Azuki

I follow Instagram mostly for women. Attractive women, their bodies, the half-revealed thing that keeps you scrolling. It’s the same impulse I had raiding my dad’s Playboy from his office as a teenager—that promise of almost, the fantasy your brain fills in.

Then Azuki showed up in the feed. A hedgehog from Japan, maybe two inches long, and possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen besides someone I’ve actually slept with. He wears tiny winter coats and scarves, grins at the camera while eating worms, and has somehow convinced three hundred thousand people to watch him do it. Asics paid him to model in little sports outfits. The internet has completely lost its mind to this hedgehog.

I can’t keep plants alive. The bamboo from Ikea is dead, the basil in the kitchen is long gone, and I won’t bother listing the others. A tomato can rot in a shared kitchen and nobody cares, but a hedgehog needs actual attention. I’d kill it within a month.

That’s fine though. Azuki’s owner does the maintenance, and I get to watch the thing itself without any responsibility. The outfits, the eating sounds, the tiny camping setup in someone else’s yard. Just the image, the moment, none of the actual work. Sometimes that’s better than owning something.