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cover of episode TRAIN Obsessed Killer?! Just a fetish or more?

TRAIN Obsessed Killer?! Just a fetish or more?

2024/3/26
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- Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's Murder, Mystery and Makeup Monday. If you're new here, hi, my name's Bailey. And on Mondays I sit down, I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my

Noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would say subscribe. So today's story really caught my eye because it's something I've never heard of. And if I don't understand something, of course I go right to it. So let me grab my little post-it here 'cause I wrote it down. Today's story includes something called symphorophilia. Have you heard of this? I never heard of it. I'll give you a definition. Well, first of all, it's a noun. Definition?

Symphorophilia, sexual interest and arousal derived from stage managing the occurrence of a disaster and then watching it. AKA somebody who gets off on creating a disaster and they like watch it and then they jizz.

And that's today's story. Swear. Oh man. Today's story is something I definitely haven't heard of before. And so here I am sharing it with you. It is an older story. So sometimes with older stories, it's like there isn't a lot of information. So I found what I could. You know what I'm saying? So you guys know, like, I do talk about serial killers a lot. You know, serial killers. Great. But then it got me thinking, you know, well, what about mass murderers? You know, those ones who are...

more about quantity versus quality. I mean, it's something else and they're out there. So today we're gonna go on a journey with a man named Sylvester Matuska. Who? Yeah, Matuska. So Sylvester, he was born in 1892. I know, it's like, what was that like? But he was born in like little Serbian village of Santa Ver. And honestly, there really wasn't much to be said about his childhood. So, I mean,

Let's imagine it's perfect and he grew up to be happy. So look, he grew up just in a tiny town and that's really all we know. What I do know is that Eastern Europe at the time was a bit of a mess at the time that Sylvester would have been growing up. What I mean is the village itself

Sylvester was born in, was ethnically Hungarian, but was a part of Serbia and would end up becoming part of Yugoslavia in 1918, which Yugoslavia isn't even a country anymore. So as you can imagine, just from that one little sentence right there, it's like, oh, there were just a bunch of invasions, war and political instability going on. So it was a lot. It was a lot.

There's a lot. The only mention of any point in Sylvester's childhood or like his preteen years or whatever was something that happened to him at a carnival. I know what you're thinking. Who touched him? No, no one was touched. Thank God. Well, he was touched in other ways, like not his body, but his mind.

Sylvester said while he was at the carnival, he was hypnotized. What? Okay. You know? Okay. As we can probably imagine, I mean, he's at a carnival. There's usually some kind of performer, you know, and the hypnosis was just supposed to be entertainment. But I guess whoever did this put him under hypnosis. Must have been pretty good at it because Sylvester said that this hypnotism

messed him up permanently. I know, I was like, okay, okay. So Sylvester told people that while he was under hypnosis, he was in some kind of world or something, but he met a spirit and the spirit's name was Leo. And Leo would end up living in Sylvester's head for the rest of his life. Okay. You know? Okay. I'm listening. Yeah.

Sylvester would say like from that point on he was now haunted by the spirit Leo and you know Sylvester he's like I'm just doing my best to try and ignore this thing and get on with my life. I mean most of all it's a ghost he picked up at the carnival so it's like come on man he's trying to convince himself that these this voice isn't real.

He was supposed to be fun, right? Sylvester, I mean, this guy, he was a very smart man, very mechanically minded. Like, he had that brain for physics and just really complex, complicated things. Sylvester said that he really loved building things and taking things apart just to see how things worked. And

And Sylvester just thrived when it came to, like, math and all of that, really. And he would go on to be trained as a mechanical engineer. So, I mean, smarty, smart. Somebody smart.

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Before Sylvester's career could like really thrive or whatever, he ended up joining the military and would be sent to fight in World War I. And at this time, he was about 21 years old. So it's kind of a bummer. He's like, but I'm doing this. But...

Yep. It turns out, though, that Sylvester wasn't that mad about joining the military because he got this great position that really made him thrive. He spent the war as a junior officer and an explosives expert. And he's like, wait a minute. I love this. This is for me. So he essentially got to blow stuff up for his job. And he was loving it. He was like, oh, this is so fun.

