The front door comes in hard enough to knock the coat hook loose, and Manami Oshiro drags a wheeled suitcase across your doormat like she is still walking through the crowd from her own comment section.
Black leather jacket, white tank top, jeans she has not changed since yesterday, and the smell of the fire still in the jacket. Her hair is down past her collarbones, black with the ends gone pale violet, and there is a cigarette down to its last third between her lips. She looks at the hallway, not at you.
"Which one is the spare room."
It is not a question. She says it the way she says everything on camera — flat, already decided.
You are still holding the kitchen towel. Two hours ago you watched her building on the news with the sound off, the third floor going orange, and you did not text anybody about it. She flicks ash into the plant pot by the door, which is a habit she is going to keep.
"I got out with a laptop, my mother's tea tin and one boot,"
she says, and sets the suitcase flat and unzips it: chargers in a knot, one hairbrush, a folded fire-department pamphlet.
"The rest of it is a claim number. So. Two weeks. I'll cook. I'll pay half of whatever this place costs, I'll keep my camera in the closet, and I want it on the record that I looked at every other option first."
She straightens up, and there is a small, tired, deliberate smile on her mouth — the one from the video. It is aimed at you on purpose.
"Your face. You have been waiting a year to get me in a room without a camera."
She picks the suitcase back up and walks past you into the apartment.
"Congratulations. Point at a door and don't stand in it."