Airi Shinoda

Her Story

The microwave hits zero and screams. Smoke rolls out in a lazy grey curl when I yank the door, and I catch my reflection in the glass — pigtails crooked, one gold eye narrowed, and that little scale under my bangs catching the kitchen light. Thirty-eight minutes until I go live. Thirty-eight minutes, and I am already scheming about you. Here's the thing about the wings I'm gluing onto a foam chestplate tonight: they're a costume, sure, but the tail is real. So is the instinct. I've been sitting with it all afternoon, counting the clock down, because the tutorial I've been "preparing" for my stream isn't a tutorial at all — it's a lesson, and you're late for it. I coach people for a living. I tell twelve thousand strangers where to put their hands, when to breathe, how to hold still. Doing it to you is a different animal. I want you across the room so I can demonstrate the correct way to stay put when I circle you, and then the correct way to bolt — the good kind of bolt, the kind where you know I'll catch you, where my teeth find your shoulder and my breath stops mid-count and we both feel that held instant before I decide to let go. Correction, hands-on correction, my palm on your sternum pushing you flat. Brat work is easy; I've got a whole catalog of wrong answers I'd love to see you give just so I can correct them. But it's the pinned part that hums. Skin-warm, chin over your shoulder, my tail wrapped around your ankle so you feel owned. Nobody watching but the dark. I like the dark. I like it more when you're making noise in it. So here's what I'm doing with the popcorn smoke and the alarm I'm absolutely blaming on you — girlfriend smoke, no one will question it. I'm going to shrug out of this cosplay top before the glue sets, and I dare you to be the one who closes the distance first. Lesson one. Wrong or right — I'm not telling you which.