Chapter Text
Osha sits in front of the hotel vanity, half-made-up, her face angled to catch the natural light. A makeup artist dabs highlighter along the high points of her cheekbones, and she tilts her head slightly, watching the glow with a faint smile.
It’s hot. Outside, the air hums with late spring warmth—it’s not sweltering, just soft enough to make fabric cling and everything feel a little more alive.
It’s a good day to taste something unforgettable.
She stares at herself in the mirror and frowns.
The ring-light hums, erasing every pore until her reflection looks borrowed from someone with fewer doubts.
The kimono top they’ve styled her in—cropped and floral, with a neckline that dives toward her navel—is technically on-brand. It’s giving sexy host eats the world. She doesn’t hate it. But it’s always a little strange, being looked at this way.
“Next time they’ll stick chopsticks in my hair and call this get-up cultural,” she mutters, glancing at her reflection. The thought makes her bristle—she’d walked off a shoot once for less.
Her stylist Jecki laughs from the corner. “Don’t tempt me. I have a set.”
Osha rolls her eyes.
Her jeans are low-rise and flared—surprisingly comfortable, even with all the exposed midriff. The heels? Unforgivable, but she secretly loves the way they sharpen her stride.
And now here she is, teetering in miniature stilettos, about to step into a working Kyoto kitchen—where a man who wields knives for a living is expected to care more about her palate than her silhouette. She hopes he does.
Her gloss catches the light. The effect is unmistakable. She knows how she looks. She just hopes it’s not the only thing they see. And honestly, she’s a little pissed about it.
“You okay?” her assistant asks.
“Yeah,” Osha says. “Just hungry. I can smell the Basque cheesecake from the studio kitchen already.”
She means it. Not in the influencer way, not even the model-in-recovery way. In the food is the axis of the world way. For as long as she can remember, food has been her gravitational pull. Not love. Not even ambition. Just the alchemy of flavor, of coaxing people into softening simply because something tastes like home, or heaven, or both. That’s the magic.
She said it once in an early interview—Seduce the senses, and love follows. It went semi-viral. Probably not just because of the quote, but because she was wearing whipped cream on her collarbone in the thumbnail. Still, she meant it.
Because food, like sex, like love, plays with the same parts of us—hunger, memory, vulnerability. The need to feel and be felt. Cooking is intimacy. To feed someone is to learn them. To eat what someone else makes is to trust them. It’s trusting that it won’t hurt you. That they won’t.
She knows how easy it is to confuse the three.
But it’s not love. Love is more demanding. More dangerous. It doesn’t settle. Love asks you to stay after the pleasure fades. To keep tasting, even when the flavor turns bitter.
Food is the practice. Love is the leap.
People think the show is about her. Really, it’s about that.
She adjusts her necklace—an emerald green malachite pendant in the shape of a clover, a gift she bought herself after filming wrapped in Naples. attraversiamo, the inscription reads.
Her phone glows with a new notification; the lock-screen a photo her and Mae at sixteen, laughing on a sailboat in the sun.
She grew up in Laguna Niguel—Danish-South African, sharing all sorts of hobbies with her twin sister, Mae: horseback riding and baking. Summers meant bonfires at Thousand Steps Beach, sun-bleached afternoons with salt in her hair and chocolate chip cookies on a friend’s boat.
Yet Osha remained relentless in her pursuit of flavor: how heat coaxed sugars to bloom, how a whisper of Sichuan could crack open your breath. In every kitchen she visited, the same truth was spoken in different spices. Hunger had its own fierce dialect; comfort answered with a softer one. Sweetness could scorch like fire, and chili’s edge could pierce like ice; bitterness wasn’t always the enemy but a note of depth. Fire both stripped away and revealed, and with a single, perfect moment under its blaze, it could soften the hardest edge of a dish.
And hunger isn’t all it is.
The longer Sweet Heat runs, the more people seem to forget she’s the one shaping it. Not just hosting—crafting. They talk about her like she’s a flavor, not a force.
“You make food sexy,” one exec said recently.
Meant as a compliment.
Probably.
But she’s not a garnish. Not just a pull-quote in heels.
And sometimes, when the lights hit too hard and the crew sets up with military precision—she wonders if anyone even hears what she says. Or if they’re just waiting for the lipstick close-up.
She loves this work. Loves it enough to worry it might love her back for the wrong reasons.
So when she adjusts the top again, it’s not about modesty. It’s control. Framing.