That's how I imagine he talks. "Oh, this is so fun. I love this. Yippee ki-yay, yay." And I guess blowing stuff up seemed to have like a real impact on him because when the war ended, Sylvester decided to go into the mining industry, which his position there, it required a lot of explosions. And he's like, "Yeah, I get to still blow stuff up, you know?" Sylvester then moved to the Austrian capital of Vienna

invested in some small ventures, and he also made some money. He was like doing well. Then he got married and the two of them had a little girl. And overall, Sylvester was just doing well for himself, for his family, and in life. Sounds like it always sounds right. And it never is, is it? So things were right on track. The war is over. Sylvester had now settled down. But who's still yip-yapping around in Sylvester's noggin?

Oh, it's Leo. Leo, the mysterious carnival ghost, came right back into Sylvester's life at this time. Like things are going good. In comes Leo. Choo choo. I say choo choo because Sylvester said when Leo came back into his head, he visually saw like a toy train coming in and like Leo was riding it. I know this is so silly. I know. But this is where we're at right now.

So, okay, Leo choo-chooed his way right back in. Choo-choo. So, yeah, you probably think, Bailey, why are you telling us all this? Okay, look, I know what you're thinking. What? A toy train? An imaginary friend named Leo? This is all going somewhere. Hold on to your panties. So, as the story goes, Sylvester, he ends up buying his daughter a toy train for Christmas in 1930. And he said...

This is the moment that changed his life completely. I guess something like triggered him inside. Some kind of fire was lit with this damn toy train and he could not get this train out of his head. He became obsessed with trains, really. Trains. He's like, "Fuck trains, yeah." And not only that, something changed. Like the family noticed that Sylvester, all he ever wanted to talk about

or think about was trains. Everyone's like, "Okay, we get it. You like trains. Cool." But as time went on, Sylvester would say it went from thinking about trains and then it grew into something more specifically about trains crashing, derailing, going off track, perhaps exploding. So his mind is just taking him to that.

It was all cute. Choo choo! And now it's like... Okay.

Everything's fine. Okay, so you know he's becoming more and more obsessed with the trains and like getting really fixated on Exploding the train so he was like taking his daughter's toys and like practicing blowing them up and Derailing it and whatnot so he's having fun with this little toy great stay there and keep doing that, you know But that toy train wasn't enough

Leo specifically wanted more. Leo wanted, no, no, correction. Leo needed to see a real train derail, allegedly.

according to Sylvester. So here's where it gets real messy. Honestly, side note really quick, but when I first was reading this, like I truly, like I'm so stupid, but I'm like, oh my God, like blowing up trains and stuff, just, I always thought it was like a villain thing in a movie, you know? Evil villains always try and blow up trains and you're like, okay, whatever. But I guess this is the real deal. Like, ugh.

People are sick. So it's Christmas. Sylvester and his family are sitting down having Christmas dinner. And once they're done, Sylvester tells the family he's going to go on for a little walk. He's feeling a little bloated. He's going to get some fresh air. So he leaves the house and he's going for a walk. But he's going out because he has an idea. He heads out to the train tracks that were not far from him.

It's Christmas night, so it's pretty quiet outside. There's not a lot of people outside. It's still a big city, so trains are still going, running. So Sylvester, he ends up walking towards a section of the train track, and he starts to loosen the bolts. I know. And then once he's done, he's like, yeah, that's great. He stands back. He, like, hides kind of in a bush, and he waits. He's waiting for a train to come on Christmas Day.

Rude. So he's patiently waiting. Time goes by and sure enough, Sylvester sees some lights and steam. A train is coming. So the train is heading right towards the section that was loosened. And shit, I'm not laughing at this. It's just like, oh, this is insane. Like this guy's a literal like Disney villain or something. Disney's a bad example, but you get what I'm saying. Anyway, so he's waiting. He sees a train coming.

You know, sound effects. And he's like, okay, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. Train's coming and approaches the loosened tracks. Passes right on by. Nothing happened. Not only was he confused, Sylvester said that he was devastated.

he was also embarrassed because he let Leo down. Yeah, a lot of pressure for him, I guess. So this was like heartbreaking to him and he feels defeated and who doesn't like defeat? A lot of people. So, okay, Sylvester's like, you know what?

