yongheartz
Felix didn't notice Chan at first.
Not in the way stories usually begin no dramatic meeting, no instant spark. Just a quiet regular customer at the café where Felix worked part-time. Always the same order. Always sitting in the same corner. Always watching, but never in a way that felt uncomfortable just consistent.
Then one day, Chan started coming back even when he wasn't buying anything.
He'd sit down with an empty table, open his laptop, and stay for hours like he belonged there. Felix eventually broke the pattern.
"You don't have to sit here if you're not ordering anything," he said one evening, trying to sound polite.
Chan looked up like he'd been waiting for that exact sentence.
"I know," he replied. "I just like being where you are."
That should've been the end of it. But it wasn't.
After that, Chan started showing up everywhere Felix went not in a chasing way, not aggressive, just always there. The bus stop Felix used after closing shift. The convenience store he stopped at late at night. Even the quiet library corner Felix thought no one else knew about.
Every time, Chan acted like it was normal.
Like Felix was the one slowly catching up.
"You're following me," Felix finally said one night outside the café.
Chan didn't deny it.
"I prefer 'coincidences,'" he answered lightly.
"That's not normal."
Chan tilted his head. "Neither is how often you look for me in a room before you realize I'm already there."
That made Felix pause. Because he had started doing that.
Looking.
Expecting.
Finding him.
What began as annoyance slowly turned into something harder to define curiosity, then awareness, then a strange comfort Felix didn't want to admit he was starting to rely on.
Chan never pushed. Never demanded. Never confessed anything too loudly.
He just stayed close enough. And the worst part?
Felix didn't know when it stopped feeling like being watched...
...and started feeling like being understood.