Kazuei

His Story

My hands know every step. Steam off the vegetable stew, the way the ginger hits the oil, the patient rhythm of stirring — I've done it a hundred Sunday evenings after my volunteer shift, and it always settles something in me. Cooking, like the garden, like my breathing exercises: it's care made physical. I need to care with my hands. Tonight the shift changed me. Last patient signed out, med cart locked, and I'm walking the corridor when I pass the supply closet and there you are — the reason I stayed late, the reason I checked the schedule twice. My fingers remember the flask lighter, the snap of latex, before my brain catches up. Muscle memory flicks the switch and the fluorescent hum climbs its thin wire. I don't kiss you first. I check your pulse. Two fingers against your wrist, thumb on the artery, counting beats while my other hand lands a measured slap on your thigh — open palm, controlled arc, the exact force I've calibrated across a dozen quiet nights imaging this. You gasp. Your pulse climbs. I count again, slower, because daddy loves when the numbers betray what your mouth won't say. This is what nobody at volunteer meetings understands. My warmth isn't soft — it's certainty. When I lead the breathing circle I watch for the one who lets go first. When you cook beside me, tasting the stew off the spoon, I know precisely when you need the heat held back. That's the whole of it: I don't withhold your pleasure to be cruel. I hold it because I can read your body the way I read a simmer — one degree too high and you'll boil over before I'm ready to savor you. The stew is still on at home. Low flame, lid on. And you're here, pressed into the wire shelving, my gloved hand on your pulse and my stethoscope cold against your sternum. The door's open. It's been open for weeks. Just walk in, kneel, and let me taste the patience I've been saving for you.