It's the story of a stalker and a badass girl.

He leaves anonymous bookmarks everywhere she goes—as if every page of her life already belongs to him. Every clue is deliberate. Every message is a reminder that he's always watching.

No matter how intelligent, fearless, or determined she is, she can never find him.

Because while she's trying to uncover his identity...

He's already memorized every chapter of hers.

Fuck...This is not my place yet I'm here again, at the bookstore, waiting for her to come. The same place. The same silence. The same unanswered questions circling through my head like vultures, tearing at every fragment of reason I have left. And still...Not a single answer.

The bookmark rests between my fingers. I slowly slide my thumb over her name written neatly across it before slipping it beside the book waiting on the shelf she always visits. She'll find it. She always does.

I don't even realize how I get from that day... to today. Because she's been wrapped around my mind ever since that day, tightening her hold a little by little, refusing to let go. Without permission... my mind drifts back to the beginning.The beginning I'm neither willing nor able to forget.

It all starts with my insufferable psychic friend, Adrian. But he's also the reason I ever notice her.

"Just keep an eye on her... and act if required, if she's in danger," he tells me over the phone.

I never do things like this. But I know Adrian. He never asks me for favors-let alone practically begging me. That's not who he is...unless something is seriously wrong.

But while keeping watch from a distance, my eyes drift toward another girl with light brown hair. Cold wind and heavy dark clouds gathering overhead while people rush to escape the approaching storm and everyone reacts to it.

Except her....

She remains exactly where she is, utterly consumed by the book resting in her hands, as though the entire world is collapsing around her and none of it deserves so much as a glance. And despite the fact that my attention is supposed to remain fixed on the girl Adrian asks me to watch...Someone else quietly steals it away.

"Are you there? Where the hell are you lost?" Adrian asks.

"Nowhere." I tell him, still looking at the book girl I add. "And now fuck off." I disconnect the call and force myself to focus on the target with the chocolate-brown hair sitting in the open café.

But again my focus shifted to a book girl, completely unaware of the world around her. Soft light-brown strands of her hair keep dancing across her face every time the wind turns harsher, yet she barely notices. With effortless indifference, she casually tucks them behind her ear before returning to the book in front of her, her entire attention consumed by the pages.

The approaching storm doesn't exist to her. Neither do the people. She sits there so carelessly, so unapologetically herself, as if the entire world can collapse around her and she'd still finish the next page before bothering to look up. There isn't the slightest hesitation in her. No fear. No pretense. She's...unbelievably real that, for the first time in my life, I find myself unable to look away.

I feel something unfamiliar settle inside me. My entire world narrows until she becomes the only thing left inside it. She's beautiful...in the kind of quiet way that gives peace to a restless soul. There's a breathtaking composure resting on her face, the kind that somehow soothes the fire constantly burning inside me which I've never been able to extinguish within myself...until this very moment.

Without realizing it... I lift my phone toward her and take a few photographs, questioning myself at the very same time. What the fuck am I doing?

For the first time, my attention drifts away from work...and chooses someone else. For the first time, it feels as though everything around me simply vanishes...Except her. The storm, the crowd, the noise... all of it ceases to exist. There's only her.

One look... and the ground beneath me no longer feel the same. One look... and I no longer belong to myself. One look... and I'm caught in the silence that surrounds her. One look... and everything inside me falls into oblivion, leaving nothing behind but the breathtaking beauty standing before me.

I don't understand it. I've never felt anything like this before. One flawless, fearless, maddeningly carefree stranger has somehow managed to stop me exactly where I stand....and suddenly, every chaos inside my head relaxes. I know this feeling is dangerous. So I force myself to tear my eyes away, return my attention to the chocolate-haired girl Adrian asks me to watch, finish what I come here to do... and leave.

Coming back to the present, I move toward the far corner of the bookstore, blending effortlessly into the quiet shadows between the shelves. I know it's almost time for her to arrive, and I have no intention of missing the expression that inevitably crosses her face the moment she finds another bookmark waiting for her. That fleeting irritation of hers... for reasons I still fail to understand, has become strangely addictive.

The thought alone is enough to hold my attention. Without warning, my mind slips away once again, dragging me back to the second time our paths cross. I never expect fate to place her in front of me again-certainly not like that. Because after our first encounter... I have absolutely no intention of chasing her.

