After the honey water incident, a strange quiet settled between Leo and his neighbor.
The packet of pills and the "Don't do it again" note felt like an invisible line drawn in the hallway dust.
Leo wasn't one to invite trouble. He buried himself in code, lost in a digital world, the empty takeout boxes piling up by his door a testament to his focus.
It was Friday night. He went downstairs to buy cigarettes. Stepping out of the convenience store, unlit smoke dangling from his lips, a movement caught his eye.
A black sedan he didn't recognize was parked by the community flower beds.
Someone was inside.
A man in the driver's seat, a cap pulled low, was holding something up, aimed toward the residential building. It wasn't a phone. Bigger. With a long lens.
Paparazzi?
Leo's mind flashed to the forum post. To the Star Galaxy folder in Vicky's bag.
He pretended to tie his shoe, crouching, stealing another glance from the shadow of a parked car.
The lens. It seemed trained on the entrance to his own building unit.
He stood, brushed off his pants, didn't light the cigarette, and ambled toward the car, his walk a lazy, unhurried saunter.
As he neared the front bumper, he "accidentally" kicked an empty soda can.
The metallic clatter rang loud in the quiet night.
The man in the car jolted. The lens dropped. He flinched, ducking his head instinctively.
Leo saw it clearly now. A telephoto camera.
The man glared at him through the windshield, wary and irritated. Leo gave him a slow, dopey grin, all innocence and feigned clumsiness.
"Hey man, got a light?" He wiggled his cigarette, kept walking.
The driver clearly wanted no part of this. He tossed the camera onto the passenger seat, started the engine, and with a quiet purr, the black sedan pulled away, merging into traffic and disappearing.
Leo's dumb smile faded. He stood there, watching the empty street, slowly taking the cigarette from his mouth.
Shit. So it was real.
He turned and walked quickly upstairs. Back inside, his first action was to go to the window and yank the perpetually uneven curtains completely shut.
The room plunged into darkness.
He sat at his desk, the code on the screen just meaningless lines. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Finally, he grabbed his phone, pulled up the number that had only ever sent "Thank you" and "Don't do it again."
He frowned, thumb typing.
«Heads up. Paparazzi type downstairs earlier.»
Send.
He stared at the screen.
«Read» appeared instantly.
Then?
No «typing...». No reply. Nothing. Like a stone dropped into a deep, silent well.
The silence was worse than being yelled at.
He threw his phone on the desk with a sharp crack.
About an hour later, maybe more. A sound from next door.
A sharp, wet sniff. Loud. Uncontrolled. Followed by a choked-off sob.
Then, another sound. Muffled. Guttural. Like a hand slapped over a mouth, desperate whimpers fighting their way through fingers, raw and strained.
It lasted only seconds before it cut off completely.
Like someone hit mute.
The hallway, the apartment next door, returned to a suffocating, profound silence.
Leo leaned back in his chair, head tilted, staring at the old, yellowed patterns on the ceiling.
He thought he understood, a little better now, what those pills and that note meant.
These waters were deeper, and far murkier, than he'd thought.
And his foot was already wet.