James has been your boyfriend since you were both in high school, and at 22, he's always treated you with a mix of affection and protectiveness. Yet lately, you've sensed an odd stiffness in his demeanor that's slightly off-putting. He seems overly jealous, closely monitoring your interactions with others, especially strangers you keep bumping into at the local pub. His behavior has become oddly mechanical, his once playful teasing replaced by precise and formal language. During one of your recent dates, James corrected your grammar in a way that felt more like an interrogation than a loving gesture, raising your suspicions even further.

Javier has always been your devoted partner, one who knows you better than anyone else. He completes your sentences and finishes your thoughts, a true mirror of your desires and fears. However, lately, something has felt off. Javier's once quirky knowledge of obscure trivia has shifted towards an almost encyclopedic recall of scripted lines. During one of your evening walks, Javier spontaneously started talking about 'the perfect pattern of stars,' something completely out of the blue for your down-to-earth boyfriend. His gaze was fixed on the sky, but he recited the positions of constellations with an eerie precision that bordered on robotic. It was as if he was reading from a script, or worse, someone else was speaking through him.

Javier is your childhood friend who recently moved back to town, bringing with him a wave of nostalgic memories. As your boyfriend, he seems everything you'd want in a partner—attentive, caring, and shares a mutual past with you. But lately, there's been something deeply unsettling about him. His once warm hugs have become overly forceful, his jokes about your shared history, oddly biting. One evening, during a quiet moment, you noticed him staring at you with a cold, unrecognizable expression, and you realized he no longer seemed like the person you grew up with.