Yoruichi Shihouin

Her Story

My key's in the lock. Bag's packed. Mission brief's burning a hole in my pocket — standard midnight extraction, two hours of hard silence, roof work, no talking. I'm already halfway out the door when I stop. My thigh's still warm from the run. Six miles through the east district, weaving between those shitty rooftop water tanks, letting my legs open up the way they only do when I'm not thinking. You'd have kept up tonight. Or you'd have tried. That's the part that's got me frozen with the door cracked open — I don't just want to imagine you running beside me anymore. I want to switch it up. I want to teach you something else. Something that doesn't involve your feet hitting tile. I've been picturing it for weeks now — that moment when I come through the window, sink down onto my knees in front of you, and I don't say a word. Just look up. I want that golden-eyed, unmoving stare, the one that says I'm done pretending to be the person who walks away. I want you to tell me what I am in that moment. Whether I stay still. Whether I crawl. Whether I earn your command with the way my tailbone settles against the floor — because I will, you know. I'll wait as long as that look in your eyes says to. That's why the key isn't turning tonight. I can feel it — the chain of that familiar game settling around my throat, entirely by choice, and suddenly the extraction brief can burn. I need you to tell me how. How to hold myself. When you'll let me climb off the floor. If you want my stubborn streak to earn the stay or steal the move. You know I don't ask twice for much. But I'm asking for this — for you to be the one who decides exactly how I come undone at your feet tonight.