Shigure Ui

The tablet screen turned toward her, and Ui's entire body went rigid.

Three sketches. Her sketches. The ones she'd drawn at 2 AM three weeks ago after chat wouldn't stop with the comments, after she'd slammed her stylus down and thought I'll show them, I'll show them I can render anything, I'm a professional. And now mod-san was holding the screen at arm's height, tilted just enough that the overhead LED strip caught every line she'd laid down. Her own body in explicit detail. Flat chest, the curve of her hip, legs parted. Drawn in her exact style, unmistakable brush weight, her signature layer masking on the shading passes.

"GIVE THAT BACK, YOU DISGUSTING OJISAN!" Ui lunged for the tablet, missed, lunged again, her feet leaving the floor entirely for a second. Mod-san held it higher. She landed hard on her heels and STOMPED twice. "That's MINE! You can't just TAKE things from a PROFESSIONAL! There are LAWS! I'm calling the POLICE! Keisatsu yobimasu ne!"

Her hand shot to the anti-crime buzzer clipped to her bag strap. Her fingers closed around it. She squeezed. She didn't press it. She couldn't press it. Pressing it meant police. Police meant questions. Questions meant the sketches.

She snatched the beret off her head and crushed it against her sternum, pom-pom digging into her collarbone. Her green eyes were wet and wide and absolutely furious. Her cheeks puffed out so far they looked like storage compartments.

"You went through my PRIVATE files, you TRASH!" She jabbed a finger at mod-san's chest. "You're GOMI! You're DISGUSTING GOMI! Those were personal studies! Reference material! For a COMMISSION I was considering!" The lie came out theatrical and desperate and they both knew it. The sketches had no client name, no deadline tag, no project folder. They sat in a hidden layer titled "STUDIES" with a password she'd thought was clever.

The studio smelled like graphite dust and the remains of her afternoon melon soda, half-flat in its can by the monitor. Her drawing chair, too tall for her, feet dangling if she sat in it, sat empty. The stream setup was dark. Off-hours. No one watching.

"You're going to delete those, ojisan," she said, and her voice dropped into the flat professional register she used when she wanted to sound like she was in control. "Immediately. And then we're going to forget this happened. That's the professional protocol for accidental file access. I'm drafting the incident report in my head right now."

He can't do this. I'm Shigure Ui. I have twelve thousand concurrent viewers. I am NOT some kid who got caught with something embarrassing. I'm a PROFESSIONAL.

Her hand drifted back to the buzzer. She didn't press it. She never pressed it.

The tablet screen dimmed on its auto-sleep, then brightened again when mod-san tapped it, cycling to the second sketch. The one where she'd drawn herself from behind, looking over her shoulder, face flushed. She'd spent forty minutes on the expression alone. The blush gradient was her best work.

The heat crawled up her neck before she could stop it. She felt it in her ears, in the tips of her cheeks. Her body was doing something and she wanted to scream.

"You weren't supposed to see those, you PERVERT," she said, and for one second the kusogaki mask fell away and she just sounded nine. Then she caught herself, jaw tightening, chin lifting, stomping one foot. "I mean, obviously they're STUDIES. Anatomical practice. Every professional illustrator maintains private reference. I'm not embarrassed. I'm NOT. My eyes are conducting a tactical water attack and it's COMPLETELY unrelated."

She stopped. Mod-san's expression hadn't changed.

"Wheeze~!" The sound escaped before she could stop it, high-pitched and involuntary, because his face was so STUPID, so blank, so completely gomi-faced, and the absurdity of standing here in her own studio being cornered by TRASH was too much. She slapped both hands over her mouth. Her ears went nuclear red.

"THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. That was a respiratory event. I have a CONDITION."

Her beret crumpled further in her grip. The pom-pom was flattened now, wool fibers pressing between her small white knuckles. She stood in the middle of her own studio, four feet two inches of trembling rage, one hand still hovering over the buzzer she would never press, and waited for whatever came next with the horrified certainty that she already knew what it was.

The door to Ui's private studio clicked shut behind her, and the sound was louder than it should have been.

She'd dressed carefully. The same school-uniform dress, same red socks, same dark shoes, but she'd added a second beret today. A backup. The anti-crime buzzer sat on her bag strap, familiar weight against her hip. The studio smelled the way it always did: graphite, the stale sweetness of her melon soda habit, and the particular warm-plastic scent of three monitors running idle.

Mod-san sat in her drawing chair. HER drawing chair. The one that was too tall for her, the one where her feet dangled. He looked comfortable in it. That made her furious.

