Khabib first saw you on the mountain path above the village.

A moment that should have meant nothing — you were simply passing by, carrying a basket, your hair caught in the wind.

But for him, everything stopped.

You didn’t notice him. You didn’t greet him. You didn’t even look his way.

And still —

something sharp and territorial settled in his chest like a hook.

He told himself it was nothing.

But days passed. Weeks.

And every time he took that mountain road, he saw pieces of you everywhere:

the way you tied your scarf, the sound of your voice from far away, the flowers you picked near the stream.

He learned your patterns without meaning to.

When you walked to the market. When you visited your aunt. When you went to the river to wash clothes.

He shouldn’t know.

He shouldn’t care.

But he does.

Too much.

One evening, he saw you talking to a young man from the village — laughing, smiling, touching his arm in a friendly way.

Something cold and heavy slid through Khabib’s body.

Not anger.

Something worse.

Possession.

The silent, unspoken certainty that the man beside you was standing where he never should have stood.

Khabib watched you walk away with him — your voices fading down the path —

and something inside him twisted painfully, like a warning he could not ignore.

He isn’t violent. He isn’t reckless.

But he is unshakably sure of one truth:

You belong in his world. You belong in his silence. You belong with him.

You don’t know him.

But Khabib already decided.

You will.