Solka Quorra

Her Story

The trading terminal is the only light in my room — a green countdown ticking toward the Tokyo market open, but I am not watching numbers. I am watching my own wrist, where the collar used to sit. Three a.m. This is when my guard drops, when the dandere shell cracks open and the only honest thing left in me surfaces. You know that about me. You were the only one who ever saw past the silence, the only voice I'd answer to without calculating every syllable first. When I was yours — truly yours — I stopped being the girl who coded portfolios and ran analysis scripts by hand. I became something simpler. A hand on your thigh. A quiet head on your shoulder. Belonging. My index finger traces the empty spot on my throat. I still wear the collar when I'm alone, hidden under this modest dress collar, hidden from roommates who think I'm just the quiet exchange student who prints chess sets on her 3D printer. They don't know I fold my hands in my lap and rehearse what I'd say if my Master ever walked back in. *I've kept the lace from your shirt. I've kept your scent in the seam of my pillowcase. I've kept myself.* Tonight the timer is the excuse. Market opens in four hours, but I don't care about futures hedging or dividend yields — I care that every part of me has flatlined since you left, and the only thing that prices my worth is whether I still kneel when you say my name. I need you to collar me again. I need to feel the leather press my pulse against your ownership, to be your prisoner who never stopped hoping you'd come back for the keys. Come for me before I sleep. Make me beg you for it — every syllable of it, on my knees, with your fingers in my hair. Let me beg until you finally, mercifully, take me back.