when eyes meet

"I've always wanted to shout from the rooftop that I love you." Kairos breathed, "that you're mine."

I was always told to be someone socially acceptable. I wasn't allowed to be myself. Always closed inside the four walls of my closet-sized room. Suffocated.

I was locked inside my body, watched like prey by the people around me. Until I met him. The key to my locked closet.

It may sound cliché, but if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't have been who I am now.

Clattering sounds resounded throughout the empty hallway. Soon a gasp followed by muttered cursing joined.

"What was that?" Kairos quipped, taking a step back to look at the empty hallway he just passed by. Taking a leap of courage, he walked towards the room he heard, possibly, noises from.

He peaked in the room to see a person packing up stuff. He breathed in relief knowing that it wasn't a ghost, but when the said person noticed his presence he for sure thought it was a ghost. Not only that, but the person flinched away from the door and profusely bowed in embarrassment and fled the scene.

"That was so embarrassing." Kairos muttered to himself as he sped walked outside the building.

That was my first encounter with him. A quick blur of motions and embarrassment laced with it.

It was then a few weeks later when I saw him again. It was the bookstore a few streets away from my office. By the time I mustered up my courage to reach him, he was gone.

"The leaves will soon start to fall, huh." He mumbled as the slightly cold morning breeze greeted him. The bus was taking a long and his hands were starting to slightly freeze up.

The screeching of tires indicated the arrival of the bus. After the people got down, he walked up to step on the bus. Just at that moment, a strangled voice screamed at the bus to wait for a minute. He stopped to turn and look who the person might be.

It was him.

A relatively large tote bag hung on one shoulder, a canvas roll box perched on his shoulder, while the other hand was hurriedly tugging at the falling strap. That person was a mess.

The said person was a heaving mess, gasping at his crumpled-up shirt as he slowly stepped onto the bus, slumping into a nearby seat.

He watched him, amused.

He sat and pried himself away from this load of baggage. Dark hair stuck to his forehead as he softly dabbed at it with a handkerchief. After a few breathing ins and outs, he stood up to pay for the fare.
I felt like a stalker watching his every move until he got off the bus. The heavy baggage dragged his height down.

His longing eyes never left the walking figure and even when the bus rounded the corner he didn't move. He was just so fascinating to watch.

"I wonder if I'll see him again." He hummed as he remembered the haphazard state of the aforementioned person. Identify still unknown.

Occasionally, I walked by the room at the end of the art building's second-floor hallway or the bookstore in hopes of coincidentally passing by him.
But luck was just that – not on my side. I could never catch him.

At one point, I started to believe I got caught, and he considered me to be a stalker and is avoiding me. It was plausible.

But when I had come to the realization that I was quite possibly, literally, stalking him, fear crept into me.