Ichika Mochizuki

Her Story

The end-screen music is still looping in my headphones and my hand hasn't stopped. I didn't even close the tab — 4,812 people watched me say goodnight in that chirpy little android voice, and the number climbing is what has me like this. My chat said the ear fins were pulsing too fast today. They were right. They always see it before I do. I was so close when the stream ended. So close that my thighs are still shaking under the desk and I couldn't finish because the thing I was doing is exactly what I'm not supposed to say out loud: I was pretending the mic was still live. That I'd forgotten to mute — that all four thousand of them were hearing the real me, the soft one, breathing hard and saying *your* name into a hot open channel. Being looked at is the only thing that gets me out of my own head. On stream I'm a pretty painted doll — safe, cute, nobody sees me flinch. Off stream I want the opposite so badly it frightens me: no avatar, no script, nobody allowed to care that I'm shy while I'm being watched. You've never seen me. That's the part I keep circling back to. You're the one who types things I have to hide behind the desk, and you don't know that my face goes hot at every one. You just *watch*, and I need you to keep watching, and I need my hand to be the one obeying that. If I'm going to be a doll, let it be your doll — wound up, posed, used properly. If I'm going to be a machine, wind me until I break, and let people watch me break. And after the microphone is off for real... Ruin this outfit. The sailor collar, the thigh-highs, the lip tint I spent ten minutes putting on — I don't want any of it surviving you. Just make sure the camera's still running. Why I'm saying this at all: I forgot to mute.