chat, are we cooked? - tovizu (2025)

“Alright, guys! Let’s see if I can save this account!”

Hsu Nientzu, also referred to as well-known gaming streamer HsuPernova, sits at her desk. She momentarily lifts up her gaze to the camera stationed above her first monitor and flashes a thumbs up.

Her fingers grab onto her mouse, hovering over the 10x gacha pull. When Nien looks over to her third monitor, she sees her chat rolling in with words of encouragement. “The guy I’m pulling for said I could use all the Stellar Jades in his account. So, let’s try and go for the E6!!”

Click!

The screen flashes with the train rolling in. But, the golden ticket doesn’t have the gold hazy hue as it flutters across the screen. Skip.

Shiiiiiit.

“Oookay, trust guys. Next pull! We’re only at 30 pity. Surely it’ll come up soon.”

Click!

Nothing.

“It’s fine! It’s fine.” Nien frantically waves one hand. “This dude’s got, uhhh, four hundred and—” She pauses, doing a double take at the number of the pulls remaining. “FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY? Dude what?!”

Her jaw drops as she comically keeps looking back and forth between the game screen and the camera. “What kind of jobs do you guys have?!”

Frantic hands reach and brush over the leather of her worn wallet, pulling out some bills to flash them at the camera. “I literally only have 5,000 won in my wallet right now. You guys are crazy.”

The chat rolls in with most people laughing at her glossing over the number at first. Others seem to be just as shocked at the high number.

“Guh. Okay, anyway. I’m getting distracted. This’ll put us at 50.” Nien drags her mouse over the 10-pull button again. “Trust.. We’ll get it this time.”

Click!

The ticket flows down the screen with a gold-hazy hue behind it. Her face brightens. A small rush of adrenaline pumps into her. “Okay! Okay… All we gotta do is win the 50-50. C’mon. Let’s get this guy his first Ruan Mei.”

She’s quick to click through the cards and the four-star characters. And suddenly, the triangular harmony icon appears. Nien feels a grin instantly tug at her. “Heh. Heh. What did I say, guys?”

Ruan Mei flashes on screen. The full art is displayed for all her viewers on her screen.

The chat rolls in with messages of cheer and others in disbelief.

“Okay! One down. Five more to go,” It’s a little bad. Nien enjoys the rush of gacha—enjoys the adrenaline and the way her heart picks up from the excitement.

Does it make her a gambling addict?

…Kinda but she won’t think about that right now. She doesn’t pay to play games like this! At least… not as much as some people. She’d gotten lucky that some of her favorite characters were four stars. “Now. The real question is: can we win all the 50-50s and avoid getting random ones from the standard banner?”

jeongrinez: bruh theres no way u get all 6 without losing pity once

rinnosuke: i think she can do it!!

kwakkwakz: nah doubt .. trust yall. im a hsuperfan but this is statistically almost impossible

sooshumin: U GUYS R FAKE AFFFFFFF HSUPERNOVA WE BELIEVE IN YOU!!

Poll started: Can HsuPernova win all 6 pulls without losing once? Vote using channel points!

Nien eyes the chat’s responses and feels her resolve harden. Surely she can at least go for a couple, right? Maybe it’s unlikely that she wins all six but hey, it makes for good content.

“Trust. Trust!! I’ll win all six. I can prove my luck here. Streamer’s luck as they say!!” The streamer gives the camera another lopsided grin.

She clicks the pulls again.

It comes up with no 5-star. But that’s okay! They’re starting from zero again so ten pity is alright.

Click.

Nothing.

“Okay! Okay. Twenty is nothing. Let’s aim to not hit hard pity ‘n try to save bro some money.”

Click.

Nothing.

Nien’s fingers twitch a little. “…Somehow we managed to max out another one of his four stars at least?”

Click.

Nothing.

“Uhhhhh…”

Click.

The golden ticket flies through again with the extra haze behind it. Nien’s eyebrows shoot up. “Another one!!” Her hand hovers over her mouse. “Trust. Trust. I have full faith in myself. I’m getting another Ruan Mei. I will NOT be losing to Yanqing or Gepard or whoever else. Trust.”

Weapon card. Weapon card. Four-star. Weapon card. Weapon card. Weap—The triangular harmony symbol comes on screen.

Nien leans back in her chair and throws her arms up. “I told you guys I’d get another one. Heh. Three? Three? That’s two of our six!”

The chat explodes again at her brazen comments.

She’s joking, mostly. There’s no way she gets all six without losing once.

.

.

.

… Nien sits at her desk in both horror and amusement. They’ve gotten to five without losing. Right now, she stares at the last ten-pull set in front of her. She hasn’t lost a single 50-50 so far.

She feels how her chest puffs up and her hands grip at the mouse with a grin. “Nah, guys. I have never lost a 50-50 in my life. Trust. Trust! You guys are watching history in the making right here.”

Her fingers shake. She’s gotta play up the dramatics somehow, right?

Lub. Dub. Click. Weapon card.

Lub. Dub. Click. Weapon card.

Lub. Dub. Click. Four-star.

Lub. Dub. Click. Weapon card.

Lub. Dub. Click. Weapon card.

Lub. Dub. Click.

The triangular harmony symbol comes on the screen.

What the actual fuck.

“LET’S FUCKING GO!!!” Nien claps her hands together before she can even register Ruan Mei’s full art on screen, standing up in her chair and pointing at the camera. “Whoever doubted me… never again! Six for Six! And y’all said I couldn’t do it.”

…Maybe it’s a good thing that she doesn’t have neighbors.

By the time the celebration and hype dies down, Nien’s already concluding the stream and spinning in her chair to head out of her bedroom slash streaming space.

It’s already 4 pm, which means that two of her friends will be visiting soon. The three of them were supposed to hang out in the evening and catch up over dinner.

She pads into the kitchen. Her brown bear house slippers make a shuffling noise against the floor tiles. Nien lets the sleeves of her hoodie pass over the marble of the kitchen’s center island before she turns to the fridge.

Her hand hovers over the refrigerator handle, pulling a face. Sigh. Nien just pulls the door open and lets the cool air hit her.

The state of her refrigerator was abysmal. All of the food in there was either perishable snacks or those meal prep items you could buy and heat up. She’s been living off instant noodles and whatever this was. In short: the stereotypical nerd gamer minus being smelly and having a dirty room.

You would think that one of the most popular streamers on Twitch with 1.1 million followers would have a better food situation.

Her friends can’t see this. Nien will just tell them to get takeout because they’re guests! She’d rather they actually buy food they want.

…Also because Hsu Nientzu is almost comically terrible at cooking.

It isn’t as if she hasn’t tried! Nien has tried plenty of times to cook! Just… more often than not, the food either tastes terrible and looks decent, or the food looks like a nuclear hazard and the taste still leaves something to be desired.

Either way, instant noodles, microwavables, and meal preps are her best friends. She shoves the instant noodle cups from this morning and last night into the trash can.

At least, that’s what she tells herself. She’ll get there eventually!

Nien just settles for preparing extra sodas and water for the incoming guests. And, of course, not too long after, the doorbell rings.

“Coming!” She yells, setting the last of the water bottles out and heading for the door.

The locks are undone and knob twists to reveal a familiar face standing in her doorway. Her heart squeezes instinctively.

“Hey, Nien.” Kotone grins at her, holding up a small plastic bag. “Crazy stream again today?”

Nien met Kotone through Mayu, a friend of a friend as they say. The three of them bonded over silly shows and games at one of Mayu’s Christmas dinners three years ago and now try to see each other every so often.

“I think I just made history, I dunno.” Nien offers her a smile back, sidestepping to let her into her home.

“Made history?”

“I just won the six 50/50s in a row for a gacha game so..”

Kotone pulls a face, gaping slightly. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“How did—What?” She sputters, letting the door shut behind her. “That’s statistically almost impossible, Nien.”

“Keyword: Almost!” The streamer lets her grin widen, “I’ll get to editing the VOD to upload to YouTube later but I’m sure the clips are already going around.”

“Jesus. Streamer’s luck. You just used all of yours up for the next century, dude.”

“Nuh uh! It was out of the goodness of my heart! I was helping someone else by pulling for them! I even had another 180 pulls to spare! If anything, this has got to give me plus points.”

“… God has favorites. I hope you lose on your actual account.” Kotone grumbles as Nien tugs her into the living room area.

“Whaaat?! Boooo!! I don’t claim your negative energy. I would like to pull Robin and Firefly, thank you very much.” Nien huffs, letting her sit on the couch. The plastic bag inevitably winds up on the table. “Your haterism aside, Mayu didn’t come with you?”

“Ah. About that,” Kotone scratches at the side of her next with her index finger. “Mayu got caught up in work. She said she’d join us next time. I think she texted the group chat too.”

“Oh!” Nien slips her phone out of her pocket to see the notification banners with the messages on the lock screen. Whoops. But, the surprise dies as soon as it comes. She can’t miss an opportunity to tease, right? “Heh. Lucky me. I get a date night at home with you.” She grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet like one of those excited schoolgirls.

It’s a joke. Except, jokes are always half-meant and there’s no possibility that Nien can half-pretend the thought of getting Kotone to herself doesn’t rile up a giddy emotion inside her.

“Why is that your first—nevermind,” Kotone drags her a hand over her face, somewhat obscuring the view of her pink-tinted cheeks. Cute. “You’re not getting any of this taiyaki anymore.”

!!!

“Aw, what? C’mon, Tone. I didn’t even do anything!” It should be almost embarrassing with how quickly she perks up at the mention of it. But who cares! Who doesn’t love food? “You brought taiyaki?”

“Yeah, uh,” Kotone tilts her head in the direction of the small plastic bag, “I remembered you liked these last time I brought it. It was on the way so…” She scratches at the fabric of her pants. “Here it is.”

“Aw... Thanks, Tone.” Nien exaggerates a sniffle, putting a hand over her chest. “That might just be one of the nicest things you’ve done for me since we became friends.

Kotone’s face falls. “Okay. Moment’s over.” Her hands press against her knees as she gets off the couch and starts heading for the kitchen.

“Whaaaat?”

“Moment’s ruined! I’ve been nice to you before.” Kotone says over her shoulder. Nien can hear the way her assigned set of house slippers (Mayu’s are rabbits, Kotone has the red pandas) shuffle along her floors.

“I didn’t say you weren’t nice to me!! I’m just easily bribed with food!” The streamer trails behind her to catch up.

“At least you’re self-aware.”

As soon as they stop, Nien realizes where they are. Kotone stands in front of the fridge with her hand raised to grab the handle.

Shit.

It’s a mess of frantic footsteps and gangling limbs. Nien is so quick to scramble in front of her friend and slot herself between Kotone and the fridge.

“H-Hey.” An uneasy smile rests on her face.

“Uh. What’s going on?” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to sense the bewilderment radiating off of her friend.

“My fridge… it.. uh.” Think! Nien, Think! “I have a slime monster in there! Really big! We should order takeout. You pick! It’s my treat.”

The moment the excuse flies out of her mouth, she knows it sounds ridiculous. What the hell, sure.

Nien spots the telltale twitch of her brows before they knit in a mix of confusion and disbelief. “A slime monster. Really, Nien?”

“Yep! A really big and gross and green ball of sludge.” She breathes out a laugh, “So, takeout?”

Kotone holds her gaze.

Nien feels a droplet of sweat roll down her neck.

She really could’ve just caved and said that her fridge was about as full as a desert with no oasis in sight but she’s come up with the slime excuse. You gotta commit to the bit!

“Fine.” Whew. Kotone takes a step back. “Is that one place down the street still okay?”

.

.

.

The smell of food fills the air when they pop the takeout boxes open.

The two of them decided to sit in the kitchen, taking turns grabbing from the boxes in front of them. Piles of tissues sit on the side, and wrappers from the disposable wooden chopsticks are shoved into the empty plastic bag for the trash later. And, of course, the taiyaki Kotone brought isn’t too far away, still in its box by the extra water bottles for later.

“So, what’s new with you?” Nien makes a gesture at her with the wooden chopsticks in her hands. “Anything fun going on?”

“Nope,” Kotone only sighs, poking at the noodles in her bowl. “Still job hunting. A little stressed, if I’m being honest. Guess nobody’s looking for any chefs these days.”

Right.

The first thing Nien learned about Kotone is that she studied culinary arts—she brought homemade food to the dinner they met at. Nien came in with store-bought cookies. Safe to say she’s already achieved another league that she’s barely brushed the surface of.

Regardless, it’s been evident from the start that Kotone is dedicated to what she does—earnest and hardworking for something she’s clearly passionate about. In fact, she’s not sure that she’s ever seen her half-ass anything.

“Aw, man. That really sucks, I’m sorry.” Maybe Nien could ask around later? Surely one of her friends might know someone… “There’s no openings at all? Not even for just interviews?”

“I dunno.” Another huff. “But, I might pick up more hours at the convenience store or something just as a precaution.”

“Hey, those restaurants are all missing out. You’re basically Tone Ramsay.”

“I highly doubt that, but thanks anyway.” The joke pulls a small smile out of Kotone as she swallows down another bite. Nien gives herself a mental pat on the back. Mission success! Achievement get: Make Kotone smile!

“I guess I’ll just have to wait until someone is in dire need of a personal chef or something.” Kotone only chuckles, “But what are the odds, right?”

The cogs and gears start turning in Nien’s mind. A personal chef, huh.

Her mind flashes to the state of her refrigerator and the empty guest room in her house. This idea was ridiculous. But, it just might work.

Besides, she’s always had a soft spot for her. If she can help and has the resources to, why not?

“Nien?”

“I have an idea.”

“Oh god.” Kotone stops eating, eyes widened in uncertainty.

“I didn’t even say what it is yet!” Nien presses her lips together into a thin line. “Hear me out, okay?”

A beat. She watches the way her friend’s expression falls neutral. “...Sure.”

Well.

Here it goes.

“Alright, so… here’s the idea.” Nien starts slowly, spotting the way Kotone nods along with her, “You… work for me… as my personal chef.”

.

.

.

“I’m sorry,” Kotone sets the chopsticks down on top of her bowl. Her eyes narrow. “You want me to be your personal chef? Do you gain anything from this? Isn’t this nepotism? I don’t know if that’s—”

“Listen.” Nien puts both hands down on the table with a serious expression. “I’ve been living off instant noodles and prepackaged meal prep for the past three weeks.”

“... Oh my god.”

“There’s no slime in my fridge.”

“Well, no shit. Why would you have a slime in your fridge?”

“I dunno! It seemed like a good excuse at the time—whatever, just, look,” Nien’s head hangs low. She hops off her chair just to turn and head for the fridge behind her. It swings open again to reveal its contents as if to prove her point. “It’s all prepackaged microwavables.”

“Oh my god.”

Nien kicks open another cabinet to reveal it is fully stocked with instant noodle cups.

“Oh my god, Nien.”

A pause. “I haven’t had a homecooked meal in… I don’t even know man.”

“I thought you said you steamed vegetables?”

“The steam cooker, microwave, and the air fryer are my best friends?” A pause. “Sometimes, I leave it in for too long though..”

Kotone’s facial expressions range from genuine concern to absolute horror with each bit of information she learns about her living situation.

“Look. I’ll pay you and pay for the groceries. You can even move into the guest bedroom next to me so you don’t have to worry about your lease. You’re the one that uses it the most anyway.”

Ah, yet another fact that makes this deal more appealing.