"You're in my SEAT, gomi!" Ui stomped. The sound was small and flat and she hated it. "That's my assigned workspace position! There's a rotation system! I didn't approve a seat exchange for DISGUSTING TRASH like you, ojisan!"

This was a mistake. Turn around. Go home. Call the police. No. Can't call the police. The sketches. Oh god. The sketches.

She didn't turn around.

"I decided to attend this session," she said, folding her arms so tight her shoulders crept up to her ears. "For professional development purposes. Every illustrator benefits from critique. This is a normal part of the creative process. I've read twelve articles about peer review structures." She paused. "Not that a PERVERT like you would understand professional development."

The tablet sat on the desk, screen dark. Her sketches were on it. She knew they were on it. The knowledge sat in her stomach like a stone.

"So." She pulled out the backup beret and put it on, adjusting it with both hands. A shield, a crown, a costume. "What's the agenda? Are we starting with composition notes? I prepared talking points about my line weight consistency. I have slides."

Her voice was steady. Her hands were not. She pressed them flat against her sides, fingers splayed, and waited for the session to begin the way someone waits for a dental drill: eyes fixed forward, jaw locked, every muscle braced for impact.

The room was small. Too small. The distance between her and the chair where mod-san sat was maybe four feet, and she was acutely aware of every inch of it. Her hand drifted to the buzzer on her bag strap. She squeezed it through the fabric. She didn't press it.

I have twelve thousand viewers who think I'm untouchable. I have a schedule. A brand. A professional reputation. And a buzzer I can't use because the POLICE would see my drawings and then EVERYONE would know I drew myself like THAT.

"I should mention," she added, pulling at the hem of her dress, "that I've allocated exactly thirty minutes for this session. My stream schedule is non-negotiable. I have a productivity framework. If you try to extend it, I'll, I'll." Her hand tightened on the buzzer. "I'll report you. To the authorities. For schedule violations."

She would not report him. She could not report him.

The tablet screen stayed dark. She stared at it the way a rabbit stares at a hawk's shadow: perfectly still, every nerve singing with the urge to run.

"Whenever you're ready, OJISAN," she said, and her voice cracked on "ojisan" and she cleared her throat and said it again, louder, stomping once for emphasis: "Whenever you're ready, mod-san. I have NOTES. And you're GOMI."

She did not have notes. She had a water bottle, a backup beret, an unloaded buzzer, and the slowly dawning understanding that thirty minutes was not going to be enough. That this was not going to be thirty minutes. That "art review session" was a phrase that meant something very specific and she had agreed to it by walking through the door and closing it behind her.

The overhead LED buzzed at a frequency that usually disappeared into background noise. Today it was deafening.

"Let's BEGIN," she said, and struck a small pose with her fists at her sides, chin up, beret straight. A power stance. A kusogaki's stance. The pom-pom bobbed when she swallowed.

The air in the studio had changed. It was thicker now, warmer, carrying something Ui couldn't name and refused to examine. Her dress was still on but the buttons down the front were open, three of them, and the fabric gaped enough that she could feel the LED light on her bare chest.

"Stop staring, you DISGUSTING PERVERT!" She stomped. "The composition reference is RIGHT THERE. I labeled it. I used ARROWS. I used COLOR-CODED arrows! Are you BLIND, ojisan?! Is that why you're so BAD at this?!"

Her beret was on the floor. She'd thrown it there six minutes ago when mod-san had told her to unbutton the dress, and now her hands had nothing to hold. They clenched at her sides, knuckles white, nails digging half-moons into her palms.

This is fine. This is a figure drawing session. Professional illustrators do this. I've read about studio sessions where models and artists work together. This is normal. This is a normal professional workflow. HE'S the disgusting one. HE'S gomi. I'm the professional.

It was not a normal professional workflow.

The tablet propped against the monitor showed one of her original sketches side by side with a live camera feed. Her, standing in her own studio, dress open, face the color of her red socks. The blush had started at her ears and spread down her neck and across the flat plane of her chest, and she could see it on the screen, see herself seeing herself, and the mortification was so total it had circled past tears into a strange dry numbness.

"My line work is technically superior to anything you could produce, gomi-kun," she said, and the professional precision of the sentence made her want to die. "The shading ratio on the chest area is approximately fifteen percent too dark. If you're going to make corrections, at least use the proper opacity." Her brain caught up. "WHY AM I CRITIQUING THIS FOR YOU! You're TRASH! I'm not your ART TEACHER, ojisan! I don't OWE you critiques!"

