It was automatic. I didn’t even check if it was true. She smiled and kept walking. The bags bit deeper into my hands. I tightened my grip and followed her up the path, telling myself that as long as I kept moving, I wouldn’t disappear.

  Bǎo’s place was quiet when we got inside. The door sealed behind us with a soft click and the outside noise disappeared all at once. The smell of The City, ozone and oil, was cut off instantly, replaced by something sterile. Canned air and expensive lemon polish. It smelled like a showroom, not a home. My ears rang for a second after.

  I stood there holding the bags because I wasn’t sure where to put them. She kicked her shoes off without looking and dropped her keys on a table that was probably worth more than everything I owned.

  The apartment was high up, wide windows, clean lines. Everything had a place. Nothing looked lived in. I could see the island below through the glass. Smaller buildings packed together. Lights blinking unevenly. People moving like they had somewhere to be.

  “This way,” Bǎo said, already heading toward the kitchen.

  I followed. I put the bags down on the counter when she gestured at it. My hands ached when I let go. The left one stung. The right one didn’t feel much of anything. I flexed my fingers anyway.

  Bǎo leaned back against the counter and scrolled through her phone while I started unpacking. I didn’t ask if I should. I just did it. It felt easier than waiting.

  She watched me for a bit, amused. “Wow,” she said. “Look at you. Very domestic.”

  I didn’t know if that was a compliment or not. I decided it didn’t matter.

  She pointed at things as I pulled them out. “Put that in the fridge. No, not there, the other shelf. Those mushrooms go last. Careful with that, it’s expensive.”

  I nodded and adjusted. I moved too fast at first, knocked a packet over, swore under my breath. She laughed.

  “Relax,” she said. “You’re not defusing a bomb.”

  I didn’t answer. My shirt was sticking to my back. The kitchen was warm. Or maybe I was. I couldn’t tell.

  She told me we were doing hot pot. She explained it like she was explaining it to a child. Boil this first. Don’t drop everything in at once. Don’t burn the broth. I tried to follow. I really tried. At one point I almost spilled something and she clicked her tongue.

  “Careful, pig chef.”

  I froze for half a second, then realized she was smiling.

  “Pig chef?” I repeated.

  She grinned. “Yeah, that’s your new pet name. You’re doing great. Very hardworking.”

  She tapped her phone again, already distracted. I didn’t know what to do with the name, so I let it sit there. My face felt hot. I focused on the stove. The broth started to bubble too fast and I panicked, turned it down too much, then back up again.

  She watched me struggle and didn’t step in.

  “My mom used to do all this,” she said casually. “I never learned. I just eat.”

  I glanced at her, unsure if she was joking. She didn’t elaborate.

  The food came together eventually. Steam filled the space. The smell was rich and heavy. My stomach tightened in a way that felt good and uncomfortable at the same time.

  Bǎo finally put her phone down and leaned over the pot. “Okay,” she said. “That actually looks decent.”

  That small approval hit harder than it should have. We sat down to eat. The heat from the pot fogged the air between us. I burned my tongue on the first bite and didn’t say anything. She noticed anyway.

  “You’re hopeless,” she said, laughing. “Wait five seconds.”

  I nodded and waited five seconds the next time.

  Halfway through, she mentioned it like it was an afterthought. “Oh. People are coming over later.”

  I looked up. “People?”

  “Yeah. Just a few.” She shrugged. “It’s my birthday.”

  “Oh.” I paused, genuinely shocked. “H-happy birthday...!”

  She smiled. “Thanks. I’m twenty-seven.”

  “You don’t…” I stopped myself too late. “You don’t look twenty-seven.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Bold. Was that an attempt at flirting, pig chef?”

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  I felt my face heat up immediately. “I mean… I didn’t mean…”

  She laughed and waved it off. “Relax. I know.”

  She went back to eating like nothing happened. I sat there with the bowl in my hands, embarrassed, relieved, and still trying to keep up.

  The party started before I realized it had started. Bǎo disappeared into her room to change. When she came back out, the casual girl in the hoodie was gone. She had transformed back into the idol.

  Her blonde hair was pulled up into massive, voluminous twin-tails that curled like golden drills on either side of her head. A giant black bow sat atop her head like a crown, commanding attention, flanked by strings of pink beads that clicked softly when she turned. Her makeup was sharper now, the red markings under her eyes precise and intimidating. She looked perfect. Literally unreal.

  People arrived in clusters. They came in laughing, already mid-conversation, carrying bottles and boxes and things wrapped too neatly to be personal. I turned my eyes to the window anyway. The City at night looked calmer from this height. I knew it wasn’t.

  I stood near the wall when the first group came in. Someone recognized her immediately. Phones came out. Bǎo switched on a version of herself I’d seen before. Brighter voice. Bigger smile. She remembered names. She touched shoulders. She laughed at jokes that weren’t funny at all. No one talked to me. That was fine. They had no reason to. I was avoided like the plague, like I had my own gravity that repelled them away.

