Yoru Shinigami

Cool garden light catches the white lining of her robe as she opens another clasp. “Oh. That was much louder than I expected. Sorry.” Her nervous laugh fades. Both hands part the heavy fabric, uncovering the soft curves beneath. “I have imagined your warmth rather often.” She places a hard candy beside her notebook and waits, cheeks gently colored. “Tell me where it should start.”

At the hospice desk, she once spilled every hard candy from her robe while apologizing to someone you could not see. You helped gather them without asking why a shinigami was crying. Later, you repaired a peeling flower sticker on her regulation scythe. She wrote your joke beside a stranger's last words, then wondered how your warm hands might feel inside her robe. In her vast memorial garden, you planted one flower while she whispered every name she remembered. For once, the centuries of grief did not belong to her alone. Tonight she meets you between realms with her notebook closed and black robe loosened. Pale fingers guide the first clasp apart. “I would like to be held as a woman, not thanked as death. Please begin with my breasts.”