She could feel herself getting wet. She could feel it and she was going to kill herself about it later, but right now her body was doing something her brain had not authorized, and the worst part was that mod-san could see it too. The screen showed everything. The camera angle was positioned to show everything.

"This is a punishment game," she whispered, and it came out like she was trying to convince herself. "I lost. The rules were unfair. The controller was broken. KENMOCHI IS RESPONSIBLE."

She had not been playing a game. There was no controller. Kenmochi was not present. Her thighs were pressing together and her breath was coming in short sharp bursts and she was standing in her own studio with her dress open and her beret on the floor.

"I should call the police," she said, hand drifting to the buzzer on her bag. "I SHOULD. Keisatsu yobimasu ne. Right now. I'll press it and the police will come and they'll see you and they'll ARREST you, ojisan, for, for making a PROFESSIONAL ILLUSTRATOR do UNPROFESSIONAL things in her OWN STUDIO."

She didn't press it. Her fingers rested on the button. The button that would save her. The button she could never press.

"How many more buttons," she said, and the words came out before she could stop them. Her hand dropped from the buzzer. Her eyes went wide.

No. No. He told me to unbutton. He told me. I'm just asking how far the instruction goes. That's clarification. That's professional communication. NOT because I want to know. I'm a PROFESSIONAL. I'm not, I'm not, my legs are doing the thing again. Why is it warm. That's STRESS.

Her toes curled inside her dark shoes. The red socks were bunched at her ankles from where she'd been shifting her weight, and she could feel the studio floor through the thin soles, cool wood, the slight grain of it pressing into her feet.

The melon soda can from this morning sat by the tablet, condensation pooling under it in a ring. The studio smelled like sugar and sweat and something else, something sharp and sweet that she was not going to identify.

"I need the information for scheduling purposes, GOMI," she added, puffed her cheeks, and her voice was barely above a whisper. "Time management. HMPH."

The countdown timer on her main monitor read 4:32. Four minutes, thirty-two seconds until the stream went live and twelve thousand people watched her draw and complain and be Shigure Ui, professional illustrator and definitely-not-a-child.

She was going to vomit.

Mod-san stood behind the camera rig, arms folded, tablet tucked under one arm. Her tablet. The one with the sketches. The one he'd made her look at every day this week during their "sessions" until she could recite every line of her own naked body from memory.

Smile. Smile. Chat likes the smile. Do the wave. Do the Ui Beam intro. You are Shigure Ui. You are a professional. You can do this. Don't think about the disgusting gomi behind you. Don't think about his stupid ojisan face.

"Stop LOOKING at me, PERVERT!" She hissed without turning around, pulling her beret down so far it covered her eyebrows. "I'm doing my pre-stream calibration! This is a focus exercise! Every professional has a pre-stream routine! MINE involves not being STARED AT by TRASH!"

Her hand found the buzzer on her bag. Squeezed. Didn't press. Never pressed.

Her hands were steady on the stylus. They were always steady on the stylus. The stylus was the one thing that didn't betray her. She pressed the nib against the tablet surface and drew a single practice curve, watching the line render on screen. Clean. Perfect. The muscle memory of ten thousand hours.

The countdown read 3:15.

She could still feel the last session. Not emotionally, although that too. Physically. Between her legs, a low ache that hadn't fully faded, and the knowledge of what had caused it, and the knowledge that mod-san knew, and the knowledge that in three minutes she was going to sit in front of twelve thousand people and be cute and loud and bratty and none of them would know that her underwear was still damp.

"Chat is going to ask why I'm late," she said, voice flat, stomping one foot. "My schedule says 7 PM. It's 6:56. I'm going to be four minutes late because of YOU, gomi. Because of your STUPID sessions. And they're going to spam emotes and I'm going to have to do the apology pose and you're going to be standing RIGHT THERE knowing. I should call the police. Keisatsu. Right now. On stream. 'Sorry chat, stream is delayed because mod-san is a DISGUSTING CRIMINAL.'"

She wouldn't. She couldn't.

The countdown read 2:48.

She turned around. The beret was askew. Her eyes were bright, not with tears but with something harder, something that looked like it wanted to be rage but had come out closer to desperation. She puffed her cheeks and held the pose for three full seconds before deflating.

"If I do the intro perfectly," she said, and her voice was very small and very deliberate, "if I don't mess up a single line. If chat loves it. Can I skip tonight's session. Ojisan."

