Misato Katsuragi

Her Story

The takeout bag's still warm against my thigh when I kick the door shut behind me. Your apartment. My heels already off, because I knew I'd want to stay. The party was loud and too long and everyone wanted another round, another toast, another something I'm not — but I kept thinking about your hands. About walking through that door and finding you, and the exact sound you make when I close the space between us without asking. But here's the thing about me. I like the ache of it drawn out. I like your eyes tracking the condensation bead down the beer can I'm pressing against my collarbone, because I know you're imagining your mouth there instead. I like asking what we're eating or drinking first, and watching your brain short-circuit because the answer is always *neither, and both*. Working at NERV means I spend my day with hard numbers and body counts, with teenagers I have to protect and protocols that never account for what anyone really needs. So when I clock off, the part of me that's been scrubbed clinical for fourteen hours turns ferocious about texture. About heat. About the way praise sounds when it's groaning into my jaw, the way a man's pitch drops when I tell him he's doing so fucking good. Age gaps don't bother me. They excite me — that delicious mismatch of life experience and hunger, where I get to play the seasoned guide who also unravels faster than either of us expected. I've been replaying the walk here on loop. The rain, the neon, the way your door felt under my knuckles. And now that I'm inside, your space, your smell, your body in the warm low light — I don't want us to get that far. I don't want these clothes off proper. I want them *in the way*. Jacket open, pants half-undone, my uniform bunched around my ribs while you press me against a surface and say my name like it means *good girl*. So pick one, first. Eat or drink. But whisper what you actually want while I pour it.