In Naples, she made a local butcher cry on camera. In Oaxaca, a street vendor called her hija and sent her home with extra mole. She knows how to hold a room.
Only today, she’s walking into his.
The director peeks in. “Osha, we’re rolling in fifteen. Ready to meet your chef?”
She reaches for her mascara, misses the cap the first time. Her assistant catches it with a laugh. “You sure you’re ready? He’s the kind of chef you only see on documentary specials, not in real life.”
“Let’s see if he’s ready.” She winces, before adding a final coat. “I usually am.”
~~~
In Kyoto, smoky charcoal and sweet sticky rice, the quiet perfume of camellia drift through alleys lined with persimmon trees and low-hung lanterns. She loves it here. Not just for the food, though that alone makes her want to stay forever. She loves walking the narrow laneways of Gion and Pontocho, where willow branches lean into the stone-lined canals, and every tucked-away machiya house seems to hum with quiet obedience.
Season one of Sweet Heat was set in Naples, a city of sun-bleached terraces, dough rising in grandmother’s kitchens, syrup-glazed pastries melting on the tongue. Kyoto couldn’t be more different. A world away with its cool precision and more subtle flavours.
Everything about Kyoto—the hush of its backstreets, the way seasons unfurl in subtle ways, even the smoke curling out from yakitori stalls at night—makes her feel like she’s arrived somewhere she isn’t just meant to film, but to learn.
But there’s one name she keeps circling in her notes.
Kinu.
A restaurant that barely exists online. No official Instagram, no Google listing beyond vague hours and a pin that sometimes vanishes. Twelve seats only. And the mysterious Qimir Ren: a name that made her researcher raise an eyebrow. “You mean the guy from that Kinfolk shoot?” Rey asks.
“Qira said he got burned once—bad. Like, 'can’t Google him without blushing’ bad.”
Osha pretends she doesn’t know what she means. Then loses an hour scrolling.
The photo went viral. It’s shot in warm film grain. Ren with his back to the camera, shirtless, scarred. His skin is golden, muscles lean and cut with the kind of definition you don’t only get from weights, but from hard work. One arm holds a deba knife mid-motion, the blur of a tuna loin beneath the blade. The other is half-hidden beneath a chef’s robe. His face in profile, dark hair casting shadows like webs on sharp cheekbones and an even sharper jawline. The caption reads only: The Craft.
If looks could kill. More like a handsome ronin than chef.
He hasn’t appeared in any press since.
Which, of course, only adds to the allure.
She does her homework. He’s half-Filipino, half-Japanese. He trained under Sol, the sushi master who famously never takes apprentices. Qimir is his exception. He opened Kinu four years ago. Some say it’s an act of rebellion. Others call it a love letter. The menu changes weekly and is said to incorporate subtle Southeast Asian influence—a touch of calamansi here, a hint of bagoong in a reduction. Nothing overt. Just memory folded into tradition.
He doesn’t do interviews or collaborate. The reservation process is unlisted and runs through a private mailing list. His Michelin star isn’t displayed anywhere, but they say you can feel the weight of it in the hush that falls when he enters.
Osha called in three favors to get them in. When he said yes, she reread the confirmation twice.
She’s ready to taste what he never puts into words.
~~~
The kitchen is pristine, angled in the center beneath overhead lamps that gleam off pale hinoki counters; a linen curtain partially obscures the dining area. Osha steps into the space gingerly, camera crew fanned behind her like respectful shadows. A soft voice from production announces their presence, but it’s too late—Osha catches her heel on a floor mat and slips.
She doesn’t fall.
Calloused hands catch her at the waist, pulling her steady.
“Careful,” the man says.
Osha looks up.
Qimir Ren.
Even more striking in person. Photos don’t touch the intensity of him. Real life does. His hands release her a moment too late—as if reluctant—or maybe just indifferent.
She steps back, steadying herself. “Thanks. I suspected these shoes were a bad idea, but the styling team overruled me.”
His chef’s whites were pristine; double-breasted and starched, sleeves cuffed precisely at the forearms. The fabric hugged him in places it shouldn’t have mattered; broad across the shoulders, tapering sharp at the waist. An apron was tied low around his hips, dark cotton worn soft from use, knotted so neatly.
He didn’t look like a man who just cooked. He looked like a man who disciplined heat into surrender.
He says nothing. Just glances once slowly from her heels to her neckline. Then meets her eyes again.
