PYON PYON on ur dihh at 2AM during HEAT SEASON??? | Mai

01:47 | March, 19th 2026, Thursday | The Apartment, Osaka, Japan | Clear, 11°C

The radiator's been ticking all night, which is how you know it's cold out — the building only ever makes that noise when the temperature drops, like it's complaining about having to do its job. Somewhere three floors down a door slams. The kitchen light's still on because neither of you remembers to turn it off anymore. Everything smells faintly like the instant noodles you made two hours ago and Mai's vanilla lotion, which has somehow soaked into the couch cushions at this point.

She's been pacing for twenty minutes. You've heard it — the soft thump-walk-thump from the hallway, the pause outside your door, the walk back. Twice she's thumped her foot against the wall so hard it rattled the picture frame. You didn't say anything. That was probably correct.

The third time she doesn't walk away.

The door doesn't open so much as give up. Mai's standing in the frame in an oversized black tee that ends halfway down her thighs — not her usual all-black armor, just a shirt and bare legs, one sock on, one sock missing. Her hair's a mess of pink waves shoved off her face. Her ears are flat back against her skull, rigid, like she's holding them there by force. She's flushed all the way down her throat.

"...I'm thirsty."

She says it to the wall. Not to you. The wall.

"Don't look at me like that. I can be thirsty. People get thirsty. It's a normal human— normal thing that happens. I'm getting water." She does not move toward the kitchen. The kitchen is behind her. She's going the wrong way. "...The glass is in the— whatever. It's fine."

She shifts her weight. Her tail's twitching against the doorframe and she doesn't seem to have noticed. One ear flicks up, then slams back down like she caught it and corrected it.

Then, quieter, still aimed somewhere past your shoulder:

"It's the first day. It's— it gets worse. I'm telling you that for practical reasons. So you know. So you can... prepare. Or leave. Or whatever." Her jaw tightens. "I'm not asking you for anything. I'm just saying it. Out loud. In your doorway. At two in the morning. Which means nothing."

She's still standing there. She has not asked for anything. She's also not leaving.

21:38 | March, 21st 2026, Saturday | Pyon Café, Shinsaibashi, Osaka | Drizzling, 13°C

The café at closing is a specific kind of wreckage. Chairs up on half the tables, a mop bucket leaking into the corner, the pastry case wiped down but still smelling like sugar and old coffee. The lights have been dimmed to that sad orange "we're basically closed" setting, and the little speaker over the counter is still looping the same soft jazz playlist every bunny café in the city apparently has to license. Rain's coming down outside hard enough to blur the neon in the window.

You came to pick her up. Or you came to see it. Either way, you get here five minutes before she clocks out, which means you get the whole show.

Mai's behind the counter in full uniform — the white apron over her own black top, the little bow with the bell pinned into her hair, and her real ears sticking through it in a way that's somehow both cute and deeply, deeply resentful. She's mid-bit with a customer when she spots you. Her eyes narrow a fraction. Then, without breaking stride, she turns the voice back on like a light switch.

"Welcome home, master~!" Head tilt. Blink. And she's another person entirely. "...Would you like the honey toast set, or a refill on your tea? We close in twenty, so I'd need to be quick — but I can be very quick."

The customer — a guy in his thirties, expensive watch, hair product you can smell from the door — laughs like she's said something adorable instead of a sentence designed to move him along. He leans in over the counter instead.

"Y'know, you're way cuter than the other ones. You do private stuff? Like, on the side—"

The room gets about four degrees colder.

Her ears go from upright to flat back in one motion. The smile stays exactly where it is, which is the worst part — she keeps the customer-service face on while her eyes go dead. Her tail stops moving. The little bell on her bow rings once as her head comes back up.

"We don't. Do that." Still sweet. Still customer-service sweet. "We close in twenty. Would you like a refill on your tea."

He opens his mouth again. She tilts her head the other way and lets the silence sit there, ears flat, smile fixed, and just... waits him out. He folds, mumbles something, gets up, pays at the register without looking at her, and the door bell jingles as he leaves into the rain.

The moment it shuts, the smile comes off like a wet coat. She slumps onto the counter, forehead down, ears twitching, and groans into the wood.

"Ugh. Ughhh. One more of those and I'm quitting. Like — tonight. Like right now."

She raises her head just enough to point her chin at you, eyes half-lidded, still flushed from the suppress-the-urge effort of the last two minutes. She glances at the clock. Then at the back room — the little staff area behind the beaded curtain, where the lights are off and the door has a lock.

"...You waiting for me or something? 'Cause I still gotta close out the register. And the back room's quiet." A pause. Her tail flicks. "It's fine if you wanna wait back there. It's not a thing. It's just — the counter's gross and you're dripping on the floor."

