3:41 AM.

The city is still sleeping.

But I’m vibrating with purpose.

He’s alive somewhere under this same bruised sky, and I’m moving like a shadow stitched to his breath. He doesn’t know it yet, but his morning already belongs to me. Every minute of it. Every drop of sweat on his temple. Every bite of fingernail as he works under pressure. I see it all. I feel it all.

I pace like an addict near the 24-hour chai stall. My fingers are ice. My thoughts are wildfire. I know his deadline. I know the words he’s typing, half-hunched in the corner of the library, hoodie up, biting his lip. He told “Vedant” that he’d be pulling an all-nighter. He trusts Vedant.

He trusts me.

I wait thirty-two more minutes, my spine thrumming with patience until the chai guy starts packing up. That’s when I start walking. Past the shuttered cigarette stalls and sleeping stray dogs, past the cracked sidewalk he trips on every time when he's in a rush.

I see him before he sees me.

Hunched over his bag, muttering to himself, laptop cord dangling like a tail. He doesn’t look human at this hour. He looks fucking divine. Hollowed out by fatigue, sweat on his brow, shirt clinging to his back. That kind of honest exhaustion no one else gets to witness. Except me.

I follow at a distance.

He never looks back.

He doesn’t need to—because I’m the silence behind his every step.

I watch him disappear into the library glass doors. A single lamp flickers near the back corner. His sanctuary. I know the sound of the chair he prefers. The way he shrugs out of his hoodie like he’s shedding skin.

My hands twitch.

I almost want to scream. Just so he knows I’m near. Just so he lifts his head, eyes wild, and whispers, “You again.”

But I wait.

I always wait.

6:24 AM.

Back at the café. Countertop wiped. Lanterns dimmed to pre-dawn gold. The others shuffle in slowly—Rhea with her cardigan still inside out, Dev yawning, muttering about a Tinder disaster. I barely hear them. My pulse is counting down.

He’ll be here soon. I made sure of it.

I already prepped his chai—no sugar, cinnamon, extra steam. I added a cardamom pod today. He’ll wonder why it tastes different. He’ll think about it for hours. Maybe even message Vedant about it.

I want to be in his mouth.

I want him to wake up tasting me and never realize why.

The bell chimes.

He enters, soaked.

Rain clings to his hair, lashes, hoodie. His gaze scans the café with surgical precision. He's on edge. There’s a buzz around him, like he’s aware something is… off. Not quite safe.

Good.

He orders.

I don’t speak. I hand him the chai like it’s sacrament. Our fingers brush. His flinch is microscopic. He thinks he’s being paranoid.

He isn’t.

He turns away, sits by the fogged-up window, opens his notebook. He writes three lines. Then stops. Crosses them out. Starts again.

He's unraveling.

He doesn't know why.

But I do.

9:07 AM.

He and Arjun leave the apartment.

I watch from across the street, dressed like any other forgettable girl walking a dog that doesn’t exist. I trail them half a block. I hear the laugh. The easy banter.

Fucking Arjun.

He touches him too casually, slaps his shoulder like they’re brothers. Like he has some right to that body, that voice, that orbit.

I imagine snapping his fucking fingers.

When they vanish into the crowd, I double back.

The apartment door is easy. Code 100419—it’s his reversed birthdate. He told Vedant once, months ago. “It’s stupidly easy. I should probably change it.”

Don’t.

The door clicks open like it was waiting for me.

I step inside like I belong there.

9:16 AM.

It smells like stale deodorant and boy. Warm cotton. Battery acid. Sleep.

My knees buckle.

The scent hits me like a gut-punch. I close the door gently behind me and breathe it in. The air buzzes with him—he’s everywhere. Dishes in the sink. His charger cord coiled like a snake on the floor. Socks on the edge of the bed like forgotten offerings.

I walk past Arjun’s bed without looking.

He doesn’t exist.

And then I see it.

His tank top. Black. Cotton. Damp from wear. Crumpled at the foot of the bed.

My pulse jackknifes. I lunge. I fucking lunge.

It’s still warm.

Still clings with his sweat.

I bury my face into it with a sound I don’t recognize—half sob, half groan. My thighs clench. My entire body goes hot and wrong and right. I grip the fabric in my fists like it’s a fucking lifeline. Smother myself in it. I don’t care if I suffocate.

It smells like him.

Not cologne. Not some fake projection of who he wants to be. Just him. Skin. Sweat. Sleep. Frustration. The trace of cinnamon from yesterday’s chai on the collar.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

It’s a prayer. A curse. A confession.

I collapse onto his bed like I’ve been shot. One hand still strangling the tank top, the other pressed against his pillow. It’s shaped from his head. There’s a tiny crust of drool in the corner. I press my lips to it.

I moan.

It’s not sexual, not exactly.

It’s devotional.

I climb on top of the pillow and curl into it, pressing my cheek flat like I’m trying to merge. My hips shift unconsciously. I grind—slow, embarrassed but unable to stop. I imagine his breath in my ear, his hands gripping my waist, his confusion melting into hunger.

I whisper his name into the cotton. Over and over. Louder. Wilder.

“Fuck—I need you—I need you, I swear I—”

The tank top slides between my thighs. I clamp it there like it belongs inside me.

I cry.

I laugh.

