Infinite Cashback System

Jordan sat between them, his brain operating at maybe forty percent capacity and his heart rate somewhere in hummingbird territory. His shirt collar was pulled askew from where Kumiko had fisted the fabric during their kiss. His lips felt puffy and tender from making out with two different girls within the span of less than a minute. The afternoon light filtered through the factory’s industrial windows in shafts of gold and dusty purple, and behind them the streaming setup they’d spent three hours assembling together glowed with soft RGB lighting like some kind of altar to whatever strange future the three of them were constructing in real time.

"So what happens now?" Kumiko’s question came out quiet and fragile. It was the voice she used when she was bracing for impact, when she’d learned through bitter experience that good things had a habit of being snatched away the second she dared to believe in them.

Jordan looked at Kumiko. Her twin tails were crooked. Her pink ribbon dangled. Her brown eyes were enormous and hopeful and terrified, and her small hands twisted the hem of her sweatshirt the way she did when she was processing something too big for her body to contain.

He reached over and fixed the ribbon.

It was instinct. He didn’t think about it. His fingers just found the loose end of pink satin and retied it in a simple bow against her black hair, his thumb brushing the shell of her ear as he pulled his hand back.

Kumiko went completely still.

"Hau..." A tiny, barely audible sound escaped her throat, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. Her eyes lost focus for a second. Her entire face flushed crimson from her forehead to her collarbones, the blush disappearing beneath the neckline of her sweatshirt.

Jordan’s phone buzzed.

He ignored it.

"What happens now," he said, his voice careful and measured, "is that we figure it out one day at a time. I’m not going to stand here and pretend I know how to be a good boyfriend to one person, let alone two. I’m going to mess up. I’m going to say the wrong thing at the worst possible moment because that’s basically been my track record since birth. But I’m going to try. And if either of you needs me to stop or slow down or back off, you tell me. No games. No tests. No mind reading. Just honesty."

He looked at Chloe first, then Kumiko, then back to Chloe. "I mean it. If this doesn’t work for you, if you wake up tomorrow and realize this was a terrible idea, you say something. We’re not doing the thing where someone suffers in silence and then explodes three months later."

Chloe nodded. Her expression had smoothed out into something calmer, something that looked almost peaceful. The sharp edges she carried around campus like armor were still there, but they’d retracted slightly, no longer pointed directly at him.

Kumiko nodded too, though her motion was jerky and overenthusiastic, like a bobblehead on a dashboard during an earthquake. The twin tails bounced with the force of her agreement. "Honesty. Yes. I can do honesty. I’m very honest. Too honest sometimes. Alexis says I overshare. My therapist says my honesty is both a strength and a catastrophic vulnerability that will either save me or destroy me depending on who I give it to."

Jordan smiled. "You’re doing great."

"I kissed you and forgot my own name for three seconds."

"Like I said. Great."

Kumiko’s laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, startled and messy and loud enough to bounce off the concrete walls. She slapped both hands over her mouth and her eyes went wide above her fingers. The laugh kept going anyway, leaking through the gaps between her palms, and the sound of it was so genuinely happy that Jordan felt his own chest expand with it.

Chloe leaned into Jordan’s side, her temple resting against his shoulder, and reached past him to place her free hand on Kumiko’s knee. The three of them sat connected on the grey sectional, surrounded by empty Micro Center bags and cable tie remnants and the purple glow of LEDs reflecting off acoustic foam.

His phone buzzed again.

Forty-four hours, twelve minutes.

Jordan reached into his pocket. He could feel the screen warm against his palm, the notification waiting like a loaded question.

He pulled the phone out and looked at the registration prompt. Kumiko Yamanaka’s name hovered above two buttons.

He glanced at the girl sitting beside him. Her ribbon was fixed. Her eyes were red-rimmed from almost crying. Her sweatshirt had slipped further off her shoulder, revealing the white tank top strap underneath and the delicate line of her collarbone.

Jordan looked at Chloe. She met his eyes and gave him the smallest nod, so slight that anyone else would have missed it.

He pressed yes.

The screen flashed gold for half a second. The registration prompt disappeared, replaced by new text.

SLOT 2: KUMIKO YAMANAKA. REGISTERED.

Chemistry: 22%

Return Rate: 0.44x

Status: New Connection

Jordan locked the phone and put it back in his pocket. Kumiko hadn’t seen the screen. Neither had Chloe. The registration lived entirely in the digital space between Jordan and the System, invisible to everyone else in the room.

But Jordan felt it. A subtle warmth in his chest, different from the warmth he felt with Chloe. This one was newer, lighter, tinged with the electric nervousness of fresh beginnings and the strawberry taste still lingering on his lips.

Twenty-two percent. A starting point. A seed planted in soil that might grow into something real if he didn’t poison it with lies and shortcuts and the same desperate need for affection that had driven him to buy a Prada bag for a girl who couldn’t remember his first name.

He pulled Kumiko closer with one arm and kept Chloe pressed against his opposite side. The two girls fit against him like parentheses around a word he hadn’t figured out yet. Chloe’s head on his left shoulder, warm and familiar. Kumiko’s smaller frame tucked under his right arm, new and electric.

The streaming setup glowed purple behind them. The PC hummed softly. Outside, the sun continued its descent toward the Pacific, throwing long shadows across the Cooper Garment Lofts parking structure and painting Chloe’s factory windows in shades of amber. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"So," Kumiko said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "Does this mean I can call you Jordan-kun without it being weird now?"

"It was always weird, Kumi."

"But a cute weird?"

"The cutest weird."