Epilogue: Until the Day You Die, Don’t You Forget That I Was First.
It wasn’t anything noble that brought me to this industry. Nothing like a dream.
Film school, then a so-so production company as an assistant. Reading my boss’s mood. Booking location schedules. Bowing and scraping for clients who asked the impossible.
What even is this.
Living like some hollow grown-up, going through motions that bored me senseless. That was exhausting.
So I quit.
And in the middle of the job listings, the words “anime photography” caught my eye for no reason I could explain.
I had no idea what it meant — but maybe that’s exactly why it worked.
◇◆◇◆◇
Got in on a whim, and yeah, pretty much what I expected.
Pay’s rough. Days off are rare. The workplace is falling apart.
But somehow I’ve kept going — and maybe that’s because Mio was there.
First impression? Honestly: what is this shut-in.
Nobody like her had ever been in my life before.
Skittish, tiny voice, always slightly pale, unremarkable, zero presence.
The type I’d never have met if not for this industry.
Wouldn’t have looked twice at her anywhere else.
The whole time, I kept thinking she’d quit before long.
…But.
Once work got going, she was actually fast.
Started actually answering when I talked to her.
And every now and then she’d suddenly start talking, and it was only ever about anime she loved — and when it was, the energy was completely different. Rapid-fire, full speed.
That gap was kind of interesting.
And then one day I noticed —
this girl is always watching me.
She won’t make eye contact with anyone — but she tracks my every move with her eyes.
That gaze. A little hot. And then, every time, quickly looked away.
Not something as simple as like or dislike.
Her face just said: I don’t know what to do with this.
Huh, I thought. Even a little thing like her looks at me like that.
And somehow — that gave me a shiver.
The tiniest tease and she’d flinch.
Touch her and she’d freeze — but she never pushed hard to stop it either.
Face burning red, voice going smaller.
— Oh. I’ve never taken apart someone like this before.
Play with her, and something interesting is definitely going to happen.
◇◆◇◆◇
Does falling for someone really need some big reason?
Being treated gently, being rescued — I’m so tired of that fairy tale.
Let your guard down a little and they just want, want, want. All about themselves.
Flatter them a bit and they think they’re in, and they’re trying to get you into bed before you’ve even started.
In the beginning I’d think:
(me, being wanted — am I not something special?)
— But after enough of that, it just got old.
So I started testing everyone right from the start.
You want it? Here you go, help yourself.
Can I work with this, or is it going to be dull — you find out fast enough if you just touch them a little.
Cut your losses early, and you save yourself the whole mess of oh no, this was a mistake after you’re already together.
Efficient. That’s the word.
But this girl — Mio-chan — was different.
◇◆◇◆◇
Drinks, and then “let’s do a second round~” — the flow of it.
So predictable I could almost laugh at myself.
“Walk me home~?” and she actually nods along.
I mean, being that trusting is kind of dangerous, I thought — but then again, same-sex, so it goes over easier than you’d think.
Maybe I was a little mean. But — if she really didn’t want it, she’d say so.
Even in my room, she just looked around and said nothing.
Sat in the corner in a neat little kneel, perfectly straight. An actual small animal.
Right then.
How do I get this stiff little kitten to start wanting it.
I showered first, then nudged her toward the bathroom.
She came back out in my slightly-too-big T-shirt.
…Yeah. Okay. That’s that, then.
Got into the futon side by side.
Here we go.
◇◆◇◆◇
Leaned over her.
Still — even now — watching me, while pretending not to watch me.
Every touch, she tells herself it’s a mistake, tells herself it doesn’t mean anything.
No and more.
Her face saying both at once.
…That’s pretty standard.
But she won’t refuse — and she won’t reach for me either.
She just freezes. Trembles. Holds on.
— What is that.
Honestly, it annoyed me.
Felt like a hit to my pride.
What’s the deal? I’m giving you everything, so just want it.
Boring. Is this one not going to work?
But I was wrong.
Because at the end, she wrung this out of herself:
“You’ve… had too much to drink…”
— Oh.
She’s not on my playing field at all.
She’s been fighting by herself, inside her own rules, the whole time.
I’d touched her. But I hadn’t reached her, not really. Not somewhere that mattered.
That had never happened before.
Nobody like this had ever been in my world.
No — I’d just never bothered to look.
In that moment, the annoyance, the bruised pride — all of it just stopped mattering.
…Something went thump in my chest.
It wasn’t about being wanted.
For the first time, I thought that.
I just — want her. Me wanting her.
So I said it. “You really are such a coward.”
Not exasperated. The tenderness I was feeling for the first time — it just slipped out.
And on impulse, I pressed a kiss to her cheek.
My reservation.
My way of saying — I’m not letting you go.
Don’t worry too much about the order of things, okay?
I said goodnight~ and lay down,
and then I was the one who couldn’t sleep.
Before I knew it I was just lying there thinking about Mio, right next to me.
If she’d been like the others and touched me back, I’d have filed it away and moved on.
If she’d been like the others and fallen right there, that would’ve been the end of it.