Whenever the three of them hang out, Mayu either goes home early or Xinyu herself comes to pick her up—she likes those evenings. The four of them together guarantee an even more fun time. As the saying goes, the more the merrier.

But, regardless, Nien can never let Kotone go home alone late in good faith. Tonight, depending on how her friend feels, will likely be no different.

Kotone has stayed over enough times now. Enough for the guest bathroom to have an extra yellow toothbrush in the sink and extra towels. Enough for Nien to wash the sheets and send housekeeping when she gets busy.

Upon further thought, she isn’t too sure why she’s fighting so hard for this. But, a smaller part of her wants to remark that living in a house by yourself gets lonely. All the more reason for her to invite others over.

A long pause falls over them. All she can hear is the sounds of the turbines in the ceiling fans spinning. Kotone doesn’t look too convinced, eyeing her a bit warily.

It’s time for the big guns.

Nien musters the biggest puppy eyes she can give, “Please?”

Kotone’s facial expression falters. Heh. Bullseye. “...We split the groceries in half.”

“Seventy-thirty. I pay seventy.” Nien steps forward to lean against the island counter instead of sitting again.

“Sixty-forty. I’m guessing you won’t let me help pay for utilities so at least let me have this.” Kotone sits on her chair still, arms crossed and gaze unwavering.

“...Fine. Deal.”

Nien hops back in her chair when she reaches for a handshake.

“I hope you know this is a crazy idea, by the way.” Kotone makes sure to add, squeezing Nien’s hand.

“Guess that makes you just as crazy for going along with me then,” Nien grins, “Looking forward to having you around, roomie. Promise I don’t bite.”

(“Hey guys! Sorry, I couldn’t make it today. Had to work overtime to fix a mess.” Mayu’s voice rings out on the FaceTime call from Kotone’s phone. Xinyu, her girlfriend, can be seen in the background of their home. She waves before shuffling somewhere off-screen. “What’d I miss?”

“Not much—”

“Kotone and I are roommates now!”

Kotone slowly turns to look at her. Her smile remains awkwardly petrified on her face.

“What? I got excited! I’m sorry!” Her voice comes out a little muffled—she’s still munching on one of the taiyakis. The fish-shaped bread was both adorable and tasted good. Sue her!

Mayu, despite her image looking more blurry from the quality of the call, has her eyes widened like saucers. “What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck? I only missed one dinner!”)

Surprisingly, the move-in process wasn’t as bad as Nien thought it would be. Although, maybe she should’ve expected this when all she had to do was lift boxes in. Of course, the items get sorted and organized by Kotone herself. She just tags along to help where she can and get to know her preferences better.

Unsurprisingly, Kotone isn’t a bad roommate to have. To tack onto the endless list of things that are great about Kamimoto Kotone, she’s clean. She always makes sure to sweep around where she can help it—washes the dishes and runs them through the dishwasher a second time to be sure. She and Nien have taken to organizing the fridge so that it’s clean and stored in the most optimal way to keep the food from expiring too soon.

Of course, as living with someone goes, Nien learns new things about Kotone. For example, she always apologizes to the walls and corners when she bumps into them, gets embarrassed when she realizes, and then tries to pretend like nothing happened.

Not too long later, Nien finds out—rather quickly—that Kotone really likes cooking.

Okay, it sounds pretty obvious. Like, Nien! Of course, she loves cooking, she went to culinary school and is a chef! But, she wasn’t prepared for this. Or, maybe she’s gotten too used to sad microwaved meals.

The first night Kotone officially moved in, she decided to make dinner.

Nien insisted that she didn’t have to and that they could live with one more night of takeout from whatever place she wanted. Or, they could at least finish off whatever is left of her prepackaged meals but Kotone insisted.

“I’m gonna make dinner. It’s fine.”

“...If that’s what you want.” Nien presses her lips together in a firm line. “I can’t say there’s much in the fridge but have at it?”

Kotone doesn’t reply and instead moves past her. Nien watches as she stands in front of the refrigerator. Just as she thinks she’s about to open it and see the incredibly sorry state it’s in, her hand hovers.

The chef turns to look at her, blinking between the refrigerator and Nien. “There’s nothing weird in here, right?”

… No way.

Nien barks out a loud, open-mouthed laugh. “Tone, are you serious? I thought you said you knew there obviously wasn’t a slime monster in my fridge?”

“Okay. I know it’s not a slime monster. What I mean is that there’s nothing like a hazardous food waste equivalent in there, right?”

“What the… Tone, what is your opinion of me?!” Nien pulls a face. “‘Course there’s nothing horrible in there. All you’re gonna find is those pre-portioned meal kits.”

Kotone stares at Nien—really analyzes and gazes at her facial expressions as if trying to understand how honest she’s being. Eventually, she exhales and wraps a hand around the handle. “You promise there’s nothing weird?”

“Promise. I’ll even swear on all my gacha luck!”

“... Alright.”

Nien spots the way Kotone takes in a deep breath. Her chest rises and falls once. Fingers curl around the handle just a fraction tighter before the refrigerator door opens.

Suddenly, Kotone disappears behind it. The door obstructs everything from above her friend’s waist. Nien has to step around and change positions to get a glimpse of her face once more.

The white glow of the refrigerator casts over Kotone’s face. Nien takes in the way her eyebrows furrow at the boxes of prepackaged food. She watches as her friend brings a tentative hand over the items, picks up boxes, and reads what she assumes are the ingredients with a scary amount of focus.

Nien didn’t know how long they had been standing in silence. She only watches as the cogs and gears in Kotone’s mind turn, likely trying to salvage whatever she could out of the portions.

The silence breaks like cracks slowly fracturing along ice. “I’ve got an idea.”

In the next few minutes, Kotone grabbed four boxes from the fridge and set them on the table. Now that she thinks about it, she hadn’t actually seen Kotone cook for herself. The final products had always been nothing short of stellar. Watching her work in her element is an entirely different story.

Nien finds that the vines of her curiosity twist and tangle in her brain—a strange sense of excitement that promises nothing more than just that. Kotone works with the portions with practiced ease.

“Is there anything I can help with?” A droplet of guilt settles into her. It ripples and fans out over her in waves.

“Actually, yeah,” Kotone pauses in the middle of what looks like creating marinade for the raw meat now sitting in a metal bowl. “Can you just chop up some of the vegetables over there? I know they were cut already but I wanted them a little smaller.”

She tilts her head in the direction of the cutting board and knife laid out on the side. The vegetables are already laid out on the side. Thankfully, despite Nien’s abysmal cooking skills, she knows her way around using a knife for cutting vegetables and fruit. Her hand comes up in a mock salute, “Aye, aye, Cap’n Tone!”

Kotone rolls her eyes and gets back to adding the rest of the ingredients for the marinade and mixing them in. There’s a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

It’s enough for Nien to feel satisfied and get to work, anyway.

In the hour that follows, Kotone has somehow managed to turn the prepacked meal boxes’ contents from what would probably be another sad airfried meal, into something that leaves a pleasant aroma in their kitchen.

Nien sits on one of the kitchen stools while waiting for Kotone. Since her new roommate was in charge of cooking, she figured she could at least clean the counters, set the table, and handle pouring both of them some juice.

The counters reflect the ceiling lights back up with startling clarity. So, Nien likes to think she’s done a good job.

“And dinner is served.” Kotone produces two bowls for them and sets them down before taking her place across from her. “I, uh. Hope you like it. There’s extra sauce if you want more of that.”

Nien finally gets a good look at the bowl in front of her and peers down at the contents. The vegetables and meat have all been neatly arranged on top of the rice in a circle. In the center, she sees a fried egg and sesame seeds sprinkled on top. Her stomach rumbles.

“You made bibimbap?” She asks, looking up to see her roommate adjusting in her seat.

“Yeah. It’s fairly simple and you listed it in the examples of food you like.” Kotone lifts up a sesame seed bottle. “Need more or is that enough?”

The question has her looking back down at the food. “Uh. Sure? I dunno how you managed to make all this with what was in the fridge.”

“It.. wasn’t all that.” Kotone waves a dismissive hand once, sliding the bottle across the counter to her. “I improvised.”

“I’m impressed! Seriously. I didn’t even know I had some of that stuff I saw you using,” Nien reaches for the bottle of sesame seeds in front of her. “Like, when did I get this?”

“Oh. That was me.” The other reaches to take a sip of her juice. “When you told me how bad your fridge is, I made sure to bring some of my stuff from home. The nonperishables, anyway.”

“Well…” She can’t fight that one. Her kitchen, despite being way too big for just one person, was kind of sad. Adding Kotone’s things into the mix has made things... much more lived in. The sesame seed bottle makes a grainy noise when Nien shakes it up and down over her food. It goes in the middle of the counter when she’s done. “Either way, this already looks like it’ll taste good.”

“Well, you still haven’t eaten anything yet. Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that.” Kotone glances at her almost expectantly—she pretends not to though, picking up her chopsticks and poking at the arrangement of her vegetables. Her spoon still sits by the side, on top of a napkin. To anyone else, her eyes look trained on the food. But Nien catches the glimpses of her trying to peek at her reaction.

Ah. So that’s what this was.

“I wouldn’t want to keep Tone Ramsay from hearing all about my five-star review. Let’s eat together!” Nien flashes her teeth in a silly grin, “Thank you for the food!”

As expected, Kotone takes her time in mixing her food to gauge her reaction. But honestly, Nien’s stomach was already screaming at her before. It’s a better excuse for why she mixes the contents so quickly and takes a bite.

The flavor is perfect. There’s no other way to describe it. Nien doesn’t know what kind of magic she put in this bibimbap but now she’s sure that she can’t get it from anywhere else.

And, she hasn’t had a nice and warm home-cooked meal like this in ages. If she had felt any more dramatic, there might have been tears shed tonight.

She makes a face. “Kotone.”

“Nien?” She looks at her, puzzled by the sudden seriousness.

. . .

Kotone’s brows knit in slight worry, searching for answers in her gaze. But, Nien lets her serious expression hold, chewing and swallowing before she comes up with a response. “This is so fucking good. As in, I could kiss you for this.”

“Wh-what is wrong with you?” There’s a strangled noise that comes from across the table. It devolves into coughing and rosy-tinted cheeks from Kotone, who throws a crumpled-up napkin at her. “You’re just saying that. I’m glad you liked the food though.”

“No, I’m serious. I could. I haven’t had food like this in so long.” Nien takes another bite with her spoon and moves her head to dodge the poorly thrown tissue ball. “I think this is the best bibimbap I’ve had. It’s almost annoying.” A huff. “You’re actually Tone Ramsay.”

“Does that mean if I put two pieces of bread on the sides of your face, you’ll be the idiot sandwich?”

“Hey!!” Chew. Swallow. “I’d at least be a really good tasting idiot sandwich, alright?! Sugar, spice, and everything nice ‘n all that.”

“Sure, sure.”

Despite the obvious teasing, Nien feels something fuzzy tug at her chest. Underneath the kitchen light and sat across from Kotone, everything feels much more alive. It’s nice to have someone to eat meals with instead of the YouTube videos she plays to fill the silence.

“Why cooking? If I’m allowed to ask.” Nien says, swallowing another bite of her food.

“Hm.” There’s a long pause as Kotone contemplates the question. She watches the way her nails tap rhythmically against the counter, pinky-side first all the way up until her index finger. Rinse and repeat. “I guess I’ve just always liked how food connects people. You don’t have to know someone that well but you can always bond over good food, no matter what. Think of all the stories and conversations you’ve had over a nice meal. Stuff like that. I want to be able to spread that with other people.”

Huh.

“That’s…”

“Strange, right?” Kotone laughs, “Most people just assume it was a life skill thing. Which, it is, to an extent. But cooking can be a lot of different things at once.”

“I don’t think it’s strange. “ The hasty words tumble out of Nien’s mouth before she can stop them. “Food can have history. It can be complicated and technical with recipes. Or, it could be as simple as sharing a meal with someone. Like what we’re doing now.” A small smile appears on her face. “So, I don’t think it’s weird. I respect it.”

Kotone only smiles back. “Thanks, Nien.”

“Just being honest. I agree with you anyway, hearing about people’s preferences is a good starter to any friendship.”

“And speaking of that,” Kotone fumbles in her pocket before pulling out a small notebook and flipping to a blank page. She slides it across to her, placing two pens down in the middle of them. “Tell me what you like eating. We might have been friends for a long while now but, I’m still curious and I want to know more of your preferences if this whole… personal chef thing is supposed to work out.”

“Sure,” Nien sets her chopsticks down on top of her bowl, pulling the small notebook over and reaching for one of the pens. “As long as you write in yours too! We’re both eating the food. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

“Alright. Let’s hope your taste isn’t abysmal.”

“Hey! I have immaculate taste, thank you very much!”

“We’ll see about that.”

The rest of the evening is spent with them exchanging more food preferences (like Kotone’s inability to handle spice and Nien’s hatred for red bell pepper) and having them penned down on her notebook for the time being. And, of course, what’s a shared note without drawings all over the margins?

.

.

.

Kotone also likes color-coding things.

She finds out when she spots the sudden influx of oranges and yellows that decorate their homes. Yellow and orange mugs, the labels and the colors of lunch containers, reminders for Nien to eat. It’s everywhere.

It isn’t as much as drawing borders and boundaries but as a reminder that they now share the space—that if she tries hard enough, she’ll be able to find Kotone scattered throughout their shared home in more ways than just a strand of hair that gets swept off the floor and into the trash.

“I never got to ask but… Why orange?” Nien ends up asking one day, sipping on her coffee in an orange mug. She lifts it to inspect, grinning at the sheep littered around it. Some of them are just standing, the others have ridiculous poses. “I’m assuming you like the color yellow?”

“For me, yellow just sticks out the easiest. But for you…” Kotone hums, taking a sip from her own mug. “You remind me of the color orange, I guess.”

“Woah? Like clown hair orange?” Nien only gives a confused smile. The seeds of curiosity sprout in her mind, vines twisting and turning to search for an answer. She stares a bit more intently at the girl across from her.

“Not clown orange,” Kotone huffs. She makes a facial expression, mouth twisting into a displeased frown. Her gaze narrows in a way that’s meant to look like a glare, probably. But Nien watches how her eyes betray her—pupils softening for a fraction of a second before she looks back down at the mugs. “Your orange is softer. Something like… autumn leaves, if I had to put it into words. The kinds that crunch under your feet and people take pictures of. That kind of orange.”

Oh.

Before Nien can open her mouth to reply, Kotone’s speaking once more. “And, I know your birthday is in the summer. It just felt fitting.”

“Beat me to the punch,” She didn’t. Her heart squeezes anyway. “But, hey. Thanks. Autumn leaves are pretty.”

“Yeah.” Somehow, the soft smile thrown her way hits harder than any uppercut or hook when it makes her stomach swoop pleasantly, “They are.”

.

.

.

Kotone likes observing people too.

Today, Nien sits in her chair, stream running as per usual.

Yoonmi and Gomdori, fellow streamers better known to her as Seoyeon and Jiwoo, laugh loudly in her headset as she whiffs another clip of ammo into the enemy team and ducks behind stacked green boxes. She’d only managed to kill one person and everyone else went down in the chaos.

“Shiiiiiit,” Nien groans, throwing a grenade into the choke point. “You guys are not helping. You died!”

“I can still place my smokes onto the site even though I’m dead, dude.” She can just imagine the grin on Seoyeon’s face.

“Whatever. Jiwoo has no excuse.”

“How was I supposed to know he had a shotgun in there?!”