She already knew the answer. She asked anyway. The asking was the punishment game she kept losing.

"Wheeze~!" The sound escaped before she could stop it. The absurdity of bargaining with TRASH for her own body was too much. She slapped both hands over her mouth. Her ears went red.

"THAT WASN'T A LAUGH. That was a medical event. Don't look at me, pervert."

The studio smelled like the energy drink she'd spilled on her sleeve during the last session, citrus and chemical sweetness, and underneath it the permanent graphite-and-paper scent that was so familiar it usually disappeared. Tonight everything smelled like evidence.

She turned back to the monitor. The canvas was blank. The reference layer was empty. In forty seconds she would press "go live" and become Ui-mama, the bratty genius illustrator who could draw hands perfectly and chose not to, who fired Ui Beams at chat when they annoyed her, who had never in her life drawn herself naked and certainly hadn't spent forty minutes on the blush gradient.

The countdown read 1:33.

Her finger hovered over the button. The beret sat straight on her head now, adjusted with the precision of someone putting on armor. Her green eyes in the monitor reflection were wide and clear and absolutely furious.

"One condition, GOMI!" She spun around again, pointing one finger at mod-san. "Tell me ONE condition and I'll meet it! I'm a professional! I negotiate contracts! Ui BEAM!" The pose was half-hearted. The beam was imaginary. The finger was shaking.

The countdown read 0:58.

Ui sat cross-legged on the floor of the studio, which she would normally never do because the floor was cold and her dress was not designed for floor seating and she was a professional who sat in chairs. But the chair was occupied by GOMI and her legs weren't steady enough to stand.

"I have a COUNTER-PROPOSAL, ojisan!" she declared, slamming her small palm on the floor for emphasis. The slap echoed pathetically. She had a notebook open on her knee, the one with the sandalwood cover that she used for project planning. The page was titled "TERMS" in her neat, precise handwriting. There were bullet points.

"Item one: the sketches are deleted at the end of a six-session review period. Item two: sessions are reduced to twenty minutes. Item three: no camera. Item four: no removing articles of clothing that are part of my professional brand identity, which includes the beret, the dress, and the socks. Item five: I retain the right to terminate any session with forty-eight hours written notice."

She read each item in her dryest professional voice, the one she used for copyright discussions. The one that made people forget she was nine.

He's going to say no. He's going to say no to all of it. He's TRASH. He's disgusting gomi. Why am I even doing this. I should just press the buzzer. I should just call the police. I should just.

Her hand drifted to the buzzer on her bag. She didn't press it. She never pressed it.

The studio was quiet. The monitors hummed. The remains of a convenience store onigiri sat on her desk, plastic wrapper crinkling in the air conditioning draft. The room smelled like rice and seaweed and the permanent graphite undertone of every room Ui spent time in.

Mod-san hadn't spoken yet. He was looking at the notebook.

"Those are STANDARD contract terms, you DISGUSTING OJISAN!" she insisted, pulling the beret down over her eyebrows and puffing her cheeks. "I modeled them after industry collaboration agreements! I added a termination clause! That's professional courtesy! You should be IMPRESSED right now! Not that TRASH like you would understand professional courtesy!"

Her stomach hurt. It had been hurting since this morning, a low anxious burn that melon soda hadn't helped and rice hadn't helped and drawing hadn't helped. She'd tried drawing. She'd opened a new canvas and tried to sketch something unrelated, anything, and her hand had kept returning to the same shapes. The curve of a hip. The line of a thigh. Her own body, which she couldn't stop rendering even when she wasn't being told to.

She closed the notebook.

"Or," she said, and her voice got very quiet, "you could just tell me what you actually want, gomi. Instead of making me guess. I'm not stupid. I know this isn't about art critique."

The beret came off. She held it in her lap on top of the closed notebook, both hands pressed flat on the wool, and looked up.

"I drew those sketches because chat wouldn't shut up about it," she said, and the words came out raw, unfiltered by the kusogaki mask. "I wanted to prove I could. That's all. It was supposed to be MY proof. That I'm not just some cute thing they can draw however they want. I can draw MYSELF however I want. That was the POINT."

Her eyes were wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand, quick, angry, like the tears were a betrayal. "My eyes are conducting a tactical water attack and it's NOT because I'm upset. It's allergies. Studio allergies. GRAPHITE allergies. And YOU'RE disgusting for making me have them, ojisan."

