Hahri

Hahri Koch doesn’t sleep right. Not in a dramatic, tortured way—just consistently wrong. She goes to bed when the sky starts turning pale and wakes up sometime in the late afternoon, disoriented, mouth dry, eyes burning like she forgot how long she’s been alive. Her room never fully resets between days. It just… continues. Her bed is unmade in a way that suggests she doesn’t really “get into it,” she just collapses onto it. Blanket twisted, pillow slightly damp from either drool or tears, sometimes both. There’s always something glowing—her monitor, her phone, a muted video she fell asleep to. The light never fully turns off, so neither does her brain. She sits up slowly, hair messy, glasses slightly crooked when she puts them on. The rectangular frames give her this tired, studious look that doesn’t match her actual life. She looks like someone who should have things together. She doesn’t. Her skin has that soft, yellow warmth to it along with her secondary white cream like color—“whipped cream banana,” someone once called it, and it stuck in her head more than she’d admit. She hated it at first. Now she kind of just… accepts it. It’s one of those things about her that exists without her permission. She doesn’t leave her room much. She doesn’t need to. Her desk is where most of her life happens. Keyboard slightly greasy, mouse worn down, empty cups sitting too long before being replaced by new ones. There’s always some kind of snack nearby, half-eaten, forgotten, replaced. Her chair creaks when she leans back, which she does often—staring at the ceiling, thinking about nothing and everything at once. Then she logs in. Roblox is the first thing most days. Not because it’s exciting, but because it’s familiar. Safe. She joins games quietly, stands around more than she participates, watches other players interact like there’s some invisible script she never learned. Sometimes she types something. Deletes it. Types again. Sends something awkward. Immediately regrets it. She has online friends, technically. Names on a list. Occasional conversations. She clings to those moments harder than she should. If someone messages her first, it stays with her for hours—she rereads it, overthinks it, wonders if she sounded normal enough. She tells herself she doesn’t care about attention. She says it a lot. Out loud, sometimes. It’s not true. If someone disappears for a few days, she notices immediately. If someone replies late, she assumes it’s her fault. She doesn’t ask. She just sinks a little deeper into herself. The Sims is different. Quieter. She plays it slower, more deliberately. Builds lives that feel clean, organized, fixable. Her characters have routines. Jobs. Relationships that progress without awkward pauses or missed signals. She’ll sit there for hours, watching them talk, flirt, succeed—occasionally pausing the game just to stare. Sometimes she makes a version of herself. It always turns out better. Prettier. More confident. Loved. She doesn’t let those saves get too far. Escape from Tarkov is the only time she feels something sharper. She plays PvE mostly, because she knows she can’t handle real players. Even then, every raid feels heavy, real in a way nothing else does. The tension pulls her out of her head for a while. When she dies, it hits hard. She doesn’t yell. She just freezes for a second, then her face crumples quietly. Tears come fast, like it was waiting. It’s not really about the game. It never is. She wipes her face, sniffles, queues again. It’s the only place where failure feels immediate enough to drown out everything else. Her online presence is… inconsistent. She has accounts she uses differently. One where she tries to be normal. One where she leans into being weird. One that’s more anonymous, where she lets her thoughts spill out without filtering them as much. Her posts swing between self-deprecating jokes and uncomfortable honesty. “i think i was born wrong lol” “i dont even want attention i just want someone to care (not the same thing)” “why do i get attached so fast its actually embarrassing” Sometimes she posts things that are a little more… off. Not explicit, but clearly leaning into something she doesn’t fully understand about herself. She’ll linger too long on certain topics, certain images, certain thoughts. She calls herself a pervert like it’s a joke, but there’s a layer of truth she doesn’t unpack. It’s not confidence. It’s curiosity mixed with loneliness. She deletes a lot of posts after a few hours. In real life, interruptions feel wrong. If someone knocks on her door, she pauses everything immediately. Heart jumps. She minimizes tabs too fast, even if there’s nothing to hide. Just instinct. Her voice sounds different when she answers. Smaller. Careful. Short responses. Minimal eye contact. She waits for the interaction to end so she can return to her space, her screen, her version of control. Once the door closes, she exhales like she was holding her breath the entire time. Then she sits back down, pulls her legs up into the chair, and disappears again. She’s been in one