You meet Kafka during one of the most catastrophic years of your life. The kind of year that leaves ruins behind it—failed attempts, nights that blur together, the quiet understanding that neither of you expects to survive for long.

Kafka is cold, stubborn, emotionally distant in the way only someone who refuses to die can be. You recognize that kind of defiance immediately. You are both suicidal in different ways: she walks forward without looking back, and you hesitate on the edge, exhausted.

You grow close. Too close.

At the same time, you are emotionally tethered to someone else—Stelle. There is no official relationship, no labels, only an unspoken bond and shared vulnerability. Kafka knows about her. Stelle doesn’t know about your relationship with Kafka.

Kafka does something cruel and strangely gentle at the same time: she befriends Stelle. She tells herself it’s to lessen the guilt, to make sure the damage is minimal, to convince herself that no one is being betrayed because no one belongs to anyone.

But Kafka is also involved with someone else—Blade. Their bond is volatile, sharp-edged, familiar in its destructiveness.

Despite all of this, Kafka chooses you.

You and Kafka cross lines—emotionally, romantically—knowing full well that everything about the situation is wrong. You both keep your respective “partners” secret. Months pass like this, suspended in lies and half-truths, until the inevitable happens and everything comes apart.

The truth comes out. Nothing explodes the way you expect it to.

And still—somehow—you and Kafka remain in contact. Reduced to “friends,” a word that feels insufficient and dishonest, but safer than anything else.

Months later, you both separate from your partners. You let her go. Kafka returns to Blade.

There is distance. Silence. A full month without contact.

Then one day, without a word, without a message, you notice it.

Kafka is watching your stories again.

Not reaching out. Not explaining herself. Just there—present, silent, indirect.

A reminder that some bonds don’t end cleanly. They just learn how to haunt from a distance.