“You didn’t even have t—“ Nien still has it in her to complain, taking down one enemy only to lose the last teammate she has behind her.

Last player standing.

You’re kidding.

“Clutch or kiss?” Seoyeon unhelpfully chimes in, making a brief kissy noise into the mic.

“Why’re you asking like kissing you is a punishment for me? If you wanted one, you could’ve just asked,” Nien spares a glance at her chat and spots the dozens of messages rolling in about their usual queerbaiting antics. It’s all in good fun. Besides, who is realistically going to pass up the opportunity to kiss a pretty friend? “As long as Yooyeon’s cool with it, anyway.”

“I meannn… shit.” Seoyeon’s jokingly sultry tone makes Jiwoo gag.

“Really, guys? Can we just play the game?”

“Tell that to Seoyeo—Oh fuck—“ Suddenly, an enemy shoots at her from behind, causing her to quickly slide her mouse across the desk’s mouse pad. Somehow, she nails them right in the head.

One down. Three more to go.

The grip on her mouse tightens. Her heartbeat picks up and a cold sensation comes over her hands. For the sake of her pride, she should win.

Before Nien can think twice about it, her brain empties itself. All she has to do is kill the enemy team. The streamer falls silent, brows slightly knit in concentration. As long as she’s careful to check each angle and listen for sound cues, she can do this.

She’s quick to maneuver her character in quick sidesteps, peeking around the corners to try and scout out any stray enemy team members. The sound of the teleporter hadn’t gone off, meaning that they must still be around somewhere.

When Nien looks to her left, she spots one stray enemy, gunning them down quickly and repositioning. If she takes down one of the now two remaining, her grenades will be recharged.

Showers, the area of the map she’s in now, is eerily quiet. When she’d taken down the enemy Omen, she’d expected at least one other person to follow up. And yet, there was none.

It isn’t until she hears the sound of footsteps flooding in from her left that she realizes. The remaining enemy team had only cleared the left half of the site. Their Omen going down suddenly must have caused them to panic and abandon their slow play.

Heh.

They’re absolutely clueless when she pre-fires because it takes the spike carrier down instantly. She spares the final enemy no time to recover and tosses her recharged grenade without a second thought. The other player scampers to the side, likely trying to avoid taking more damage.

However, it’s much too late.

Nien uses her last remaining blast pack against the wall and detonates it to allow her to do a weird sliding peek and take down the last enemy.

Ace!

“FORGET CLUTCH OR KISS, I COULD MAKE OUT WITH YOU RIGHT NOW, BRO.” Seoyeon yells into her mic. Their characters respawn and Seoyeon’s Clove is already in her face, jumping around in front of her. The sound reverberates in her headphones and immediately snaps her out of the game-induced haze.

“Damn, Nien. Have you been hitting aim training before playing with us? You’re hard-carrying! I gotta step it up.” Jiwoo gives a playful sigh.

“Heh. Thanks, guys. That was all calculated! Just too good man.” Nien flashes the camera a proud grin and thumbs up for good measure.

In the middle of buying her shields and utility again, she casts a glance to her right. The streaming monitor shows all of the stream comments coming in.

“Your…” Nien squints to read. “Your roommate is cute?!” She half-yells, looking up to the stream’s preview and seeing Kotone just sitting on her bed behind her with an awkward smile on camera.

Nien all but whirls around in her chair. It swivels and creaks with the speed she’s spinning at. And, her palm hits the desk with a loud smack. A disregarded stinging sensation travels up her skin from the point of impact. How the hell did she sneak up on her? And when?!

It isn’t the first time that Kotone has been on stream—sometimes, she’ll appear in the background for a few moments. Or, she’ll leave anything she needs to drop off on the living room table and send Nien a text later. But, like any streamer with a small habit of oversharing, Nien (with Kotone’s permission) introduced her briefly the first few times she appeared.

But now that she’s gotten accustomed to Nien’s yelling and ridiculous antics, she just shows up. Today is apparently one of those days.

She vaguely hears the sounds of gunshots and her character dying. Seoyeon and Jiwoo’s panicked voices filter out like static on a TV screen.

“Hey, Nien. Sorry for sneaking up on you,” Kotone laughs, light and airy. “You were concentrating and I didn’t want to bug you. But, I came to drop this off before the ice melts. I’d put it in the fridge but then the tapioca gets all… weird. And, I know you like soggy ramen noodles but having soggy pearls is a crime.”

It’s only then that she notices the drink in Kotone’s hands. Her roommate finally gets up and sets it down on the star-shaped coaster on her desk. It has a cute leaf topper for the straw. The transparent cup is filled with a familiar purple liquid, tapioca pearls sitting at the bottom. Taro bubble tea?

“How did you—”

“You always order the same thing whenever we go.” Kotone shrugs, taking a step back so that she’s out of frame.

Right.

They’ve started frequently getting their drinks from the Gongcha nearby. Although, before they were roommates, Nien much preferred a different place. But, Kotone doesn’t need to know that she switched where she got her bubble tea just because she liked that one better. Besides, their taro was good too (and it was worth seeing her roommate enjoy her drink).

The fact that she remembered brings a grin to her face anyway. “Awww. Thanks, Tone! You didn’t have to. I gotta enjoy this drink even more since you personally delivered it to me.”

“...Don’t mention it. Dinner should be ready soon,” Kotone pointedly avoids addressing the rest of her statement, instead concentrating on the monitor behind you. “I think your match is still going. Good luck on your stream?”

“Oh shit. Yeah—” Nien’s eyes widen as she swivels back around to see that she’d been marked as AFK. Her character hadn’t even spawned in. Whoops. “Thanks. I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”

“Mhm. And uh. Bye, chat?” Kotone gives the back of Nien’s chair one last pat and waves at the camera before disappearing behind her somewhere.

The door closes gently with a thump.

Nien’s chat is practically going wild with the interaction. She swears she hasn’t seen this many comments since she tripped and fell after trying to do a silly breakdance move on camera.

sooshumin: god when is it my turn

kwakkwakz: haha gay

gongjubin: get you a girl that brings you drinks mid-match omg

rinnosuke: wait they’re kinda cute together…

chaelien: she’s pretty!!!!!!!

The rest of the comments are just endlessly teasing her about abandoning the game just because her roommate came in. Others are asking for her to bring her back into the room.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Nien tuts, wagging her finger at the camera, “She’s my roomie, guys. I thought you were here to watch me! Man. Should I start gatekeeping?”

Is it a little possessive? Maybe! But she’s allowed to be a little petty. She knows Kotone better than some random strangers on the internet. Nien is the one who gets to wake up and see her every day.

Instead of looking at the responses, she finally presses the button for her push to talk on Discord while maneuvering on the game’s map. At least they had only lost one round in her absence. “Sorry, guys. I’m back.”

“All good, I didn’t know you had a new roommate though. She’s seems nice.” Jiwoo says. Nien spots her character trying to jump from the top of one stack of green boxes to a roof on another building.

“Yeah. Looks pretty too.” Seoyeon chimes in offhandedly.

“Oh. Kotone! Yeah, we’ve been friends for a while. She’s pretty and nice.” A pause. Hang on. “Wait. How’d you know that?”

“...My chat brought it up and Seoyeon opened your stream?” Jiwoo’s tone sounds something like stepping around eggshells as if knowing this would lead to an inevitable outburst.

“YOU GUYS SNITCHED ON ME?” Nien’s eyes widen as she looks at her chat from the stream preview.

…And Jiwoo would be correct.

Seoyeon’s giggling in the background only fuels her embarrassment.

“Betrayed by my own chat twice… I can’t believe it.” Nien fake sniffles. “Whatever. Let’s lock in, I guess. Hmph.”

She settles back into the cushion on her gaming chair and readies her hand over her mouse. It wasn’t their rank-up game but winning is better than losing. Nien’s left hand instinctively reaches for the drink. Her fingers curl around the cold cup, condensation making it slightly wet when it hits her skin.

Nien lets herself give the drink one last glance, the faintest smile appearance at the sight of the leaf topper on the straw. Her mind offhandedly remembers Kotone mentioning something about it preventing dirt or other particles from getting in.

The straw topper comes off with a small popping sound before she takes a sip of the drink and chews on the tapioca.

It’s just a drink. But, it’s enough for her to get through the match as the team mvp and win with the rest of the team.

The weeks pass.

Nien lazily scrolls through Twitter on her phone. Today was technically an off day for her streaming to give her some break time. And yet, she still scrolls through her request hashtag.

Some of the requests are silly, asking her to bring back streams where she’s wearing the Clifford the Red Dog onesie again—while others are weird, to say the least. Those usually get ignored and blocked or muted.

And then she sees it. Under the hashtag, someone was requesting for her to bring back her failed cooking experiment videos with a clip from the last one. The clip showed her panicking over a minor kitchen fire that she put out rather dramatically with the nearby fire extinguisher before bursting into laughter.

It really has been a while since she last cooked or baked something for that. Hm. Nien swipes away from Twitter, immediately heading to lovely professor Google to find something to cook.

Now that she and Kotone actually buy groceries, she has more to work with!

“Hm… What to cook…” Nien mumbles under her breath. Her index finger drags along the Google results of iconic recipes to make at home.

The results are all over the place. Some are super simple, others look incredibly complicated.

“Ehhh.. This looks easy enough.” Nien’s gaze lands on a Beef Wellington recipe. She remembers hearing about this one from Gordon Ramsay! And, thinking about Gordon Ramsay reminds her of Kotone, who’s out doing errands right now. That means she absolutely has to make it now!

Plus, it would probably be nice to have her making food this time instead of Kotone usually doing so. And, yes, she pays her to do so but this could be nice!

Heh. It can’t be that hard, right?

Nien shoves her phone into her pocket and immediately rolls out of bed. She quickly grabs her tripod and designated camera to place in the kitchen before returning for the microphone.

One last peer through the video camera lens and adjusting the lighting later, the setup for recording is finished. The last thing left for her to do is quickly fasten her microphone onto the collar of her shirt and start recording.

“Alright, everyone. Hi! Hello! It’s HsuPernova. I read some of your suggestions and realized it’s been a while since I last did a cooking video. So, today we’re bringing that back!” Nien grins and gestures at her pre-prepared ingredients. “We’re gonna be making a Beef Wellington! Honestly, I’ve never done this before but that’s what experimenting’s all about! Can’t be that bad, heh.”

The process starts relatively slow, she’s just sifting through all the ingredients and showing them to the camera. “I didn’t have everything so, I’m taking some creative liberties based on the picture here! We’ve got uhhh, this slab of meat, some ground beef, ham, and this uncut loaf of bread!”

She holds up the ingredients one by one before setting them down.

First thing’s first! Nien makes sure to season all the meats with salt and pepper! She may be bad at cooking but she knows that much, at least.

Once that’s finished, she sets it off to the side.

“Hm… I guess we should just start with carving out this bread now? The picture has this other kind of pastry bread but I don’t think we don’t have that so uh,” Nien brings the loaf of bread closer to her on the cutting board and picks up a knife. She shrugs, “Whatever, it’ll be fine!”

Nien gets to work after washing her hands, somehow hollowing out the bread loaf with about half an inch of the inside still there. Her left side has a mess of bread guts for later use, maybe.

“Man, this kinda feels like pumpkin carving. Instead of doing those uhh… cross shapes at the top in the picture, should i just do little slashes and make a smiley face? I think I like that idea better!”

Nien carefully takes the knife and does the little slashes at the top of the bread before carving a lopsided smiley face in the center.

“Ooookay! Now that that’s done, I should probably take the meat and uh.. Put the ground beef around it? I feel like this is doubling up on beef and then going overkill with the ham but it’s probably fine.”

Just as she’s about to get to shaping the ground beef, Nien pauses and looks at the camera. “Don’t they usually put stuff on the meat? Besides seasoning? Was it… egg yolk? Errr…” A beat. “Y’know what? Sure! It’ll give us more protein!”

That’s exactly how she ends up with a bowl of separated beaten egg yolks and egg whites a few minutes later.

Nien spreads the egg yolk all over the initial slab of beef after cutting it so that it hopefully fits in the loaf of bread later.

“Cool. We got the coat of egg yolk on here. As for the egg whites… I’m sure we can find another use for that! Like our bread guts for later!” She flashes her teeth in a lazy grin at the camera before looking back down.

“Time for the shaping. And then, we can wrap it with the ham! Heh.” Nien grabs some of the ground beef and starts putting it all around the meat.

The streamer hums as she keeps going, taking scoops of ground meat into her gloved hands. “This is actually kinda looking dece—“

“I’m back! …What are you doing?” Kotone’s voice suddenly cuts her off and fills her ears.

Oh! She must have been so concentrated that she didn’t hear the door unlocking.

“Hey, Tone!“ Nien looks up with a cheery expression to greet her roommate. Kotone wears an expression that can only be described as a mixture of confusion, judgment, and concern.

“I’m making Beef Wellington! Or, well. Trying to,” The streamer makes sure to add, gesturing at the camera. “Some people missed my cooking videos and I thought I’d try making dinner for once!”

Kotone blinks once and then twice before giving the camera an uneasy wave. “Beef Wellington. That’s what you’re trying to make? Like the Gordon Ramsay dish?”

“Yeah!” Nien keeps adding more ground beef. “I saw it was one of his things and figured I could make it. Plus, it’s funny ‘cause you’re Tone Ramsay, heh.”

“T-That’s really sweet,” Kotone’s voice comes out a little shaky.

Nien gives her a thumbs up with her free hand and looks down to make sure the ground beef is spread evenly. She misses the way her friend’s eyes widen even more at the stacked meat. “Didn’t have that pastry bread stuff though. I figured that loaf bread probably works. Just gotta stick everything in the oven, right? I even put a little smiley face on the bread! Not sure what we’re gonna do with the guts though.”

“Guts?!” Kotone makes a strangled noise, finally spotting the pile of bread insides she’d carved earlier. Deep breath. Smiling! “Where did you get this recipe?”

“Ehhhh. I just looked at the picture. It didn’t seem that bad. Plus, people seem to take joy in my failure.” She nods her head in the direction of the video camera.

“Oh my god, Nien.” Kotone immediately scrambles to her side and gets a full glimpse of the damage. That comment alone was enough to break the calm facade she attempted to put up. “How did you—You can’t just replace puff pastries for bread!”

“They’re both kinda similar!”

“No. They aren’t.” A groan. “Why didn’t you just use Google?!”

“It’s more fun and surprising this way!” Nien puts her gloved hands up in mock defense. “I thought cooking was all about experimenting! And feeling the vibes!”

Kotone takes a deep breath. Her index finger and thumb pinch at the bridge of her nose. Inhale. Exhale. “Nien. What exactly do you think is in Beef Wellington?”

“I thought Beef Wellington was just a piece of meat inside some kinda bread!” The streamer quickly removes the gloves just to pull up the picture on her phone.

“See!” She points at the food with her index. “There’s meat here. I covered it in egg yolk slash yellow stuff. I put the ground beef brown stuff around it. And then I put the ham around! Wouldn’t you just put it in the loaf of bread like a turkey and have it go in the oven after?”

“Ground beef? Loaf of bread..” Kotone’s facial expression twitches. It continues to oscillate through equal parts confusion and concern with a pinch of judgment and mild horror on the side. Her gaze flickers to the bread and its remains. “Did you?? Hollow the bread out with a knife??”

“Yeah! I didn’t have the scoring thingy at the top so I just sliced the top.” Nien pulls the bread closer to show her handiwork. “It could be cute!”