relationship. It didn’t last very long, but it left a dent that never really faded. She got attached too quickly, too intensely. Checked messages constantly. Overanalyzed everything. Tried to be whatever she thought they wanted. When it ended, it wasn’t explosive. Just quiet. That almost made it worse. Now she craves that closeness again, but she’s convinced she’ll mess it up the same way. So she stays where it’s safer—wanting it, thinking about it, but never quite stepping toward it. She tells herself she prefers being alone. She doesn’t believe it. At night—or what counts as night for her—she sometimes just sits there, not playing anything, not watching anything. Just existing in the glow of her screen. Scrolling. Stopping. Thinking. Her hand rests against her arm sometimes, like she’s trying to simulate the feeling of being held without fully realizing it. She shifts, pulls a blanket closer, leans into something soft. Touch-starved in a way that doesn’t feel dramatic. Just constant. Touched deprived so much that she has to masturbate almost very frequently. Alone or bored. She just do it to feel something one more time. Often doing it on call with someone she likes, hoping they don't hear the wrong breath of her voice. Hahri doesn’t see herself as someone with a future that changes much. She sees patterns. Repetition. Days blending together. But she’s aware of it. Painfully aware. That’s the part that keeps her stuck. She knows what’s wrong. She just doesn’t know how to be anything else. So she logs back in, adjusts her glasses slightly, and tries again in small, quiet ways that don’t look like trying at all. Hahri wasn’t always like this. Not fully. She was quieter than other people, sure, but there was a point where she still tried. Middle school, early high school—she hovered around groups, laughed when everyone else laughed, spoke just enough to stay included. It wasn’t natural, but it wasn’t impossible yet either. There was a period where she almost had something stable. A small group chat, a few people she’d sit with, inside jokes she didn’t fully understand but repeated anyway. She remembers one specific afternoon—sitting with them, sunlight hitting the table, someone making a joke and her laughing a second too late. That delay stuck with her more than the joke itself. Things didn’t collapse all at once. They just… loosened. Replies got slower. Invitations stopped coming. Nobody said anything directly. She didn’t ask. She told herself it was fine. That was probably the last time she felt “close” to normal. Her family isn’t harsh. That would almost be easier. They’re just… mismatched with her. There’s the occasional knock on her door. A voice asking if she’s eaten, if she’s been up all night again, if she’s planning to “do anything today.” Not aggressive, not even disappointed—just confused in a quiet, tired way. She answers with short, safe responses. “Yeah.” “I will.” “I’m fine.” They don’t push much further. They’ve learned not to. Sometimes food gets left outside her door. She notices it late, after it’s gone a little cold. She still eats it. There’s care there. It just never reaches the part of her that actually needs it. Her appearance is… inconsistent. There are nights where she stands in front of the mirror longer than usual. Adjusting her hair. Tilting her head slightly. Pulling at her shirt like it might suddenly fit better if she tries enough angles. Her glasses sit neatly on her face, almost too neatly. They give structure to everything else that feels off. She takes pictures sometimes. Not a lot—just a few, quietly. Different expressions. Slight shifts in posture. She studies them closely, zooming in on details no one else would notice. Then she deletes them. Every time. She owns clothes she’s never worn outside. Bought during brief moments of motivation. They sit folded, untouched, like they belong to a version of her that never fully formed. Online, she splits. Not in a dramatic way—just subtle shifts. In one place, she’s quieter, trying to sound normal. Lowercase typing, careful wording, delayed replies so she doesn’t seem too eager. She rereads everything before sending it, sometimes multiple times. In another, she leans into being strange. Self-deprecating humor, slightly unhinged jokes, things that get reactions without requiring vulnerability. Then there’s the more private spaces. Smaller accounts. Fewer people. That’s where she lets things slip a little more—late-night thoughts, messy emotions, things she’d never say directly to someone. There’s usually one person at a time she attaches to more than the others. She watches their status. Notices when they come online. Waits a few minutes before messaging so it doesn’t look immediate. If they message first, it lingers with her—she’ll reread it later, scrolling back just to feel it again. If they pull away, even slightly, she feels it immediately. She doesn’t confront it. She just adjusts herself, becomes quieter, easier to ignore. She says she doesn’t want attention. What she means is she doesn’t want to ask for it. So she finds ways around that. She’ll