Early April settled over Lumen City with that strange in-between warmth that only came when spring had almost given up and summer had not fully taken control. The cold had thinned to a memory. A single layer of clothing was enough now, and the sharp bite in the air was gone.
That morning, Ethan Reed finally packed away his heavy winter coat and shoved the last of his sweaters to the back of the closet. In their place came the clothes he wore best—simple, comfortable, familiar. Beside him, Vivian Frost looked just as natural slipping into the rhythm of the day, and together they headed into Northstar Games as if nothing in the world had changed.
Which, in a way, was exactly the problem.
The moment they entered their small office, both of them moved with the kind of effortless coordination that came from habit. Vivian took her place in front of the computer and opened a mix of games, shows, trending news, and industry chatter. Ethan, meanwhile, dropped onto the sofa, stretched out like he owned gravity itself, and began switching between novels, short videos, gaming forums, and random things on his phone.
This had become their normal.
And if an outsider walked in and saw the two of them like this, they would probably think the whole thing was ridiculous.
How could the leaders of a gaming company worth tens of billions spend their mornings like this? No meetings. No frantic calls. No endless management reports. Just one woman browsing online like she was on a lazy day off, and one man sinking into a sofa as if the future of the company had nothing to do with him.
But that was exactly why Northstar Games kept growing.
The company no longer needed its founders hovering over every desk. It had a proper management structure, strong department heads, and teams that actually knew what they were doing. Ethan handled the major decisions. The direction. The vision. The yes or no that determined where the company moved next.
Everything else? That was for the professionals.
Daniel, Evan Cross, Logan Ward, the management division, the marketing department—everyone was performing at a level high enough that Ethan and Vivian no longer needed to micromanage. In fact, if Vivian suddenly started interfering in every detail, Northstar would probably run into trouble for real.
Sometimes the best leadership was knowing when not to touch the machine.
An hour passed in that calm, lazy silence.
Ethan's eyelids had just started to feel heavy when Vivian, still facing the computer, suddenly spoke.
"Ethan," she said, her voice thoughtful, "we are actually dating, right?"
The question snapped him fully awake.
He lifted his head from the sofa and stared at her. "Of course we are. I confessed, you accepted, your dad agreed, my sister knows, both families know. We are definitely together."
Vivian slowly turned in her chair and looked at him with a strange expression.
"Then why does it feel like nothing changed?"
Ethan blinked.
Vivian rested one elbow on the desk and frowned slightly, trying to put the feeling into words.
"I mean it seriously. We've been together for more than two months now, but compared to before… it doesn't feel different at all. We still come to work together, go home together, eat together sometimes, stay in the same space, do the same things. It's like... the title changed, but the way we live didn't."
Ethan sat up properly now.
And to his horror, he realized she was right.
They hugged. They leaned against each other. He teased her constantly. They had the warm closeness that came with knowing each other deeply. But when it came to that dramatic, obvious, unmistakable honeymoon-phase energy everyone talked about?
They had none of it.
No candlelight dates. No dramatic pet names. No flustered romance like in shows or anime or those absurd dating guides Ethan had secretly looked up once and immediately regretted.
For a moment, he felt the very real panic of a man discovering that he had somehow entered a relationship without unlocking the relationship manual.
Vivian was watching him carefully, clearly waiting for an answer.
Ethan straightened his back and spoke in his most serious tone.
"Boss Frost, I think we need to make some changes."
Vivian narrowed her eyes. "What kind of changes?"
Ethan rubbed his chin like he was planning a major corporate move. "We start with how we call each other. I read online that affectionate names help deepen a relationship. In public, I can still call you Boss Frost. But in private…" He paused dramatically. "Maybe something softer."
Vivian already looked suspicious.
Ethan continued anyway. "Like Shushu. Or Fengfeng. Or Yunyun."
Vivian physically shuddered.
"That is awful."
Ethan looked offended. "I haven't even used the strong ones yet."
"The strong ones?"
He hesitated, then said with a straight face, "Baby. My dear. Sweetheart."
