Chapter Text
“Heyyy~ It's me! Your one and only, super-duper favorite Sparxicle! Today, we're doing something a little different. A little special. A little— okay, a lot unhinged. We're making a COOKING VIDEO~”
[Viewer count: 847,203 and climbing]
“Now, I know what you're thinking. ‘Sparxicle, you're an influencer, not a chef.’ And to that I say: you're absolutely right and I take full offense. Today I'm making Xianzhou-style five-spice braised whatever, and I say "whatever" because I don't have the main ingredient, I don't know what the main ingredient is, and I have specifically refused to look it up on the grounds that it would ruin the creative process~”
NoodleEnjoyer77: sparxie please you're going to poison yourself
FlamingFurbo: THE CREATIVE PROCESS
OhMySparxicle: we support you queen 🔥
SparxieDetective: is that TINFOIL on the COUNTER
“Yes, Watcher Number Four, that IS tinfoil on the counter, and it's there for... reasons. Culinary reasons. Let's begin~”
Sparxie held up a frying pan with the confidence of someone who had never once held a frying pan.
“First things first. Oil. You put oil in the pan. This is the only cooking fact I know with complete certainty, and I'm going to use it as my entire foundation.”
She tipped the bottle. The oil went in. Then kept going. Then really kept going.
“...Is this. Is this too much oil?”
NoodleEnjoyer77: YES
FlamingFurbo: YES
OhMySparxicle: YES
SparxieDetective: SPARXIE THAT IS A SWIMMING POOL
“Okay! Okay, we adjust! We innovate! Actually, you know what, I've been told by a very reliable source— a furbo in my comments, specifically— that more oil means more flavor. This is a fact. I believe it.”
She gestured broadly at the pan, which is now essentially a small oil lake with ambitions.
“Moving on! Next, we add the aromatics. I have: one (1) piece of ginger that has clearly been in the fridge since before I moved here, some garlic that I'm forty percent sure is garlic, and this … thing, that I bought because it was on sale and it looked important.”
SparxieDetective: THAT IS A DECORATIVE PROP
FlamingFurbo: WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THAT
“The lobby of Graphia Academy, actually. There was a whole bowl of them just sitting there and nobody was eating them, so I figured that was a waste. Very sustainable of me. Very eco-conscious. You're welcome, Planarcadia.”
She dropped everything into the oil simultaneously. There is an immediate and catastrophic sizzling sound. She did not flinch. She looked directly into the camera with the flat, serene expression of someone who has long since made peace with chaos.
“Perfect. Just like the culinary schools teach.”
… soon enough, smoke began to rise
OhMySparxicle: THE SMOKE DETECTOR
NoodleEnjoyer77: SPARXIE THE SMOKE DETECTOR IS GOING OFF
FlamingFurbo: WE CAN HEAR IT SPARXIE
“That's just... applause. The kitchen is applauding my technique. You know what, let me call a lifeline~”
She pulled out her phone, calling someone. Three agonizing rings are heard. Then a voice, velvet-smooth and deeply unamused.
“...You have thirty seconds to explain why you're calling me.”
“The Fluffy! Perfect timing! Quick, how do you make Xianzhou five-spice anything—”
“I am not "The Fluffy." I have a name. I have had several names, in fact, and none of them are—”
“Is it the spices? It's the spices, right? How many spices are in five-spice?”
“...Five.”
“FIVE! Amazing! I have—I have this, this, this, this... and a packet of sauce that came with instant noodles six months ago.”
“Disconnect this call.”
“Wait, wait— Fluffy, I have eight hundred thousand people watching—”
“Eight hundred and—okay… you said Xianzhou five-spice braised.”
“Yes!”
“And you have oil, ginger, garlic, something you can't identify, and a condiment packet.”
“Correct.”
“And you're doing this live.”
“Correct!”
A very long pause. The smoke detector was still going
“...I'm sending you a recipe. You will follow it exactly. If I see one deviation, I'm blocking your number.”
“Love you, Fluffy~”
“Don't call me—”
[Click]
FlamingFurbo: THE FLUFFY????
SparxieDetective: WAS THAT TINGYUN
OhMySparxicle: I THOUGHT SHE WAS ON XIANZHOU
NoodleEnjoyer77: sparxie you can't just call people on livestream
“Okay, so the recipe is loading—and it says, first thing: ‘drain the excess oil from the pan.’ This is a great note. This is a wonderful note. I'm going to do this right now and not think too hard about the fact that there's enough oil here to fuel a small spacecraft.”
