Chapter 144: 144 | From Blue-Screen-of-Death to a Feeling of Safety
Kumiko’s brain did the thing it always did when reality exceeded her capacity to process it.
It crashed.
Not a gentle power-down or a graceful fade to black. A full system failure, complete with the mental equivalent of a blue screen and a cursor that refused to move no matter how many times she clicked. Chloe’s words replayed on a loop inside her skull, each repetition hitting different syllables with different emphasis, as though her subconscious was desperately searching for the interpretation that made this make sense.
What if Jordan could be your boyfriend too?
What if Jordan could be YOUR boyfriend too?
What if JORDAN could be your boyfriend too?
Every version led to the same destination. Every version made her stomach do the exact same backflip.
Kumiko opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She closed it. Opened it again. Still nothing. She probably looked like a fish someone had pulled from the ocean and set on the dashboard.
"Kumiko?" Chloe’s voice sounded very far away. "You still breathing?"
"Hnngh," Kumiko managed.
"I’ll take that as a yes."
Kumiko’s hands found each other in her lap and squeezed so hard her knuckles ached. Her twin tails bounced as her whole body vibrated with a frequency that had nothing to do with the car’s idle engine. She could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips, in her temples, in the hollow of her throat where her favorite choker usually sat.
Jordan. Her boyfriend. Jordan McKnight, six foot two, dirty blonde hair, hazel eyes that turned gold in certain light, the voice that made her forget how oxygen worked. Jordan who smelled like cedar and held doors open and defended her from creeps at Best Buy without being asked. Jordan who sang like an angel and built computers with steady hands and looked at Chloe like she hung the moon and every star orbiting it.
That Jordan. Hers.
The word "hers" detonated somewhere behind Kumiko’s sternum.
Her imagination, which had always been her greatest asset and her most dangerous liability, engaged with zero warning and full throttle. Images flooded her mind so fast she couldn’t sort them, couldn’t stop them, couldn’t do anything except sit in the backseat of a Honda Civic and let the fantasy wash over her like a rogue wave.
Jordan holding her hand while they walked through campus. His fingers laced with hers the same way they laced with Chloe’s in the front seat. His palm warm and rough and twice the size of hers. Other students staring as they passed because Jordan McKnight, the tall gorgeous guy who had transformed from nobody to campus legend in two weeks, was walking with Kumiko Yamanaka. With her. On purpose. In public.
Jordan coming to her apartment after one of her streams. Finding her still in cosplay because she forgot to change. His eyes going wide at whatever character she was wearing, his voice dropping low as he told her she looked incredible. Not cute. Not adorable. Incredible. The way he said it at the car when she asked if he found her attractive, that warm rumble that bypassed every rational filter she possessed and spoke directly to the part of her brain that wanted to be wanted.
Jordan watching her sew. Sitting on her bedroom floor with his back against the wall, scrolling through his phone while she worked on a new costume, occasionally looking up to ask what she was making or to offer his arm when she needed to measure sleeve length. The comfortable silence of two people who didn’t need to fill every moment with words. She would hum while she stitched. He would smile without looking up.
Jordan kissing her.
Kumiko’s face went nuclear. She could feel the heat radiating off her cheeks in waves. If she had been standing near the gas pump, she would have been a fire hazard.
Not a polite kiss. Not a friendly kiss. The kind of kiss she had imagined approximately nine hundred times since the karaoke bar, when Jordan’s voice wrapped around "Careless Whisper" and did permanent damage to her nervous system. His hands on her face. His thumb brushing her cheekbone. His mouth warm and certain and tasting like the mango Arizona he always drank.
Jordan in her bed.
Kumiko made a sound. Small, involuntary, strangled. Like someone had stepped on a squeaky toy hidden under a pile of blankets.
"Kumiko."
Chloe’s voice dragged her back to earth. Kumiko blinked. The inside of the Civic came back into focus. Chloe still watched her from the passenger seat with that unreadable expression, though the corner of her mouth had twitched upward by approximately two millimeters.
"You went somewhere," Chloe observed.
"I went everywhere," Kumiko whispered.
"Mmhm." Chloe turned back to face the windshield. "That tracks."
Kumiko’s thoughts continued to spiral. She was already picturing grocery shopping with Jordan. Holding hands in the cereal aisle. Arguing about whether to buy the strawberry or chocolate Pocky and then buying both because he couldn’t say no to the face she made when she really wanted something.
Cooking dinner together in her tiny kitchen, his body pressed behind hers as he reached over her shoulder for the soy sauce, his breath warm against her ear.
She was thinking about holidays. Christmas morning in matching pajamas. Valentine’s Day with handmade chocolate and a card she spent forty hours designing. His birthday, where she would bake a cake shaped like something meaningful and probably mess up the frosting three times before getting it right.
She was thinking about introducing him to her parents. Her father would shake Jordan’s hand too firmly, the way dads always did when meeting a daughter’s boyfriend. Her mother would ask him to stay for dinner and then serve enough food for twelve people because feeding guests was how her family expressed love.
Jordan would sit at their kitchen table, his legs too long for the low chairs, and compliment her mother’s cooking with that genuine earnestness that made everything he said sound like a promise.
She was thinking about him meeting her at conventions. Standing in the crowd while she competed onstage, wearing one of those custom t-shirts that said "I’m with the cosplayer" with an arrow pointing sideways. Cheering too loud. Taking pictures of her from the audience with his phone held above his head because he was tall enough to clear everyone else’s sightline.
She was thinking about falling asleep against his shoulder on long drives. His hand resting on her knee. The radio playing softly. Safe.
The word landed in her chest like a stone dropped into still water.
Safe.