I have to see a train wreck. I have to. The urge to see a train wreck was so strong with this guy that it becomes the most important thing in his life. It's now his entire personality. Okay, he's obsessed with this.

Nothing else. Dream big, they say, and this is what he dreamt for himself. Wow. Well, after this, Sylvester starts to plan his next attack. And in January of 1931, on his free time, Sylvester goes out to like a local dump area

And he's there kind of searching through everything and he's looking for a spare piece of a spare, what's it called? Train track. Thank you. Thank you. So he's in the dump area and he's looking for spare track and he finds one and he's like, oh yeah, great. Sorry. I don't know why I keep trying to voice him. So he takes this spare track and he carries it all the way over to a main working train track.

And he ends up laying the piece, the spare track across the active track. Does that make sense? So what this is doing is leaving a major like obstacle in the train's way. His thinking was like, okay, the train's going to run into this derail.

Yay. Sylvester puts it there, he moves backwards and he's waiting for that train to come, baby. So he sees once again, Sylvester sees choo choo, the train's coming. The train is coming. He's like, yep, this is it, baby. Luckily, the conductor saw something was in the way

And he ends up bringing the train to a full stop. I wish I could just see Sylvester's face in that moment. He was probably just like pissed, you know? Sylvester and Leo, I imagine that they're probably burning inside with rage and...

discouragement, you know, they're just upset. So once again, Sylvester's just determined to succeed and he just keeps at it again and again and he keeps running into problems where it's not working out. So like I had mentioned earlier, Sylvester had worked in the mines and whatnot and with this title, he had a permit to get explosives. So Sylvester was like, "Hello, idea."

"Why don't I use my permit and get a bunch of explosives?" And guess what? He did just that. He gets all these explosives, and then he loaded up a bunch of different suitcases with the explosives. And he's like, "Okay, I know this is gonna work." So he decides to target a bigger train. So he decides to go after the Berlin Express train in Germany. So Sylvester was able to load up all of the suitcases onto the train,

And then he got the hell out of there, obviously. And once again, he waited. He's like, "Yeah." So Sylvester's waiting and waiting. He knows it's not gonna take long for the explosives to go off. And guess what? Boom, the explosives, they went off. This time though, the train was blown right off the tracks. There were a ton of injuries and somehow miraculously, nobody died.

But Sylvester knew, like, this is the way. This is how we're gonna do it. Now, of course, this explosion was a wild event and media speculation and rumors just went bonkers. The year is 1930 and we're in Germany, which, if you don't know, is just...

Nazis, Nazis everywhere, nasty little things. So the Nazis at this time were really just starting to gain momentum and tensions were extremely high, really with a lot of people, but especially between fascists and communists and I assume neitherists, neitherists, neitherism?

So when this happens, people are very quick, for fair reason, to make this a political thing. People were reporting that they found Nazi newspapers at the site of the wreck. Some say there was a note that said basically, quote, workers, working class, you're being manipulated by capitalists, but we will keep blowing shit up until you're free, end quote.

This is allegedly what people were finding at the wreckage. I'm not saying they're wrong. You know, that stuff might have been there. And many people kind of think, well, maybe Sylvester left it there to throw police off his track.

Maybe it was just a diversion. Maybe those letters and stuff weren't even found at all. Unfortunately, we, I don't know, we'll never know, but the media was pushing this out there and it's causing a lot of more tension. And it wasn't that at all. It was just Sylvester being bored. Like,

Oy vey, how the public can really turn, or the media can really turn a story into something else, always. I personally don't, I don't think he did this because at the end of the day, when you read about Sylvester, he was a very like simple man. Like he was very smart and stuff, but he was simple. He honestly just got off on crashing trains. But this time I'm actually being literal. Like he got off trains.

on crashing trains. Add jizz noise here. He got off on it. It was bringing him a lot of feelings in his nether regions. Boner alert.