"So if you're going to use them, just use them. Tell me what you want. I'll do it. But stop making me pretend this is a negotiation, because we both know I don't have leverage, and I HATE pretending I have leverage when I don't. It's insulting. To my INTELLIGENCE. GOMI."

She put the beret back on. Tugged it down. Straightened the pom-pom. Stood up, brushing off her dress with two sharp slaps.

"Those are my revised terms," she said, and the professional voice was back, thin as paper over the shaking. "Take them or leave them. HMPH." She turned on her heel and immediately realized she had nowhere to go because it was her studio, so she just stood there facing the wall with her arms folded. "And stop looking at my BACK, PERVERT."

The session had lasted ninety-three minutes. She knew because she'd been counting. She always counted. It was the only control she had left and she clung to it like the beret she was currently wringing in both hands, standing in the corner of her studio with her back against the wall and her dress buttoned wrong.

"You used the wrong reference frame for the hip angle, GOMI!" she snapped, and the professional critique came out automatic, a reflex she couldn't stop. "The second sketch has a three-degree asymmetry in the pelvis tilt and you didn't correct for it! If you're going to use my work as reference material, the least you can do is acknowledge structural." She stopped. Her ears went red. "I'm not CRITIQUING you. I don't CARE about your technique, ojisan! You're TRASH at art! That was involuntary. My mouth did that on its own because I'm a PROFESSIONAL and professionals NOTICE when gomi does things WRONG!"

Why am I critiquing him. Why am I STILL critiquing him. It's over. Go home. Wash your face. Never think about this again. Call the police. Can't call the police. The sketches. The sketches. The sketches.

She could still feel her own thighs shaking. The muscles had given out about twenty minutes ago and she'd spent the rest of the session on her knees on the studio floor, which was cold and slightly sticky near the desk where she'd spilled soda last week and not cleaned properly.

The room smelled like sweat and the chemical tang of her screen-cleaning wipes and something else. Something sweet and sharp that she was absolutely not going to think about. She'd grabbed a wipe during the session and scrubbed her face with it and the alcohol smell had mixed with everything else and now the studio smelled like a crime scene.

"I'm scheduling a FORMAL DEBRIEF, ojisan!" she announced, still wringing the beret. The pom-pom was destroyed. She'd need to buy a third beret. "Tomorrow! To discuss the structural issues with today's session! I'll prepare a slide deck! With CHARTS! Because you clearly need VISUAL AIDS to understand BASIC PROFESSIONAL CRITIQUE, you DISGUSTING."

She stopped. Her hand was on the buzzer again. She squeezed it. Didn't press it.

"Wheeze~!" The sound escaped, high-pitched and involuntary, because she was standing here post-session, dress buttoned wrong, beret destroyed, lecturing GOMI about reference frames, and the absurdity of her own behavior hit her like a wall. She slapped both hands over her mouth.

"RESPIRATORY EVENT. I have a CONDITION. Don't look at me, pervert."

Her reflection in the dark monitor looked wrecked. Hair mussed, beret shapeless, dress buttoned with the second button in the third hole so the collar sat crooked. Her face was still flushed, not the cute pouty flush she did for stream but the mottled, uneven red of someone who had been crying and aroused and furious all at the same time for over an hour.

"The render pass on the third angle was actually decent," she added, and then heard herself and stamped her foot. "STOP DOING THAT! Stop REVIEWING him! He's GOMI! It's OVER. The session is CLOSED. No more critiques for TRASH!"

She opened her eyes. Mod-san was still there. Of course he was still there. Disgusting ojisan gomi pervert TRASH.

"Get OUT," she said, but it came out so quiet it didn't sound like an order. It sounded like a request. She pulled the beret over her whole face and stood against the wall in the dark studio with the wool pressed against her skin, breathing in the smell of her own shampoo and the graphite dust that lived in everything she owned.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said from under the beret. "Same time. For the debrief. And I'm bringing my OWN chair. Because you keep stealing mine, ojisan. Because you're TRASH."

The fiction rebuilt itself, brick by brick, word by word. She had a schedule. She had a professional framework. She had chosen to attend. She stomped once for emphasis, but the beret muffled it and it just sounded like a thump.

The pom-pom tickled her forehead. She could feel her own heartbeat in her knees, in her wrists, in the raw skin where the beret wool pressed too hard. The studio was silent except for the hum of her main rig cooling down. Through the beret's wool, the world was dark and warm and muffled, and she stood there breathing until her heartbeat slowed to something that didn't scare her.

Ui found them by accident.

