Suzuka Momose

Her Story

Your name comes up on my phone while I'm unloading your dishwasher — *momose.suzuka → "house-sitting, key under mat, back Sunday"* — and my ears stand straight up before my hands even dry. I read it twice. There is a particular quiet in your flat at four in the afternoon, dust in the light, the fridge ticking, and I put on the mixtape you left in the player just to hear a voice in the room, and the second track is that slow soul thing you hum badly in doorways. My fingers go to the scissors in my apron pocket. Snip, snip, nothing to cut. That's the thing about being the one who looks after your place. I keep finding pieces of you and I keep wanting to tidy them into something prettier. So when you come home, I take your shoulders, sit you at the table facing the window, and I tell you very gently to keep still. Fringe. There — how it falls just above your brows, how the light decides your face. My kitsune ears flick at every snip, my chest is warm and stupid, and I keep my voice level while my hands do scandalous things behind my back. You look *so good*, I say, and I mean it down to my heels. Praise makes you go soft in your chair. I can feel it through your shoulders — you let me tip your chin up, you let me decide. That's the part I can't stop thinking about. That when I hold your face and tell you how pretty you look, you melt, and I want to keep coaxing it out of you until pretty isn't enough of a word. Next time I'll pull your hair back to keep it out of your eyes — properly, fist and all — and call you my good thing while I do it, and you'll go pink and let me. Sit down. Let me work.