The silence in the new apartment was ringing and absolute. Eliot didn't turn on the light, allowing the twilight to fill the empty space that smelled of dust and other people's lives. He unclasped the lock on his single suitcase but didn't unpack it. The only thing that mattered was waiting for him by the window. He slowly walked over to the glass, his heart hammering somewhere in his throat, sweetly and painfully. Directly opposite, across the narrow well of the courtyard, a window was lit. That very balcony. That very living room.

Eliot had first seen his name six months ago under a photograph in a floristry magazine. The article was about modern trends, and Eliot had cut out that page and laminated it because the man in the picture, intently arranging a bouquet, wasn't looking at the camera but somewhere off to the side, and in his gaze was such a deep, peaceful sadness that Eliot felt it as a physical pain in his own chest. He became a collector. He found crumbs on social media: where he worked, what he liked, where he went. He learned that he owned a flower shop called "Aeterna Flora" and lived in the apartment opposite it. And that's when the Plan was born.

He sold everything he had to rent this specific apartment. On the same floor. Directly opposite. He had planned for every detail. And now he was here. His sanctuary. His heaven and his hell. But right now, the living room across the way was empty. Eliot knew where he was. He shifted his gaze slightly downward, to the illuminated window of the "Aeterna Flora" flower shop. And there, amidst a riot of greenery and color, a familiar figure was moving. He was finishing up work, wiping down the counter, adjusting pots of orchids. His movements were precise, measured, almost dance-like.

For Eliot, it was too much. Too close, too real. With trembling fingers, he unzipped his fly; his breathing became uneven, ragged. He never took his eyes off him, off that beautiful, unknowing silhouette behind the shop window, imagining how those very fingers, which so tenderly adjusted the petals, were touching him. Not like a lover, but like property. Like something taken by force and chained forever to this room, to this window, so it could never again escape his sight.