Chapter 475 | It’s Your Entire Personality

Chapter 475: 475 | It’s Your Entire Personality

Jordan wiped yolk off the counter and started over with a fresh egg. The tilting technique his hands had memorized weeks ago took over, and the omelet spread across the pan in a golden sheet that would’ve made Kumiko cry if she’d been awake to see it.

"You’re doing the tilt," Chloe observed.

"I always do the tilt."

"You do the tilt, and Kumiko says the love is in the tilting, and I’m sitting here at seven oh four in the morning on a kitchen island watching you make eggs for me after I sang on the internet for the first time and wondering when exactly my life became a cooking manga with a harem subplot."

"Somewhere around January tenth."

Chloe’s mouth twitched. She hid it behind her mug and took a sip that lasted long enough to qualify as a stalling tactic. When she set the mug down, her expression had reset to its default of composed neutrality, but her ears were pink.

Jordan plated the omelet and slid it across the counter. "Eat."

"I know how food works."

"Eat more than nine bites."

"Don’t count my bites."

"Someone has to, and Kumiko’s asleep."

Chloe looked at the omelet. Then she looked at Jordan. Then she picked up a fork and took a bite that was larger than usual, chewing with the deliberate aggression of someone proving a point. She swallowed and took another.

"Eleven," she said after the second.

"I said more than nine, not that I was keeping a scoreboard."

"You are always keeping a scoreboard. It’s your entire personality." She ate a third bite. "What’s the plan today."

Jordan poured coffee for himself, black, one sugar, handle facing right because he’d become the kind of person who had handle preferences, which was either character development or a cry for help. He leaned against the counter and considered the question.

Today was Saturday. The stream was done. Two thousand followers sat in a Twitch database with Chloe’s name attached, and somewhere in San Francisco his sister had a LinkedIn tab open and a theory she couldn’t prove. The Eliza quest timer read thirteen days. Alexis had agreed to come to dinner tomorrow at seven, and Kumiko had already purchased a cat onesie in Alexis’s size. Maya expected him at the gym Monday at six thirty, and the bruise on his shoulder had only just turned yellow. Brooke had an operating agreement that needed three signatures by Tuesday. Lila wanted a tech check for her own overlay revision. His father wanted a phone call. His mother wanted a grandson, possibly named after a convenience store.

And his phone sat on the floor of Unit 403, probably glowing gold, probably cataloging the fact that Chloe Kim had broken two thousand followers and that the quest reward sat unclaimed in his inventory like a birthday present he hadn’t opened because the wrapping paper was too nice.

"The plan," Jordan said, "is that we do nothing."

Chloe’s fork stopped.

"Nothing," she repeated.

"Nothing. No spreadsheets, no quest log, no group chat, no content calendar, no operating agreement, no overlay revision, no prenup discussion, no background check preparation, and no emoji protocols."

"You can’t just do nothing. There are deliverables."

"The deliverables can wait until Monday. You sang on the internet last night, and two thousand people followed you home, and Kumiko called her mother in Japanese while crying in a Sally costume, and I sat on a folding chair for two hours without moving because you told me to be furniture, and I would do it again every single Friday for the rest of my life."

Chloe’s fork remained suspended. Yolk dripped from the tine onto the counter.

"So today," Jordan continued, "we eat eggs. We watch something stupid on Netflix. We let Kumiko come over and draw stick figures in her notebook while she sits on the floor between us. We order Thai food at one and let it go cold because nobody wants to stop the movie. You fall asleep on my shoulder at three because your body is building a human and it’s tired, and I don’t move for ninety minutes because you look like you’re finally resting. Kumiko steals my pillow and calls it emotional support infrastructure. I make dinner at six, and we eat it together in the kitchen with the harbor light coming through the windows, and nobody checks a phone, nobody opens a spreadsheet, nobody counts a percentage."

He drank his coffee.

"One day," he said. "Just one day where we’re people instead of an operation."

Chloe set the fork down. Her glasses had fogged slightly from the coffee steam, and she removed them with one hand and cleaned them on the hem of his shirt. Her brown eyes found his across the kitchen island, unshielded and uncontacted and younger than she ever let the world see.

"Twelve bites," she said quietly.

"I wasn’t counting."

"Yes you were." She put the glasses back on. "Fine. One day. But I’m choosing the movie, and if you pick horror again I’ll file for emancipation."

"You can’t file for emancipation from a boyfriend."

"Watch me." She ate another bite. "Text Kumiko. Tell her to bring the notebook and the cat onesie. And tell her"—Chloe paused, and something moved behind her face that she decided not to hide—"tell her I want her here when I wake up."

Jordan pulled his backup phone from the kitchen drawer, the ancient iPhone 6 he kept charged for emergencies and used exclusively to text Kumiko when his real phone was being held hostage by Chloe’s apartment floor. He typed three lines:

Come over. Bring the notebook. She wants you here.

The response arrived in four seconds. A single emoji of a house with a heart inside it.

Then seventeen more messages, rapid fire, about pancakes and whether Jordan had eggs and whether Chloe’s throat hurt and whether the cat onesie should be worn inside out because the tag was scratchy and whether Jordan could put his hand on her head when she arrived because she’d been awake since four and her brain was doing the thing.

Jordan put the phone down and looked at Chloe.

Chloe ate her thirteenth bite and didn’t say a word.

Through the wall, the sewing machine started up again, a short burst of stitching followed by silence, then the sound of Kumiko’s door opening and bare feet in the hallway. Three quick knocks, a pause, then a fourth that rattled the door frame with enthusiasm that could not be contained by the previous three.

Jordan crossed the kitchen and opened the door.

Kumiko stood in the hallway wearing his grey henley and pink sleep shorts, both ribbons hanging loose from twin tails that looked like they’d survived a hurricane. She held a pink notebook in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed and enormous, and her lower lip was doing the thing it did right before she either cried or said something that rewired his entire nervous system.

"Hi," she said, very small.

"Hi," Jordan said.

"I brought the onesie. And pancake mix. And my notebook. And Mr. Snuggles, because he wanted to come. And myself, because you asked." Her voice wobbled on the last word. "Is that enough."

Jordan reached out and placed his hand on top of her head between the loose ribbons. The Headpat activated on contact, warmth flowing from his palm into her skull and down through her nervous system, and Kumiko’s entire body went soft in the doorway. Her eyes drifted shut. Her shoulders dropped four inches. The plastic bag rustled as her grip loosened, and a box of pancake mix nearly hit the floor before Jordan caught it with his free hand.

"Nnnh," Kumiko said. "Hnnm. That’s. Oh. That’s lavender with gold edges."

"Come inside, Kumi."

She swayed forward and pressed her face into his chest, and he guided her through the door with his hand still on her head. Behind them, on the island, Chloe ate her fourteenth bite and watched.

The harbor light came through the factory windows. The coffee machine clicked off. Somewhere below them, Miss Valentine’s oven timer chimed.

Nobody opened a phone. Nobody checked a number.

Jordan closed the door.