Chapter 428 | A Loaded Gun

Chapter 428: 428 | A Loaded Gun

Jordan’s phone buzzed. Then buzzed again. Then vibrated continuously for eight seconds as an avalanche of text messages arrived.

They both looked at the screen.

Group Chat: Nova Network Command

Kumiko (6:47 PM): OKAY SO

Kumiko (6:47 PM): I know I said I would wait until the debrief tomorrow but I CANNOT wait because I finished the content calendar and I need to share it before my brain explodes

Kumiko (6:47 PM): [Image attached: Nova_Network_Launch_Calendar_V7_FINAL_FINAL_ACTUAL_FINAL.png]

Kumiko (6:48 PM): Here is the timeline. Debut streams for all three channels need to happen by March 1st. That gives us two weeks. I have identified optimal concepts for each personality type based on the analytics Chloe sent me.

Kumiko (6:48 PM): CHLOE: Singing stream. Covers and original content. Your voice tested well in the focus group (the focus group was me and three plushies but they were very attentive). First stream should include one popular cover to establish algorithmic engagement and one original to differentiate your brand.

Kumiko (6:49 PM): JORDAN: Music production stream. Making beats live. Viewers like watching creative process in real time and your face tests well on camera (the camera test was me watching you make eggs this morning but the data is valid). First stream should involve audience participation where chat suggests elements and you incorporate them.

Kumiko (6:49 PM): KUMIKO: Cosplay crafting ASMR. I am already doing this but now with better lighting and a schedule. First stream will be completing the Sally costume live with microphone positioned to capture fabric sounds. I have purchased a binaural microphone specifically for this purpose. The unboxing video will be content.

Kumiko (6:50 PM): Questions? Concerns? Emotional spirals requiring intervention? Please indicate below.

Jordan stared at the wall of text.

"She assigned us roles."

"She made me a singing stream." Chloe’s voice cracked on the word singing in a way that made Jordan’s chest tighten. "I haven’t sung for anyone since high school choir."

"You sing in the shower."

"That’s different."

"You sang at karaoke."

"I was drunk."

"You weren’t drunk. You had one beer and pretended to be drunk so you had an excuse."

Chloe didn’t deny it. She stared at the phone screen where Kumiko’s messages continued to arrive, each one more detailed than the last, complete with hashtag strategies and cross-promotion schedules and a color-coded chart showing optimal streaming hours based on timezone analysis.

"She believes in this," Chloe said quietly. "In us. In all of it."

"Yeah."

"She’s going to be devastated if it doesn’t work."

"It’ll work."

"You don’t know that."

Jordan turned to face her fully, one knee coming up onto the couch. "Six weeks ago I was crying into a Red Bull can on a floor I hadn’t cleaned in a month. Now I’m sitting in an apartment that smells like lemon cleaner with a girlfriend who’s pregnant with my kid and another girlfriend who just sent me a forty-seven-message content strategy. I don’t know what’s going to work. But I know that betting against us hasn’t paid off for anyone yet."

Chloe looked at him for a long moment. Then she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, soft and brief and tasting like mint toothpaste.

"You’re going to be incredible," Jordan said against her lips. "The singing stream. The pregnancy. All of it."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"I’m tired."

"Then rest."

She settled back against the couch, her head finding the space between his shoulder and his neck like it belonged there. Jordan picked up his phone and typed a response to the group chat.

Jordan (6:54 PM): I’m in. Let’s do this.

Kumiko (6:54 PM): AHHHHHHH

Kumiko (6:54 PM): [Image attached: Happy_Screaming.gif]

Kumiko (6:54 PM): I love you both so much I could literally explode

Kumiko (6:55 PM): Not literally. Figuratively. Although if it were literally I would die happy.

Chloe (6:55 PM): Don’t explode. We need you for the ASMR stream.

Kumiko (6:55 PM): This is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.

Jordan smiled at the screen. Chloe’s breathing had slowed against his shoulder, the exhaustion of the weekend finally catching up with her.

His phone buzzed again.

Not the group chat this time. A separate notification.

Instagram DM

Alexis Van Der Berg

Can we talk? Not about shopping. About something real.

The timestamp read 4:32 AM.

Jordan’s smile faded.

Four-thirty in the morning. The hour when nothing good happens. The hour when people are either still awake because they can’t sleep or awake again because something woke them. Either way, that timestamp carried weight.

He nudged Chloe’s shoulder.

"Mm." She didn’t open her eyes.

"Look at this."

She opened one eye, then both. Read the message twice with the kind of focus she usually reserved for financial projections.

"She’s breaking," Chloe said. "Whatever Harrison did last night, it was bad."

"How can you tell?"

"She said ’something real.’ Alexis Van Der Berg has never asked anyone for something real in her entire curated existence. That message cost her more than you understand."

Jordan stared at the words on the screen. Six weeks ago, Alexis had been a name he associated with Instagram stories and expensive handbags, a tier-one princess who existed in a world he could never access. Now she was texting him at four in the morning asking to talk about something real.

"Should I respond?"

Chloe sat up fully, her wet hair leaving a damp spot on his shoulder. She looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. Clinical but not cold. Calculating but not cruel.

"You’re going to anyway. Just don’t be stupid about it."

"That’s the second time you’ve told me not to be stupid tonight."

"Because you have a consistent pattern of being stupid when beautiful women ask you for emotional support. See: Eliza, November through December."

"That’s different."

"Is it?"

The question hung in the air.

Jordan didn’t have a good answer.

Chloe stood, stretching her arms above her head in a way that made the henley ride up and reveal a strip of skin at her hip. She didn’t seem to notice or care.

"I’m going to bed. You need to shower before training tomorrow. Maya will smell Kumiko on you and ask questions."

"Maya doesn’t care who I sleep with."

"Maya notices everything. Whether she cares is a separate issue." Chloe walked toward the stairs, paused, and looked back over her shoulder. "Don’t stay up too late doing System stuff without me."

"I won’t."

She disappeared up the stairs. The bathroom light clicked on. Water started running.

Jordan sat alone in the dim apartment, his phone still open to Alexis’s message.

He didn’t respond. Not yet.

Instead, he opened the System app.

The Platinum Gacha notification still pulsed gold at the top of his screen. One free pull. Rare tier minimum. Results may alter trajectory.

He’d been avoiding this since Friday. Three days of carrying a loaded gun in his pocket without pulling the trigger. Every other gacha he’d done without hesitation, smashing the button like a kid with a new toy. But this one felt different.

Maybe because the stakes were different now.

Maybe because he had things to lose.