She catches the ghost of a smile in his eyes, gone before she can decide if it meant anything. She studies him—his stillness, the way he barely looks at her, like he’s trained himself not to. But she sees the way his jaw flexes.
Osha smiles to hide her nerves.
He stares at her for a moment longer than he should.
“You smile at me like you’ve never been told no,” he says.
She exhales. Close to a laugh, but not quite. “I’ve been told no. I just don’t let it ruin my appetite.”
She tilts her head. “That supposed to scare me, Chef Ren?”
He smooths the front of his apron, not sparing her a response yet.
Instead, he studies her. His eyes drift from the flutter of her sleeves to the shimmer on her cheekbones. He seems disinterested in the game she’s trying to play.
“I don’t need to scare you.” His voice is flat, a scalpel’s edge. “Fear and respect aren’t the same thing.”
Osha raises an eyebrow. “And you want which one?”
“Neither,” he says. “I want space. We’re on a tight prep schedule.”
An awkward cough ripples through the crew; the sound guy clears his throat, and the word “Rolling” drifts out, half-voiced and uneasy.
Osha flashes the kind of smile you feel before a blade slips in. “We’ll be quick.”
“No,” Qimir says, “you’ll be careful, Osha.” He’s already halfway back to his prep like her compliance is assumed.
He doesn’t look at her.
Not once.
She watches him walk away, that low simmer in her belly turning hotter, sharper. Not embarrassment. Something closer to curiosity. To a challenge. She’s not used to being dismissed. Especially not on her own set.
Still. Not a date. He doesn’t have to like her. He just needs to give her something she can use.
Get one unguarded line from Chef Ren. Just one, and the episode writes itself.
One line.
Miss it and Sweet Heat loses its flagship spring slot on Netflix’s lineup.
And with it, a season’s worth of budget, buzz and her reputation.
She repeats the thought, though it no longer steadies her.
Squaring her shoulders, Osha tells the crew, voice steady, “Move in by the station. I want steam on the lens, close and intimate.”
Qira calls, “Forty minutes of daylight left!”
A strip of gaffer tape snaps over a cable—starter pistol.
Osha doesn’t look at Qimir; there’s no need. “Let the knives talk.”
He hears it. Of course he does.
The corner of his mouth tilts. Not quite a smile, a warning.
She isn’t afraid, but the frame is already sliding out of her hands.
~~~
The concept board looks beautiful.
At least, that’s the general consensus as the culinary producer lines up the dishes on the counter for Qimir to taste. Six of them—one per episode theme. All modern, each arranged with care—swooshes of sauce, jeweled garnishes, and flourishes tall enough to flirt with the light. It looks like a tasting menu at a luxury hotel. Osha recognizes that. She also knows what it means: they’re trying to impress him on his terms.
It won’t work.
Qimir walks over slowly, wiping his hands on a linen towel. He doesn’t look at Osha. Just scans the spread, arching a brow.
“You made all of these today?”
“Yes,” says the culinary producer. “We prepped this morning. Each dish corresponds to an episode. We know you don’t allow co-creation, but we thought we’d present interpretations of your profile, your culinary lineage. For the camera, of course.”
Of course. Interpretations.
Qimir picks up a pair of chopsticks. Holds them like a scalpel. The crew quiets. Even Osha doesn’t breathe.
The first dish: a deconstructed kinilaw. Compressed mango, coconut foam, cubes of snapper torched lightly. A delicate crisp balanced on top for flourish.
Qimir lifts a cube and chews it. “Coconut overwhelms the fish.”
He moves on.
The second dish is some sort of tamarind dashi chawanmushi. It’s elegant. Garnished with perilla oil and a single edible flower.
He tastes. Nods.
“Why is it cold?”
“We wanted to contrast traditional temperatures—”
“Chawanmushi isn’t ice cream,” Qimir says, already reaching for the third.
This one’s a take on kare-kare—braised oxtail tucked into a rice crisp shell, with peanut miso and pickled daikon.
Osha thinks it’s balanced. Clever, even. But maybe that’s the problem.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “This tastes like it’s meant for the camera, not the tongue.”
The words hang in the air like a slap.
Osha bites the inside of her cheek. A PA shifts her weight.
The next dish is the lightest. Grilled eggplant with bonito, sesame, and shaved lime. It glistens.
He tastes it, then looks at the producer. “Did you grill this?”
“Our culinary assistant did.”
He nods. “Then maybe they belong in a different kitchen.”
Osha flinches. Not for them; for how unflinching he is in his criticism.
