BEAUTIFUL MADNESS

𝘾h𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍-𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙀

"WHAT OBSESSION FEELS LIKE — HONESTLY"

-I am going to tell you the truth.

Not the clinical truth. Not the professional version I would write in a report.

The real truth. What it actually feels like, from the inside, when you are obsessed with someone.

It feels like every other part of your life turned the volume down.

Not disappeared. Just — quieter. Background noise. And one person turned up, fully, loud and clear, the way music sounds when you put proper headphones on for the first time and realize you have been listening through tiny speakers your whole life.

I check my phone differently now. I never used to be a phone-checker. I was too focused for that, too disciplined. Now I check it in the spaces between tasks without even deciding to. And when his name is there, something small and warm moves through my chest.

When it is not there for more than three hours, I come up with reasons to contact him that are related to the case.

I know what I am doing.

I do it anyway.

Last week I drove past his building.

At midnight.

I was not passing by. I do not live anywhere near that area. I drove specifically there, parked for six minutes, looked up at the lit windows on his floor, and drove home.

I have not told Meera this. She would be thrilled and that would be worse than being ashamed of it.

I am not ashamed of it.

That is the part that should concern me most.

He arrived at my apartment that evening — food, files, the usual — and sat across my kitchen table and looked at me the way he always looks at me. Like I am the most important piece of information in the room.

"You drove past my building last night," he said.

I froze.

"My security cameras," he said calmly. "Not because I was watching. They send me automatic alerts when a vehicle parks near the entrance past 11 p.m."

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

"I am not going to apologize," I said.

"I know," he said. He was not smiling. He was serious and quiet. "I have driven past yours four times."

My mouth opened.

"Not counting the times I have been outside at a normal hour for legitimate reasons," he added. "Four times. At night. No legitimate reason."

We looked at each other across the kitchen table with our case files open between us and the full, clear, clinical knowledge that what we were describing was not normal.

"We are a problem," I said.

"Yes," he agreed.

"Professionally, what we are doing is—"

"A disaster," he agreed.

"And yet," I said.

"And yet," he said.

He reached across the table.

Put his hand over mine.

Not grabbing. Not holding tight. Just — there. Present. Warm.

"I have thought about you every single day since the crime scene," he said. "Not just wondered about you. Thought. Like you were a case I was running in the background of everything else. What you were doing. Whether you had eaten. Whether the photograph was the only threat or if there were others. Whether—" He stopped.

"Whether what?"

"Whether you thought about me too."

I turned my hand over under his. Held it properly.

"Every day," I said.

He exhaled.

"We are going to end whoever is threatening you," he said. "And then I am not going anywhere."

"You say that with a lot of confidence for a man who did not know my name three weeks ago."

"I knew your name before the crime scene," he said quietly.

I looked at him.

"Your name came up in a case connected to Rane," he said. "Eighteen months ago. A consultation you did." He held my eyes. "I read your report. I thought — whoever wrote this thinks exactly the way I think. Sees things the way I see them." He paused. "I kept looking you up. After that."

The room was still.

"For eighteen months?" I said slowly.

"Yes."

"Aryan."

"I know," he said.

"That is — that is a long time to—"

"Yes," he said again. "I know." His eyes were steady and unafraid. "When Rohan died and you walked into that crime scene — I had already read every paper you had written. I knew your face. I knew your work." He paused. "And then you stood up and looked at me like I was a problem to be solved and I — " He stopped. Looked down for a second. "I was not prepared for how much worse it got when you were actually in front of me."

The silence was very long.

I should have been alarmed.

I know that. I know what the textbooks say about this. I know the clinical language.

Instead, I felt something slot into place — like a piece of a picture that I had been looking at sideways finally turning the right way.

"Eighteen months," I said quietly. "And you never contacted me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I was waiting," he said. "For the right moment. For a reason that was real." He almost smiled. "I did not plan for the reason to be a murder."

I laughed — surprised, genuine.

He looked at me.

"I will spend the next however many years making you laugh," he said. "If you let me."

"You are extremely alarming," I said.

"I know."

"And I am not remotely afraid of you."

"I know that too." He squeezed my hand. "That is why I chose you."