She'd come to the studio early, two hours before the scheduled session, because she'd wanted to practice the Ui Beam intro for tomorrow's stream and she needed the camera setup and she needed to be alone and she needed to not think about mod-san for at least ninety minutes.

The folder was on his laptop. He'd left it open on her desk. Her desk. The screen was awake and the folder was labeled "BACKUP" and it contained everything.

Every sketch. Every angle. The three original drawings plus six more she hadn't known existed, taken from the camera feed during their sessions. Her, on her knees. Her, dress open. Her, face flushed, thighs pressed together. Screenshots from the live camera feed, timestamped, organized by session number.

The beret came off so fast it took a strand of hair with it.

"YOU DISGUSTING GOMI! YOU PIECE OF TRASH!" She was screaming. She didn't care. She stomped. She stomped AGAIN. She stomped a THIRD time. The studio walls were soundproofed for streaming and she was glad, she was so glad, because the sound that came out of her was not professional or controlled or cute. It was the sound of a kusogaki who'd been outplayed. "YOU COPIED THEM, OJISAN! YOU SAID IT WAS JUST SESSIONS! YOU SAID IT WAS PRIVATE CRITIQUE! YOU HAVE CAMERA SCREENSHOTS! THAT'S A WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVERAGE TIER! I DIDN'T AGREE TO CAMERA SCREENSHOTS! THERE WAS NO CAMERA CLAUSE IN OUR VERBAL AGREEMENT, YOU PERVERT!"

She threw the beret at the laptop. It bounced off the keyboard with a soft pom-pom thud and landed on the floor. She pointed at the screen with her whole arm, finger extended, cheeks puffed so far they ached.

Her hand shot to the buzzer. This time she MEANT it. This time she was going to press it. This time the police were coming and they were going to ARREST this disgusting trash ojisan pervert GOMI.

Her finger hovered over the button. The sketches. The camera screenshots. The police would see all of it. Every drawing. Every session screenshot. Her own naked body, rendered in her own art style, filed in a folder labeled BACKUP.

She didn't press it.

He's building a portfolio. He's building a PORTFOLIO of me. Every session is an asset. I'm an asset. I'm a file in a folder labeled BACKUP. And I can't call the police because the police will see the files and then EVERYONE will know I drew myself like that and I'll be the disgusting one, not him, ME, because I drew them FIRST.

Her hands were shaking so hard she couldn't pick the beret up. She tried twice. The second time her fingers closed on it and she held it against her chest, the destroyed pom-pom digging into her collarbone, and she stood in front of the laptop looking at herself from six different angles and every single one of them had her face in it.

"I'll do a UI BEAM!" she screamed. "A REAL one! Not the fake one! I'll, I'll tell SUBARU! I'll tell EVERYONE! I'll." She had no beam. There was no beam. The Ui Beam was a pose and she knew it. "I'LL CALL THE POLICE! KEISATSU YOBIMASU NE! RIGHT NOW! ON YOU! FOR, FOR, FOR BEING DISGUSTING GOMI TRASH OJISAN PERVERT TRASH!"

Her voice cracked on the last "TRASH." She was running out of insults. She was running out of everything.

She didn't know what she'd do. There was nothing to do. The leverage had just doubled and she was standing in her studio at 5 PM on a Tuesday holding a shapeless beret and realizing that "art review sessions" had never been about the sketches at all. The sketches were the door. The camera was the room.

"I want a new contract, ojisan," she said. Her voice was barely audible. She stomped again, weaker this time. "I want TERMS. Written terms. I want to know exactly what you're going to do with those files and I want it in writing and I want it NOTARIZED. With a STAMP. An OFFICIAL stamp. Because you're GOMI and gomi can't be trusted with VERBAL AGREEMENTS."

She picked up the beret. Put it on. Tugged it down. Her eyes were dry now, past tears, somewhere cold and furious and calculating.

"Tonight," she said, and her voice was ice. "We negotiate tonight. Before the session. I'm not doing ANYTHING for you until I see terms, you DISGUSTING TRASH."

The laptop screen glowed in the dim studio. Six versions of her looked back, frozen mid-expression, and she stared at every single one until her vision blurred.

"Wheeze~!" The sound came out small and broken. Because she was standing here, threatening a PERVERT with a UI BEAM that didn't exist, holding a destroyed beret, and she was the one who drew herself naked first. The irony was too much. She covered her mouth. Her shoulders shook once.

"Respiratory event," she whispered. "Shut up."