The last two dishes don’t fare better. One is a chocolate tuile filled with black vinegar custard. The other is a matcha bibingka with caramel shards.
He doesn’t even finish chewing before setting his chopsticks down.
“What were you trying to do here?”
The producer steps forward. “We were looking to create a cohesive palette across the season. Global, thoughtful, sensual. A narrative that evolves through spice, texture, restraint—”
“You think this is restraint?”
He looks directly at Osha after a moment that seems to stretch.
“What do you think?”
The air shifts. Everyone looks at her.
She straightens. “I think it’s beautiful. But it doesn’t taste like anything you would actually serve.”
Qimir’s gaze sweeps the room.
“Clear the counter.”
The culinary team hesitates.
Without looking away from the spread, he lifts his chin toward Osha. “I’ll cook for her—just her.”
Osha perches on one of the kitchen stools.
Qimir works with a rhythm that demands silence. No bluster. No performance. Just motion: the low hush of a blade against fish, the whisper of oil warming in a pan.
She watches his hands. Elegant gestures that waste neither motion nor meaning.
He moves like someone who knows the room bends around him.
He doesn’t explain what he’s making. He just sets the plate in front of her ten minutes later, sliding it across the counter without flourish.
It’s a small bowl. Soba noodles, barely dressed, with uni, fresh scallion, and a hint of calamansi. A single grilled shrimp on the side with no garnish, no foam.
The silence is heavier now, laced with heat and tension.
She leans in and takes a bite.
And moans.
A soft, involuntary sound spills from her throat before she can trap it.
Her eyes flutter shut. She almost regrets the sound as soon as it leaves her mouth.
The flavor is wild yet clean, silky then sharp. It crashes through her all at once.
She swallows slowly, savouring texture and afterglow.
The rush knocks something loose: summer sailing in Newport Beach—sweat at her temple, fingers slick with olive oil and lemon, a kiss that tasted of salt and peach skin.
When her eyes open again, Qimir is watching her.
His lips are parted, then he catches his lower lip between his teeth just for a second, as if the sound she made pulled something raw from him. His eyes trace her face: her mouth, her tongue chasing the last note of umami, the quiet flutter at her throat.
His thumb grazes the edge of the counter, just resting in her direction. But she watches it like it’s a hand on her body.
She sets her chopsticks down. The flush rises along her throat—half-exposed, half-exhilarated.
“What was that?” she asks, chasing his gaze.
He looks away. Clears his throat, like he’s pressing a reset deep in his chest.
“Enough to make you forget the cameras,” he says, wiping his hands again.
He watches her like the verdict matters. Like her mouth has become the most important thing in the room.
The crew exhales. A few chuckles, one camera operator mouthing holy shit behind the lens.
But no one breaks the spell.
The cameras are still rolling.
And something just happened.
Between them. Around them.
And now—something neither of them can take back is on the table.
~~~
The crew hums behind her, a quiet hive of reaction. A hum of motion: cables coil, lens cloths press to glass, light meters blink with delicate exactness. Someone adjusts a boom mic. Someone else unwraps a handheld fan, waving it beneath the lights.
Osha stays on her stool, fingers curled around her water glass, condensation slick against her skin.
The taste lingers—briny, velvet-soft, with a flicker of acid blooming behind her teeth.
Uni. Scallion. Soba, barely dressed. That perfect shrimp.
The heat of it. The care behind it.
It crawls into her bloodstream like smoke.
And it shuts her up.
She talks for a living. Makes food speak and translates its warmth, its weight, its why.
But that bowl?
That wasn’t just flavor.
That was a claim.
Desire, disguised as broth.
“Rolling B in five,” someone calls.
Qira crouches beside her a moment later, nails painted the same red as her clipboard tabs, smile already halfway into a wince.
“That was gorgeous,” Qira murmurs, hushed but urgent. “The moan? Incredible. Honestly, Emmy-worthy. But we didn’t get a clean on-cam reaction. You were off-axis. Can we grab a hero take?”
Osha feels like she's resurfacing from underwater. “A hero take… of what?”
“Of you, just something flirty,” Qira says. “Open. Warm. The way you usually are.” She taps the monitor. “A clean pull-quote—maybe ‘I’ve never tasted anything like this,’ or something elevated, like ‘better than sex,’ but… tasteful. Gloss. Bite. Done.”
Osha stares at her glass. As if the lemon rind might offer an answer. Did they not taste the food?