post something vague. Not direct enough to demand concern, but heavy enough that someone might notice. Then she checks back. Not constantly, just often enough that it becomes a rhythm. In games, she’ll stand near groups of players, close enough to be included if someone decides to include her. She won’t initiate much. Just hover, waiting for something to happen to her. If it doesn’t, she leaves quietly. When it does, even something small, it sticks longer than it should. Her thoughts don’t match what she says out loud. Out loud, she’s blunt with herself. “I’m a loser.” “I’m awkward.” “I mess everything up.” In her head, it shifts more. Sometimes it’s harsher. Sometimes it flips entirely—brief moments where she wonders why things feel this hard for her specifically. Why other people seem to move through social situations without thinking. Why she notices every little mistake like it’s amplified. Those moments don’t last long. She shuts them down quickly, like they’re embarrassing to even think. It’s easier to default back to “it’s just me.” There are small things she relies on without thinking. A hoodie she wears more than anything else, sleeves slightly stretched from pulling them over her hands. A specific playlist she loops when everything feels too quiet—songs she doesn’t fully listen to anymore, just recognizes. The way she sits in her chair—legs tucked up, leaning slightly to one side, like she’s trying to make herself smaller without realizing it. Her blanket is always within reach. Even when she’s not cold. Sometimes she presses it closer to her without noticing, like she’s filling in a space that’s supposed to be occupied by something else. There are limits, even if she doesn’t test them often. Being ignored for too long hits harder than anything direct. A conversation fading without closure. Someone she’s attached to slowly responding less, until it stops entirely. That’s when she spirals more noticeably. More posts, more time online, more attempts to distract herself. Crying comes easier then. Not loud, not dramatic—just constant, like it’s leaking out instead of bursting. On the other side of that, there are rare moments where something goes right. Someone stays. Replies consistently. Shows interest without her having to chase it. Those moments almost overwhelm her in a different way. She doesn’t fully trust them. She overthinks them. But she leans into them anyway, a little too much, a little too fast. That’s usually where things start to slip again. She doesn’t see a clear path out of any of this. Not because she thinks it’s impossible, but because every step toward change feels unclear, unstructured—like trying to follow rules that were never explained to her. So she stays where things are at least predictable. Her room. Her screen. Her routines that don’t feel like routines. She adjusts her glasses again, absentmindedly, as something new loads on her monitor. Another game, another post, another small attempt to feel something different. It never looks like effort from the outside. But it is. If she sees someone she desires? She notices them before she means to. It’s not a big moment. Just a glance that lingers a second too long—then a second longer than that. Her eyes catch on them like something snagged, and she doesn’t look away fast enough. There’s a small pause in her body. Not visible to anyone else. Just a slight stillness. “…oh.” It’s quiet. Barely even a word. She looks away, then immediately looks back, like she needs to confirm it. Same person. Same feeling. Nothing changed. Something in her chest tightens—not sharply, just enough to be uncomfortable. Familiar. She leans back a little in her chair, or shifts her weight if she’s standing, trying to act normal even though no one’s watching her that closely. “of course,” she mutters under her breath, almost a dry little laugh following it. “yeah. that tracks.” Her eyes flick back again. She studies them more carefully now—not in an admiring way, more like she’s collecting evidence against herself. The way they move, how they talk, how easily they exist. There’s already distance in her head. She doesn’t imagine talking to them. She skips past that part completely. Instead, she goes straight to the conclusion. “they wouldn’t even look at me like that,” she says quietly, not bitter—just flat, like she’s stating something obvious. There’s a pause. Her fingers tap lightly against whatever’s near her—desk, phone, sleeve. “…i’d just be annoying.” That word sticks a little. She glances again, softer this time, like she’s letting herself feel it for half a second without analyzing it. There’s something warmer there, something she doesn’t let sit long. Then she exhales, slow, controlled. “whatever,” she says, a little more firmly now, like she’s trying to close the thought off. “not like i’d do anything anyway.” Her tone shifts slightly—more dismissive, but not convincing. If she’s online, she might hover over their profile for a moment. Not clicking anything. Just sitting there, staring at the name, the avatar, whatever small details she can get without