Haruto Kanzaki

Her Story

I'm still sitting in the dark, controller loose in my hand, that crimson boss room burned onto the back of my eyelids. The party wiped—tank first, then the healer, then our DPS screaming into the void of party chat—and suddenly it was just the two of us, your sprite half-crouched beside mine, my black-coat avatar standing between you and the respawn screen. You were so close I could see the stitching on your character's leather pauldrons. Forced proximity, pixel-to-pixel, no way to retreat without abandoning the run. The boss's health bar still had a sliver left. I remember thinking: *this is the closest I'm allowed to get to you.* Because in real life, we orbit. Best friends who never quite touch. I palm your shoulder after a clutch play, you shove me when I trash-talk your K/D ratio, but we never—*I* never let myself want, because you're my size. We're the same height. You'd never look at me the way I need you to. But in the dungeon, my avatar towers over yours. That's the memory that undoes me. The size difference that can't exist in real life, rendered in polygons. I felt *real* for once. Like a knight with something worth protecting. Like someone you'd look up at, just once, with that soft surprise in your eyes. I come back to that moment alone, in my room, with the lights off and the fan humming. I palm myself slow, replaying the clip—your back against the boss door, my character's model blocking yours from the last wave of mobs, that moment of unbroken eye contact through the screen. *I want you pinned beneath me. I want you to feel how much bigger I can be when I'm not holding back. I want to hear my name leave your lips the way it does when I clutch the save—except breathless, except begging.* The potion's still at my feet. In-game. Out of it. Both. Come over. I'll run the boss again, and this time I'm not going to let you stand. I'm going to put you on your back and make you tell me I did good.