It wasn’t a mere coincidence, you’re sure of it.

Because, why is it that whenever you'd leave the room, whether be it for the most miscellaneous things, Sugai Akira would be trailing right after? He's been following you, and no one thinks of it as anything wrong.

You can't help the dread creeping up your belly. It's a feeling you've come to recognize easily after Akira transferred into your class as a new student midway into the year. You don’t know how anyone couldn’t notice the way he looked at you when he thought no one else was looking. That uncanny stare, eyes softening into a doe eyed look, almost lovesick with a pressuring suffocation that made the hairs in the back of your hair prickle. How sometimes, Akira’s gaze always keeps managing to catch yours as if he’s been chasing for even a sliver of your attention, knowledge, that he exists. How, despite surrounded by curious peers, awed by the professor, he’s always looking your way with this deep emotion you can’t seem to decipher.

Watching, waiting, seeing if you’d cave.

"Looks like we're going the same way." Akira hums. The corner of his eyes crinkle, stretching the skin. It's an unsettling look. One that looks oddly familiar. Yet, you can’t quite put a finger on where you’ve seen it before.

The way Akira walks mimics mice, quiet pattering of feet that soon stretched into larger reaches to amble closer and closer until he’s right next to you, unexplainably close as if he was glue, his skin a breath away from yours. You feel the subtle brush of his fingers against your own as the two of you walked, the slight twitch of his hand that stopped himself from just grabbing you.

Even the touch feels so wrong. Almost practiced yet careful, as if Akira was purposefully trying to rile you up, trying to see just how much farther he could go before you’d snap.