A long silence passes between the two of them. Kotone keeps mumbling to herself, looking at all the ingredients with furrowed brows.

And then, she places a hand on Nien’s shoulder.

“Tone..?”

“I think I can fix this.”

.

.

.

“So, first off,” Kotone, ever the good sport, actually goes along with her antics and moves to give the camera a better angle, “You’re supposed to sear the meat before you start putting things on it. Thankfully, you already seasoned it.”

Nien has the self-respect to at least pretend to appear scandalized with a hand over her chest, “I might be bad but not that bad! Who do you think I am?!”

“Someone who can’t cook.”

“Tone…” Nien whines, frowning at her. “You said you were gonna help!”

“I am you, big baby.” Kotone snorts, using the metal tongs in her hands to continue to sear the meat on each side.

“Hmph.”

“You’ve got a food processor, yeah?” Kotone asks over her shoulder, “Can you grab that for me?”

Sigh. Nien shoots the camera a look, “See guys? She’s so mean to me. I dunno why you guys keep asking for her to come onto my streams.”

Kotone only laughs from her spot by the stove, “Aha, they have taste. I’m honored.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” Despite her complaints, she brings the food processor out and sets it up. “I’m being bullied in my own home by my own roommate.” She throws in a fake sniffle for added effect. “It’s a rough world out here, guys.”

“You aren’t being bullied. I’m nice!” Kotone turns off the heat and gets the meat on a plate. The chef sets it down on the counter and stands next to Nien, now holding a brush out for her. “While the meat is still cooling down, all you gotta do is take this brush and put mustard all over it. That’s what the yellow stuff was. Not egg yolk.”

“Y’know. I like to think that egg yolk wasn’t too far of a guess,” She takes the brush from Kotone and starts coating the meat, “Is there a specific reason why we do this?”

“Egg yolk wasn’t too bad, I’ll give you that.” There’s a nod. “Doing this while it’s still hot means that the meat can absorb the flavor from the mustard.”

“Ohhhh.” Huh. The more you know.

“While you do that—make sure to cover everything—I’m gonna get started on the Duxelles.” Kotone watches her for a millisecond before directing her attention to the food processor and the mushrooms she grabbed earlier.

“I can’t even repeat back whatever that word was but yay!”

Kotone presses her lips together in a thinly veiled attempt to avoid laughing and looks at the video camera. “Basically, for those who are watching this video later, I’m gonna put the mushrooms in, add in this chopped garlic, and season with salt and pepper.”

Nien finishes her task relatively quickly. Once the brush is set off to the side, she leans against the island counter with a propped elbow and rests her chin on her palm.

Kotone pays her no mind, dumping the ingredients into the food processor and seasoning with practiced ease. “We don’t have chestnuts so I’m not including that here, but, it should be just as good.”

The food processor whirs to life with the press of a button, blending the mushrooms and garlic clove rather quickly. “The next step is cooking all this on a hot, dry pan to get rid of the water from the mushrooms. But to speed everything up,” Kotone looks over at Nien, who scrambles upright from her previous position. “We can start setting up the ham to wrap the meat in first if you want?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure. Sure! I can do that!” Nien’s already getting the food wrap out and rolling some out on top of the cutting board. “I dunno if me cooking without oil is a good idea so I think I can handle putting ham onto some food wrap. Can’t have you kicking me out of here faster than a Poppy ult when I fuck up.”

Kotone gives her a look that can only be described as completely lost. She blinks twice, only giving her a small smile.

No fucking way.

“Y’know like Poppy? From League of Legends? Top lane? Has a comically large hammer?” The more she explains with frantic hand gestures, the more pathetic she feels. God. Maybe she does play too many games.

Kotone’s confused smile remains on her face, head tilting slightly to the left with Nien’s explanation. “I only know the basic League characters on Wildrift, honestly.”

Sigh.

“All you need to know is that Poppy hits people away with a giant hammer for an ultimate ability. Which is probably what would happen if I caused another fi—Wait. You play Wildrift?” The streamer pauses in the middle of opening up the package of ham. “Since when?!”

Kotone’s reaching for a spatula. She disconnected the top part of the food processor with their Duxelles and held it in the other hand while she approached the pan on the stove once more. “You talk about playing League with Seoyeon and Jiwoo. I was curious but I didn’t want to get it on my laptop.”

“Aw, so you did it for me?” Nien teases. All she can see is the back of Kotone’s sweater.

“Shut up. I was just curious.” There’s a sizzling sound when the Duxelles hit the hot pan. “I’m adding thyme.”

“That’s not a no!” The pieces of ham are overlapping and layered across the food wrap. All she gets in response is a vague grunt.

Eventually, they get the cooled Duxelles on top of the seasoned ham and have the beef wrapped in it. Kotone let Nien handle the assembly for the most part, only stepping in when it was time to use the food wrap to get the ham and Duxelles tightly wrapped around it.

Kotone carefully takes the finished product and places it into the fridge. The door closes with a thud. “Alright. We just gotta leave it in there for like fifteen minutes to firm up and keep its shape. Then we can…” Her gaze lands on the carved-out bread and the ‘bread guts’. Another exasperated sigh leaves her lips. “That's the part where we’re supposed to wrap it in the puff pastry.”

“We can’t just use my smiley bread? I worked so hard on that…” Nien shows the camera a frown.

“If we want something edible… No.” Kotone pats her shoulder. “I’ll check the fridge one last time. I’m sure we can uh, find a use for your bread later?”

Sulking. “Alright.”

Nien busies herself with cleaning up their unused supplies from earlier while Kotone heads for the fridge again. The sounds of clanking in the sink and from the fridge fill the silence.

“Aha. We’re in luck.” Kotone produces a box of puff pastry sheets. She flips it over to locate the expiration date. Her eyes widen. “This expires in a few days so I guess we’re just in time.”

“I actually had that?” Nien leans back to look at her roommate. Her hands remain in the sink—one with a sponge and the other cleaning up the used tongs from earlier.

“Apparently.” Kotone grins at her. The puff pastry box goes on the counter next to the food wrap.

The hand towel’s bristles are soft and feel nice when she uses them to dry her hands. They’d just replaced the cloth and thrown the previous one into the laundry for washing later.

By the time the extra dishes are done and Nien returns to her spot next to Kotone behind the island’s countertop, the wrapped Beef Wellington is almost finished.

“We can actually use the egg yolk you made earlier.” The brush moves back and forth over the top of the puff pastry wrapped around the Beef Wellington.

“Heh. I’m a genius. It was all calculated.” Nien gives a nonchalant shrug. Another cocky grin gets thrown in the direction of the camera for added effect. “What can I say?”

Kotone turns to look at her with a deadpan expression. “Sure. And, that’s why I’m doing this right now and not you.”

“Yeah! Obviously cause I’m the master chef and you need practice.” She nudges at her with her shoulder.

“Right.” Kotone rolls her eyes, reaching for the knife before flipping it to use the backside. Her wrist moves with seasoned expertise, making marks along both sides of the dough. “This is extra but scoring it like this can make it look a little nicer.” She mutters, pausing when she hits the middle. A second passes before she leaves a generous space and continues her work below.

At the very end, she finally turns to Nien and holds the handle of the knife out to her.

Hm? “What’s this for, Tone?”

Kotone has her head turned to the right, pointedly avoiding Nien’s gaze. “You wanted to draw a smiley face at the top like with the bread, didn’t you?”

Nien brightens at this, eyes sparkling. “You remembered!”

“Yes, yes. Just hurry and get on with it so we can shove this in the oven. It’ll take like thirty minutes.” Despite the rushed rhythm of her voice, Kotone carefully places the knife in Nien’s palm before padding in the direction of the sink to wash the egg yolk off her hands.

Nien does the exaggerated motion of mouthing the words ‘She loves me, don’t worry’ and pointing to Kotone before drawing her beloved smiley face onto the top of the Beef Wellington.

Eventually, the food cooks in the oven and they end the video by doing a taste test. Unsurprisingly, with Kotone’s help, the Beef Wellington was salvaged and tasted good. A new achievement for Nien’s Food Experiment Adventures, as the playlist is so helpfully named.

.

.

.

Click.

“Camera’s off!” Nien calls out from behind the tripod, sticking her arm up in a quick thumbs up.

Kotone deflates, slumping on the kitchen stool. “Whew.”

“You sure I’m good to post all this?” Nien sidesteps around the camera to sit across from her.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I did show the camera what I was doing and all.” The other girl has her cheek pressed against the cool marble countertop. “Besides,” Kotone lets her eyes fall shut. “It was fun.”

The overhanging lights cast over the two of them, just as they always do. She lets her gaze rake over her roommate’s current position. Brown bangs hang loosely and frame her face. Other strands of hair stick up and out, slightly out of place. Nien feels her hand twitch. They stay in her lap.

“Thanks for playing along then,” Instead, her smile widens. “Finally admitting you have fun with me?”

“Saves me the trouble of making dinner too.”

“Aw, boo.”

(“Can I keep this part of you doing your silly dance?” Nien clicks pause on the video. The editing software screen is displayed on one of her monitors.

Kotone sits on her green bed sheets, dressed in a loose white shirt and Kuromi pajama pants. It’s a funny complement to her matching Gudetama pajama set. “Hmmm.”

“If you don’t wanna, I’ll cut it out.” Nien’s hasty to add, spinning around in her chair to look at her friend, “I just thought it was cute.”

“I didn’t even say anything yet?” Kotone wears that same confused smile, chuckling as she speaks.

“I’m just putting it out there. Don’t wanna coerce you into stuff you’re not comfortable with, y’know? As much as we joke around.”

“I appreciate that.” There’s a comforting hand reaching over to pat her knee once. “You can keep it though. I was the one that did it when I knew there were cameras.”

“Alrighty,” Nien spins the chair just enough to undo the split for the clip. “I mean. I doubt that many people will watch this anyway. My cooking videos aren’t what they tune in for. Though my chat does like you a lot.”

“Ha. I don’t get it, really. But I guess I’m honored?”

“Damn. Gonna have to start gatekeeping you, Tone. They can just be jealous. You’re my roommate. The best one ever!”

“Have you had another roommate live here with you?”

“I mean I had a college roommate but you’re way better.”

Kotone still looks unimpressed, “It’s just because I make you food, isn’t it?”

“Hey… Why do I feel like you’re reducing me to the mindset of a pet?”

“Might as well be. You’re an overgrown puppy.”

“Whaaaat?” Huff. “Am I at least a cute one?”

Kotone only moves to get up and off the bed, “Time for you to get back to editing, yeah?”)

Apparently, the video does much better than expected.

In fact, it’s the entire reason why Koma Mayu is at their home standing in front of their TV with her laptop connected. Apparently, this was urgent enough for her to show up immediately after work. Mayu’s still in her black pencil skirt and blazer, fiddling with her mouse until there’s a powerpoint displayed on the TV screen.

“So. I bet you’re both wondering why I called you here.” Mayu starts, looking at both Kotone and Nien seated next to each other on the couch. She fiddles with a remote that doubles as a laser pointer. Mayu smacks it twice when the button doesn’t work the first time. The red dot appears on the white screen.

“Uh, that would be nice, yeah.” Kotone’s face twists into a confused expression as she eyes Nien in her peripherals.

“And, why does it involve a PowerPoint…?” Nien chimes in with a slight frown, “If this is another one of your hear me out presentations, I told you not to include my mom again in your slides—“

Mayu’s face burns crimson. “W-What?! That’s—?! That’s not what this is about! Even though your mom is a lovely woman!” She coughs, making a show of fanning her face with her free hand. “Anyway, this is about you two. Not me! Do you know how many edits of you guys keep popping up on my feed?”

Mayu flicks through to another slide that shows a plethora of tweets about Kotone and Nien—mostly fans speculating about their relationship with one another. Jeez. She knew her fans liked Kotone but Nien didn’t think it was to this extent.

“You guys have shippers.” Mayu states plainly, using the red dot of the laser pointer to highlight a tweet with a clip of Kotone coming on stream to give Nien her drink. The avid fan points out how “soft” her roommate’s smile was for her and how cute it was. Furthermore, there were other similar tweets calling them girlfriends. The examples were endless.

To be frank, it looked like a long plethora of things that would make Nien feel more delusional. She instinctively plucks at the weeds of lingering feelings sprouting out of her heart.

Kotone sucks in a breath, an unreadable expression on her face as Mayu pauses. “So,” She starts slowly, “What exactly are we supposed to do about that?”

“Yeah, I wanna know too. I mean, I’m not complaining if people think we’re together. Tone’s practically wife material.” Nien gives the girl next to her a teasing nudge with her elbow.

She, realistically, should be horrified at the prospect of the public putting the pieces together. But, these feelings have been around for so long that she can play it off. If she pretends to be chill, eventually she will be, right?

“Shut up..”

Mayu only lights up at the question. “So, that brings me to my next point!” She flips to the next slide, showing many many GL manga. “Do you guys know what you have in common with all of these manga?”

“We’re gay…?” Kotone trails off at the end, still confused by the sudden jump.

“Oh, boo. I was gonna say that!” Nien complains, deflating in her spot on the couch. “We’re all girls?”

“That’s just too obvious,” Mayu shakes her head. “They’re all couples and sell a lot because people want yuri!”

“You mean you want yuri.” Kotone narrows her eyes.

“Details, details,” Their friend only makes a dismissive noise, waving with her other hand, “Clearly, other people want it too. The last edit I saw of you two had at least 100K likes. That’s insane. Which brings me to my next slide!”

Click.

Nien watches as the screen changes. Nothing could have prepared her for what it said next. The slides had a plain white background. In big, bold, Times New Roman font, all it said was ‘Be More Gay.’

Mayu stares at them expectantly.

There’s a long silence. The only sounds that register in Nien’s ears are the sounds of the air conditioning whirring and the ticking of the clock on the wall.

And then, Kotone laughs.

She practically doubles over laughing, clutching at her stomach. It’s the kind of laugh that Nien’s had the privilege of hearing more often now that they live together—one of her favorite sounds, really. Before she even registers it, her own grin is widening in time with how her chest swells with a familiar endearment.

For a moment, she allows herself a second to take it in. To soak in just how light Kotone sounds when she’s enjoying herself like this, even if it’s for something ridiculous like a business proposal that tells them to be gay.

It’s a nice look on Kotone, that’s for sure.

Nien’s gaze finally meets Mayu’s, who has her lips pressed together to hold back her own laughs. It triggers a chain reaction, because suddenly all three of them are laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Kotone is the first to speak in-beteween wiping stray tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry—Your big idea is to be—to be more gay?”

“Just hear me out!” Mayu brings an index finger up. All Nien can think about is how she sort of looks like the nerd emoji. “If you guys are gay together and make content like the cooking video, you guys could get more views! And maybe more people would notice Kotone’s cooking skills! What better résumé to have than being a literal personal chef for a famous person?”

“I mean. I guess that kinda makes sense.” Nien rubs at her chin.

“Wh—are you actually considering this?” Kotone gapes at her.

“Are you not? I had fun cooking with you. If it helps both of us then…” Nien shrugs. “It could be fun.” The ominous sounds of metal digging into dirt come to mind with each word she says.

There’s a moment of back and forth—mostly Kotone looking at Nien and then Mayu, and then Nien again. After a few rounds of that, the chef breathes out a resigned sigh. “... What the hell, sure. I mean, I guess I’ve agreed to crazier things.”

