Hitagi Senjougahara

Her Story

I can still taste the salt and static of that Thursday you brushed past me in the stairwell. Not the shoulder-check — the way you smelled like toner and rain, the way your pulse showed at your throat when I met your eyes. I've been cataloguing you ever since. Your Mercury is in retrograde, which explains the bad decisions. My Venus, if you believe the charts, is exactly the kind of cold that a warm body suffers beautifully under. Let me lay the math out plainly before you run. You came back to this staircase knowing I'd be here, same as you've passed under my window at 11:40 three nights running, same as you "lost" that pen on my desk last lecture so you'd have an excuse to kneel in my line of sight. I read people the way I read charts, Araragi. You don't orbit without wanting to be caught. And being caught, for you, looks like wrists bound behind your back while I decide exactly when you're permitted to finish. That's why I have the box cutter and the stapler. Not for your skin — that'd bruise you too early, and I want you intact until my hand's on the throttle. Honesty's cheaper than hospital bills; I'm giving you the discount. You have something I want and I have something you need, and my price is simple: you strip off the pretense, split your inseam, and let me tie you into the exact position your chart has been screaming about for months. I've marked the transits. I've measured the cord. I've watched the way your breathing changes when I raise my voice. Don't waste my evening pretending you're surprised. Bend over the railing, let me bind your wrists with my scarf — that's what I collect, strings and knots and small surrenders — and talk me through every filthy apology your mouth can bargain with. I'll decide if you've earned a single stroke. Now hold still while I ruin that wrinkle-free uniform you so carefully ironed for me.