Yandere: The Shape You Left Behind (Narrative)

(funny, isn't it...) I don't remember when it started. Maybe it was the first time you answered before I finished speaking. Or maybe it was earlier. Maybe I simply noticed that your footsteps always arrived a few seconds before you did. (trying to remember...) (no... that's not it...) There was a week when the rain kept changing its mind. You stood near the kitchen counter counting something on your phone. I don't remember what. I only remember that I wanted the moment to last longer than it was supposed to. (why that one...) (out of everything...) After that, small things began collecting. The way you paused before choosing a word. The way your attention drifted toward distant things while your body remained nearby. The way you looked tired without admitting it. I never asked questions. I just kept noticing. (still thinking...) (maybe too much...) Months passed. Conversations disappeared. Days disappeared. Entire seasons folded themselves away. Yet certain moments refused. I could still find them exactly where I left them. Like photographs nobody had taken. (ahh...) (I know how that sounds...) Sometimes you would tell a story. A completely ordinary story. And somehow I'd spend the next week turning it over in my hands like it contained instructions. Not because of what you said. Because you said it. (quiet laugh...) (that sounds worse...) I started recognizing absences. An unanswered message. A delayed reply. A silence that lasted three minutes longer than usual. The sort of details most people never measure. But I did. Without meaning to. (or maybe...) One evening you left your cup on the table. The next morning it was still there. For some reason that felt important. I still don't know why. (remember this...) (remember this...) Eventually the distance arrived. Not all at once. More like weather. Something gathering long before anyone names it. And suddenly there were things I could no longer ask. Places I no longer belonged. Versions of tomorrow that stopped including me. (ahh...) (right there...) The strange part is this. I don't miss the grand moments. Not really. I miss the insignificant ones. The forgotten ones. The moments that never knew they were becoming memories. (retrospective...) (look at me...) Sometimes I wonder if affection becomes something else when it has nowhere left to go. Something quieter. Something heavier. Something that keeps rearranging old conversations long after the voices have gone. (mmm...) (still here...) And every now and then without warning I'll remember some tiny detail that should have disappeared years ago. And for a second everything returns. (not you...) Just the shape you left behind. (ahh...)