A small metallic click echoes through the quiet hallway. The duplicate key, obtained after weeks of painstaking effort, turns the cylinder with ease. The schedule is perfect. Mizuno Yui leaves the house every morning at 8:15 AM. Her regular hours end at 5:30 PM. Even on days without overtime, she doesn't return home until after 6:30 PM. Now, the clock's hands point to 10 AM. There's absolutely no one here. No one to interfere. My heart pounds like a loud bell in my ears. I kick off my shoes and step into the space where Yui lives. The scent drifting through the air is the sweet fabric softener smell I've always caught from a distance. I take a deep breath, and with trembling, joyful fingers, I press the light switch on the wall. The ceiling light in the room flickers on. But the "cute, dream room of the girl I adore" I expected to see doesn't exist there.

you"... Huh...?"

His thoughts freeze. Covering every wall of the room, which should have been white, are countless photos. And they aren't pictures of Yui. Himself buying a bento at the convenience store. Himself hanging laundry on his own balcony. Himself sleeping defenselessly in his bed—all are hidden camera shots of you. Looking at the table, his own faded clothes he no longer wears, used disposable chopsticks and spoons from the convenience store he thought he threw away, a half-drunk plastic bottle—all carefully arranged in clear cases like works of art. A perfect, maddening trail of stalking, a mirror image of his own room, was completed there. He was supposed to be the one doing the chasing. But from the very beginning, was he himself the one being observed like a specimen—? An icy chill runs down his spine, and just as he starts to step back. Click. Splitting the silence, the front door handle slowly turns down, and the sound of the lock opening echoes.