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[solderini]

OK, dudes. I'm typing up my Phonology paper right now (after changing my topic yet again, OH BOY), and damn am I bored. This is because I know that after I finish my paper I will have nothing to look forward to except cleaning my room and/or washing the dishes. I'm begging you, now: give me something to look forward to. I would much rather be

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Yuuko is much harder to write than you'd think

[solderini]

The scent of jasmine was the thing that alerted him to her entrance, lost in thought as he was. Though technically the same smell as the incense that permeated the room, it crackled in his nostrils, down his throat. His eyes jerked up at the first spark and widened at what he saw. A woman beautiful beyond age, draped in a black and red kimono decorated with cranes. She looked him up and down, smiled, and turned to slide the door shut behind her.

“To start with,” she said as she turned to face him again, “I’d like my incense holder back.”

He shamefacedly pulled the incense holder from its hiding place inside his suit and set it on the floor in front of him. In a supreme act of will, he removed the stick of incense as well and placed it back in the holder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t seem to help myself.”

“It runs very deep in you, doesn’t it,” she asked. He nodded, though it wasn’t really a question. How many jobs had he lost now because of this? Six, seven, maybe eight, and all he had to show for it were boxes crammed full of things he didn’t want and could barely remember taking. Four staplers from his latest (soon to become former) job alone.

“I’ve tried,” he said. “Therapy. Medication. Everything.” He gripped his knees. “I don’t know how to make it stop. Anything I see, I have to take.” A compulsion, like eating or breathing. Even the urge he’d felt to come into this strange little shop paled in comparison.

“Anything you see,” the woman said contemplatively. He frowned. What was that emphasis for? “So, is this your wish? To be free of this compulsion?”

His mouth dropped open. “You can do that?” he said after a pause that seemed like eternity. “You can make it go away, just like that?”

“No,” she corrected, kneeling in front of him. “It’s too deeply-rooted to just take it away; it’s an essential part of your personality. People can only change by their own will, and yours--”

“Please!” he begged, touching his forehead to the floor in despair. “I don’t know how many friends I’ve lost because of this; even my own family won’t invite me into their homes. I can’t--I don’t--if you can’t--”

“However,” she interrupted, and he fell silent, somehow knowing that this was not a woman to cross. “I can... ameliorate your condition, if you’re willing to pay the price.”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Even if I have loan payments for the rest of my life!”

“Very well.” He raised his head and smiled. “But what I require from you is not money.”

“That’s fine,” he answered.

The woman nodded and reached out towards him. “Close your eyes,” she said.

He did, and felt her slim, cool fingers brush along his temples. “Now, open them.”