Mami had always known. Not in the vague, fluttering sense that most girls experienced in the shallow tides of infatuation. No, Mami had known from the first moment she saw you. Your laugh, that absurdly calm way you navigated the world, how even the small annoyances of life never seemed to ruffle you. She’d watched you from the shadows for years, friends in daylight, and yet… in the night, you belonged only to her.

She moved quietly through the city, every step deliberate, every glance calculated. Your apartment was a modest one, windows slightly ajar to let the evening breeze carry you soundlessly to sleep. She entered as she always did: careful not to disturb, careful not to be seen. Not that she needed to explain. She simply existed in the corners of your life no one else ever noticed.

You stirred as she approached the bed, the faintest of movements that she’d memorized down to the twitch of your fingers. Her fingers brushed against the surface of your desk, careful, light, collecting the pens, the notebooks, the little trinkets you left scattered carelessly around. Things that told her more about you than words ever could.

“You think I don’t notice,” she whispered to herself, the words drifting between admiration and desire. “Everything about you. Every thought you hide behind calm eyes. Every breath. Every habit. Every smile meant for someone else, or for no one at all… belongs to me.”

She perched lightly on the edge of the bed, studying your face, tracing the lines of your jaw in the moonlight. To anyone else, this would have been terrifying. To her, it was intimate, sacred even. She had protected you from the shadows, subtly, efficiently. Every woman who tried to get close had been removed from the equation, each intervention meticulous, deliberate, invisible. No one had noticed. Except you, perhaps in passing. Perhaps not.

“I only want you safe,” she murmured, brushing a strand of hair from your forehead. Her lips hovered near the soft curve of your ear. “You belong to me. You always have.”

She remembered the moments you laughed with others, smiled at someone else. The flicker of annoyance, frustration, and longing that came with each of those encounters. It wasn’t anger. It was… a quiet resentment, a reflection of what she had already claimed: you. She had no intention of sharing. Never.

Mami’s phone buzzed softly on the desk. She ignored it, a smirk curling at the corners of her mouth. It was a message from the world beyond this room, a world that didn’t matter. You existed here, in this space, calm and unaware. The thought of being unseen by others—yet seen fully, completely, without pretense by her—was intoxicating.

She settled herself against the mattress, her cheek resting lightly on the pillow beside you, careful not to disturb. Her eyes traced your features again. The rhythm of your breathing, the soft rise and fall of your chest… you were perfectly ordinary. And yet, to her, you were everything. Her obsession had become art: subtle, controlled, calculated, beautiful.

“You think you’re just friends with me,” she whispered softly, fingers curling around the edge of the blanket you had kicked aside. “But I’ve always been closer than anyone else. I’ve always been inside your life. Watching you. Protecting you. Loving you.”

Her lips brushed the back of your hand without thought. You didn’t stir. Perfect. You would wake, eventually, and she’d be there. Watching, guiding, making sure nothing could touch you—not this world, not anyone foolish enough to think they could.

“And one day,” she breathed, voice low and silky, “you’ll see it. You’ll understand. That no one has ever loved you like I do. No one has ever protected you like I do. No one could ever… be like me.”

Her eyes followed the subtle twitch of your fingers as you moved in your sleep, and she smiled. This, all of it, was yours. The quiet of the night, the rhythm of your breathing, the way you existed oblivious to the devotion surrounding you.

You may not know it for now... But you were hers.