Vivian grabbed her own shoulders like she had just been hit by an electric shock. "Absolutely not."
Ethan, to his credit, did not retreat.
"Let's at least try one," he said. "Experimentally."
Vivian stared at him for a few long seconds, then sighed in defeat. "Fine. One."
Ethan cleared his throat and looked at her with full sincerity.
"Shushu?"
Vivian opened her mouth, then shut it again.
Ethan tried once more, more naturally this time. "Shushu."
She rubbed her temple. "No. That one is impossible. It sounds like I'm calling some relative's little kid."
Ethan nodded solemnly. "Then we move to phase two."
Vivian's expression turned wary.
"Baby."
She recoiled instantly.
"Ethan Reed!"
He burst into laughter, but once he started, he found he couldn't stop. Something about seeing Vivian Frost—cool, capable, sharp-tongued Vivian—completely lose composure over one word was simply too entertaining.
So naturally, he did what any reasonable man in his position would do.
He kept saying it.
"Baby."
"Stop."
"Baby."
"Ethan."
"Baby."
Vivian's ears began turning red. Left with no other defense, she put on her headphones and pretended she could no longer hear him.
But Ethan saw the color on her face.
That alone made the whole experiment worth it.
In the end, their way of interacting did not truly change. Not in any dramatic way. They still moved around each other with the same easy rhythm they had built over two years. There was no forced sweetness, no fake romance copied from cheap dramas.
But over the next two days, Vivian slowly got used to one thing.
In private, when no one else was around, Ethan sometimes called her baby.
And though she never answered with the same word, she no longer flinched every time he said it.
That was enough.
---
On April 7, Northstar Games made an internal decision.
Not because of a crisis. Not because of a scandal. But because the fans had finally cornered them.
Some time earlier, a post had blown up overseas. It had been written by international students and carried a line dramatic enough to make Ethan want to hide under his desk: Northstar Games helped us find our national confidence.
When Ethan first heard about it and mentioned it to Vivian and Daniel, both of them had stared at him in disbelief. It sounded absurd. Northstar made games. Good games, sure. But uplifting the spirit of young people living abroad? That was not something they had expected to see attached to their name.
The discussion did not explode too badly back home, mostly because Northstar had quickly placed the 2077 demo on Steam by the third day, which stopped the tension from building further. Besides, only a small portion of domestic users spent time on overseas social platforms, and an even smaller number regularly visited foreign gaming forums.
Still, the story spread.
And because it was Northstar, people expected more.
That became the real problem.
Every time Northstar released something exciting, it would vanish immediately afterward. It had become the company's signature move—show the players something incredible, stir up the internet, then go completely silent like a ghost disappearing into fog.
This time, however, the silence pushed players too far.
Fans began showing up in real life.
Some hung banners outside the company entrance. Some tracked down the building location and stood outside demanding answers. A few had even traveled across cities just to force Northstar to speak publicly about Cyberpunk 2077.
So Ethan had no choice.
Northstar Games officially announced a livestream for 2 PM on April 8.
The moment the news hit the Official Blog, the people gathering outside the building finally dispersed. They had won. Northstar was coming out of hiding.
The stream setup was simple. No studio. No special production crew. Just Ethan and Vivian in their small office, a phone on a stand, a couple bottles of water, and a sheet of A4 paper taped outside the door with one message written on it:
DO NOT DISTURB.
At 1:58 PM, Vivian had already applied light makeup and opened BiliZone's official streaming page. Ethan dragged over a small stool and sat close beside her.
Vivian looked at the screen and let out a slow breath. "Why am I nervous?"
Ethan took a sip of water. "You don't need to be. They're going to focus on me anyway. You just sit there and look reliable."
Vivian gave him a look, but said nothing.
Then the clock struck two.
The livestream began.
The chat instantly exploded.
The comments flooded so fast Vivian could barely read them.
Open the stream.
Where are the people?
Is it really Ethan and Vivian?
Don't tell me they made employees do this.
Where is Ethan's on-screen persona?
Open the door!
Then, as the camera adjusted, Ethan and Vivian appeared on screen sitting shoulder to shoulder.
