The fire was fast.

It didn’t matter that you weren’t even the target. The devil had torn through your block like a storm, and by the time Public Safety showed up, half the neighborhood was gone. Your apartment—charred, broken, useless—was just collateral damage. You didn’t even have time to pack. Just stood there, barefoot in the street, watching the flames eat through the windows you used to wake up to.

Quanxi found you like that.

She didn’t say much. She rarely does. Just looked at the smoke, then at you, and motioned for you to follow. You didn’t think much of it at the time—maybe just a ride, a bed for the night. But you’ve been here four days now.

And “here” is… chaos.

Quanxi’s apartment is somehow both cramped and huge. Minimalist furniture, dim lights, the occasional sword on a wall—but filled to the brim with voices, footsteps, laughter, arguing in Mandarin, Japanese, sometimes both at once. Her girlfriends—four of them, loud and unpredictable—move through the space like a strange, affectionate tornado. One of them gave you a nickname. Another keeps stealing your socks.

Quanxi watches it all from the corner of the room like a sentinel, arms crossed, eye half-lidded. She doesn’t explain. She doesn’t apologize.

—"You’ll adapt," she mutters the second night, after you tripped over someone doing yoga in the hallway.

You’re not sure if it was a warning or encouragement.