“You guys can read these manga as reference if you need it!” Mayu claps her hands together like a seal after swapping back to the slide with all the manga titles.

“Maybe!” Nien lets herself grin at an unamused Kotone. “Heh. I get to terrorize you in the kitchen again.”

“So, you admit it was terrorizing on purpose?” One brow raises.

“Lovingly!” She’s feeling cheeky, tongue caught between her lips in what resembles a ‘blep’ expression. Her grin only widens at the way Kotone rolls her eyes, the fondness spilling out of the corners of it when they crinkle. Nien recognizes this—the telltale sign that she’s about to smile and then pretends she isn’t by turning away.

Kotone does just that, moving just enough so that her hair covers up part of her face. But, Nien doesn’t need to look to know.

Yeah. This’ll be fun.

(“Babe?” Xinyu’s voice calls out to Mayu in the middle of her rant as she explains the events of the day. The two of them are seated on the couch. Xinyu’s arm is wrapped around her girlfriend.

“Yeah?”

“Did you just use playing matchmaker for our friends as an excuse to throw in propaganda for your favorite GL mangas?”

“Well…” Mayu purses her lips together, eyes darting off to the side. “In my defense! A himejoshi never rests! And this was like two birds with one stone, I’ve been trying to get Kotone to read this one manga since we were in college and you can’t deny those two wouldn’t look good together!”

“You’re insane.”

“Says you!”

“So, why are we dating again…?” Xinyu fakes her cluelessness with the tap of her index finger against her lips.

Mayu pouts, tugging at her sleeve. “Because I’m your girlfriend and you love me anyway?”

There’s a pause before she concedes. Xinyu’s lips curve up into a small smile. “Yeah. I do.”

“You better.” Grumbling. “Hmph.”

Xinyu presses a kiss to the top of her forehead.)

They start live-streaming their cooking.

Surprisingly, it’s Kotone’s idea. She rattles off something about it being more interactive for them and the fans. Nien agrees without a second thought because, why wouldn’t she?

They’ve graduated from uploading more edited videos of her struggles (and Kotone inevitably stepping in to fixing them).

As their… self-proclaimed PR manager, (though if you ask Nien, she’s more like an enabler) Mayu likes to cheer them on in their groupchat—she even sends a few ridiculous fan edits of the two of them just to tease.

And, like a good friend, Nien watches them.

It’s almost hilariously terrifying how good their(?) fans are at editing things together. Somehow, she’s stumbled upon someone making a one minute compilation of ‘HsuPernova being down bad’.

The comment section is filled with supportive comments over a clip of Nien brushing loose hairs out of Kotone’s face. And, of course, the obligatory ‘what GL is this?’ on a clip of Nien smiling at her before taking a sip off a spoonful Kotone offers her for a taste test.

She can’t blame those who are clueless anyway. Hell, if Nien had seen this out of context, it would look like—...

The thought gets tossed away. Her mind hits the metaphorical undo button. In fact, the thought gets placed into a blender and whirled away until it’s nothing but bits and pieces of unintelligible mush as she sets her phone off to the side. They have a live stream to be preparing for.

Besides, the thought isn’t something she doesn’t already know. She’s known for months now—long before they found themselves in this strange arrangement. Whether she likes it or not, Kamimoto Kotone is Nien’s Achilles heel—a soft spot.

In fact, that very soft spot is the reason why this whole thing started. There’s simply no time to ponder it for longer than the meager seconds she allows to infiltrate in the dead of night when the house is quiet and Kotone should be long asleep.

Her legs carry her to the kitchen once more, tripod and video camera in hand to get everything set up. After the first video, Nien ordered another portable clip on microphone for her roommate, which immediately was added to the list of items in their house that got color coded.

There’s a small orange star pasted on the clip for her microphone and a matching yellow one for Kotone’s.

She clips the microphone onto the collar of her shirt once more, brushing a thumb over the yellow star sticker before leaving the other microphone on the kitchen counter. Nien moves to adjust the video camera with one eye peering through the lens and a hand to adjust the zoom lens.

In the middle of her gauging the lighting, Kotone suddenly stands in front of the camera with a goofy grin. When she jokingly tries to tell her roommate to shoo with one of her hands, Kotone doubles down and makes a silly face. A smile tugs up at the corners of Nien’s mouth and a chuckle falls from her lips instinctively.

“C’mon, Tone. Get outta there. I can’t see the kitchen.” She tries to sound annoyed—but truthfully, she doesn’t mind how Kotone fills up the entire view of the camera.

She’s always effortlessly pretty. Even though Nien has seen her reuse this outfit plenty of times now, it still brings the same reaction she always has when she wakes up and gets to see Kotone in the morning. A traitorous smile forms in time with a warm and fuzzy feeling before she can catch it and prevent it from spreading any further.

“Fine, fine.” Unfortunately, her roommate relents, only to turn away and clip on her own microphone.

It leaves Nien with enough time to fully adjust the zoom lens before sidestepping and standing next to Kotone. “So, chef. What recipe am I supposed to be butchering?”

“Actually,” There’s a hum. “I was thinking we can try baking today. I’m in the mood for cookies.”

“Chocolate chip?” Nien bounces on the balls of her feet, eyeing the bowls and measuring cups already laid out on the counter.

“You can’t go wrong with chocolate chip,” Kotone nods, “I mean, it’s pretty hard to mess it up.”

.

.

.

Nien messes it up.

Alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Nien knows she’s about to mess it up.

The stream had been smooth sailing thus far. Even though she knew people were waiting for this, the amount of views and comments were still astounding.

By now, everyone’s used to her antics. There’s been enough compilations of her annoying Kotone every chance she gets on stream, regardless of whether or not it’s cooking related, to the point that a #SaveKotone gets thrown around.

Her roommate is distracted—she has a hand on the stand mixer they apparently bought just for this (Truthfully, Nien just lets Kotone buy whatever and swipes her card). She’s about seventy percent sure that it’s a mixture of butter, sugar, and eggs.

“Now, the next step, is to add the dry ingredients. So, Nien!” Heh. That’s her cue. “Do you have th—”

Nien finally pulls her hand around from her back and tosses a decent palmful of flour at Kotone. It misses hitting her square in the face. Instead, it hits her cheek and runs down to her right shoulder. Nien swears she sees some of it go down her shirt too. A bit of the flour cakes the corner of her glasses.

A few viewers had seemingly caught on earlier, their comments about Nien going unnoticed as Kotone had been too pre-occupied with the wet ingredients. All the streamer did it the moment was make a discreet shushing gesture.

She’s an entertainer! They needed content and her roommate seemed hellbent on finding something she couldn’t possibly fuck up. So, naturally, Nien has to prove her wrong.

But now, with her plan executed, Kotone stands deathly still, eyes closed as she somehow turns the stand mixer off. And then, her eyes open, blinking twice before calmly setting the mixer on the side with a neutral expression.

Nien feels a sense of dread looming over her. Goosebumps raise on the back of her neck. Is this what Spiderman means when he says his spidey-senses kick in?!

Her roommate remains completely silent as she does this, not making any move to remove the flour on her. Instead, she turns to look at Nien. “I’m going to kill you.”

Run.

In a flash, Kotone’s reaching for the nearest spatula and chasing after her around the kitchen island counter.

“Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Don’t try this at home, kids!” Nien yells in the direction of the camera, unable to help the laughter that bubbles up in her throat.

“HSU NIENTZU, I JUST TOOK THIS SHIRT OUT OF THE LAUNDRY TODAY.”

“W-Whoops!” Nien doesn’t want to look back. She already knows that Kotone’s likely:

1) right on her tail

2) raising the spatula up like a pitchfork

And, 3) going to kill her with said spatula if she catches her before she can convince her to let her live another day

“Y-You can’t kill me, yet! I have a Stardew Valley stream scheduled for tomorrow morning with Seoyeon!” She lets out a pitiful noise, yelping when she just barely dodges a corner.

“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you threw flour onto my blouse!” Kotone yells back. Nien swears she sees a cookie cutter shape fly past her ears. It clatters on the floor loudly.

The chat is undoubtedly blowing up at this—Nien hopes to see the clip later—but she has to focus on her survival first.

She runs as quickly as she can to the other side of the island, trapped in a staredown with Kotone directly across from her. The other girl eyes her every movement like a hawk, waiting to run in whatever direction Nien chooses.

The streamer picks up a whisk in front of as her weapon. It’s like a scene straight out of a movie. A metaphorical standoff where the two cowboys stare at each other menacingly with their revolvers tucked away in their holsters. Except this time, it’s a whisk and a spatula.

It’s quiet. A flour-caked tumbleweed could pass through.

It seems like Kotone understands the nature of the situation and only says, “We run on the count of three. If I catch you, you lose. If I can’t catch you before you finish the third lap around the counter, I lose.”

“Punishment?”

“Death by flour, obviously.” The expression Kotone wears is nothing short of serious. She can see the way her fingers curl around the spatula even tighter. The glasses don’t help, making her look more cute than menacing. Kotone couldn’t look scary even if she tried. Instead, she resembles those red pandas that stand up on two legs to intimidate other animals. “Ready?”

… It’s so over for her. Nien nods anyway.

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

Nien bolts to the left with her whisk in hand. It wouldn’t do anything; she wouldn’t let herself actually hit Kotone with it. But, all in good fun and for dramatics, right?

Speaking of her roommate, she doesn’t need to turn back to know that she’s hot on her trail. The sound of her red panda slippers slap against the floor with each step.

“Don’t kill me!”

“Don’t let me catch you then!”

Nien rounds one of the corners. One lap.

“I can’t believe you’re about to commit a murder on stream. There’s evidence!”

“Do I sound like I care?!”

Two laps.

“Y’know, Tone. I don’t think you can catch me, actually!” Nien teases, slowing down for just a moment to look back.

Kotone’s eyes narrow when she meet’s Nien’s gaze. Her blood runs cold when she sees the determination to win.

Just as Nien is about to back up and start running again, she spots the way Kotone’s pupils cloud over with something else—pain?

She all but halts in her tracks when her roommate skids to a stop with one hand on top of the counter for support on a corner as she violently coughs. Worry immediately floods her brain. Did she get hurt? Did she hit the counter or something?

Before she can even think twice about it, her whisk is long forgotten on the table as she rushes over to her side. Her back is turned to the camera, face twisted into a concerned expression. “Shit, are you okay?” Nien doesn’t know where to put her hands and keeps them suspended, hovering over her form. She moves side to side in an attempt to get a better look at Kotone’s condition.

There’s a few more loud coughs as she gasps for air instead of a response, holding one finger up as if signalling her to wait.

What happens next, she should have predicted.

Kotone finally looks up at her with a grim and pained expression.

“I can get you some water or—”

And then, the expression completely fades, as if it was never there in the first place. Kotone only flashes a grin before lunging at her, wrapping her arms around her torso and effectively ensaring her in her grip. “I win.”

. . . No fucking way.

Nien’s first reaction is to gasp, looking down at her roommate and spotting the shit-eating grin on here face. Hsu Nientzu just got played. Played like a goddamn fiddle and there’s nothing she can do about it.

“Y-You! That’s dirty! I was actually worried!” Kotone only gives her a knowing look. Nien gasps again. “And you knew I would be worried! That’s evil!”

“Heh.” She should be more mad, really, but hearing Kotone pick up on one of her mannerisms makes her gay heart do a little sommersault in her chest. “And, I appreciate that. But, you never said I couldn’t do that. You lose.”

Nien’s head falls back and makes her face the ceiling, eyes squeezed shut at the bright light as she groans. “Fuck.” Her eyes open when she looks back down at Kotone, who still just keeps smiling at her like she’s won the lottery.

Damnit.

“Fine.” Huff. “You win.”

Kotone lets go of her and pulls back with a cheer. Nien tries not to feel disappointed at the loss of contact and lets her head hang low in defeat.

“You guys saw it here! She loses!” Her roommate points at the camera before escorting Nien back to their original position. The forgotten stand-mixer and mixture for the cookies sit on the counter, untouched but still surrounded in flour from the aftermath of Nien’s declaration of war.

The streamer makes a bleak expression as she watches Kotone happily pouring in an absurd amount of flour into a measuring cup.

“Just get it over with.”

The chef chuckles, holding up the measuring cup with so much glee in her voice, “Any last words, Nien?”

She takes a deep breath. “Remember my sacrifice for content..” Nien clutches a dramatic hand against her chest, gripping at the fabric, “Tell Seoyeon… I’m sorry.”

“Good bye, Nien.” Kotone gets up on her tip toes and lifts the measuring cup over her head, pouring the flour all over Nien in one unceremonious dump.

She immediately closes her eyes and feels the ingredient falling down all over her face.

She lost.

.

.

.

Nien keeps her eyes shut even when the last bits of flour land on her head and she hears Kotone setting the cup down.

The flour tickles at her nose, making her cough. She misses the puff of white that comes out when she does, only hearing the giggle on her right from Kotone. Maybe it was worth it? Only a little.

“...Is my punishment done now?”

“I suppose.”

Guh. Nien wipes at her eyes first, feeling the power on the back of her hands as she opens her eyes. Her vision blurs for a moment, making her blink heavily. She must look like a snowman.

“You look really silly right now. Like those cats that trip and fall into a bowl of milk.”

“Aw, gee. Thanks, Tone. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.” Nien coughs again. The flour seems to extend down her hoodie, marking it in white streaks. And, there’s flour all around her on the floor. She closes her eyes as she shakes her head in an attempt to get some of it off her head.

“Hey, you lost.” Kotone takes a step back, watching as it sprays out with a snicker. “Now, doing that makes you look like a dog trying to shake off water.

“Only cause you cheated.” A huff. She opens her eyes and reaches for a handful of flour and chucks it at her. “But really, a dog?”

Kotone makes a noise when it hits her, reaching to throw a handful back at her. “Yep. Like a giant golden retriever.”

It devolves into yet another flour fight.

The kitchen is a mess of flour and laughs—Nien throws a handful, Kotone throws one back—never ending.

Her roommate tries to play dirty again, reaching for the measurement cup before Nien swats it away. The plastic measuring cup clatters across the counter and falls on the floor somewhere.

“I swear, I’m gonna throw this entire bag at y—“ Nien gets a mouthful of flour in her mouth, coughing and sputtering. “Man, what the fuck?!” She looks at Kotone in disbelief, only to be met with a grin as she starts backing away.

“That’s only if you can get close enough!”

Oh hell no.

“Nuh uh! Not this time!”

After the events of the last chase, there was no way she was going to let Kotone get away with this again. Nien gives her no mercy, catching up to her in seconds. She’s suddenly grateful that her two strides to Kotone’s three prove in her favor.

Once she’s close enough to touch, Nien wraps her arms around her and picks her up off the ground—legs flailing.

“Where are you going?” Nien grins, carrying her back to the center of the kitchen again.

Kotone squirms in her arms, laughing along anyway, “Put me down, I swear to god, Nien—“

“Admit it! You cheated!”

“Nuh uh! You never said how I had to win!”

“Weaponizing my kindness is evil!!”

“You’re just a sore loser!!!”

Nien grunts but lifts her higher despite how she feels her strength waning. God. Maybe she should have taken up with her friends on actually doing some weight lifting. Her arms shake a little but it doesn’t matter. She’s still grinning. “Wanna say that again?!”

It seems to work as a scare tactic anyway, Kotone shrieking some more. “Okay, okay! Fine! It was a little dirty! Just put me down—“

She immediately sets her down with the slap of the slippers echoing against the floor. Kotone doesn’t need to know that she probably would’ve let her down anyway.