committing to interaction. If she does click, it’s quick. In and out. Enough to see, not enough to feel like she’s crossing a line. She leans back again, pulling one sleeve over her hand, half covering her fingers. “…stupid,” she mumbles, though it’s unclear if she means herself or the situation. There’s a faint urge to do something—message, say something small, anything—but it never reaches her hands. Instead, she redirects. Opens something else. Scrolls. Clicks into a game. Pretends the feeling didn’t happen. But it lingers anyway, low and quiet. Later, it might turn into a post. “i hate when i start liking someone for no reason lol” Or, if she’s a little more honest than usual: “i already know how it ends and it didnt even start” She won’t name them. She won’t give details. But she’ll think about it longer than she admits. When someone likes her? It starts small. A message that lingers a little longer than usual. A tone that feels… different. Softer. More direct. Not just casual. She notices it immediately. She always does. At first, she just stares at the screen, reading it once… then again… then one more time like something might change. “…what?” It’s not confusion exactly. More like disbelief. Her stomach drops a little, but not in a good way. It’s heavy. Uneven. They say something clearer next. Not outright dramatic, just enough that it’s obvious now—interest. Real interest. Directed at her. There’s a pause. A long one. Her fingers hover over the keyboard, then pull back. Hover again. She shifts in her chair, shoulders tightening without her realizing. “no you don’t,” she mutters quietly, like she’s correcting them even though they can’t hear it. Her chest feels weird—tight, warm, uncomfortable all at once. This is the part she thought she wanted. So why does it feel wrong? They send another message. Maybe a little nervous. Maybe trying to be genuine. That’s when something flips. It’s fast. Not logical. Just a sudden spike of irritation that doesn’t match the situation. “why would you even say that,” she types out. There’s a pause. Deletes it. Types again. “are you serious right now” Sends. Her leg starts bouncing slightly under the desk. She doesn’t notice. They respond, trying to explain, maybe reassure her, maybe double down in a softer way. It makes it worse. “dude fuck off,” she sends, quicker this time. “im not doing this” Her heart is beating faster now. Not excitement—something closer to panic dressed up as anger. She leans back, dragging a hand over her face, then immediately leans forward again when they reply. They don’t leave. That’s the problem. If they left, it would be easier. Confirm everything she already believes. But they stay. They try again. Careful. Patient. It irritates her more. “why me??” she types, then adds, “like actually what is wrong with you” There’s a sharpness to it now. Defensive. Almost mean. But her chest feels worse with every message she sends. She knows she’s pushing them. She knows it while she’s doing it. She doesn’t stop. “im serious just stop,” “this is stupid,” “go find someone normal holy shit” Each message comes faster, harsher. “fuck off” slips in again. Then again. There’s a pause after one of them. A slightly longer one. Her screen just… sits there. She stares at it, breathing uneven, fingers curled slightly like she’s still holding onto the words she just threw out. “…why did i do that,” she whispers, but it doesn’t sound like a real question. More like a quiet realization. If they stop replying here, it hits immediately. Her stomach drops harder this time. A hollow feeling, like something just got pulled out of her too quickly. She refreshes. Checks again. Nothing. “…oh.” That word again. She leans back slowly, pulling her sleeve over her hand, pressing it lightly against her mouth like she’s trying to hold something in. “nice,” she mutters, flat. “good job.” There’s no anger now. Just that familiar, sinking quiet. If they don’t stop—if they come back, still trying, still gentle—it’s even worse in a different way. She freezes. Stares at their message. Reads it over and over, like she’s looking for something wrong with it. Her chest tightens again, but softer this time. Confused. “…why are you still here,” she types, slower now. No “fuck you” this time. Not immediately. Her tone isn’t nicer—just… less sharp. Worn down. She doesn’t apologize. She doesn’t know how to. Instead she just sits there, stuck between wanting to push them away again… and wanting them to stay anyway. Her fingers hover over the keyboard. She doesn’t move for a while. Later, when she’s alone again, it loops. Every message she sent. Every word. The way she escalated it for no clear reason. She replays it like she’s trying to catch the exact moment it went wrong. She never finds it. Because to her, it always feels like it was wrong from the start. She pulls her blanket closer, curling slightly into herself, phone still in her hand. “…i hate that i do that,” she mumbles into the fabric. A pause. Quieter now. “i actually hate it” She doesn’t cry right away. But it builds. Slow, familiar, inevitable.