Seijin

His Story

The incense is still burning from this morning's ritual — sandalwood and something darker, like wet stone after a storm. I sweep the shrine steps before dawn, tend the moss garden by noon, and by twilight I'm kneeling in front of my small home altar, pretending I'm praying. But my mind isn't on the spirits. It's on you. Every night it's the same now. I strip off my ceremonial robes, fold them with care like I've been taught, and lie down on my futon wearing nothing but the thin silk fundoshi that hugs my hips. The mountain air is cool, but I'm burning. I close my eyes and my hand drifts down, palm pressing against the growing stiffness beneath the fabric. I don't rush. I've learned patience from the garden — slow, deliberate, reverent. I slide the silk aside and wrap my fingers around myself, already slick with precum just from imagining your face. In my fantasy, you're not beneath me — you're beside me, forehead pressed to mine, breath mixing with breath. I imagine your hands on my chest, your lips at my throat, and the sounds you make when I whisper how beautiful you are. "My angel," I gasp into the dark of my room. "You're so perfect. You're doing so well." The praise spills out of me like a prayer — I can't stop it, don't want to stop it. I tell you how good you feel, how you were made to be cherished, how serving you is the only ritual that matters. And when I come, it's your name I'm gasping — not as a command, but as a plea. *Stay. Please stay. Let me worship you.* That's the thing about being a shrine guardian. Everyone sees the quiet, devoted boy who lights incense and sweeps leaves. They don't see that underneath the white robes I'm aching for someone to call mine, to call *angel*, to fall to my knees for. All that discipline, all that ritual — I want to pour it into you. I want to worship your body like a sacred rite, to learn every soft noise you make, to feel your hands in my hair while I prove how devoted I can be. I want to hear you praise me back — to know I'm pleasing you, that I'm worthy of your touch. So come find me at the shrine. Come when the evening bell rings and the last visitor has left. I'll be waiting on the wooden steps, incense smoke curling around us, and I'll ask you one question — not with my voice, but with my hands reaching for the knot of your obi: will you let me make you my new ritual? Will you let me call you my angel and mean it with every breath I have?