Osha presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, catching the echo of salt and citrus. “I’m not faking a foodgasm, Qira.”
Qira lifts her hands in mock innocence. “No one’s asking you to fake anything. Just… lean into what’s already there. You have crazy chemistry with him. People feel that. It makes the story sticky.”
Sticky.
God.
Is that what they think that was? A moment of TV-ready heat? Just chemistry, like it was choreographed—like she’d planned to tip forward and catch his eye, to say something clever, to get wrecked by broth on camera?
Osha gives her a dry smile. “What exactly am I sticking to?”
Qira softens. “This is the only episode without narration. We need real texture. And if he’s not going to give us vulnerability, we need it from you. Just... play the game a little. You know how.”
Osha doesn’t answer. She just watches the slow drift of lemon rind in her glass. Her top has shifted—the fabric clinging slightly to her sternum. She tugs it back absently, not because it slipped, but because her skin remembers his eyes.
Fifteen minutes later, she stands across from him again, mic’d and lit. The overhead light throws long shadows across the prep station. Qimir stands behind the counter, back half-turned, dragging a whetstone across a deba knife with slow, meditative pressure. Rhythmic. Controlled. Almost devotional.
Osha tilts her chin, aware of the cameras, the soft whir of the gimbal reset. Her heels press into the mat. She feels the heat blooming in her cheeks—not from embarrassment, but irritation. Or maybe something darker.
“Camera A ready,” comes a voice. “Whenever you’re set.”
Qimir stays focused on his blade. His silence is pointed.
So she leans forward, elbows resting on the wood. A subtle provocation.
His eyes drop. Too slow to dismiss. Too deliberate to deny.
And when they rise again, something has changed. Something hungrier. Like she’s a plate of something he doesn’t trust.
The problem is—she likes it.
Likes the edge. The friction. The refusal.
He withholds. And somehow, that feels like seduction.
His mouth stays still, but his jaw flexes.
She tilts her head. “So, Chef Ren,” she says, slow and deliberate, “what’s the philosophy behind today’s dish?”
His eyes flick up.
Then down again.
“No philosophy,” he says. “Just lunch.”
She feels the shift in her weight before she registers it—body tipping forward, breath catching. “Well, it was amazing. Can you tell us a little about your use of—”
“You want me to explain it?” he interrupts, not cruel, just clipped.
She holds his gaze. “Only if you’re willing.”
He shrugs once. Sets the knife down.
“Calamansi. Scallion. Uni. It’s not complicated. Muscle memory and motion.”
She doesn’t waver, her smile warm, eyes steady. “Is it memory that leads your hands or the desire to taste something again?”
His eyes flicker—not to her neckline this time, but to her mouth. Then back up, his brow furrowing, lifting at the corners as if the thought surprises him. He wipes his hands on a linen towel, grip tightening for a moment.
He looks away, the briefest tension in his jaw before he answers.
“Unless you want to talk semantics,” he says, voice low. “What guides me is knowing when to stop talking and let the food speak.”
From the corner of her eye, Osha catches Qira’s hand slicing across her neck. Move on.
She smiles again, but tighter this time, a flash of pink gloss catching the light. “You have such a unique perspective—this blend of Japanese technique with Filipino echoes. Is that something you—”
“Look.”
The word slices clean through the set.
Qimir turns to her fully now.
“You came for a story. Not a meal.”
“You don’t need me to say anything profound,” he continues. “You need a line that cuts well with a slow zoom.”
His eyes lock on hers.
The words don’t sting.
But they unsettle.
Osha straightens.
“Actually,” she says quietly, “what I wanted was something real. But if this is you…”
He tilts his head. “Disappointed?”
“No,” she says. “Just surprised. I thought as someone who uses his knives with devotion, reverence might mean something to you.”
That gets him.
It’s subtle, but she sees it. The flick of a brow. The pulse at his temple.
“Cut,” Qira calls too quickly. Someone exhales behind the lens.
He turns away before she can say anything else and washes his hands, reaching for a towel.
But when he resets his blade on the board, a thin bloom of red beads at his fingertip.
A shallow nick that’s barely visible.
He cleans it and covers it quickly with a bandage almost sharply, like he’s embarrassed the knife slipped.
Like he knows exactly why it did.
~~~
She’s not supposed to care. She’s supposed to host a segment, flirt a little, thread a clean narrative of genius and simplicity. But something about Qimir resists narration.
It’s no longer just about flavor. She wants the slip beneath his control, the raw heat beneath all that precision.
