I woke up to a DM.

  Which, normally, would’ve triggered my usual reflex: delete app, throw phone, fake my death. But this time, I just stared at the message, my brain still booting up like an old PC stuck in safe mode.

  From: GhostToastVThey! love your vibe. wanna colb sometime? i’ve got a slot next week for my chaos cooking show if ur down. your gremlin energy is ideal.

  I blinked.

  Then reread it.

  Then sat up so fast I knocked over a half-full cup of cold boba and probably dislocated one (1) emotional vertebra.

  Gremlin energy. Ideal.

  A compliment. A summons. A potential trap.Either way, I was in.

  My follower count had quietly crept up to 1.5k. No fanfare. Just a steady tide of goose memes, out-of-context clips, and fan edits of Ketsusaki 2.0 doing unholy things to bread.

  Because yes, this is the era of Ketsusaki 2.0.No more glitchy eyes or cursed Funko Pop vibes.She was hot. She was haunted. She tracked my face properly and only screamed when I did.She was the final form.

  And now GhostToastVT—mid-tier chaos king of culinary failure—was inviting me to cook on stream.

  With him.

  I hesitated.

  I mean, sure, I had a fancy model now. But emotionally? Spiritually? I was still just a feral goblin in anime eyeliner.

  Still, I really, really wanted to do it.

  “Okay,” I whispered to no one. “Don’t freak out. Don’t spiral. This is good. This is progress.”

  Then I messaged Krei, because obviously I was spiraling.

  Aoi:I GOT INVITED TO A COLLAB AHHHH

  Krei: Is that the panic kind of “ahhh” or the success kind of “ahhh”?

  Aoi: Both. It’s chaos cooking. GhostToast invited me. He said I have ‘ideal gremlin energy’

  Krei: He’s not wrong.

  Aoi: rude but accurate

  Krei: I’m proud of you.

  Aoi: Stop being emotionally supportive, I’m allergic

  Krei: Okay. Go fail spectacurly and burn imaginary soup.

  Aoi: Better.

  I flopped backward on my futon, clutching my phone like it was sacred.This was it.My first real colb.

  The kind with viewers. With expectations. With a chance to glitch into someone else’s chat and emotionally bond over virtual smoke arms.

  Ketsusaki 2.0 is going public.

  And if I emotionally adopted a sentient spatu on stream?

  So be it.