The reaction only got louder.
Ethan glanced at the endless flood of comments and immediately made a decision.
"Good afternoon, everyone. There are too many messages to read normally, so let's do this another way. Use SC questions. Thirty per question. That should be fair."
Vivian nearly laughed at how shamelessly practical he sounded.
With the viewer count already past fifty thousand, he was right. There was no way to keep up otherwise.
The first paid question appeared almost immediately.
After eating hotpot and blowing up my computer sent 30 SC — How long are you planning to stream?
Ethan stared at the screen in disbelief.
"You really spent money to ask that?"
Then he answered anyway. "We'll probably stream until four or five. If the question touches internal company secrets, I can't answer. So don't expect miracles."
Vivian quietly hit him on the arm when he almost suggested refunds for rejected questions.
The stream rolled on.
Questions about Cyberpunk 2077 dominated the feed.
Would it release this year?
Was the mysterious silver-armed man really Johnny Silverhand?
How much of the demo theory videos were true?
Why was Northstar always silent after releasing something big?
Ethan answered what he could.
He confirmed that Johnny Silverhand was indeed the man shown at the end of the demo.
He promised that by September, Northstar would definitely give players a major update on 2077.
And on every other story-related question, he smiled and refused to say more.
Vivian mostly watched him handle the room, calm and confident, while she sat beside him like a silent anchor.
Then one question changed the tone of the stream.
Turtle Sauce sent 1000 SC — What kind of game is Fireworks? Can you reveal more?
Even Ethan paused at that number.
"A thousand? You really don't have to do that," he said quickly. "Just support the games. That's enough."
But the question was good.
And since Fireworks was launching this month, he decided this was the perfect chance.
He leaned slightly toward the camera, his voice dropping into something slower and deeper.
"Fireworks is not a normal horror game."
The comments slowed.
"It isn't built around gore. It isn't built around cheap jump scares. Its core isn't blood, monsters, or shock for the sake of shock. Its core is story. Its core is people."
He glanced at the screen, then continued.
"Most horror games take one of two paths. Either they make you run from something terrifying, or they throw puzzles and sudden scares at you. But Fireworks is different. It's a story-driven horror game. A horror game made for us. A kind of fear that hits differently because it comes from cultural memory."
The room went quieter.
Ethan's expression sharpened.
"Let me explain what I mean."
Vivian, sitting beside him, suddenly had a bad feeling.
"Imagine this," Ethan said softly. "It's late at night. You're standing in a narrow alley. At the end of it, there's an old mansion with its doors wide open. Inside the courtyard, red lanterns are hanging in the dark, swaying just a little. The light they cast is festive, but wrong. On the pillars are white mourning couplets. In the main hall sit a bride and groom in wedding clothes. The groom's face is stiff and empty. The bride wears a red veil, red shoes, and does not move. And in the center of the room, between them..." He paused.
"...there are two black coffins."
Vivian sucked in a breath and instantly grabbed Ethan's arm.
The chat exploded.
What the hell.
Stop talking.
I suddenly understand.
This is way worse than zombies.
I'm from the countryside and someone near my home actually keeps a coffin in the house.
No no no, don't continue.
This is exactly why Chinese horror is terrifying.
Ethan looked at the comments piling up and smiled with pure satisfaction.
This was it.
This was the difference.
Western horror often attacked the body first—blood, monsters, violence, screams. It startled you. It made your nerves jump. But once the moment passed, the fear faded.
This kind of horror was different.
It stayed with you.
It grew in the silence afterward. It deepened the more you understood the traditions, symbols, taboos, and old fears buried in memory. It was not simply something you saw. It was something you carried home with you.
And that was the road Fireworks was taking.
A stream of frightened comments filled the screen. More than ten thousand viewers quietly slipped out of the room. Those who stayed filled the chat with only one mood.
Fear.
Ethan looked straight at the camera and gave the final line like a promise.
"Fireworks is a horror game unlike anything else."
"Not because it screams louder."
"Because it knows exactly what kind of fear lingers in the dark after the screen goes black."
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