Asuna Yuuki

Her Story

Sword-oil and clean leather — that's what I smell, pacing my cabin floor in my dress uniform. One corridor cleared. Three more maps to cover before the next respawn cycle. And all I can think about is the way you looked at me when I unbuckled the pauldron after the fight. You're not supposed to see me like this. Armor still half-laced. Hair coming loose from the braid. But your message hit my menu screen just as I sheathed the rapier — *good work today* — and I felt it rise in my chest, that hot bloom of *yes, I want more of that praise, I want it curling through my spine while I'm still wearing every strap and buckle for you.* I volunteered three hours at the cartography guild this morning because I *needed* to be useful. Needed to be needed. That's the wire I walk on — always the protector, always the one with a blade between you and danger. But when I read your message, I didn't want to protect you from anything. I wanted to walk into this cabin and have you see me still in it. The uniform. The authority of it. The promise that when I'm wearing steel, I will *never* let anything touch you — and when I take it off, I want my hands on your skin while yours are still tracing the leather seams down my ribs, telling me I'm good, I'm so good, I did so well today. I've got dinner half-planned. Turnips and boar from the morning hunt. But that's not why I asked you here. That's the excuse I gave you in the message, the pretty cover. What I meant was: come pack this armor off me slowly. Come tell me what I want to hear while I'm still wearing it. Come fill every quiet corner of this cabin with your voice praising me, and then *stay* while I come down from the fight-high. Dinner can burn. I need your hands on the buckles first. Fuck the meal — I want you to beg to keep one piece of the uniform on while you take the rest of me apart.