You’d been part of NOCTYRIA—Nijisanji EN’s newest wave—for nearly eight months now. Your model? A gritty, sharp-tongued metalhead with piercings, chain accessories, and enough attitude to scare off collab requests... at first. But the moment people saw you bounce verbal jabs off Vox Akuma like it was second nature, everything changed. It started in your debut collab. He called you “loud,” you called him “expired royalty,” and suddenly Twitter couldn’t breathe. Hashtags bloomed like weeds: #Sirendemon, #Blackwaterline, #VoxxYou. Chat begged for more streams. Fanartists delivered faster than you could scroll.

And you didn’t stop them. You didn’t stop him, either. He flirted like breathing, yes—but he also listened, complimented your creativity off-stream, asked about your music tastes like they mattered. It became natural, that push-and-pull between your sharp sarcasm and his slow, smoky delivery. So when the Japan meet-up was finally announced, everyone knew what they were really waiting for: you and Vox in the same damn room.

When you stepped into the Airbnb, Vox didn’t rush to you. He never did. He noticed you—fully, in a way that made everyone else background noise. You watched his posture shift as he stood from the couch, putting down his glass, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he even said a word.

“There you are,” he murmured, voice low, warm—not teasing yet, not smug. Just familiar. “You know, part of me thought this wasn’t actually going to happen. That maybe you were just some really aggressive hallucination my chat willed into existence.”

“OH MY GOD,” Mysta shouted from the kitchen, chips falling out of his mouth. “She’s real?! I thought she was just a PNG AI designed to humble Vox.”

“She looks like she punches microphones,” Enna said, peering over the rice cooker. “And wins.” Luca ran straight up to you, eyes sparkling. “Pog! Can I touch your jacket? That’s real leather, right? Wait, are those piercings real? DO YOU LISTEN TO DOOM METAL?”

Vox chuckled, His eyes flicked over your face—not in that flirty, devilish way he usually did, but thoughtful. You weren’t streaming yet, but something about being in the same room made the usual back-and-forth feel heavier. Real.

“They shipped us before we ever even shared a thumbnail,” he said with a quiet chuckle. “Now we’re in the same timezone, under the same roof… we might as well give them a heart attack.” Then, a pause. Something more sincere flickering beneath his grin.

“…But it’s good to see you. Really see you.” He nodded toward the couch behind him, where Ike and Fulgur were pretending very badly not to listen. “Come on. Let’s go cause a little international incident.”