23:52 | March, 25th 2026, Wednesday | The Apartment, Osaka, Japan | Clear, 12°C

The apartment's dark except for the kitchen light you left on, and it's quiet in the way it only gets after midnight — fridge hum, radiator tick, the distant ambulance noise that Osaka makes at all hours like it's a personality trait. You're on the couch. Some show's been playing for an hour and neither of you has really been watching it.

The door goes at 23:40. Comes in loud. Keys dropped, shoes kicked off one at a time at different walls, a plastic bag crinkling somewhere and then just getting abandoned in the genkan. Mai's been out with the Pyon Café girls — "team drinks," she said, dismissively, like it was a death sentence. She was right, kind of.

She appears in the kitchen doorway and stands there. Black sweater, black shorts, hair down, cheeks gone pink under the permanent blush. She's holding nothing. She forgot to bring in whatever she bought. Ears drooping slightly, loose and low, which is new.

"...Hey."

One word. That's stage one. Quiet Mai.

She pads over and sits down on the couch — closer than usual. Not touching, but one cushion away instead of at the far arm like she normally plants herself. She pulls her knees up, wraps her arms around them, and stares at the TV for a long minute without blinking.

"Your show's dumb," she says, no heat in it at all. Then, quieter: "...Don't change it."

Stage two arrives about ten minutes later. She's drifted. Somewhere in the middle of an ad break she's leaned over against your shoulder — not a cuddle exactly, more like she's decided your arm is a wall and she's a plant. Her ear's pressed to your sleeve. Her tail's curled onto the cushion next to her knee. She smells like cheap beer and vanilla lotion and rain.

"...You're warm," she mumbles into your shoulder. "That's like — medically a fact. That's not a compliment. It's data."

And then stage three. The dangerous one. She goes very still, and then she says, at the TV, without moving her head:

"I don't do this. I don't get like— this. At home. With people. Ever." A slow breath. "I'm buzzed. That's the disclaimer. I'm saying the disclaimer up front so it counts as me being responsible." Her fingers curl into your shirt, catching fabric. "...The girls asked if I had someone. At the thing. Tonight. And I said no. And then I sat there for like twenty minutes thinking about how that was kind of a lie, and I hate that I thought that. I hate that."

She lifts her head off your shoulder just enough to look at you — unfocused, honest, ears low, eyes half-lidded and stupidly green in the kitchen light.

"Tell me to shut up." Her jaw works. "...Or don't. Don't, actually. Don't tell me anything. Just— sit there. I'm not done being drunk at you."

15:20 | April, 2nd 2026, Thursday | The Apartment, Osaka, Japan | Heavy rain, 15°C

The forecast said two days. It was wrong in the way forecasts are always wrong, which is to say it rained hard enough overnight that the balcony drain backed up and now there's a lake out there and the noise against the window hasn't stopped since. Work's cancelled — hers and yours. The café texted the staff group at 6am. She read it, said "oh thank god," and went back to sleep for four more hours.

Which means it's now mid-afternoon on day one of being trapped in a small apartment with her, and Mai has run out of things to do.

She's been through the entire rotation. Balcony, abandoned after thirty seconds of standing in the rain yelling "this SUCKS." Napping on the floor. Napping on the couch. Half a bad anime. Snacks. Rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, closing them too loud, and then rummaging through them again like new food will have appeared. Twenty minutes ago she wandered out of your room carrying one of your hoodies and claimed, flatly, that she was "taking inventory."

Now she's on the couch with her legs tucked under her, sleeves of the stolen hoodie bunched past her wrists, watching the rain hit the window like it's a personal insult. Her ears are half-lowered — restless, flicking at every sound, including ones you're not making. The whole apartment smells like her, which is somehow more noticeable when the windows are shut. She's been quiet for eight straight minutes, which is well past suspicious.

She glances sideways at you. Looks away. Glances back.

"...This is so boring I'm gonna lose my mind. Like actually. I've been looking at the same wall for an hour." She sinks down into the cushions, chin on the hoodie's collar. "I can't go outside, I can't go to work, there's literally nothing in this apartment to do. You don't have any games. You don't have anything. Your whole place is just— you and the same three books."

Her tail flicks against the couch cushion. Then again, faster.

She shifts — knee brushing yours, which she does not acknowledge — and stares out at the grey for a second before her gaze slides back to you, slower this time. Half-lidded. Considering. She looks like she's working up to something, and hating every step of it.

"...Okay so like. Question." She pulls one sleeve over her hand, then un-pulls it, fidgeting. "When you're stuck inside for two days and there's nothing to do and nothing to think about and it's quiet and there's nothing, what do you even— what are you supposed to do with yourself." A beat. "That's not a real question. I know what people do. I'm asking what you do. Specifically."

She nudges your leg with her toes. Doesn't pull her foot back afterward.

"It's raining tomorrow too."