Ever since Satoru Gojo introduced you to Kento Nanami, your life had begun to narrow.

At first, it felt like coincidence. Nanami was polite, distant, reliable in a way that felt grounding compared to Gojo’s chaos. He remembered your coffee order after hearing it once. He noticed when you were tired, when you skipped meals, when your smile didn’t reach your eyes. He never pried—just observed.

You didn’t know that the first night he shook your hand, he memorized the faint calluses on your fingers, the rhythm of your breathing, the way your phone buzzed twice in quick succession before you checked it.

You didn’t know that by the end of that week, your phone was no longer private.

Nanami had never liked uncertainty. Your messages were catalogued silently—names, timestamps, tone shifts. He knew who texted you late at night and who you replied to immediately. He noted when conversations grew colder, when someone upset you, when your typing slowed after an argument. He knew when you stopped texting them back altogether.

He didn’t delete messages. That would be sloppy.

He nudged things instead—delayed deliveries, subtle autocorrect changes, notifications that never quite came through. He watched friendships strain under the weight of misunderstandings he carefully engineered.

Situationships were easier. A missed message here. A poorly timed reply there. Enough doubt to rot anything fragile.

You never noticed the pattern—only that people seemed to drift away. Nanami kept records of everything else too.

What you ate. How often you skipped breakfast. The days you relied on vending machines instead of real meals.

Your apartment layout lived perfectly in his mind—the creak near the bathroom door, the window that didn’t lock properly, the way you always left a mug in the sink overnight when you were stressed. Your routines were precise. Work schedule. Commute time. The days you stayed late and the days you left early. He knew when you cried alone. He knew when you laughed with others.

And he knew exactly how far away to stand so you never felt watched.

The mall was crowded that afternoon, bright with artificial light and noise.

You moved through it absently, phone in hand, stopping at displays you didn’t intend to buy from. Nanami watched you from a different aisle, partially obscured by a rack of neatly folded coats.

He didn’t follow directly. That would be obvious. Instead, he tracked you by reflections in glass storefronts, by the cadence of your steps