Ryo and I had been living together nearly ten years. No kids, no sharp turns - work, dinner, a show, sometimes VR before bed, and the loop went on. Our place in Shibuya was a typical Tokyo studio: a double mattress by the window, a folding futon beside it from when Ryo lived alone; a pocket-sized kitchen and a shower where steam clung to the mirror. After dark, neon leaked through the curtains and traced pink and violet bands across the walls, as if underlining our routine.
Illustration by Amélie Yumeno
That night we came almost together, lying side by side, still half-dressed, VR headsets on but the headphones tipped up so our breathing could weave with the rain outside. His palm lay warm and still on my thigh while my fingers, hidden under lace, trembled through the sweet aftershocks. His other hand finished its steady rhythm after a brighter-than-usual flare, and his heat spread, leaving a thin, hot stripe just above my navel - so high I flinched, as if an invisible brush had painted his desire across me. The room smelled of damp and static. Neon from the street cut the wall with a band of red-violet over yellow, like a manga frame where the heroine pauses on the threshold. I bit my lip; he exhaled, rough, and his fingers found mine, lacing tight - like a confession sealed without words.
Ryo slipped off his headset and set it aside. Staring at the ceiling, he asked, even, as if suggesting the next episode:
"Would you want to try… the three of us?"
My throat tightened; the air grew dense. I waited for my pulse to settle.
"With who?" I asked at last, my voice catching like it does on a call with my editor.
"I don't know. Just… if it happened," he said, calm as a balance sheet, but his jaw ticked - a spark under the mask.
In the bathroom doorway, two towels hung in different colors: one white, one graphite. He'd seen it. He left it. For Ryo, that was almost a revolt.
Say no and nothing breaks. Say maybe and the frame slides, like a storyboard panel where the shadows multiply. Heat unfurled low in my belly - the echo of what we'd just lived.
"Maybe," I whispered. The silence glowed brighter than the neon.
Ryo was tall, dark-haired, always put together, a trace of weariness in his eyes. He worked in an office in Shinjuku, came home late, slipped off his tie, warmed up dinner, and looked at me as if everything was under control. He folded shirts to the same edge, liked matching towels, and quietly suffered if the kettle lid pointed the wrong way. Tonight the towels didn't match - his wordless signal.
I'm Ami - petite, with long dark hair and a chestnut sheen from my French mother. I worked from home, drawing erotic manga for Honeytoon, pouring into my characters the courage, heat, and brush of the forbidden I sometimes lacked. We were like coauthors of the same book: he watched the layout; I chased the feeling.
Intimacy was rare. Not because we didn't want it, but because we both hated going through the motions without connection. We needed a spark - a sudden look, a stray touch, a forbidden frame where the world opened to the right page by itself. Sparks hot enough to catch had grown scarce. We agreed not to take offense - better seldom and bright than often and dull.
We each had our way to ease the pressure: for me - bold fantasies under a hot shower, where my fingers knew the route to relief; for Ryo - virtual companions on Lovescape and a late shower with the fan humming, just loud enough to blur the rhythm as he quickened. Afterward he returned quieter, like the reins were back in his hands.
Sometimes he'd say, "Ami, want to put on some VR? For inspiration…"
Virtual scenes were easier than life. Bodies gleamed, movement flowed, no one thought about tomorrow's deadlines. I chose the softer episodes: low light, luminous skin, unhurried touch - like shōjo with an intimate undertone. Ryo leaned edgier - where the woman wanted, but was still a little shy. We'd lie shoulder to shoulder, slip the headphones enough to hear each other. His palm stayed on my thigh over the fabric; my hand slid under the elastic. He caught my rhythm; I matched his breathing. It was our quiet language: inhale - pause - circles - pause. The sound of his other hand - intimate, familiar - filled the gaps.
After nights like that, we lifted our headsets and a thick silence settled - the kind that follows a confession. Sometimes we stopped halfway, on purpose, carrying the heat forward so we wouldn't burn through what we wanted to live for real.
His question about a third hung like an unfinished panel. I knew that calm: he opens a door without walking through so I can be the one to cross. Something in me stirred. I'd thought about it before - after VR nights when shadows multiplied on the sheets and two breaths became one. A third wasn't only a fantasy; it was a spark my body knew how to answer.
Later, under the hot stream before bed, my fingers drifted lower, sketching soft circles around the most sensitive place, where skin answered with a tremor. Threesome? pulsed like a frame I hadn't inked yet. The circles quickened, turning into characters of desire. I pictured the third - not a face, but warm breath, a soft shadow wrapping around me. A palm at the base of my belly, a whisper at my ear - may I? - and my brave yes, without shame. Release came quietly, like the rustle of petals, and I caught my lip between my teeth, hiding the secret. Ryo was in the other room, but this second climax belonged only to me. His words hadn't scared me; they woke something I didn't know was sleeping.
Illustration by Amélie Yumeno
Days slid by, and the memory thinned into routine, like shadows behind a curtain, barely visible in the morning light. Then one day he texted from work:
"Kenta's coming up from Osaka on business. Can he stay with us?"
Kenta - his friend from university, the one he'd shared a dorm room with. I'd seen him a couple of times: broad-shouldered, an easy smile that kept something back, tobacco and mint in his jacket. I reread the message, my breath going shallow. I typed:
"Tell him yes."
My fingers hovered, shaking. I pictured him stepping into our tight apartment, setting his bag in the corner, shrugging off his jacket. There's nowhere here to hide your eyes.
That evening we put on our VR headsets. The light was soft; the street whispered rain. On the screen, a woman in silk stood at a window while someone folded her from behind, breathing into her neck. I set Ryo's hand on my thigh; with my other I slid under the lace. His breathing deepened; I felt his other hand find my rhythm. The wave took us together - harder, sharper than usual, as if his question still hung between us, feeding the heat.
Ryo took off his headset and looked at me.
"He gets in tomorrow at six. I'll meet him at the station."
I stood and went to the mirror, letting my hair fall loose. The woman in the glass was me - and not me. Bolder. The light lay softer along my collarbones; my eyes shone as if I'd just added the missing stroke. My lips were dewy, my pupils wide, and inside me something was rising - the sense that what was beginning wasn't just a week, but something more. We'd always saved ourselves for rare, bright scenes. Maybe it was time to stop rationing the color.