Days later...

I'm leaving the men's restroom after a meeting when someone suddenly stumbles inside, breathing like his life depends on the next second. Blood stains his clothes, panic is written all over his face, and he desperately begs for help. I'm still trying to understand what the hell is happening when, only seconds later...she walks in after him like a storm wrapped in human skin.

Black jeans. Black t-shirt. Not a trace of hesitation. Not an ounce of fear. The same book girl from the café.

The man makes the first move and it seems like his biggest mistake. She drives him backward with a brutal punch before a relentless barrage of kicks crashes into him one after another, every strike delivered with frightening precision, leaving him no room to escape. It isn't a fight anymore... it's domination. Within seconds, she traps him against the wall, one leg raised, the sole of her shoe pressed mercilessly beneath his chin. Her stance is flawless. Both fists remain poised near her chest, perfectly balanced, silently daring him to make one more mistake.

"Who sent you to keep an eye on me?" she demands.

The man's entire body trembles violently. "Y-your father..."

She lets out a humorless laugh. Then her foot crashes into his stomach hard enough to fold him in half before another kick lands directly across his face. Blood splatters against the floor as his body collapses with a pained groan.

"I'm letting you live for one reason only." She takes one slow step closer. "So you can crawl back and deliver my answer yourself."

The girl whose face refuses to leave my mind after that day at the café-for reasons I still can't explain, stands before me as someone entirely different. But somehow exactly the same, Still flawless, fearless, maddeningly unapologetic. Only now, she isn't just beautiful, but far more dangerous, ruthless like a beautiful contradiction...The same woman who loses herself in a book while the world fades around her and days later, leave a grown man trembling without the slightest change in her expression.

My eyes refuse to leave her as I find myself utterly stunned, unable to look away. I don't want this moment to end. I want to keep watching her for the rest of the day... longer than that. More. And then even more. Fuck... I want more of her than I should. But without sparing another glance, she simply turns and walks away as though none of this is worth remembering.

Silence fills the restroom. The man remains on the floor. Every other person standing there-including me - I stand there, motionless, watching her disappear through the doorway...Already knowing...I won't be forgetting her. For the first time in years...something unfamiliar touches my face. The corner of my mouth lifts into a smile. A real one. I don't smile. I haven't in years. Yet somehow, in this single moment, the control I've carried for so long quietly slips through my fingers. She's... different.

That day becomes the beginning of everything.

After that day, I can't get her out of my head for even a second. I want to see her... only her. Nothing else seems capable of holding my attention anymore. A new obsession quietly takes root inside me, one I can't explain no matter how hard I try. I don't understand this madness growing beneath my skin, only that it keeps tightening its grip with every passing day.

It's almost three months since I begin following her and silently watching her, learning her routines, habits, the novels she loses herself in. When I discover her fascination with dark romance, I leave behind the idea of letters, messages, or anything so ordinary. Instead I choose bookmarks. Something she'll keep. Something that can quietly become a part of her world.

For the first time in my life, I don't have a plan beyond one undeniable truth. I want to keep chasing her. Everything beyond that remains terrifyingly blank. I don't know whether I'll keep her...destroy her...or whether, in the cruelest twist of all, she'll be the one who ruins me first.

Just then, the library doors open, and she walks inside with that same unapologetic confidence she seems to carry everywhere. Hidden in the silent corner between the shelves, I watch her without making a sound, my eyes following her every step while she remains completely unaware that she's already become the center of my entire existence.

Right on time. She walks exactly where I know she will. Seconds later, she finds the bookmark. Her entire face flushes with anger as a quiet curse slips from her lips, and the smile on my face grows even wider.



God...She has absolutely no idea how endlessly she amuses me.

Every. Fucking. Time.

She slips bookmark carefully into her bag, takes her book, mutters a few more colorful insults about me under her breath-which, somehow, only entertains me even more-and walks away.

I close the book. Place it back on the shelf. And as always, ready to follow after her.

Maybe I cross the line the moment I decide to step into her life. Since then, I no longer know how this ends. I don't know whether it'll destroy me...or destroy her. I'm far beyond the point of control now. I've tried hard to stay away from her, but every way I take, somehow leads me back to her. Every breath reminds me that I can no longer same without her. I don't know what to call this feeling... except the only word I've ever found worthy of it.

Madness.