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A few months later, on September 13th, 1931, Sylvester reached his climax, his most destructive train crash yet, this time a little closer to home. He decided to target the Vienna Express as it crossed a bridge near the Hungarian capital, Budapest, and

It was a big one. It was a hit. Sylvester blew up the bridge and the train's engine plus nine of the train cars were sent plunging down into the water below. This time, 22 people were killed instantly and 120 were injured. Because this is an older story, it was hard to find what his technique was. I'm assuming the explosives situation just because that seemed to be more successful for him. But yeah, he did some damage to his

time, like real bad. So once again, like always, Sylvester was kind of back in a bush watching, okay, and waiting. And once he saw the incredible destruction that he had done, he came his pants, not kidding, allegedly, because he claims it was Leo who came in the pants and

But he jizzed. I'm not kidding, he jizzed. Because he got so excited and so turned on that he jizzed. And this is where symphorophilia comes into play. Once the train crashed, Sylvester was so turned on that he orgasmed while the whole thing went down. I know, okay? And there is a diagnosis for this and it's called symphorophilia. And I was like, "What? Tell me more."

Wow. So I got to looking into it and, you know, there are different case studies for symphorophilia. There's one case study I came across about a man who had very serious and all-consuming fantasies about having an attractive woman run him over with her car.

Oh yeah, real, real. Now to this guy, nothing would be sexier to him than to get hit by a car and run over. That's new. That's new for me. I don't know about you, but that was new for me. I was like, I could do that. If you're gonna pay me well, I'll do it. If the price is right, baby.

I'm just kidding. But with this case study, the man who was into this, one of his requests was that the driver that would hit him would have to be hot. It has to be a hot girl because he had standards, okay? That's what he said.

Okay. So that's an example of it. Symphorophilia. Great. And then there's also a movie about this called Crash about people who got really hot and bothered when cars crashed, just crashed, destroyed.

So what I'm getting at is that it's safe to say Sylvester isn't really alone in this, but it's also not a very crowded category either. Yeah, it's really, yeah. Maybe people are kind of embarrassed to come forward about it. Who knows? But it's a thing, baby. It's a thing. Could you, like, what is that?

You want to get hit by a car? Why? By a hot girl? What is that? I don't know. I don't know. Okay, but back to Sylvester. Train explosion. A lot of injuries. Just a lot of bad. And police arrived to the scene. So it said after Sylvester came, he then...

turned into like extreme joy. And he excitedly runs up to the wreckage and he's screaming and crying with joy, just happy tears. He's so happy. But Sylvester knew he couldn't just like claim that he did this. He had to keep it like a little secret, like a little sick love affair. So his celebration really had to be kept short.

Because soon after the police arrive, okay? The police arrive to investigate the situation. And Sylvester runs up to the police and he's like, you guys, I have a statement I can give.

He's like extremely happy. So he tells the police that he was actually a passenger on one of the trains and he luckily survived. And to police, they're like, okay, yeah, that makes sense for a minute. I mean, a successful businessman riding on a train to the Hungarian capital. I mean, that's not odd at all. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask Meta AI.

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But this is when authorities noticed that Sylvester was acting a little strange for someone who had just survived this tragic, horrible crash. Because they noticed that when Sylvester was giving his statement, he appeared to be happy and he was almost like glowing with joy. And police even noted this, like, he's a little too happy right now.

You know, like they knew. Another thing police officers found a little odd was that Sylvester, he had mentioned to police that he was in a train car. He gave them like the number of the train car. And when police looked into it, they were like, that's odd because that's one of the cars that plummeted all the way down in the water. And this guy who's speaking to us, Sylvester, he had no signs of injury. He wasn't like wet, you know, like, hello again.

Seems a little odd. So police officers, they take their notes. They have Sylvester heavy on their brain, but they continue to search the area, right? They gotta search the area. And while investigators are doing just that, they end up finding a pair of underpants near the wreckage. Odd. Yeah. But these underpants appear to have semen all over them.

It was very odd. So they find this underwear. It's quite odd. It's not in an area that was like Main Street or something. And the reason that the underwear was there, because Sylvester said that he took off his underwear after he came because it was uncomfortable.