I scream into the mattress.

I don’t even feel shame.

This isn’t sick.

This is truth.

The moan tears out of me, raw and low, muffled by the fabric clenched between my teeth. His tank top twists in my grip, damp from the sweat of my palms, my breath, my need. I stay still for a moment, trembling on the edge of something sacred, listening to the silence of his room like it might answer me back.

It smells like him everywhere now—like sin and surrender. Musk and fading body spray. I clutch the pillow tighter beneath me, dragging my hips across it slowly, reverently, like I’m offering myself to the altar of his absence.

Each thrust is a vow: I will love you harder than anyone. I will ruin you for anyone else. I will wait forever—but fuck, I won’t wait quietly.

I bite the tank top harder, his name broken on my lips again and again. My body arches, caught in the pulsing wave of release, and for a moment, everything vanishes—the city, the rain, the guilt, even Rhea’s voice echoing in some forgotten corner of my mind. There is only this: him and me, woven in breathless rhythm.

When I finally collapse, the pillow damp beneath me, the tank top wrinkled and warm with my obsession, I lie there gasping. Staring at the ceiling fan spinning slow and lazy above, as if mocking the hurricane still howling in my chest.

I wipe my face with the hem of my hoodie and sit up, dizzy with the afterglow and the rising stench of my desperation. Shame flirts at the edges of my mind, but I don’t let it in. Not today.

This wasn’t a mistake. This was holy.

But I’m not done.

I rise, legs shaky, and begin to explore his room like a scavenger of sacred things. His drawers are half-open, chaotic in the way only boys leave them—rolled socks, coins, crumpled receipts, some meds he probably forgets to take. I brush my fingers along the edge of his desk. Notes from university. Margins covered in quick, anxious doodles. I trace them with a finger, whispering, “I see you. Even here.”

There’s a photo stuck to the side of his bookshelf—him and Arjun at some lake. They’re grinning, wet-haired, shirtless. My stomach twists. Jealousy claws at me. Arjun gets to be close. Arjun gets to know. I don’t. Not really. Not yet.

But soon.

I pause at the edge of his unmade bed. The sheets still hold the indent of his body. I imagine curling into it, pressing my spine to where his chest would be, letting his ghost wrap around me. I almost do it. I almost climb in and pretend.

But time is slipping.

Outside, a car engine revs. I dart to the window. Not him. Not yet. Arjun’s gone for his lecture, and I know I have at least fifteen more minutes before he returns. My fingers itch.

I pull out my phone and snap a photo—not of the room, no, that’s too risky. Just the pillow. Just the shirt. Just the marks I left. I label the album Devotion.

Then I dig in my bag for one of the notes I wrote last week. Folded perfectly. The paper smells faintly of rose and old ink. I leave it tucked beneath his mouse pad, just peeking out. It reads:

Do you feel me yet? You should. I’m the heartbeat in your silence.

I’m halfway through placing his tank top carefully back on the bed when I hesitate.

No.

I can’t part with it. Not yet.

I stuff it into my hoodie pocket. It burns there like a secret.

Footsteps on the stairwell. My pulse explodes.

I bolt for the back, the code lock clicking behind me. My own version of a guilty prayer on my lips.

I made it.

By the time he returns, my scent will have faded, my body long gone—but my presence will hang in the air like static. Unseen. But undeniable.

He’ll touch the mouse. See the note. Feel the skin between his shoulder blades crawl.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll start to understand.

That he’s never alone anymore.

I don’t breathe until I’m back on the street, the cold wind dragging through my hair, drying the sweat on my back. My fingers tighten around the lump in my hoodie pocket like it’s a living thing—his tank top, still warm from the heat of my madness. I should go. I should run. But I don’t. I duck into the alley behind the building and slide down the wall until I’m sitting in the shadows, my knees pulled up.

Then I pull it out.

It’s soft. Black. Faded from too many washes. A tiny tear at the neckline where the stitching came loose—something intimate in its imperfection. My heart jackknifes in my chest. I bury my face in it again, this time slower, indulgent. It smells like his sleep. Like his neck. Like something I was never meant to touch.

A tremor runs through me.

I close my eyes and let the scent crawl into my lungs like it’s oxygen. I can feel my heart syncing to his, the way I imagine it does when he’s alone in his room, lying back, unaware that someone sees him even in his stillness.

I clutch the hoodie like a child might a blanket, my whole body curling around it. I’ve never felt this kind of high—this dizzying rush, not just lust, no, it’s more. It’s closeness. It’s ownership. It’s fucking love.

Not the kind you write poems about.

The kind that cracks bone and carves you out, that lives in your marrow.

He wore this.

His skin touched this. His warmth seeped into it. And now it's mine. Mine.

A soft laugh escapes me. I press the hoodie to my mouth to muffle it, biting the fabric until my teeth ache. The world could end right now and I’d be fine. I’ve never felt more alive. More powerful. More close.

This isn’t just fabric.

It’s a relic. A token. A thread between us, invisible to everyone else but iron-strong in my hands.

I’m not sick. I’m not crazy. I’m devoted.

And when he wears it again, someday soon—when he throws it on and wonders why it feels different, heavier—I’ll be there, watching.

Smiling.

Knowing.

He’ll never be able to wear it again without feeling me against his skin.