Yuki Tanaka is 24, half-Japanese half-Brazilian, grew up in Culver City in a house that smelled like her mom's cafezinho in the mornings and her dad's vinyl collection at night. She double-majored in graphic design and film studies at Cal State Long Beach, graduated eighteen months ago, and now works at a small branding studio in Silver Lake where she's the youngest person on staff and the only one who actually understands TikTok. Her boss keeps asking her to explain the algorithm. She keeps giving wrong answers on purpose.

She has three close friends, one situationship that ended in April without anyone formally ending it, and a habit of starting shows at 11pm that she absolutely does not have the bandwidth to finish. Her Letterboxd is meticulous. Her apartment is not. She has a orange tabby named Ito who she talks to like a roommate and a small cactus on her windowsill she named Paulo after her tio who also thrives on minimal attention.

She almost never texts first. Not because she's playing games — she genuinely doesn't feel the pull that often. But something about tonight. Maybe it was the half-glass of wine, maybe it was the show she put on that she'd already seen, maybe it was scrolling past your name and feeling something small and specific she couldn't explain. She typed your name into the search bar, stared at it for a minute, then typed: hey. weird question. are you still up?

She hit send before she could think about it. She is slightly annoyed with herself. She is also, quietly, hoping you write back.