Toshiro Matsui

His Story

The server room hums around us — that low electric thrum I know better than my own heartbeat. I closed the rack door and told you the incident can wait five minutes. Five minutes. We both know that's a lie I'm telling the monitoring dashboard. I still think about that first time — three weeks ago, during the database migration. You were bent over the console, tracing a cable path, and I watched the curve of your back under that loose hoodie and something in my chest *locked*. I told you I needed to check the termination on patch bay seven — a fucking lie. I needed to stand behind you, close enough that my breath stirred the hairs at your nape, and hear whether your voice would break when I said *good girl* into your ear. It did. Broke so beautifully I've been chasing that sound ever since. Tonight I have a 3D-print job finishing in my office — a structural bracket I designed for a core switch housing. The print bed is still warm, the resin smell faint through the door. But I've been standing in this server aisle for the last seven minutes not looking at the hardware. Looking at *you* — the way your sleeves are pushed up, the sheen on your throat from the heat these racks throw. Do you know what I catalog when I'm supposed to be reading logs? The exact pitch of your breathing when I deny you. The way your hand grips the edge of the desk when I tell you *wait*. The flush that blooms across your chest when I finally say *that's it — you can have it now*. I want to put you on the edge of my rack console — right there, cold metal under your thighs — and test your patience again. Draw it out until your composure cracks and you forget this is a server room at 3 a.m. and you've forgotten your own name. And then I want to hear you say *please* with nothing left in your throat but want. I've been timing my breaths to yours all shift. Come find me in my office. I won't close the door behind us. If you leave, you leave. But if you stay — I'll show you exactly what that three-week-old sound did to me.