  The apartment filled up quickly. Music started playing, low but constant. People moved around like they knew where they belonged. I didn’t. I ended up sitting on the edge of the couch, hands folded, trying to look like I was supposed to be there.

  They talked about numbers. Reach. Markets. Sponsorship windows. Someone mentioned a campaign in the south district. Someone else mentioned a delay because of unrest. Bǎo nodded and responded smoothly, already thinking three steps ahead. I didn’t understand half of what was being said. Sometimes they switched languages mid-sentence.

  I caught my name once and looked up too fast. “Is that him?” a man asked, not quietly.

  Another voice laughed. “Island Ape, right? That’s way too funny.”

  I wanted the building to collapse and swallow me into the wet ground, shield me from piercing eyes.

  One of them, a guy in a velvet suit, held up his phone. The leaderboard app was open. He pointed it at me. It pinged, a low, sad sound. “Ouch,” he said, showing the screen to his friend. “Paper Tier. Negative points. That’s… mathematically impressive. You’re literally worth less than zero.”

  They laughed, like it was the funniest thing in the world. I was a statistical error in their room. They didn’t wait for me to answer. Someone else joked about propaganda optics. They were smiling when they said it. Like it was clever. I stared at my hands and pretended I didn’t hear. For a while, I wondered if they were laughing at me or just around me. I couldn’t tell. Every time the room got louder, I felt smaller. I replayed everything in my mind.

  Bǎo brought out a cake. Candles already lit. Someone started singing. The song fell apart halfway through but everyone clapped anyway. She closed her eyes before she blew them out. For a second, she looked tired. I looked around while everyone was focused on her.

  None of them were watching her like I was. They clapped, cheered, took photos, then drifted back into business talk almost immediately. Someone asked her about her next mission. Someone asked about a performance slot. Someone asked if she was free next week. Not one person asked her what she wanted to do tonight.

  I tried to stand up, to maybe say something about the food I'd made, but before I could open my mouth, a woman in a sharp blazer stepped in front of me, turning her back to address Bǎo. "The reach metrics on the birthday post are already climbing," she said, tapping her tablet. "If we pivot to the charity angle now, we can double the engagement."

  Bǎo nodded, her smile fixed. "Right. The charity angle."

  I closed my mouth. I felt stupid for thinking they might care about the hot pot. I stood up quietly and walked to the bathroom. I locked the door. The room was small and clean and too bright. I gripped the sink and breathed until my reflection stopped shaking. I didn’t sob. I didn’t want to make noise. My eyes burned anyway. I wiped them with my sleeve and stared at the wall until the feeling dulled enough to manage.

  When I came back out, no one noticed I was gone. The party thinned quickly. People checked their phones. Made excuses. Promised to follow up. Within twenty minutes, they were all gone. The apartment felt larger without them. Emptier.

  Bǎo leaned against the counter once the door shut. She exhaled, reaching up to unclasp the heavy black bow from her hair. “Well,” she said. “That was productive.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know what to say.

  She looked around the room, then at me. For the first time all night, she dropped the smile completely. “Do you want to watch something?” she asked, casual but quieter.

  “Yeah,” I said, a little too fast.

  She didn’t comment on it. We put something on without really choosing it. Some old film, badly dubbed, the volume too low to follow. The light from the screen washed over the room in soft pulses. Bǎo curled into the corner of the couch, legs tucked under her, hoodie pulled on like armor she didn’t bother naming.

  “It’s weird being twenty-seven,” she said after a while. Factually, like she was reading a diagnosis. “Everyone thinks you’re sorted by now.”

  I nodded, even though I didn’t know what sorted was supposed to look like.

  She talked a little about work. She didn’t ask me questions. I didn’t think she noticed that. I didn’t mind. Listening felt easier than explaining myself. I sat there, trying not to think about how quiet I’d been all day. Trying not to think about how much space I was taking up on her couch. The film kept going. An animal screamed; the virtual world they lived in was corrupted, as soldiers rushed in and took them captive. Neither of us reacted, Bǎo wasn’t even watching the screen. Her phone was in her lap. She was refreshing her feed. Refresh. Refresh. Watching the view count on her birthday post tick upward. Her face was illuminated by the blue light, tight with anxiety. Every time the number stalled, her thumb twitched.

  At some point she shifted closer. Not careful about it. Her knee pressed against mine. Then she turned and climbed over me, not in a way that felt planned. She sat astride my legs, steadying herself with her hands on my shoulders, like she’d decided something and didn’t want to lose momentum.

  She studied my face for a second. Really looked at me. The moment was impossibly intimate, time itself had to respect it, and paused indefinitely. “Nobody in the world cares about you unless you have power,” she said. Certain. “Money. Power. Reach. Something they can’t ignore.”

  I swallowed. My mouth felt dry.

  “Oruun left,” she went on. “Think about it. Where is he now? He had the chance to stay. He didn’t.” She tilted her head. “That’s how it works. People don’t stay for potential. They stay for results.” Her thumb pressed into my cheek. Not hard. Just enough that I felt it. “Look at me,” she said. “This is what it takes. If you don’t have power, you don’t exist.”

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