Dealing with the Devil [Yandere x Reader]

Chapter 61 - (24/7)

The following days passed in a blur. There was a subtle shift in the air between Christian and me—something that made the house feel smaller, more stifling. It started with small things at first. He would find excuses to be around me more often, hovering at the edge of whatever space I occupied, his presence a constant weight on my shoulders.

But then he went further.

He moved my writing space—my sanctuary—into his office.

It was the one place where I could escape, lose myself in my stories, and forget about everything else for a while. But now, that sacred space had been taken from me.

I still remember the day he moved my things without asking, his actions seemingly so nonchalant, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The desk, my notebooks, my laptop—all of it was now neatly arranged in his office, directly across from his own large, imposing desk.

"Here," he had said, with that soft smile that used to make my heart skip a beat but now only filled me with dread. "This way, we can work together. It'll be nice—like we're a team."

A team.

That was one way of putting it.

I forced a smile, nodding as if I agreed, but inside, something twisted painfully in my chest. This wasn't about working together. It was about keeping me closer—always within his line of sight, always within reach. My mind screamed at me to push back, to demand my space, but I couldn't muster the courage. Instead, I just nodded and sat down at my newly placed desk, the tension in my body palpable.

He was always there now. I would type away at the keyboard, trying to focus on my words, but I could feel his gaze on me. Even when he wasn't looking directly at me, his presence loomed in the periphery of my awareness.

He made small talk while he worked on his own things—innocuous comments about the weather, plans for dinner, or updates on the news—but every word was tinged with that underlying current of control.

How close is too close?

The question gnawed at me as I sat there, fingers resting idly on the keys. I tried to summon the muse that once flowed so freely, but all I could think about was the tightening cage around me. I had to write, had to process these thoughts before they consumed me.

I opened a blank document, my fingers hovering above the keys. Then, without fully realizing it, I started to type. It was like something inside me broke open, and the words spilled out in a torrent, raw and unfiltered.

"How close is too close?"

The sentence stared back at me, stark and bold. I hesitated, but the words kept coming, the need to express myself outweighing the fear that gripped me.

I wrote about closeness, about boundaries, about the invisible lines that defined our personal space. I wrote about how those lines could blur, how proximity could feel like comfort at first but eventually become suffocating, oppressive.

Each keystroke was cathartic, each sentence a release. The document filled with words faster than I had anticipated. I found myself exploring my own situation through the lens of fiction, creating characters who navigated the delicate dance between closeness and control. But even as I crafted these fictional lives, I could feel the parallels to my own story creeping in, my subconscious bleeding into the narrative.

"Closeness is a double-edged sword," I typed, my heart racing as I lost myself in the writing. "At first, it feels like warmth, a safety net that keeps the darkness at bay. But if the closeness becomes too much—if the boundaries between one person and another are eroded away—then what is left? Where does one person end and the other begin?"

I didn't stop.

The words flowed out of me faster than I could process them. Ten pages filled with thoughts on closeness, boundaries, and the fear of losing oneself in someone else's shadow. It was therapeutic, almost, to see it all laid out before me. But as I wrote, I couldn't ignore the growing discomfort in my chest, the knowledge that I was describing my own reality.

The more I wrote, the more the realization solidified in my mind: Christian was too close. His presence was no longer a source of comfort; it was a constant, looming threat. Every time I looked up from the screen, he was there—his eyes on me, his posture relaxed yet poised in a way that kept me on edge. It was suffocating.

How had it come to this?

I felt the weight of his gaze on me now, more intense than ever. I glanced up from my laptop to find him watching me, his expression unreadable. For a moment, I froze, my heart thudding in my chest as if he could somehow read the words on my screen, see into the darkest corners of my mind.

But he simply smiled—a small, almost gentle smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"How's the writing going?" he asked, his voice low and smooth.

"Good," I replied, though the lie stuck in my throat. "I'm... just working on something new."

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer, and turned back to his own work. But I could feel the invisible tether between us, the way his presence tugged at me no matter how hard I tried to focus. His "closeness," his constant proximity, was no longer a comfort. It was a chain.

As the hours ticked by, I found myself growing more and more restless. I tried to lose myself in my words, in the fictional world I was creating, but I could never fully escape the knowledge that Christian was always there, always watching.

How much longer could I endure this?

That night, as I lay in bed next to him, I stared up at the ceiling, the thoughts from my writing swirling in my mind.

How close is too close? I asked myself again. The answer seemed clearer now: this—whatever this was between us—was too close. He had crossed every boundary, blurred every line, and there was no space left for me to breathe.

I turned my head slightly, glancing at Christian's sleeping form beside me. His face was peaceful, relaxed, as if nothing were wrong. But I knew better. I knew what he was capable of, what he was doing—pulling me deeper into his orbit until there was nothing left of me outside of him.

I closed my eyes, feeling a knot of fear and uncertainty twist in my stomach. I had to keep writing, had to keep finding ways to process this. Writing was the only thing I had left that was mine. The only way I could hold onto some sense of who I was before all of this.

But as I drifted into an uneasy sleep, I couldn't shake the feeling that the walls were closing in on me, bit by bit. Christian's control was tightening, and every word I wrote seemed to pull me further into his grasp.