The Discord call was already live when Kai joined. Zoey's voice filled his headphones mid-sentence.
"—and I swear if you play that cursed soundboard again I will uninstall your lungs."
Kai snorted. "Morning to you too."
"Kaijo has entered the chat," Hào said in his flat tone. "All rise for your emotionally repressed king."
Zoey laughed. "He can't repress what he never expressed."
Kai rolled his eyes. "We collabing or roasting?"
"Yes," they both replied.
The trio was prepping for what they called a "soft chaos stream."Nothing too competitive, just them jumping into a cozy co-op survival game and trying not to burn their digital cabin down.
It wasn't even about the game.
It was about them.
About vibes.
STREAM TITLE:
Kaijo & Friends | Cozy Apocalypse Vibes | The Fire is Spreading But We're Chill About It 🔥
By the first hour, they had cracked 300 live viewers.
Not bad.
Not viral.
But good enough to make Zoey say, "Are we kinda becoming entertaining?"
Kai leaned into his mic. "Careful. You're dangerously close to growth."
"Gross," Hào deadpanned.
Moments that made the stream clip-worthy:
Zoey tried to domesticate a wild raccoon and got bitten.
Kai accidentally set their wooden house on fire by placing a torch indoors.
Hào saved them with a bucket of water and then fell asleep mid-escape. Literally.
Chat renamed their squad: "The Cozy Catastrophe."
Fan art appeared in Kai's Twitter mentions by the next morning.
Three cartoon versions of them in survival gear, with Zoey carrying a raccoon, Kai holding a flaming marshmallow, and Hào asleep on a log.
After-stream Discord call:
Kai stayed on voice with Zoey after Hào logged off.
"I think we're onto something," he said, sipping his late-night tea.
"You mean accidental arson as content?"
Kai chuckled. "No, I mean the three of us. The group. It feels right."
There was a pause. Then Zoey softly said, "Yeah. It's weird, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"That we're clicking again. Like we picked up a thread we dropped years ago."
Kai didn't respond right away.
He was thinking about the old group chat. About nights spent in Discord lobbies when they were teenagers—laughing at nothing, promising to make something out of it "one day."
But life had gotten in the way.
And now… now he was reaching back across time.
And they were reaching back too.
Zoey broke the silence. "You ever think about the house?"
Kai blinked. "The streamer house?"
"Yeah. That dumb dream. All of us in one place. Just doing our thing."
He hesitated. Then said, "I think about it all the time."
That Night:
Kai didn't stream. Didn't edit. Didn't even touch his analytics.
He just lay on his bed, lights off, headphones in, scrolling through old photos saved to a cloud account he hadn't touched in years.
Blurry screenshots of Valorant lobbies.Inside jokes typed in all caps.A photo someone had drawn years ago—stick figures labeled with usernames and a tiny house scribbled above them: "Cozy Mansion."
He'd forgotten they even called it that.
"One day we'll all move in together. Big kitchen. Gaming setups. Shared fridge full of Red Bull. No sleep schedule. Just content and chaos."
A stupid dream.
A beautiful one.
He reached for his system.
✅ Slot 1: "The Beginning"✅ Slot 2: "Steady Climb"✅ Slot 3: "First Real Month"
He hovered for a moment, then made a decision.
✅ Slot 2 overwritten: "Collab Spark"
Elsewhere, late at night…
Zoey stared at her screen, rewatching the VOD.
There was a moment—barely a few seconds—where the three of them had laughed in perfect sync, no delay, no awkwardness.
It sounded like home.
She whispered to herself, "Maybe it wasn't a stupid dream."
And she clicked into her planner.
At the bottom, beneath groceries and deadlines, she scribbled:"Look up Germany visa process."
SUPPORT (Early Chapters): patreon.com/KyJo_
YT GAMING: https://www.youtube.com/@KyJoGaming
DISCORD: https://discord.gg/v2uSTygMgb