Infinite Cashback System

The conversation died there, settling into uncomfortable silence broken only by Kumiko’s continued cable sorting and the distant sound of traffic from the street below.

She’d gone very still during Alexis’s explanation, her usual cheerfulness dampened by the weight of her friend’s situation, like someone had turned down the brightness on her natural enthusiasm. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Chloe stood up from the couch, setting her empty mug on the coffee table with deliberate precision. "I’m going to make more coffee. Anyone else want some?"

"Please," Alexis said immediately, like she needed something to do with her hands to keep them from shaking.

"I’m good with water!" Kumiko chirped, her voice too bright in the heavy atmosphere, trying to restore some levity to a conversation that had gotten much darker than anyone expected.

While Chloe moved to the kitchen area, Jordan found himself alone on the couch with Alexis. She’d pulled out her phone - the latest iPhone - and was scrolling through something with tight, angry movements, her thumb swiping across the screen like she was trying to delete whatever she was seeing.

"Did you tell him you didn’t want his number?" Jordan asked, keeping his voice low enough that Chloe wouldn’t overhear from the kitchen.

"What?" Alexis looked up from her phone, momentarily confused by the question.

"Harrison. Did you tell your dad you didn’t want to give him your number?"

Alexis’s laugh was sharp and humorless, like broken glass scraping against concrete. "Of course not. That would be disrespectful. My father has spent years building our family’s reputation and business relationships. The least I can do is smile and accept an introduction to a suitable match without making things difficult for everyone involved."

"Even if you hate the guy?"

"I don’t hate him." Alexis locked her phone and set it face-down on her thigh, the screen going dark. "I don’t know him well enough to hate him. He’s just. Boring. Predictable. Safe. Exactly what I’m expected to want in a husband. Stable income, good family name, no scandal or controversy that might reflect poorly on our social standing."

"But you don’t want it."

"What I want doesn’t matter." She said this like it was the simplest truth in the world, as fundamental as gravity or the fact that water flows downhill.

Jordan leaned back against the couch cushions, processing this revelation. Alexis Van Der Berg, the girl who commanded attention just by existing, who had forty-three thousand Instagram followers and wore clothes that cost more than most people’s rent, who could end social careers with a single cutting remark, genuinely believed her own preferences were irrelevant to her life’s trajectory. She had all the power in the world except the one that mattered most - the power to choose her own future.

"For what it’s worth," he said carefully, choosing his words like he was defusing a bomb, "I think that’s complete bullshit. You should get to choose who you date. Who you marry. What you do with your life."

Alexis turned to look at him fully, her expression cycling through surprise, suspicion, and then something softer that she usually kept buried beneath layers of expensive armor. "Thank you for saying that."

"Just being honest."

"Most people wouldn’t be." Her voice dropped lower, becoming almost intimate in the quiet space between them. "They’d tell me I’m lucky to have options. That marrying into wealth is a privilege, not a prison. That I should be grateful for the security and stability instead of complaining about trivial things like personal happiness."

"Those people are idiots."

The corner of Alexis’s mouth twitched upward in what might have been the beginning of a real smile, not the practiced social expression she usually wore but something genuine. Not quite happiness, but closer to it than Jordan had ever seen from her.

Chloe returned from the kitchen with two steaming mugs of coffee, handing one to Alexis with careful precision before reclaiming her spot on the floor next to Kumiko. Jordan noticed she positioned herself between him and the computer components, a physical barrier that seemed both deliberate and unconscious, like she was protecting her territory without fully realizing it.

"So," Chloe said, her voice determinedly cheerful in a way that suggested she’d overheard more of the conversation than she was admitting. "Are we building this computer or having a therapy session?"

"Both?" Kumiko suggested weakly, still looking uncertain about whether the mood had shifted enough to return to normal activities.

"Computer first. Therapy later." Alexis took a long sip of coffee and seemed to collect herself, straightening her spine and letting the mask slide back into place like she was putting on expensive jewelry. "What can I do to help speed this along? I have plans later and I’d rather not spend my entire Saturday morning on technical support."

Kumiko perked up immediately, her natural enthusiasm overriding her social anxiety. "You can read the motherboard manual and tell us which headers connect to which cables! There are diagrams on page seventeen with color-coded instructions!"

Alexis accepted the thick manual without complaint, flipping to the indicated page with practiced efficiency. Jordan watched as she transitioned from vulnerable girl complaining about arranged marriage prospects to focused assistant, her mask snapping back into place like it had never slipped at all. The transformation was so complete it was almost unsettling.

The next hour passed in surprisingly comfortable teamwork, the earlier tension dissolving into shared purpose. Alexis read instructions in her clear, authoritative voice, her private school diction making technical specifications sound like poetry. Kumiko provided context about component compatibility and warned about potential installation mistakes with the enthusiasm of someone sharing her favorite hobby. Chloe asked clarifying questions and kept Jordan from plugging cables into the wrong slots, her practical intelligence cutting through technical jargon to find the essential information. Jordan did most of the actual physical assembly, his enhanced coordination making cable routing and screw placement easier than it should have been, though he was careful not to make it look too effortless.

By the time they’d finished installing the power supply and connecting all the necessary cables, the coffee table looked like a functional computer instead of organized chaos. The motherboard sat properly in the case, power cables snaked to their appropriate destinations, and everything was secured with the kind of precision that suggested it might actually work when they turned it on.

"Storage next!" Kumiko announced, clapping her hands together with renewed energy. "M.2 NVMe drives install directly onto the motherboard under this little heat sink! It’s like surgery but for computers!"