VOLUME III: 49 – Color Outside The Chart

Lunch cleanup vanished like it had been swept away by stagehands. The room reset: no trays, no boxes, just us and a subtle corporate scent of lemon sanitizer and looming expectations.

“Manager introductions begin now,” Rika announced, stepping back into the room with clipboard precision. “One at a time. You'll be called.”

Sasha straightened his collar like he was about to interview for the CEO position. Jules whispered “good luck” to her spicy mayo packet and kissed it goodbye. Amy was already aligning her pens. Basil looked serene, possibly meditating. Noah nodded like he’d done this before. He probably had.

One by one, names were called. Each talent vanished into an adjacent office room, ushered in by a different manager: some with clipboards, some with tablets, all with matching pastel lanyards and coffee breath.

Then there was me.

Weaver stood by the door, scrolling his tablet with one hand and nursing his boba like it was a coping mechanism. He didn’t even glance up until Rika materialized beside him like a sentient Google Calendar.

“Aoi Halberd,” she said, checking a box. “You’re with Weaver.”

Weaver paused. Blinked once. “I am?”

“Temporary assignment,” she replied smoothly. “Last-minute shuffle.”

I tilted my head. “Wait. Isn’t he, like, not a manager?”

“Correct,” Weaver said.

Rika added, “We had to rearrange some roles due to onboarding overlaps and a few talent-manager pairings not clicking. You needed someone flexible.”

“So you gave me to Weaver,” I retorted.

“He’s the most adaptable strategist we have,” Rika said sweetly.

“Translation,” I muttered, “everyone else was taken.”

“You needed someone flexible,” Rika replied with a smile. “And he needed someone who won’t immediately file a report.”

Weaver stared at her. Then me. Then, at his cup of boba like it might explain things. It didn’t.

Rika gave him a clipboard and a look that meant three things at once. “You’re good with edge cases, Weaver."

His hand hovers awkwardly like he's not used to being handed things.

“…Well,” he said finally, adjusting his sleeves like a man resigning to fate, “I’ve managed worse, I guess. Once, I had to prep a debut for someone who only communicated through Gen-Z slangs.”

“Is that a flex?”

“It’s a warning,” he said, gesturing for me to follow.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Nodded once and followed Weaver out like I wasn’t mentally already spiralling about what "branding alignment" meant.

The hallway was quiet, save for the muffled sound of Sasha yelling “THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM” from behind one of the doors. Weaver didn’t react.

“This feels like the setup to a sitcom,” I muttered.

He looked over, walking backwards. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

I followed him into a smaller meeting room with no windows and the ambience of a supply closet trying its best. The walls were beige. The air smelled like dry erase markers and ambition.

Weaver tossed his boba into the recycling, sat across from me, and opened his notebook to a clean page. “All right, Aoi Halberd. Let’s talk goals. Content plans. Branding. Start wherever you want.”

I stared at him. “You’re really going along with this?”

He shrugged. “I don’t usually do one-on-ones, but… apparently you’re an exception. And I like exceptions. They tend to break systems in fun ways.”

“…Seriously?”

“Seriously. Do you think I’m gonna waste the talent of the great Ketsusaki? No way.”

I hesitated. Then, I reached into my onboarding folder and pulled out the napkin quote again.

A full stomach fuels a full heart.

Still dumb. Still weirdly fitting.

“I want to build something I won’t have to escape from,” I said finally.

Weaver paused. Then he smiled knowingly.

“Then let’s build something you’ll want to keep,” he said.

He handed me the marker.

“Chaos scale,” he said. “One to feral?”

I took the cap off.

“Color outside the chart.”