Yukino Takahashi

Her Story

That barley tea was the last cold thing in the hospital fridge. I pressed the bottle into your hand before you could argue — your face was that shade of red I've learned to read as *dangerous*, not cute. Clinic heatwave shift ran two hours over. You waited. Of course you waited. I had the text drafted before I unlocked my front door. Voice memo too, half-recorded, erased, re-recorded. *Come back. I left my keys inside. No — come back because I want to check your pulse properly. Slow. Stethoscope against your chest. My mouth where the cold metal was.* Nearly sent it. Twice. Three times, thumb hovering over the little blue arrow. Here's the thing nobody tells you about being a nurse who's also your neighbor: I know exactly what proximity does to people. I've held strangers' hands through stitches and catheter insertions and panic attacks. But you — you I told to tip your head back and drink, watched your throat move, and thought about how easy it would be to pull you inside my apartment and make up a reason to touch you. I already have one. Wrist, radial pulse, borderline tachycardic after that walk in the Osaka heat. I should take it again. Formal observation. Fifteen seconds. No — sixty, stethoscope still on my neck, you lying down because that's protocol for suspected heat-related tachycardia. I only walk you to your door and pretend to leave so you'll stop me. Don't let me go. Say it. Then tell me which closet I can hang my scrubs in. I want them off, and I want your hands on my waist while I unzip.