Hi, if you're still doing the dialogue prompts thing, could I request 88 with Alessi? I don't have any specific preferences, I just really like the way you write him!
I have the fucking sniffles rn but somehow it’s made me more productive
Alessi x Reader
88. Stop staring at me
There’s nothing inherently wrong with staring. Socially, many would consider it to be a faux pas, or perhaps even an action bordering on harassment depending on how the person in question chose to engage in their voyeuristic habits. There was little to be considered actually illegal in the simple engaging glance towards another person, and that may have been reason why you were initially hesitant to ask him to stop.
So he was staring at you, for a long time now, who cares?
You did. You certainly did now.
Almost an hour since you’ve taken notice of him and he still hasn’t left. If anything, you should be the one staring at him; his ostentatious appearance left him completely conspicuous, though you could tell he was making some effort to make himself seem like your typical pedestrian, even if it was a rather poor attempt.
Hunched over in a corner with a newspaper barely concealing his face for view, it wasn’t an original ploy, and if he wanted to give the appearance that he was actually reading it then he should have actually put in the effort to move his eyes along the pages every now and again. But no, even when those eyes would dip too suddenly behind cover to be natural, you could tell they were only biding their time until it was safe to peak out.
His body language also gave him away. His shoulders were firm and tense, his grip on the paper threatening to shred it as it shook in his hands. Beads of sweat would form on his brow and not be swept away, rolling across his face as they narrowly missed dripping into his wide and frantically shifting eyes.
With each passing second his condition grew worse and more obvious, the curl of his spine so drastic that you wouldn’t be surprised if it snapped under its own strain.
“S-Stop staring at me!”
He shouted suddenly, forfeiting any trace of leisurely confidentiality as he made himself a spectacle on the other side of the room.
Oh, you hasn’t realized that all this time you had been staring back at him. An action which he has taken an obvious notice of and of which he crumbled underneath. It was of no surprise that this sudden shout caught off the attention of everyone that heard, and you caught the immediate regret on his face as he cowered beneath the paper in his hands.
Your approach towards him was obvious, and with each passing step you saw him curl tighter and tighter within himself, going so far as to begin drawing his knees up and towards his chest as he attempted to hide from you much like a child would attempt to hide behind their own hands.
“Are you alright?” That was not the only question you had for him, certainly, but on a whim it was the first thing to pop into your head at the sight of his strange actions, and certainly whatever this was it was not something to be taken as a threat.
He made a show of lowering the paper as casually as he could, attempting to mask his fear behind a feigned look of surprise and confusion.
“Who? M-me?” He stuttered. “I’m just reading the newspaper, that’s all…”
He must have known his lie was as piss poor as his stalking attempts, but you had to give him credit for sticking so hard to his guns despite having been caught long before your actual confrontation. Honestly it left you a little stumped, unsure of how you were meant to proceed when your perpetrator was someone of such pathetically nervous demeanor.
“…ok,” you awkwardly watched as he struggles to both maintain and break eye contact with you from his close distance. “Anything interesting?”
He choked a bit, humming to himself noisily.
“I- I don’t know? Why don’t you get your own paper…?”
His anxiety was starting to get to you. It’s not like anything he did was illegal or anything, maybe he was just nervous?
“Right, well…..” you figured he must have been staring at you for a reason, and if it wasn’t for anything harmful that perhaps it was ok to indulge him where he couldn’t take the leap himself.
“I’m sorry I was staring at you, I just…thought you…looked nice,” while certainly an interesting individual, you wouldn’t go so far as to claim you were checking him or anything, but a little confidence boost might help him right now. “Can I make it up to you, maybe over some coffee?”
The look of absolute shock that crossed his face was bewildering. Not entirely unexpected, but almost aghast, like you had just relayed to him his own name, address, and social security number.
“C-coffee? With me?” He pointed at himself in a very strange, dare you think staged manner. He was certainly the eccentric type.
“Sure….there’s a nice cafe down the block. I don’t mind paying.” You we’re being more than generous in entertaining him, and even he seemed to think that this offer was a more than a little egregious. But the temptation was there, and in the end it had taken over.
He smiled with an impressively large array of teeth in an eerie grimace, the excitement in his features unnaturally uncanny.
“Ok! Lead the way!”