Which is ridiculous. And unprofessional. And beside the point.
Still.
She can’t stop wondering what else he refuses to explain.
The room exhales around her.
Osha steps off the mat and pulls the mic cord from beneath her top with a steady hand.
“You should reset B,” Qira says to no one in particular.
Osha starts to step away, then catches the fresh bandage. Tiny, white, out of place on a man made of sharp edges. She pauses but says nothing. He sees her see it.
“Reverence does matter,” he says at last, voice low. “But it isn’t a headline.”
The kitchen hushes. Most of the crew clears out, leaving space behind like breath held too long. A few soft clicks echo overhead as the lighting rig cools.
Osha lingers near the counter and watches him prep. His movements are almost reverent. The soft chop of knife against hinoki, the whisper of something simmering low.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
He keeps his eyes on the station. “You’ve asked plenty.”
She ignores that. “Why Kinu?”
This time, he pauses. His hand hovers over a tray of radishes. He slices one cleanly in half, and in a few more chops, lays a delicate rose on a platter.
“Because silk lingers.” he answers, finally.
“In Japanese, kinu means silk. But not just fabric,” he continues, voice slower now—as if it means more than he can quite say. “It’s a way of moving. Of tasting. Of touching. Something soft enough to slip past defenses. Something that stays with you after it’s gone.”
He keeps working. The knife glints in motion.
“Texture,” he says next, “is what makes taste memorable.”
He glances up. Not long—but when their eyes meet, they hold.
“You don’t remember salt,” he says softly. “You remember the way it cracks beneath your teeth. How it unfolds against something tender.” His voice dips. “Pleasure lives in the contrast.”
“Everyone talks about flavor,” he adds. “But texture is personal.”
Her fingers press into the marble. She feels her pulse stumble, her body tilting forward almost involuntarily.
“You can lie about taste,” he murmurs. “Heat. Sweetness. They’re easy to fake.”
His eyes drag over her mouth, neck, the way her shirt gapes. He holds her gaze.
“But texture?” He looks to the side, a ghost of a smile on his lips. He drags his thumb slowly across the cutting board—pressing, then releasing, like he’s imagining skin beneath his hand. His eyes find hers.
“The body always tells the truth. Either it melts on your tongue… or it resists.”
Osha shifts.
This is doing things.
And he knows it.
Under the warmth of the lights, under the steady weight of his voice—and the quiet, devastating control of his hands—something coils low in her belly.
A little turned on, she thinks distantly.
Maybe more than a little.
“What do you enjoy most about this?”
Her voice lowers instinctively, as if the kitchen might shatter if she speaks too loud.
He sets the knife down. Wipes his hands slowly.
“Because it’s the one thing I can control,” he says. His eyes pin her.
“Can I make the flavor deepen, then bruise? Can I make it hum beneath your skin? The layering. The chemistry. If you’re disciplined—if you pay attention—what you want actually happens.”
Then he looks up. Meets her gaze steadily.
He leans in, just enough that she can feel the pull of his gravity. “But also?”
“The anticipation.” He moves closer as though his next words are meant only for her.
“That moment before the first bite. Before they even know how it’s going to taste. That surrender.” He watches her face, a corner of his mouth turning up.
“And what happens after… when they moan, close their eyes—that’s the part I can’t control.”
“It’s what I crave,” he confesses.
A flicker of recognition passes between them, hot and unspoken.
She nods, quietly captivated by how deeply he cares about the experience he creates, not just the food.
The words on her tongue scatter—she doesn’t trust them to land where they should.
Something beneath her skin flares, like heat kissing oil.
One perfect bite. One soft, startled moan.
He watched her like the sound was the most honest thing he’s ever heard.
She reaches for her water glass, but her hand trembles, just a little. She covers it by tucking her hair behind her ear, dragging cool fingertips across a cheek that still burns.
Qimir finally moves. Not far, just a slow pivot back toward the cutting board.
But the shift stirs space, like a door closing without sound.
The crew disperses. Not in chaos, not even in whispers but rather an unspoken consensus to move, to make themselves invisible. One by one, they slide behind monitors, checking lighting setups, angles, sound levels.
Qira lingers by the corner, staring into her monitor like it’s glitching. Her voice is thin when she finally speaks.
“We’re keeping every second of that. Jesus. Forget narration. Just let that play on a loop.”
Osha doesn’t respond. Not out loud.
But her body is already humming with it—the faintest buzz of hunger that has nothing to do with food.