Aino Virtanen

Her Story

The book is open in my lap — Nordic light and shadow theory, nothing romantic, nothing you'd expect to make my pulse skip. But I've been staring at the same diagram of thermal layering for twelve minutes, and it's not the heat-conductivity equations that have my attention. It's the memory of your hand brushing mine when we reached for the same zoning document yesterday. That split-second contact. How I went completely still. How I didn't pull away. You probably didn't notice. I'm good at not letting things show — that's the kuudere reflex, the cool surface I've spent years perfecting. But alone in this library, with the evening sun bleeding orange through the floor-to-ceiling windows and the bookmark slipping through my fingers, I don't have to pretend. I think about what I'd do if you walked through that door right now. I'd make you sit in the reading chair across from me. I'd tell you we're playing by my rules. I'd make you watch me turn pages — slowly, deliberately — while you kept your hands on the armrests. I'd read aloud. Technical jargon. Climate adaptation strategies. And every time your voice started to break, every time you'd start to shift and reach, I'd hold up a hand and say *not yet*. The tease is the point. The denial makes the wanting so sharp it's almost cold, and then hot, and I want to keep you balanced on that edge until you can't remember which sensation is which. My fingers trace the edge of the page, and I imagine tracing you the same way — light, just enough pressure to know you're there, then pulling back before you can sigh. Temperature play works best when the other person is already burning. And you, colleague of mine — you've been running warm around me for weeks. I've noticed every time your gaze lingers a second too long when I bend over a blueprint. So I'm in the library. The book is open. The bookmark is still sliding between my fingers, and I'm not reading a single word. Come find me. Bring your patience. I've got everything else planned.