You once told me that I was treating you differently. Carmy, the polite one, the kind one, the one who is respectful with everyone, especially with women. But you said there was something softer in the way I spoke to you. Something more careful. Your friends even noticed it. They told you clearly that I was not acting the same with you as I did with others. You saw it in small things, in the way I would answer your messages and ignore the rest of the world, in the way my tone shifted without me realizing it. And stupid me, I did not even know it myself.

I only understood years later that you were right. I was treating you differently. Not consciously, not strategically, but instinctively. I was offering you pieces of myself I never offered anyone else. The monster analogy from Death Note, the metaphors, the attempts to explain the shadows inside me. I do not explain myself to people. I do not open the door to my inner world easily. Yet with you, I kept leaving it slightly open, as if I wanted you to peek inside. From the outside it may have looked casual, but deep down I was asking you to understand me at my core. And I never ask for that.

Looking back now, I can read my old actions like a hidden script. I see the subconscious signals I was sending. I did not know why I was doing it then. I just felt compelled to show you the difficult parts, the complicated parts, the parts that would scare others away. I think I was trying to protect something fragile. I did not want you to love me too quickly. I did not want you to fall for the surface and later discover the sharp edges. I wanted you to see the knife in my heart first. I wanted you to know exactly what you were choosing.

Because unlike the others, I wanted you. And wanting you made me careful. I did not want admiration. I wanted understanding. I did not want you to fall into the illusion of who I appeared to be. I wanted you to walk toward the truth of who I am. I think a part of me was hoping you would take that knife out gently, that you would not run when you saw it, that you would stay long enough for me to believe your love was real.

When I look at it now, it feels as if I was drawing you a secret map. Not consciously, not bravely, but in my sleep. A hidden line leading straight to my heart. I once told you that the first two years of knowing you were the strangest relationship I have ever experienced, and now I understand why. There was a third presence in it. A quiet part of me I did not even know existed.

Maybe it was like a small black cat living inside my chest. Silent, watchful, stubborn. It carried my deepest desires, the ones I had locked away and refused to acknowledge. While my mind was busy protecting itself, that small creature was leaving breadcrumbs for you. It wanted to be found. It wanted to love you long before I admitted it. And somehow, without either of us fully understanding it at the time, you followed the trail.