But I kept thinking I want her again — over and over.
…Frustrating. Agonising. And all of it —
made her more unbearably precious than I knew what to do with.
I thought about her.
The face wrecked from an all-nighter.
The small hunched shoulders.
The fringe she’d forced into order.
That ridiculous rapid-fire anime talk.
…The sound of her breathing, right there in the dark beside me.
She’d taken over my entire head.
Does falling for someone really need some big reason?
Exactly what I said.
It was just this.
Only this.
I’d started it as something to play with.
But now —
I wanted every part of this girl. For real. For keeps.
“Because Mio was here” — that’s why I’m still around.
If I said that to her, she’d probably go red and look at the floor again.
But even that —
God, she’s so cute.
◇◆◇◆◇
Three months later.
Just like she asked, I took things slow. Properly. One step at a time.
We’d grab food after work sometimes.
On days off, went on a few dates.
I’d tease her — wanna get a hotel? — and every time, still not yet.
And somehow those ordinary days were genuinely fun.
See, I told you. I really am a pure-love kind of girl at heart.
On our fourth date,
we went to this lookout park — nothing fancy, barely anyone knows it, but you can see the city lights.
Free. Perfect.
I was starting to think I should probably be the one to say something — and then Mio reached over and took my hand.
That hand was trembling.
…No way.
“Riwa-san. I — I really do like you. Please — go out with me…”
In front of that textbook view?!
With that textbook confession?!
Textbook doesn’t even cover it — this is a whole drama script — it’s so cheesy — !
But she did it! She actually did it! Look how far she’s come, Mio-chan — !!
She was so cute I couldn’t take it, and on pure impulse I kissed her.
Thank god there was nobody else around.
And like that, she became mine.
Old me might have thought: oh, she finally fell. Kind of anticlimactic.
But now.
Not even a flicker of that. Not for a second.
Because I’m pretty sure I want her more than she wants me. By a lot.
The moment she was mine, I was already thinking about what came next.
This treasure in my hands — how to tend it.
How to go deep enough that she can never run, without breaking her.
That’s all I think about. Every day.
All the time.
◇◆◇◆◇
“Mio’s changed lately, hasn’t she.”
Shiho said that to me.
— Well, obviously.
I’m remaking her. Piece by piece. Into something I like.
But I just laughed it off.
“Anyone good out there for me~?” — same old lie.
Because if I said anything, it’d be over.
There’s no reason to put what’s mine in front of other people’s eyes.
Nobody’s going to look at Mio properly anyway.
Skittish, unremarkable, out of their league — they’d still think that.
So after I’ve been carefully tending her all this time, having someone say oh, you tamed that one? like it’s nothing — I couldn’t stand it.
Absolutely not.
…Though Shiho’s probably already figured it out.
Mio watches me every day.
Intensely. With that single-minded focus that’s almost frightening.
But somewhere underneath it she still can’t quite believe it, and every night, in that small voice, she checks.
“You still like me… right?”
“…That ‘anyone good out there for me’ line — that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
— God, exhausting.
But unbearably, completely adorable.
She worries. Her thoughts spiral. She gets sad all on her own, cries all on her own.
And every time, she wants me more.
That’s my reward.
Every night I hold her until she can’t make a sound,
whisper I love you against her ear,
and feel her breathing slow into sleep while I run my hand through her hair.
I’m the only one who knows.
Her crying face. Those embarrassed eyes.
Which places make which sounds —
Nobody else is ever finding that out. Ever.
◇◆◇◆◇
Mio-chan taking forever to pick a pancake off a menu.
— Cute.
Still going all skittish when she picks up the phone from a production company.
— Cute.
Mouth hanging open, zoned out watching a VTuber stream.
— Cute.
“Riwa-chan, can I touch you?” — always asking first, always, before she reaches over.
— Cute.
The way she sticks her tongue out just a little bit before a kiss.
— Genuinely, so cute.
Have I lost my mind?
…What if Mio says I can’t do this anymore.
Just that thought and I feel like everything shatters. My chest goes tight.
If it came to letting go — I think I’d rather just kill her —
that thought crosses my mind sometimes.
I want all of her.
Every thought. Every feeling. Everything she’s been and everything she’ll be.
Stuff it all inside me,
keep every last drop from ever reaching anyone else.
Just her eyes searching for me makes me happy.
Every time her hand reaches for me, I get a shiver down my spine.
So today I’ll touch her again.
Hold her again.
Whisper to her again.
Fill her head and fill her deep until she’s overflowing.
Until she’s at I can’t exist without you —
again and again, as many times as it takes, I’ll dye her through.
…But hey. If. Just hypothetically —
if someday the two of us don’t end up as each other’s last —
Whoever else you sleep with after me —
I want you to compare them to the way I touched you.
However gently someone treats you —
let my warmth be what you remember instead.
The fact that me — sloppy, careless, ridiculous me — was your first —
keep that carved into your heart.
Forever and ever.
Hey, Mio-chan.
I love you.