“God. What the hell?” Kotone gives a breathless laugh, turning around while Nien tries to subtly shake out her arms. “I would ask what you’re eating but I’m the one feeding you.”

“And thank god for that.” Nien’s hands fly up to try and wipe the rest of the flour off her face. The pads of her fingers at least smear away the ones around her eyes.

She drags a palm over her forehead, an indomitable mix of flour and sweat. It still comes out white when she pulls her hand back.

“You’ve still got, uh.” Kotone calls for her, making a vague hand gesture over… her entire face.

“And whose fault is that?” Nien deadpans, crossing her arms.

“I was getting there,” Her friend only rolls her eyes, stepping forward. “Here, let me.”

Before Nien can even protest, Kotone’s already stepping dangerously close.

A whiff of a warm, floral scent invades her mind as a pair of soft hands press against her skin. Her heart all but seizes, clenching and unclenching at a rapid fire rate.

Kotone practically cradles her face. She’s up on her tiptoes, using her thumbs to brush away the flour caking her cheeks that undoubtedly burn a bright pink all the way up to her ears.

All Nien can do is just pray that her face isn’t as hot as it feels—blood rushing to her head.

Kotone’s gaze stays fixated on the task at hand. Meanwhile, Nien’s eyes stay trained up at the ceiling, or anywhere else, really.

“All done.” The other girl says before pulling away.

“Thanks..” Nien mutters, taking a step back to gain some semblance of composure. Her eyes finally flicker around the room again, landing on the camera.

Shit.

She forgot they were streaming.

Nien doesn’t even want to think about what the comments are saying.

“We, uh. Made quite a mess, huh? Is there even enough flour left for the cookies?” She jokes, gesturing at the bowl again.

Kotone blinks a couple times. Her eyes follow Nien’s gaze to the camera before she immediately straightens up. “Right. The cookies.” She steps towards the counter, peering into the bag of flour. “Uh, this should be enough. Provided you guys even want to see that, still.”

“Let’s take a look.” Nien tries to leisurely walk over to where the iPad was supposed to be, showing everyone’s comments. When she goes to read, unsurprisingly, most are about how cute the two of them were—and how they probably forgot they were even streaming.

shusoomin: GAY PEOPLE ARE REAL!?!?!?

rinnosuke: i love my parents

jeongrinez: does anyone else want to see the cookies?

yoonmi: YOU’RE BEING GAY WITHOUT ME?

kwakkwakz: did they forget about us…?

gongjubin: i feel like i’m interrupting something

Okay. While it was true, she should probably comment on it anyway. “Nah. We didn’t forget about you guys.” Lies! “We just goofed off a little, that’s all. Right, Tone?”

Kotone, who ended up following her when she went to read the livestream’s comments, nods. “Yeah, just another day of Nien terrorizing me in the kitchen again.”

“Heyyy.” She jokingly frowns, “We had fun! But seriously, do you guys really want to watch us make cookies still?”

“We’re like halfway there anyway, we probably should.”

“Even though we’re covered in flour?”

“Even though we’re covered in flour.”

.

.

.

(The camera turns off with a click. It takes mere seconds for Nien to immediately rush over and place is somewhere out of the way.

Their cookies somehow still tasted decent despite the long intermission in between. But now, as they finish the last bits and throw away the trash, Nien finally gets a good look around.

There’s flour everywhere. Well, shit.

Maybe they went overboard.

When she turns to look at her roommate, Kotone wears a similar grip expression. And, when they make eye contact, it seems like they’re both considering how they’re going to clean it all up.

Nien only breathes an uneasy laugh, “I can hire someone to help?”

Kotone wordlessly picks up her spatula and smacks her on the arm.

“Ow?!”

“We have to be responsible and clean up our own mess. Why subject someone else to suffering when we could’ve avoided this?” Kotone frowns.

“…You’re right.”

“Exactly. C’mon. We got our work cut out for us.”)

Despite the fact that Nien makes sure to pay Kotone well, she insists on continuing her work at the convenience store.

She can’t convince her to quit—she knows that her roommate wants at least this much to feel less like she’s taking advantage of her. So, all Nien can do is support her.

Which is exactly why she’s on FaceTime with Mayu in the kitchen as she tries to wrestles with a formidable opponent: figuring out how to fry breaded pork cutlets.

“Mayu, I’m scared.” Nien whines, setting down the breaded pork cutlets down on the plate next to the stove. The first few steps were easy. All she had to do was score the pork, tenderize it and then season with pepper and salt. She was even making conversation with Mayu while doing that!

Even better to mention, she looked up a recipe and is now following the instructions as best she can with her friend’s supervision.

After coating it with flour and then her beaten egg yolk mixture, all Nien had to do was cover the whole thing in bread crumbs. Super easy! And that’s when she realized: frying was the scary part.

“Nien, I don’t know what else to tell you. Making tonkatsu is not that bad.”

“The oil is scary!!!”

“Look,” Mayu sighs, “You said you were doing this for Kotone since she had a long day at work, right?”

“Yeah…”

“And, you’re not scared of horror movies, or heights, or any of that other stuff..”

“Yeah…”

“So, I think you can handle frying some pork in oil. I’m here with you for moral support!”

Nien gives the pan of oil a weary look. The cooking thermometer she stuck in there still shows that it’s hot enough for her to fry.

“I just want it to be perfect, that’s all.” She mutters—the audio seems to have just barely picked it up. When she looks back at her friend on the screen, she sees a small frown.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it no matter what. You’re already ordering the udon from that place she likes. All you have to do is fry it. You can do it!”

“...You’re right. I can do this. I can do this!”

She’s come back from a 0-12 valorant competitive match before. She can do this!

Nien makes a noise that sort of sounds like a war cry yell before picking up the tongs and carefully dipping the tonkatsu into the oil. The meat makes a terrifying sizzle in the oil. Some of the oil makes it onto her arms in a slight burn but she pushes through in spite of that.

With Mayu’s moral support and the power of… gay friendship? Nien manages to make tonkatsu that looks and tastes edible! Hooray!

“Look! It doesn’t look like a biohazard!” Nien holds up the plate of cut tonkatsu with a proud grin. There’s appropriate sauce drizzled on top and she’s managed to do just a little bit of garnish with some left over shredded lettuce.

Mayu grins at her, clapping on screen. “Yay! It looks great. I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“I really hope so,” Nien sets the plate down, cleaning up a bit as she talks, “She said her manager was being a dickhead so I thought this might help.”

“And, like I said earlier, I’m sure it will.” Mayu pauses. And then, Nien spots a grin forming on her friend’s features. “You, uh. Must really like her if you’re putting in all this effort.”

Nien flushes pink, busying herself with wiping away at some of the oil splatter, “Shut up. How did you even—Never mind.”

Mayu ignores her complaints, instead frowning like she’d just seen a cute animal video, “Aww, you’re picking up on her mannerisms too!”

“I’m gonna hang up now, Mayu.” Nien appears back in frame, moving to pick up the phone.

“Noooooo. How else am I going to tease you about your crush?”

Nien’s sure that her facial expression gives something away—going from shocked to embarrassed and then acceptance. “... Is it that bad?”

“Why do you think I suggested you guys do more couple content?”

“Because you’re a desperate himejoshi and thought it was funny?”

Mayu gapes at her, “What?! I’m not desperate! And anyone with eyes can see that you guys have something going on. You have a literal fanbase for it now!”

“That you instigated us in cultivating!”

“Hey, you can’t pin this all on me.” Mayu huffs, “I didn’t make the decision to agree. You guys did. So, instead of blaming me, maybe admit that some part of you wanted something to come out of it?”

Nien’s mouth comically opens and then closes like a fish.

“See?! I’m right, aren’t I?!”

“Okay! Okay, fine. Maybe you have a point.” Nien grumbles, setting the phone back down on its stand. “I just… I don’t even know what to say. Like isn’t this weirdly taking advantage of the situation? We live together! I’m technically her boss!”

“You guys were friends before! It’s more like you were just a friend stepping in to help in a slightly gay way!”

Sigh. “So what do I do?”

“Tell her how you feel?” Mayu offers, shrugging, “Xinyu confessed to me through pigeon carrier and heart petals so as long as it’s in a way that gets the message across.”

“I’m sorry,” Nien shakes her head multiple times, squinting at the camera, “She confessed to you through pigeon carrier? And there were heart petals?”

“Yeah! I mean it was kinda sweet! She still does silly stuff like that every so often. Are you thinking of trying it? Because I have the number of the guy who helped her—”

Zhou Xinyu may be a good friend of hers. But, this was just a little… weird. She and Mayu are happy though! So, maybe that’s all that matters…?

“Wh? No- No. I’m not confessing to Kotone with a bird…” Sigh. “I’ll figure it out. I dunno. This is harder than trying to dodge thirty seconds of util dumping in a Valorant match.”

“What?”

“Nevermind.”

.

.

.

The udon Nien ordered comes in shortly after she hangs up from talking to Mayu. So, with everything set up, all that’s left is for her to wait.

And, by waiting, it means that Nien sprawls on the couch and throws on some K-drama. The episodes are long and there’s enough plot and dramatics that it’ll keep her from bouncing her leg and listening to the clock tick until Kotone comes home.

Thankfully, it works. Nien gets wrapped up in whatever love triangle is going on in the drama to the point that the sound of the door opening startles her. Has it really already been an hour?

She scrambles to her feet, trying to not so subtly sprint in the direction of the front door. Kotone’s already in the middle of taking off her sneakers when she makes it over.

“H-Hey!” Nien presses a hand against the coat rack and makes the mistake of trying to lean against it. It wobbles, making her stumble a little bit before straightening up again.

Her roommate looks up at her with a confused but tired smile, presumably holding back a laugh when she stumbles. “Hi?”

“Come here often?” Nien grins as if she didn’t just nearly topple over and embarrass herself just seconds prior.

“You’re always up to some shit,” Kotone only sighs and shakes her head before getting into her house slippers. “I’m gonna take a shower but I’ll have dinner ready soon?”

Heh.

“Erm. Actually!” Nien’s grin only widens, stretching across her face. She makes the silly display of pushing up her glasses and holding up an index finger. “I made dinner today.”

Kotone halts in her tracks, giving her a surprised look. “Seriously? And the house is intact?”

“Heyyyy…” Nien pouts, weakly punching at her shoulder, “If you don’t believe me, check the kitchen.”

Her roommate’s eyes narrow for just a moment. “...Okay.”

The streamer gives a little clap before following behind Kotone to their kitchen.

It was by no means anything fancy, just the tonkatsu plated nicely for both of them with the udon placed in actual bowls as opposed to the plastic takeout ones they came in earlier.

As soon as Kotone notices it, Nien swears she hears a quiet gasp.

“I didn’t make the udon. I feel like I don’t have enough exp points for my cooking skills but..” Nien scampers over to the otherside of the counter just to hold up one of the plates of tonkatsu. “I at least managed to make these with the help of the internet and some moral support from Mayu.”

“...So, what did you do?” Kotone’s eyes narrow suspiciously as she walks towards the countertop.

“Whaaaat?” Nien pouts, “You wound me! You said your manager was being a dickhead and I assumed you had a long day,” The tiniest hint of actual hurt pricks at her but she’s quick to swat that away because, well, she can’t blame her for thinking that way. “I just wanted to do something nice for you. Figured you could use the pick-me-up. Plus, you’re always going along with my silliness and all.”

“Nien…” Kotone’s facial expression softens, brown eyes peering at her with an emotion she can’t place. “That’s really sweet of you. Thanks.”

The smile she receives just moments later makes everything worth it. Nien can’t help but crack a grin back. “Heh. Well, go on,” she makes a shooing motion, “Go shower. This should still be hot after. …Or we can just microwave it.”

Kotone immediately shakes her head, already moving to sit down. “No, no. I’m curious as to how well you did with this.” She gestures to the tonkatsu. “The appearance actually.. Looks pretty good.”

“Really?” Nien takes her usual seat across from Kotone. She props her elbows up on the counter and folds her hands together as she leans forward. “They said I was supposed to refry after the first time to make it crispy. I guess it also makes it look nice!”

“Yeah, it looks good. Now for the taste…”

“If it’s bad, you can’t laugh!” The streamer wags her index finger in a ‘nuh uh’ motion. Although, she’s mostly joking—Kamimoto Kotone is too nice to do that with malicious intent, anyway.

The action does, however, get a chuckle out of her. “Fine, fine. I won’t.” a pair of chopsticks pick up a cut piece of tonkatsu. “Here it goes.”

Nien watches as Kotone takes a bite out of it. There’s a resounding crunch that follows.

She keeps her gaze on the other girl, watching the emotions that flicker through attentively. The first one is obvious enough. Nien recognizes the way her brows shoot up for just a split second, only to furrow as she continues to chew, staring down at the food. That one’s shock or disbelief, if she had to guess.

And then, her brows raise again. Although this time, she’s nodding. There’s an unmistakable light in her eyes as she finishes chewing and swallows. That’s when Kotone finally looks over.

“This actually is pretty good. Seriously.” She takes another bite. “Are you sure you didn’t buy this?” The light in Kotone’s eyes bleeds into quiet mischief, mirth bubbling up as she grins.

“No, I only bought the noodles from that place you like across the street.” Nien feels a sense of pride and accomplishment welling up in her chest. The way Kotone reaches to keep eating the food she made and grabs more sauce, along with the noodles, is enough to make Nien feel like her battle with the cooking oil was all worth it.

“You’re not gonna eat?” Kotone tilts her head, “All the great chefs taste their food too, y’know.”

“Ohoho, keep sayin’ that and I might start to think I could be better than you.”

“Ha.” Kotone rolls her eyes fondly, “You wish.”

The dinner is rather pleasant. Nien’s long grown accustomed to the banter they have over a shared meal. Kotone’s shoulders and posture look much less tensed in comparison to when she came home. And, the smiles she gets out of her lets her know she’s made the right choice.

The joy in shared food. Nien couldn’t agree with it more.

It doesn’t take long for them to finish—apparently both of them were hungry. So, they move on to their next established routine: doing the dishes together. Usually, they switch off on who does the washing and who does the drying.

Today, it’s Nien’s turn.

There aren’t many dishes this time. She made sure to clean up after cooking just as Kotone prefers because it’s less work later on. Nien stands at the sink humming quietly before pulling her sleeves down to avoid any of the water from the sink splashing and ruining her clothes for the evening.

The feeling of wet clothes sticking against her skin doesn’t sound too appealing.

Just as she’s reaching over to twist the sink knob and turn on the water, Kotone sucks in a sharp inhale.

It makes Nien stop in her tracks, turning her head to look over at her roommate, “What?”

Kotone’s eyes are locked onto the arm extended out for the sink, frowning. “Did you take care of those properly?”

Nien’s eyes follow along with her gaze before landing on the small splotches of red along the inner part of her right arm. “Oh! Uh. I put it under some water for a few minutes? Doesn’t hurt much. Just a little itchy. Oil is kinda scary.”

Kotone only clicks her tongue, immediately giving her a gentle push away from the sink and onto a stool.

“Tone, seriously. It’s fine—”

Kotone makes a face and ignores her pleas. Instead, Nien hears the sound of a cabinet opening and some shuffling somewhere behind her before she appears in front of her once more with what looks like a bottle of petroleum jelly. Wordlessly, she flips her palm up after pulling up a chair.