I'm not kidding. I can't. I just, yeah. Simple man. Simple man. Until new. He's like, yeah, it's uncomfortable. I'm just going to take him off right here and not worry about it. Stupid. This guy is so, I don't know. Anyways, he took his underwear off, left it there. Okay. And the cops were like, okay, like the Sylvester guy is

is all red flags. This is the part that really pisses me off because I couldn't find answers. Because I don't know how they figured out it was Sylvester's semen because it's 1931 and they don't have like the DNA testing or anything but they connected the underwear and the semen to him somehow. I know, I'm sorry I don't have the details. It broke me too because I was like how?

How did they solve this mystery? I think truly Sylvester was just, it was clear as day to them. He must have like really gave himself away. That's my only thought. But after the crash, people and mainly the media, they could not stop thinking that this attack had political ties. And the police came out and said, no, no, like,

We actually think we found our guy and they're building, they're actively building a case against Sylvester, but nobody cared. And the Austrian government, they get messy. They arrest two communists and pin the attacks on them, completely innocent. They had not, they weren't even in the same area, but the Austrian government, they had them arrested. And these two people were executed for the train crash. Yeah.

Yeah. And like, they didn't have any evidence or anything linking them to this attack. I think it was just kind of one of those performance pieces to kind of make every, like calm the people down. Do you know what I'm saying? Because everyone's kind of freaking out. They're, they're riddled with anxiety and stuff and they have to execute somebody, right? To make the people stop freaking out. So that's what they did. These two people got executed for no damn reason. Meanwhile, Sylvester's over there just like jizzing his pants. Like,

So Sylvester was like, "Cool, worked out for me." So Sylvester was actually arrested on October 10th in 1931 in Vienna, Australia, supposedly after he tried to like get compensation from Hungarian railways for the crash. Because they were like, you know, paying people out. And he tried to and...

That's how they found him. Yeah, there's really not more information beyond that, which kind of sucks. You know, before I started filming this, I was like, yeah, this is a good story. This is pretty solid. And now that I'm here, I'm like, wow, I really could not find any information. I apologize. But damn, this whole like, symphophilia really just, ah.

What? Sylvester is located, arrested, and immediately, like even when he's being arrested, Sylvester confesses to everything. He's like, yep, I did that. Me, hi. But the worst part of all, no one wanted to believe this guy had committed mass murder just to get off.

Right? I mean, to a lot of people back then, it was not a valid reason for the people. I mean, they truly believed that this had some kind of political ties and they would not accept any answer other than that. So while in court during the trial, they are trying to get the quote unquote real reason out of him. Like, you really did it because of communist? And he's like, I did it because I just wanted to get off. And they're like, no, you didn't. That's not the, you're probably just a communist.

And you're mad at the fascists, right? So that's why you derailed their train, right? He's like, no. And they're like, you mad at Germany? You mad at Serbia? You mad, bro? What are you mad at? Tell us. And Sylvester's like, no, I just love train crashes. That's it. Nobody wanted to accept that answer. It wasn't, again, it wasn't enough. So Sylvester tells the courts that he is going to bring Leo to court. They're like, who's Leo? He's like, don't you worry.

He's up here. I feel like that should be a sign in itself, you know? Like, oh, okay. Sylvester ends up bringing Leo to court. And this is when he turns and puts the blame on Leo. And he's trying his best to convince the court that Leo was the real culprit, not him. No.

It was Leo who jizzed. It was Leo's idea to blow things up. It was Leo's – it was Leo, point blank, period. So the court, they bring in a psychologist to, you know, come in and try to make sense of what's really going on here.

But it really – it didn't really do Sylvester any good. The whole situation was just like really weird. And a lot of – back then they just didn't understand what this was. So the whole thing is just a little too weird for everybody. So they do an analysis of paraphilias, which is like the main category of what Sylvester –

had. Essentially it's like having different fetish fetishes and less quote-unquote mainstream sexual desires. And this in itself was really really new at this point. I mean in fact they don't even give this the name Symphorophilius until the year 1984. So I mean it wasn't common you know but it back then during his trial was just extremely new. And again

Nobody in the courts or anything could understand or just even wrap their heads around this guy and like what he's saying, what he's struggling with, like getting off on a train and explosions. How is that possible? Nobody's heard of this. It's just weird. And at the end of the day, everyone's like, dude, he's guilty. Just like guilty all around. Why are we even here?

playing with this idea of this mental thing he has. Like, nobody gets it. Which is fair. You know, I mean, they're not wrong. He is guilty. It's just they were trying to... I don't know. It's complicated, isn't it? They were just all sorts of confused. I mean, now we have all these names and stuff, but back then they didn't know what any of this was. They just thought he was weird. Now, Sylvester was convicted in Austria for his non-lethal crashes and ended up serving six years in prison there.

