Chapter 148: 148 | On Becoming a Human Shopping Cart
Something had happened in the car. Both of them were acting wrong. Not badly wrong. Not fighting wrong. But off. Like two instruments in an orchestra that were each individually in tune but playing from slightly different sheet music.
The melody still sounded close enough to normal that a casual listener wouldn’t notice. But Jordan wasn’t a casual listener anymore. Jordan was a guy who had spent the past week sleeping in Chloe’s bed, learning the specific rhythm of her breathing and the exact pitch her voice hit when she was genuinely relaxed versus performing relaxation.
And he was a guy who had spent enough time with Kumiko over the past few days to know that her silence was never silent. When Kumiko went quiet, it meant something massive was churning behind those doe eyes, building pressure like a shaken soda bottle.
The Dramatic Tumbleweed trait had activated in that parking lot. Jordan had watched it roll across concrete in broad daylight like a set piece in a Sergio Leone film. The trait description specifically stated that it spawned during high-stress interpersonal encounters. Which meant the System, whatever it was and wherever it existed, had detected enough tension between the three of them to warrant deploying cinematic vegetation.
Jordan hadn’t been the source. He’d been inside buying Pocky.
Which meant the tension was between Chloe and Kumiko.
He thought about asking. He thought about pulling Chloe aside and saying hey, what happened while I was gone. He thought about casually mentioning the tumbleweed and seeing if anyone flinched. He thought about a lot of things.
He did none of them.
Because Jordan McKnight, despite his supernatural voice and magical phone app and body that had been rebuilt from scratch by a gacha system, was still, at his core, an eighteen-year-old who had lost his virginity less than two weeks ago and possessed the emotional intelligence of a golden retriever puppy. He knew enough to recognize danger. He did not know enough to navigate it. And the number one rule he had learned from watching Kyle interact with women, from observing how his father handled his mother during arguments, and from every single manga and anime he had consumed since the age of thirteen, was this:
When two girls are being weird at the same time, do not ask why.
Do not poke the situation. Do not prod. Do not investigate. Do not pull the thread. Because the thread was attached to a grenade pin, and the grenade was attached to a second grenade, and that grenade was sitting on top of a pile of C-4, and the C-4 was in a room full of fireworks, and the fireworks were inside a volcano, and the volcano was located in a minefield, and the minefield was on top of a sleeping dragon, and the dragon had anger management issues.
Jordan walked to the audio section and stood beside Chloe. He looked at the microphones displayed on the pegboard wall. She was already comparing two different models, turning them over in her hands like she was evaluating produce at a farmer’s market.
"The Shure MV7 is solid," he said. "Kumiko recommended that one earlier."
"Mmhm." Chloe pulled the spec card off the wall and compared it with something on her phone. Her thumb moved across the screen, scrolling through what looked like a comparison chart. Her expression was neutral. Professional. The kind of look she got when she was reviewing analytics for her Instagram or planning content schedules.
Kumiko arrived beside them with the energy of someone fleeing a crime scene. She immediately began explaining the difference between USB and XLR connections with the speed and confidence of someone desperately grateful to discuss any topic that was not the conversation she’d had five minutes ago. Her words tumbled out in a rush. She gestured at the microphones, at the cables, at the various adaptors hanging on hooks nearby. She talked about impedance and phantom power and audio interfaces with the fervor of a person who had memorized an entire manual and needed to recite it right now to stay sane.
Jordan listened. He nodded at appropriate intervals. He held the microphone boxes Chloe selected and passed to him without comment. He carried the basket. He performed every function expected of a boyfriend at an electronics store. He became a piece of helpful furniture. A mobile shelf. A human shopping cart with legs.
And inside his head, the golden System interface pulsed gently at the edge of his vision, displaying a notification he hadn’t opened yet. The seventy-two-hour countdown continued its descent. Forty-seven hours and twelve minutes remained until the System demanded he register a second girlfriend or face whatever penalty it decided to impose for noncompliance.
Jordan put the thought in a box. He locked the box. He put the box inside a bigger box. He locked that box too. Then he mentally shoved both boxes off a cliff and watched them fall into an ocean of denial so deep that light couldn’t reach the bottom. The boxes sank past fish and coral and submarine trenches and eventually landed in a place where pressure crushed metal and nothing survived. Perfect. That’s where those thoughts belonged.
"Jordan." Chloe held up two microphone arms with different designs. One was black with a standard spring mechanism. The other was white with a more modern ball-joint system. "Which one?"
He glanced at them. They looked functionally identical aside from color.
"The one that costs less."
"They’re the same price."
"Then the one that looks cooler."
"They look the same."
Jordan studied both arms again. Black. White. Spring. Ball-joint. He could not identify a meaningful difference between them. He suspected this was a test. He did not know what the test was measuring. He did not know the correct answer. He did know that giving a wrong answer right now, in the current emotional climate, could detonate the entire situation.
"Then just pick one, babe."
Chloe lowered both arms and stared at him. Kumiko also stared at him. The word had come out on its own. He hadn’t meant to say it. His Alluring Whisper trait gave the word a weight that made it sound intentional even though it absolutely was not.
Chloe’s cheeks turned pink. She put the left microphone arm in the basket without another word.
Kumiko opened her Pocky. She bit one stick in half with the kind of force usually reserved for combat sports. Her jaw worked as she chewed, eyes fixed on Jordan with an expression that sat somewhere between longing and resolution.
Jordan carried the basket and kept walking.
Micro Center stretched out ahead of them. Keyboards. Mice. Webcams. Monitors. LED strips and acoustic panels and cable management solutions. Sophia, the short girl with the messy bun, was visible three aisles over, helping an older man compare motherboards. She glanced up as Jordan passed. He gave a polite nod. Standard human acknowledgment. Nothing more.
Chloe’s hand found his free one and interlaced their fingers. Kumiko moved closer on his other side until their arms nearly touched.
Whatever happened in that car, Jordan thought, he was going to find out eventually. Probably at the worst possible time. Probably in the worst possible way.
That seemed to be the pattern.