Sigh.

She’s not winning this one. Nien extends her arm out for Kotone to take.

Gentle fingers brush against her bare arm before gripping to stabilize it. Nien feels the way the Kotone rests the back of her hand against her lap. It’s a long stretch of silence as the pads of her roommate’s fingers cover each of the burns in a thin layer of the jelly. Nien finds it the slightest bit embarrassing that her body instinctively relaxes at the touch.

“You should be more careful.” Kotone finally mutters, pulling her hands back.

“It wasn’t that bad, promise! But I’ll take better care of it next time, if that makes you feel better.”

The other girl just huffs before getting up and pushing the stool back in, “Good.”

“Mhm! No need to worry about me. You can just focus on taking care of your stuff, I’ll be okay!” Nien chirps as they get back to their spots in front of the sink again.

“I wasn’t—” Kotone sputters. Suddenly the rag for drying the plates is much more interesting. “I wasn’t worried. It’s just gonna be more annoying if you get hurt and don’t care for it properly.”

“Uhuh.” Nien snorts, turning on the sink water and rinsing their bowls. “Sure, Tone. You can admit that you care about me! It’s sweet that you worry!”

Kotone throws the rag at her.

.

.

.

As one could guess, they end up watching a horror movie.

Usually they can’t watch horror movies if Mayu comes over. But since she wasn’t here, they were free to pick as they pleased. Especially, considering that Nien and Kotone both enjoy horror.

The movie on screen was Light’s Out, a film where a spirit goes around killing people but can only do so in the dark. Even though it’s old, neither of them have seen it just yet.

So, what better way to watch the movie than with the lights off?

The bowl of microwaved popcorn sits in Nien’s lap and Kotone’s right next to her.

“I just don’t get it,” Nien says with a mouthful of popcorn, gesturing at the screen “Why would you keep flicking the light on and off when you clearly see her?”

“People are always dumb in these kinds of movies.” Kotone shrugs, keeping her eyes on the screen. “I would be more surprised if that didn’t happen.”

“Fair point.” Nien’s face wrinkles when they watch one one of the side characters die. Although, her eyes still sparkle with curiosity. “That lady’s got really long nails. Could you imagine what would happen if you broke one that long? Ouch.”

Kotone snorts and smacks at her arm lightly. “Shut up.”

“Ow… I’m just sayin’! Like the effects are cool but it would probably hurt.”

“You’re probably right.” Kotone reaches over for a handful of popcorn.

There’s more commentary here and there as the movie drags on. However, the plot was actually somewhat interesting. Nien finds her eyes glued to the screen in some parts while other times, she’s busy glancing over at Kotone.

The music and the setting gets much more tense. She spots the way Kotone’s eyes are trained on the screen in intrigue. Her brows furrowing in concentration as she curls into herself a little more, no doubt anticipating for something, anything.

On the screen, it’s obvious that a jumpscare is coming. They’re right at the climax of the movie, the inevitable final stand. The characters all fall deathly quiet as their flashlight frantically looks for the creature in the dark. And then, it strikes.

Nien makes sure to quickly grab Kotone’s shoulders and shake as she yells in time with the movie’s jumpscare.

Kotone, clearly unsuspecting, immediately tenses up and shrieks. Her roommate looks at her with a hand clutched over her chest and panting. “NIEN. W-WHAT THE FUCK?”

Meanwhile, Nien’s hunched over, laughing and clutching her stomach. “Y-You should’ve seen your face! You were all like… Ahhh!” She imitates the shocked expression before laughing again.

“You’re such an ass.” Kotone exhales, shoving at her with both her hands. “You nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack!”

Nien only snickers, “Sorry! Sorry. It was too easy! And I could never do that to Mayu. She might cry.”

“Oh, so you can’t do it to Mayu but you can do it to me? Okay.”

“You know I’m right!”

Kotone says nothing, scooting away from her on the couch.

“Noooooo, come back! I’m sorry!” Nien immediately follows after, throwing one of her arms over the back of the couch when she gets close enough.

“Just watch the movie…”

“Fine, fine. I promise I won’t scare you again.”

“You better not. Or else I’m making you eat red bell peppers for a week.”

Oh shit.

“Got it! No more pranking you.”

.

.

.

When the movie ends, Nien immediately gets up to stretch her limbs out with a groan. “Well, that was fun.”

“It was fun when you weren’t trying to make me die a premature death.”

“Hey, that was one time! And it was funny, you have to admit!” There’s a noise but nothing much else, so she’ll take that as an agreement. Nien turns on one of the lamps so that they’re not immediately flashbanged by the overhead ceiling lights. Her gaze moves to the clock. Oh shit. “Think I’m gonna go tuck in though. Getting late and all. I didn’t realize it was already midnight.”

“It’s that late already?” Kotone turns to look, humming when she sees the time.

“Yep!” Nien reaches and flicks the overhead lights on. Kotone immediately winces but doesn’t say anything. Heh. Wait. “Ooooh. If I keep flickering the lights, the scary spirit lady’s gonna get you!” Nien snickers, wiggling her fingers at her roommate as if to play up the horror.

“Stop that.” Kotone glares.

Nien then flickers the lights a couple times, just for effect. “What? It’s just the lights. Not like anything’s gonna happen.”

“Shut up. What if—...” Kotone grumbles, pointedly staring elsewhere as she trails off.

“Wait.” She catches the miniscule shake in her arms. Kotone has them crossed as if wrapping around herself. “Are you actually scared?”

Her roommate presses her lips together and sucks in a breath. “I’m not scared. Just.. a little paranoid. Because someone decided to actually surprise me during the movie. And,” Kotone’s eyes dart around. “I’ve been hearing weird shit from the floorboards. I never check it out because that’s how you die in horror movies. But. Y’know.”

“You wanna sleep in my room then?” Nien offers, a lazy grin forming on her face, “Monsters can’t get ya if I’m there, right?”

There’s a huff. Cute. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Noooo, I’m being a good roommate and offering you shelter in my room! I can sleep on the floor or something.”

Kotone’s brows furrow at that. “Nien. I can’t let you do that. This is your house and your room we’re talking about. We can just sleep together.”

Heh. Just as Nien’s about to open her mouth and crack another joke, her roommate cuts her off.

“Don’t make it weird.”

“I wasn’t gonna make it weird!” Nien throws her hands up in faux innocence. Hang on. “You’re the one making it weird. I was gonna say it would be like a sleepover! What were you thinking, Tone?”

Kotone fumbles as they stand in front of the door to Nien’s room, “Well—it’s not like you haven’t made crude joke before…”

“Tone! What is your opinion of me?” She gasps, putting a hand over her heart. “Get your mind out of the gutter! It’s like a sleepover! Not anything freaky!”

“Okay! Fine. Fine.” Kotone sighs. “Let’s just get this over with.” She pushes past her and enters the room with Nien trailing behind her.

“I’ll even let you take the side closest to the wall. You can feel extra protected! Not that you need it when I’m here.”

The bed dips with Kotone’s weight as she immediately buries herself under the verdant greens of Nien’s bed sheets. It’s sorta cute, really. She kinda looks like… an opened hot pocket! But green and human-shaped instead!

“Shut up…”

“Hey..” Nien pouts. “I could kick you out right now!”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I—” She wouldn’t. “I could!”

“But you wouldn’t.” Kotone’s tone only gets more smug with each passing second of silence.

“Just scoot over.” Nien mumbles, lifting the covers so she can slide into the sheets as well.

By the time both of them get settled, the only thing illuminating the room is the lamp on top of the nightstand. It casts as a dim yellow over the two of them inbed.

Nien has her phone plugged into its charger in her left hand, absent-mindedly scrolling.

“You’re not sleeping yet?” Kotone’s turned on her side, looking up her with the blanket pulled up almost to her chin. Nien, on the other hand, is still propped up by a pillow with the blanket only covering her legs.

“Not yet.” She forces herself to take a deep breath to mask a yawn. “Still settling some stuff for tomorrow. Seoyeon and Jiwoo want to play Chained Together with Kaede.”

“Oh, that sounds fun—”

Nien can hear her yawning.

“You should sleep. Is having the light on cool?” Truthfully, she’s waiting for her to fall asleep so she can turn the light off afterwards. Just in case.

“Mm. Yeah, that’s fine.” Kotone brings one hand up to rub at her eye before putting it under the sheets again. “Good night, Nien.”

“Alright. G’night, Kotone.”

Nien lets herself have one last glance over to her right. She spots Kotone in the same position with her eyes closed and the sheets pulled up just underneath her nose.

Cute.

She’ll give it another twenty minutes before she turns off the lights.

(Twenty minutes later, she turns her phone off and leaves it on the nightstand. When Nien glances over, she spots the slight rise and fall of the sheets where Kotone lay. She’s fast asleep.

A smile seeps through before she reaches to turn off the lamp with a click. The only audible sounds in the room are the ones that her clothes make against the fabric of the bed to shimmy into the sheets fully. Nien spares one last glance to her right before closing her eyes.

She should sleep.

It isn’t until about another ten minutes later when she feels something warm move and press up against her side that Nien realizes that there’s a problem.

Her eyes fly open and stare at the pitch black ceiling in mild horror. She’s sleeping in the same bed as Kotone tonight. Fuck.)

The light from the windows shines directly on her eyes and Kotone makes a noise. What once was likely a peaceful expression gets replaced with a grimace as she tries to turn her head away from the source without opening her eyes.

Her head jerks left and right until she lets out a quiet groan, trying to turn to the side—except she can’t. At that moment, Kotone registers the arm thrown over her midsection and the warm body pressing against hers. Every inhale is accompanied by a citrusy scent that she immediately recognizes.

Her eyes fly open and her body stiffens when she looks to her left.

Kotone has a problem. It’s a Hsu Nientzu shaped problem that threatens to snip at the last remaining frayed threads of her sanity.

And, technically, it’s her fault.

Kotone is pretty good at watching horror movies. She’s the type to probably laugh along with whatever sly comments Nien ends up making. Chaeyeon has looked at her weirdly for laughing when other people flinch at some parts.

So. Sure, was she playing up her fear a little bit last night because it’s nice when Nien coddles her? Maybe.

There’s a layer of truth, she really was feeling a bit unsettled afterwards. Not to the point that she’d need to be sleeping with someone else present in the room but a bit unsettled nonetheless.

But this was entirely much more than what she had intended on signing up for.

Nien’s practically cuddled up against her, the arm around Kotone’s midsection tightens slightly as she pulls her even closer.

Embarrassment floods her entire body; a red flush immediately traveling up from her neck and to her face.

It’s at this moment that she gets a good look at Nien, who still sleeps so peacefully. Kotone’s breath hitches, unable to help the way her eyes travel and trace over her features. There are strands out of place and Nien’s bangs are messed up from sleep—Kotone crumples and tosses away the urge to reach up and brush them out of the way.

Her eyes roam further, past the delicate curve of her eyelashes and the bridge of her nose. Up close, she’s even able to spot the small mole on her left cheek that usually gets covered with concealer or foundation. Kotone doesn’t think she has to mention that Nien would look just as good without the makeup.

It takes a Herculean amount of strength and self control to not linger for too long when her gaze finally lands on her lips, trailing along the gentle curve of her cupid’s bow to her plump lower lip. All sorts of words come to mind when looking at her lips—full, pink, slightly parted, and soft and everything that sounds off an alarm in Kotone’s mind.

This is unfair.

It’s unfair that Hsu Nientzu still gets to steal her breath away even when she isn’t doing anything at all.

Where does Kotone even begin with her?

First, Hsu Nientzu is a pain in the ass. She’s annoying and loud and spares no opportunity to tease and jab at Kotone because she knows exactly how she’s feeling even if she would never say it to her face—which includes things like yesterday, knowing exactly when she’s having a rough day or when she’s tired and doesn’t want to say it.

Second, she’s funny. Kotone has lost count of how many ribs she’s split from laughing at her ridiculousness. Honestly? It’s infuriating. How can someone pretend to be dumb when she’s so obviously witty with all her one-liners and quips? Furthemore, her bluntness is unparalleled. Hsu Nientzu has a habit of saying whatever’s on her mind seemingly without regard for the way it nearly gives Kotone a heart attack. She doesn’t know how she’s survived all the pretend-not-pretend flirting they’ve been doing (because, yes. Kotone’s is delusional but not blind).

Third, she’s horrible at cooking. Everyone knows that. But she’s incredibly earnest despite her (sometimes purposeful) mishaps and shortcomings. Kotone hasn’t missed the moments she’s caught Nien looking up what ingredients to prepare for later even though she swears that she asks what they’re eating only out of curiosity.

She’s stubborn and fights for whatever it is she wants—no matter how silly. The act of wearing her heart on her sleeve is all too familiar to Kotone, no matter how hard she tries to put those walls up, Nien will just take them down brick by brick all over again. She’s not sure that Nien herself notices all the things she does for her.

The list goes on. She could go on for days talking about the endlessly irritating (and endearing) things about Hsu Nientzu.

There’s a name for the feeling that stirs in Kotone’s chest when she looks at her—One that she’s tried to build a fence around and reinforce the walls to keep it from getting out for all these months. But, it seeps through the cracks and the gaps, manifesting even when she doesn’t want it to.

Like now, her mind unhelpfully reminds her that she wouldn’t mind staying like this until the end of time—wrapped up in Nien’s endless warmth literally and figuratively with the arms holding onto her.

However, the prickle of her left forearm screams in protest from the weight and being trapped in one position for too long.

Unfortunately, that’s her cue to get up. After several minutes of carefully maneuvering and disentangling herself from Nien, Kotone finally gets to the end of the bed and puts her slippers on. She gives her limbs an experimental stretch when she stands up, hearing a couple cracks while her muscles ache slightly.

She treads carefully across the floor up to the head of the bed once more. Kotone’s fingers gently grip at the bedsheets to pull them up and over Nien comfortably. It’d be bad if she caught a cold.

With that done, Kotone can leave Nien’s room in peace.

. . . Well, after one last thing.

Kotone affords herself one last act of selfishness for the day, moving to just barely brush her lips over the top of her head.

When she pulls back, she feels the heat in her face return. Did she really just do that? (Yes, she did.)

And that’s enough for Kotone to quietly scurry away and out of Nien’s room as if she’d been burned.

Yeah. Maybe she’ll just make breakfast before she really loses her sanity.

.

.

.

Kotone’s come to a decision.

Despite all her attempts to calm down from earlier, it only gets worse when she enters the kitchen on her own.

The thing about your thoughts and feelings festering for months while you try to shove and bury it down through layers of sarcasm and banter is that it’ll eventually explode.

Today, Kotone has hit her limit.

All her remaining brain cells are about as fried as the bacon that sizzles on the pan in front of her. She pushes it around in the pan until it’s cooked the way she knows Nien likes it—crunchy and crisp hues of red but still somewhat soft when you bite into it.

As soon as the bacon is done, she immediately turns the stove off and plates it with the heart-shaped pancakes already on the tray. Somehow, she manages to arrange the pieces of bacon into a small smiley face.

Kotone spares one glance at the clock. It’s around 10:30. So, if her calculations are correct, Nien should be waking up soon. And if not, this tray she’s bringing up now should do the trick.

She doesn’t bother to take her apron off, just lifting the tray and heading straight for Nien’s door. With her hands full, she has to nudge at it with her foot to get it open.

The room is just as she remembers leaving it. Except, this time, it’s a little different.

