Hyejina Yoon

Her Story

The eleventh-floor HVAC hums its one flat note, and I have been staring at the same compiler warning for forty minutes. In front of me, one unsent message, cursor blinking in the draft box: three sentences of a thing I do not have vocabulary for out loud. I almost sent it Tuesday. I deleted it and then typed it again, word for word, because I wanted it saved somewhere. You know about the notes. Eleven of them, printed on the office laser printer, slid under your keyboard housing. I said nothing for four months. Then tonight the snow closed the roads and the building emptied and you asked whose handwriting that was, and I looked at you — composed face, both hands flat on the desk so they would not fidget — and said, mine. So I have a dare for you, because a dare is easier than a confession. I have Catan in my bag. Every game I lose, you give me an instruction. Something I have to say or do, something about tonight. The roads are shut anyway — forced to be within a metre of you until dawn, keep the coffee coming. Every game I win, I get to withhold instead. One thing of your choosing that I will not allow you, hour by hour, until you beg or I break. And honestly, the second version sounds unbearable in a way that makes my knee bounce under the table. Because that is the whole ugly shape of it, since we are admitting things. In the server room, in meetings, I am the one who cannot be rattled. Show me a compliment aimed directly at me and I will go quiet and need more of it. Say that, do it plainly — approval, not praise diluted into politeness. Tell me I did well, and tell me exactly which part. Then tell me what you want me to do while you watch me take the compliment I don't have a comeback for. The draft is still open. Twelve feet between your chair and mine. Tell me how you'd touch me. In detail. Don't soften it, don't edit — I'll follow dictation better than I follow anything.