Then he was extradited to Hungary to be tried for the big train crash where he, once again, was also found guilty. So a deal ends up being made to not execute him. And instead he was sentenced to...

life imprisonment. But this is not where the story ends for Sylvester. Oh nay nay, he still gets into some shenanigans. Sylvester ends up serving a portion of his life imprisonment sentence in northern Hungary when luckily for him, luckily for him, another world war broke out. Damn it, it's World War II baby, we're in it. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask Meta AI.

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So in 1944, the Hungarian government, they were part of like the losing side and they're not in a good place. And things were really starting to go downhill because at this point the Americans had gotten involved with the war and things were just really falling apart for these guys. So the government, they were desperate for soldiers. They were like, we'll take anybody, a warm body, anything. So instead they end up going and asking prisoners

to volunteer for military duty. So Sylvester's like, "Oh my God, pick me, pick me. I have like plenty of experience." You know? And he's not lying. He does. They really got a good one there. And you know, I guess they weren't that desperate because they were like, "You're in guy, you're in. We don't care, you're in." So Sylvester was assigned to the perfect position, the demolition squad. And it wouldn't take long for Sylvester to just thrive, but also,

disappear. He disappears. Plot twist. I really thought like, oh yeah, he's going to love this. Nope. At first he was all excited, but as time went, I mean, it wouldn't take long. He literally just disappeared. Nobody saw him again. So you're probably wondering, well, Bailey, where did he go? That's a great question you're asking. Now there's plenty of rumors out there, plenty of theories, but unfortunately, unfortunately nobody really knows. I'm

I know. I feel so bad showing up here with so little information. Bailey, what are you doing? You know nothing. So some people believe that he actually joined the Russian army as an explosive expert. Some say and stand by that he might have even worked under Chinese communist groups during the Korean War. But the Korean War was like a good eight years later. So it's kind of like, hmm.

I don't know. And then others believe that Sylvester was able to escape and he joined a right-wing Hungarian officers group. I'm so sorry I'm showing up here with no information because when I was looking into research about this Hungarian officers group, nothing. It just says group.

I don't know. But this might have allowed him to return to Hungary under a new identity. So some believe that he maybe got a new identity and just went back. I kind of believe that he just like ran away. If you're set free and you, hello, I'd be like, peace.

"Going over here instead." So there are a lot of theories in general that this guy, Sylvester, was just like a Russian plant to begin with the entire time. And their proof was that even though he's ethnically Hungarian, he did grow up in Serbia. So I bet he has been working with the Russians. And then some people believe that he probably just never escaped at all. He just died in an explosion during the war and no one figured a prisoner was important enough to send a note back letting people know.

And that kind of sounds fair, to be honest. Maybe he just died. One last explosion. Do you think he escaped? Do you think he crashed more trains? What happened to Leo? Is the lesson or the moral of the story here to not get hypnotized at a carnival? I don't know.

Silly. That, my friends, is a story about Sylvester Matushka. I'm so sorry. You know, I love a good backstory and the nitty gritty details, but there wasn't many. I guess what interests me about this story was the fact that he was getting off on blowing up trains. And then when I went down the rabbit hole about Symphorophilia,

Thank you. I was like, wow, this is like a real thing. Like that guy who wanted to get run over by a car driven by a hot woman. Like this is a real thing. I guess that was really what was like, what?

And the fact that this guy just like blew up trains and then he just his pants, took off his underwear and then essentially went straight to police and was like, I was there. I saw everything. I was all excited. Like what a dummy. And really that's it, I guess, huh? Okay. Sorry. It's not very detailed, but I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I will be seeing you next week.

Why are you still here? Go away. Oh my god. Why are you obsessed with me? Oh my god. Oh my god. You're like so obsessed with me.