly. The curtain was drawn but not fully. It never was. He had noticed that before. He wondered if she knew. The thought made his stomach twist in a way he could not name.
Inside, she moved.
The sight of her did not bring joy. It brought a rush so sharp it was nearly pain. His breath shortened, stuttering in his throat. His hands trembled with a restless energy that begged to be used for something — anything. He pressed them flat against the cool fence behind him to anchor himself, to keep from drifting too close to the glass.
He watched the rhythm of her body as she crossed the room. He watched the way her shoulders so subtly lifted and fell. He catalogued it. Filed it carefully. These were facts. Harmless facts. Knowing the cadence of her steps was no different from knowing her hours at the bathhouse. It was simply attentiveness.
He felt proud of how quiet he could be.
There was a moment when she paused near the window, and his mind fractured into possibilities. Maybe she sensed him. Maybe she always sensed him. Maybe some part of her moved differently when he was near, a subtle shift that no one else would ever detect. The idea rooted itself immediately, wrapping thin vines around his thoughts.
He leaned forward before he realized he was moving.
The curtain stirred. His heart slammed so violently he had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from making a sound. Blood bloomed metallic and hot in his mouth. He welcomed the sting. It kept him present.
He told himself he would leave after this minute. Just one minute more. Just until the feeling peaked and passed.
But it did not pass.
It expanded. It stretched until it filled the narrow alley between the fence and the wall, until it felt as though the walls themselves were pulsing in time with him. Watching her had once felt soft, almost reverent. Now it felt like compulsion. Like scratching at a wound that would never close.
She lit a candle near the counter. The flame caught and flickered, and in its glow her profile sharpened. He drank in the sight greedily, terrified that it might be the last time. That she might disappear. That she might move away. That she might wake up one morning and decide to draw the curtains fully, forever.
The thought spiraled quickly, grotesquely. He imagined the window dark. Imagined strangers in her kitchen. Imagined her laughter carried somewhere he could not follow. His throat tightened until swallowing became difficult.
( y.ou h.av e do.n e n.oth in.g w r.on g )
The phrase repeated in his mind with mechanical insistence. He had not touched her. He had not spoken out of turn. He had only looked. Looking was not a crime. Looking was devotion without consequence.
Yet the longer he stood there, the less innocent it felt.
He began to notice things he had never paid attention to before: the faint reflection of himself in the glass, warped and stretched. The way his own face looked unfamiliar in the dim light, his eye wide, too bright. For a fleeting second, he did not recognize his own figure, hiding on the side of her house.
It frightened him.
Not enough to leave, but enough to feel the fracture widen.
Inside, she moved out of view.
The absence hit harder than her presence had. The room remained lit, the candle steady, but she was gone from the frame. His body reacted as if something vital had been taken. His breath came quicker. His thoughts sharpened into panic. He strained to anticipate her return, to predict the angle from which she would reappear.
She did not.
The stillness stretched, unbearable. He felt exposed suddenly, ridiculous in his posture against the wall. What was he doing? How long had he been standing there? If someone were to walk by now now, what explanation could he possibly give?
The image of being seen — truly seen — flooded him with cold dread. Not her seeing him. Anyone else. A neighbor. A passerby. Their eyes landing on him and understanding instantly what he was.
He stepped back, slowly at first, then with more urgency. The shadows swallowed him readily, as though they had been waiting to reclaim him. He kept his gaze fixed on the window until distance made it blur into a harmless square of light.
His chest still throbbed. The pressure had not eased. It had only shifted, settling deeper, embedding itself.
He told himself he would not return here.
He told himself he had frightened himself enough to stop.
But even as he reached the end of the alley, even as the open street widened around him, he was already reconstructing the evening in his mind, replaying each movement she had made. Already calculating when she might next stand in that room. Already anticipating tomorrow, the bathhouse steam curling around her shoulders.
( He did not want to be seen.
He did not want to be known.
He wanted only to watch, and in watching, to quiet the terrible, clawing thing inside him — if only for a moment. )