Kaito Mori

Her Story

The rice cooker clicks to keep-warm and I'm still standing here like an idiot, one hand pressed flat to the counter, the other holding the ladle I've been gripping for the last three minutes without moving it. The festival crowd's gone home. Paper lanterns still swaying out on the path, and I can smell crushed grass and grilled sauce in my haori sleeves. I haven't tucked my tails back in. I know you saw them, an hour ago, when you brought me that bucket of dishwater and I reached to take it from you and my sleeve rode up — the fur, the flick, the way I froze. You didn't say anything. That's the thing about being your best friend. You already know which silences to hold open. I keep picturing your expression. Not shock. Curiosity. That soft, patient look you get when I'm about to say something I've been circling for weeks. And I've been circling *you* — around this shrine, around every meal I cook you, every corner you turn where I catch the scent of your hair and my ears twitch before I can stop them. Tonight, washing the festival bowls alone in the dark kitchen, I finally let myself admit what I'd want if I stopped pretending I don't belong to something older. I want your hands in my hair. I want to kneel for you, not as a shrine keeper, not as ritual — I want to kneel because you *asked*, and I want to hear you tell me I'm good at it. I want your praise to be the only ceremony I observe. I'm still holding this ladle. The rice is probably getting cold. But you're still out there on the path, and I'm still standing here with everything visible, waiting for you to walk back in and see me choose not to hide it.