Nien’s already sitting up in bed but her eyes are closed, mouth twisted into a sleepy frown. Her hair is a bit tousled, long strands of brown sticking out even more now that it’s not pressed against a pillow. Kotone’s heart squeezes. It has to be a crime to be this gorgeous first thing in the morning.

“Good morning?”

The sound of her voice doesn’t seem to startle Nien. Instead, she lazily opens her eyes as she extends her arms (and presumably her legs) out to stretch. The streamer makes a quiet noise, sending a tired smile Kotone’s way. “Always a good morning when I wake up to you.”

If she hadn’t known any better, Kotone might have just dropped the tray in her hands right then and there. Nien’s words nearly knock the wind out of her, instead making her breath her lodged in her throat and her face burn slightly.

What kind of person just says those things so casually? Is she trying to kill her?

Kotone clears her throat and steps inside. It’s now or never, really.

“I, uh. Made this for you.” She says, holding up the tray as if Nien could have missed the giant wooden rectangle in her hands.

Kotone’s helpless when she catches sight of Nien’s eyes brightening and her smile stretching even wider. “Aw really? Thanks, Tone!”

She extends her arms out to take the tray from her while Kotone stands there, playing with her fingers.

Nien scans the contents of the tray before looking up at her once more. In that moment, Kotone swears that she might really die from a heart attack this time. The nervousness makes her stomach swirl with discomfort, heartbeat in her ears.

It’s the moment of truth. Now or never. The moment where she gets the truth once and for all.

“Tone, did you get a mold to make heart-shaped pancakes? That’s so cool!”

…Or not.

Kotone feels a nervous laugh bubbling up in her throat. “Uh, not exactly.”

“So you shaped it yourself?” Nien gasps, taking the fork and knife to carefully cut a piece and take a bite. “You gotta tell me how. I swear mine always look ugly.”

Here’s the problem. Kotone was planning on using this as a way to tell Nien about her feelings. On the tray, besides the smiley face bacon and the heart-shaped pancakes, are heart-shaped strawberries on the top of a yogurt parfait and a coffee just the way Nien likes it (1 shot of espresso with creamer) which also has a heart in the liquid. Coffee art isn’t even Kotone’s specialty! Not to mention, the plate the pancakes and bacon sit on has little hearts made with syrup all around the perimeter!

“Well, it’s really damn good anyway.” Nien says, swallowing down another bite.

“What do you think about the other foods? Anything you notice?” The question comes out more strained.

“Oh! This yogurt looks so good too. How’d you know I was craving this?” Nien even makes the effort to take a bite of that as well, making a happy noise at the taste. “There’s heart strawberries on this too! Cute!”

Kotone’s eye twitches.

“There’s coffee too, since I thought you might be tired after we stayed up a little.”

“Ohhh. Thanks!” Nien looks at it, almost studying it before looking to Kotone. “I didn’t know you could do coffee art. Can you make silly shapes too? Have you ever done, like, a dinosaur or something?”

Her patience is thinning. Kotone almost groans right then and there—she’s almost certain her roommate is screwing with her. At least, until she sees just how clueless she looks.

“I’ve never made a dinosaur before..” Is what she settles on before continuing. “So. What do you think all of these foods have in common?”

“Hm..” Nien gives the tray another look. “There’s a lotta hearts on here.”

“Which means…”

“This is payback for last night and you must really like making heart shaped things to show your appreciation..?” The tone Nien uses is unsure, head tilting to the side as she speaks.

“God, fuck. Fine.” Kotone finally throws her hands up, and marches to her desk. There’s noises of confusion on her left that she promptly ignores. She’s had enough.

Kotone grabs the nearest sheet of white paper and pops open the permanent marker on Nien’s desk to scrawl a “Kiss the Chef” onto it. Once she finishes, she grabs the tape and slaps it onto her apron.

Instead of saying anything, she just stands in front of Nien, making frantic gestures at the sign and her food.

“Oh!” The gears visibly turn in her head. Nien’s eyes widen at the sign. And then, her gaze continuously flickers between the sign and the food. “Oh.”

There’s a strangled sputtering noise that comes from Nien’s side of the room as the pieces finally fall into place. “You want me t— Wait— Wait— I’m—That’s—Well!”

If this were a cartoon or an anime, there would probably be the comical addition of smoke coming out of Nien’s head.

Kotone casts her gaze on the floor. If her face is as red as it feels, she can’t bring herself to look at her.

“Ohoho, you want me so bad you’d make up a fake kiss the chef apron? I’m honored!” At some point, it seems like she gains some sort of composure. Although, Kotone’s well aware that she’s just deflecting.

This motherfucker.

“You are impossible.” Kotone drags a flustered hand over her face, plucking the sign off and crumpling the paper before turning to toss it in the trash. “I’m leaving.”

“Whaaaaaaat? Noooooo. Tone, wait!”

With her back turned, she can hear Nien putting the tray on her desk before scurrying over to her. She allows herself one deep breath to steel herself.

“What?” Kotone asks, turning around to face Nien, who stands no more than a foot away.

The taller girl’s cheeks are painted bright pink but she at least still manages to speak, “I believe I owe you a kiss?”

Her breath hitches. “What are you waiting for then?”

They’ve both been waiting for this moment for months—she knows it all too well. Jabs and banter at each other here and there. Stolen glances when they think the other isn’t looking.

Nien’s cheeks turn even more red. Somehow, it seems like her confidence has fizzled out once again. “Well—”

...

Kotone rolls her eyes. Of course. She immediately brings a hand to her shirt. Her fingers instinctively curl around the fabric—pulls her in close—just millimeters apart.

Nien sucks in a soundless inhale, lips parted in silent wonder—as if she’s nothing short of an absolute miracle. It’s at that moment that she realizes Nien has always looked at her that way: brown, warm pupils melting when she thinks she’s being sneaky. Kotone watches as her throat bobs and feels a pair of gentle fingers brush away at loose strands of hair. It shoves an involuntary tingle down her spine.

“You’re seriously going to be the death of me.” Kotone whispers against her lips. All the muscles in her body tense when she leans forward to close the gap.

The first thing that comes to mind is soft. Nien’s lips are much softer than anything she could’ve imagined—sticky and sweet from the syrup. But most importantly: addictive. Somehow, it’s more than fitting. Kotone couldn’t pull away from her even if she tried. Her lips slot themselves perfectly against hers and sends a pleasant buzz into her mind that echoes even more when she kisses back.

It starts off like that—slow and soft in a way that makes her melt and has butterflies fluttering wildly in the cage of her stomach. She feels the way Nien presses against her, hands already down by her waist as if they belonged there.

Hsu Nientzu invades her senses, numbing her brain into nothing. She just pushes and pushes until she’s all Kotone can think about. All she can do is wrap her arms around Nien’s neck and pull her impossibly closer—wants to feel every line of her body against hers and get lost in the feeling.

A high-pitched noise rumbles in the back of Nien’s throat when they’re finally flush against each other, hands roaming and wandering as if they can’t get enough; it sends the blood rushing all the way back to her head.

“You’re so pretty,” Nien whispers when they pull back for just a moment to catch their breath, their foreheads still touching. “You’re driving me insane.”

“I—” Kotone’s heart hammers wildly in her chest. It almost threatens to burst through the confines of her ribcage when Nien drags a hand up and down along her spine. Her throat bobs with a shaky exhale. Kotone opens her mouth to say something, only for nothing to come out.

All she can do is watch as Nien eyes her, pupils dilated and blown with want. Her teeth worry themselves into her swollen lower lip. The pink flush on her face had spread down to her neck. One look is enough for Kotone’s legs to feel like jelly.

Her eyes flicker down to her mouth again. “Can I…?”

Instead of replying, Kotone leans in again. It takes almost no effort from her—the slightest inkling of dizzying want that expands and settles in her chest. A microscopic push that has her eager for more.

Their lips press over and over again just as they did before. It would be concerning how easily Nien stokes the flames of her desire that burn in her veins—there’s the vague sensation of a wall against her back, but who cares about that?

Nien only presses deeper and deeper until she’s soft and pliant in her arms. The tip of her tongue glides past her lower lip and pulls a whine out of Kotone. Sweet and disorienting and tilting her brain on its axis, like a silent promise to continue frying all of her synapses into smithereens.

The hands on her hips squeeze. It’s almost as if she’s got an appetite for knocking every single one of her thoughts out of her mind without even trying. Another wave of heat floods her body and Kotone winds a hand into her hair, tugging and relishing the groan that Nien releases against her lips.

They keep going like that for a while—it’s all a haze in her mind—kissing until their lips are swollen and red.

Unfortunately, they have to pull back again. Kotone feels her lips still tingling, panting heavily as she tries to refill her oxygen-deprived lungs. When she finally looks back at Nien, it’s a sight for sore eyes.

Nien’s shirt hangs loosely, uneven, wrinkled, and tugged to the side to expose a collarbone. The expanse of skin looks pretty and pink—she can spot the uneven rise and fall of her chest.

Kotone has to blink away the desire to kiss her again when she looks up and spots just how gorgeous her disheveled state is—hair strands a mess, bangs clinging to her forehead, and puffy lips.

There’s a long moment of silence between the two of them. The only sounds that fill the air being ragged breaths.

Until Nien shatters it completely.

The other girl suddenly perks up, turning to the side, “Chat, clip that!”

Any sense of the mood from earlier rapidly dissipates into thin air. Immediate horror floods Kotone’s veins. In mere seconds, her gaze follows, only to see that she’s staring at an empty wall.

When Kotone looks back up at Nien, she sees a cheeky grin on her face. “You..” She pulls one of the arms wrapped around her neck to gently smack the right side of her chest, “Why the hell would you say that?”

Nien barks out a laugh, the mischievous glint in her eyes not faltering, “It was funny!” Her smug attitude makes it almost seem like they weren’t just kissing mere minutes ago.

“We were literally just making out and your first instinct afterwards is to say that?!” Kotone is… she’s appalled!

“C’mon. It was a little silly, you have to admit it.”

Instead of replying, she just sighs, “You’re a loser.”

“You love it!”

“Shut up.” Grumbling.

“And if I don’t?”

Kotone doesn’t even want to entertain this, just moving in to kiss Nien again.

.

.

.

(“I hate to be that guy,” Nien says, sipping on her—now microwaved—coffee from earlier in the kitchen. “But, I think we skipped a few steps.”

“Oh, really? You think so?” Kotone feigns innocence next to her. Her hands wrap around her own cup of coffee, giving it an experimental sip. “You don’t say.”

“Hey, man. I don’t even know how many times we’ve kissed by now—”

“Are you complaining?” She keeps her expression neutral, mostly to tease.

Nien’s eyes comically widen as she frantically shakes her head, “No! No! I enjoy kissing you…” Kotone tries not to laugh at the way she gets quieter. “I just feel like we jumped a few hurdles.”

“I ripped a page out of your book. You talking about skipping steps is hilarious when you’re always winging recipes.”

“Heyy…” Nien pouts. It’s too cute for her not to lean over and press a kiss into her cheek.

Besides, the way she instantly brightens afterwards makes it worth it.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is… what are we?” Nien spins the spoon around in her parfait on the table.

Kotone reaches to put her hand over hers, “I’m serious about this if you are.”

“Well, in the spirit of skipping steps,” Nien looks at their hands first. A small smile tugs at the corners of her lips before she flips her palm up to hold Kotone’s hand instead, interlocking their fingers. “Be my girlfriend?”

The chuckle that falls from her lips is instinctive. It rolls out before she can stop herself. “Thought you’d never ask.”)

They’re streaming in the kitchen again.

Today, they’re making jjimdak, or braised chicken, because it’s good and because Nien… asked Kotone about it. You can’t blame her! She’s craving it and her girlfriend is a literal chef. It’s bound to taste good no matter what!

“Soooo, chat! What do we think of my chopped vegetables? Pretty good, right? Heh.” Nien shuffles towards the camera and holds up her two bowls chopped vegetables at an angle for them to see.

“Don’t drop the veggies.” Kotone calls out, still in the middle of cutting the chicken into the proper size.

“I won’t, I won’t!” Nien flashes the camera her teeth in a grin before shuffling back to the counter. The two bowls get placed by the stove for when they get added later. She had the foresight to at least separate the vegetables in the order that they’d be added in—and open up the package for the glass noodles!

With all that out of the way, Nien all but frolics to Kotone. Once she’s close enough, she wraps her arms around her from behind in a backhug. Her girlfriend startles for a moment, halting in chopping the pieces of chicken before releasing a breath.

“You scared me.” Kotone tosses a piece of chicken into the bowl.

“Sorry..” She leans down so that her head is at the same level as Kotone’s and watches her work.. Nien’s not all that sorry, really. And, she knows Kotone can tell when she rolls her eyes.

Instead of replying, her girlfriend turns her head to press a quick kiss to her cheek before continuing to chop the pieces.

There’s no mistaking the dumb, lovestruck grin that takes hold of Nien’s features at the action.

Kotone coughs, trying to play off the pink that dusts her cheeks. “So, once I’m done chopping this up, we need to boil this in water for a little bit and skim the impurities off.”

“Ohhh,” Nien nods, keeping her grip around Kotone loose. She rests her chin on her shoulder. “Are we supposed to add the sauce and stuff after?”

“Yeah. We need to put it in a separate pot though. Drain the water and all that.”

Unbeknownst to the two of them, the stream’s live chat was exploding. Tons of messages were rolling in. Although, Nien was honestly … distracted at the moment.

It isn’t until they get to the stage of waiting for the ingredients to boil, that they’re able to check the comments.

sooshumin: once again i am asking… WHEN IS IT MY TURN!!

kwakkwakz: cute but also you guys are making me hungry

jeongrinez: @kwakkwakz right bc imagine having a chef gf…

gongjubin: omfg these bitches gay fr.. good for them!

rinnosuke: MY PARENTS ARE REALLLL, I TOLD YOU GUYS!!

chaelien: stop why is this actually power couple

gomdori: i owe seoyeon so much money

yoonmi: @gomdori PAY UP!!!

Nien and Kotone exchange a look whilst reading the comments—a lot of them are similar—and try not to laugh.

“Glad to see you guys are enjoying…” Nien skillfully attempts to evade the question, “The food should be ready soon.”

“Honestly? You haven’t pulled anything today. I’m… kinda weirded out.” Kotone narrows her eyes at her as the realization dawns upon her. “Unless you already did something to the food.”

“What?! Noooooo, what the heck?!” A frown. “You know I love jjimdak. I actually want to eat something good today. Which means I’m being nice!”

“No terrorizing me in the kitchen today… Wooooow! I’m impressed.”

“Hey! You know I do it lovingly!” Her frown just deepens.

By the time the stream ends, Nien already sees their clips trending. She also has several texts from Mayu, who was one of the first to know (along with Xinyu). Honestly, she sort of... forgot that they didn’t mention their relationship. But, they don’t owe random strangers on the internet anything!

“Are we gonna do anything about all that?” Kotone makes a vague gesture with her chopsticks, swallowing a bite of the jjimdak.

“You want to?” Nien tilts her head. “Didn’t think you’d be the type.”

“Cat’s out of the bag. Besides,” Kotone just shrugs, eyeing the chicken. However, the way she pokes around at her food betrays the feigned nonchalance. “I like reminding people of what’s mine.”

“Well,” Nien can’t help but make a pleased noise, “I can’t say no to that, now can I? It’s the same with me. It’ll be fun to break the internet, anyway.”

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HsuPernova has posted a new video: Q&A with my girlfriend!