She attempted to drain the oil. The camera tilted dramatically, as if the moment itself understood the gravity of what was about to go wrong. Several things happened at once. Some of the oil obeyed her intentions, pouring in a smooth, obedient stream toward the sink. Some of it did not. A traitorous rivulet slipped along the lip of the pan, clung there for a suspended second like it was considering its options, and then spilled decisively onto the counter, spreading in a slow, glistening bloom. The rest followed in chaotic solidarity, turning what had been a simple, manageable task into a quietly escalating disaster. Somewhere in the periphery of this disaster sat the decorative purple lobby prop, which she discovered—abruptly, definitively, and with consequences both immediate and irreversible—was extremely flammable.
“OKAY. OKAY. We pivot. Chat, do you know what this is called in professional kitchens? This is called a fond. It's French. It means "the good stuff at the bottom." Everything is fine and extremely intentional~”
SparxieDetective: THAT IS NOT WHAT FOND MEANS
FlamingFurbo: SPARXIE THE PURPLE THING IS ON FIRE
OhMySparxicle: QUEEN IS THRIVING
Sparxie, meanwhile, was genuinely unbothered.
She waved a dish towel vaguely in the direction of the burning purple thing, as if it were less an emergency and more an opinion she had chosen not to engage with.
“So while that’s doing its thing—” she said, in the calm, conversational tone of someone introducing a cooking segment rather than a fire, “let’s talk about WHY I’m making Xianzhou food today. It’s a very important story. A deeply moving story. A story of ambition, hubris, and a forty-credit bet I made with someone who absolutely should have known better.”
She hopped up to sit on the counter, the dish towel still waving in slow, ceremonial arcs, accomplishing nothing except to lend the flames an air of theatrical endorsement.
“I was minding my business— which, yes, sometimes involves being in places where maybe I wasn't strictly invited— and I end up at this food stall in the Dovebrook District? And I'm eating, right, I'm just eating, and this guy next to me— absolute stranger, very tall, very serious energy, probably hasn't smiled since birth—”
Her eyes flicked briefly toward chat, tracking the flood of messages as they arrived.
SparxieDetective: describe him more
NoodleEnjoyer77: is this going to be a whole bit
“He's got the whole, like, scholar-astronomer deal going on, very "I have read more books than you and I want you to know it," and he looks at my bowl and he goes— totally unprompted— ‘You're holding the chopsticks wrong.’”
A pause.
“And I go, ‘Excuse me?’”
A longer pause, heavier with remembered offense.
“And he goes— again, very calm, very devastating— ‘You're holding the chopsticks wrong and the way you're eating that is an offense to the chef and probably to the clouds.’”
FlamingFurbo: TO THE CLOUDS?????
OhMySparxicle: WHO SAYS THAT
SparxieDetective: this is definitely some kind of astrologer
Chat detonated instantly.
“And naturally,” Sparxie said, with the steady dignity of someone about to describe the least dignified decision imaginable, “I, the person with infinite grace and zero impulse control, said: ‘Oh yeah? Then I bet I can make a better dish than this by next week and I’ll do it on my stream.’”
She leaned back slightly, staring at something only she could see.
“And he said, completely without expression, ‘I accept.’”
Her mouth flattened.
“And I said, ‘I wasn’t asking you to accept—’”
She made a small, helpless gesture with one hand.
“And he’d already walked away.”
She stared into the middle distance, dish towel hanging limply from her fingers like a flag at half-mast.
“I don’t know his name,” she admitted. “I don’t know how he’ll know.”
A beat.
“I have a feeling he’ll know.”
Behind her, the decorative purple lobby prop had completed its transformation from active crisis to quiet regret. It was no longer on fire. It was simply ash now, slumped in on itself, the architectural equivalent of embarrassment.
She looked at it.
“Right!” she said brightly. “Cooking! Let’s continue~”
She turned to the recipe, scanning it with confident momentum.
Her face went through approximately nine emotions in four seconds.
Confidence. Confusion. Concern. Denial. Betrayal. Bargaining. Philosophical reflection. Mild indignation. Resolve.
“Okay,” she said carefully, “Fluffy says I need to ‘start over.’”
She nodded once, firmly.
“I think that’s a very defeatist attitude.”
Another nod.
“And I’m choosing to interpret that as ‘build on what we have.’”
She gestured to the stove.
“What we have is: a pan with interesting seasoning already in it, some garlic that may be more conceptual than literal at this point, and a really excellent lesson about decorative objects from Graphia Academy.”
She began opening cabinets with absolute conviction, the kinetic energy of a person who had already committed to success and would simply discover how afterward.
Somewhere, in the distance, the pan made a noise that could generously be described as encouraging.
She leaned against the counter like she’d been doing this all her life.
“Now, traditionally, five-spice braised dishes use pork belly or—” she squinted at the recipe, tilting it slightly as if a different angle would reveal additional, more convenient truths, “—okay, it says pork belly, duck, OR—”
Her eyes brightened.
“—and I love that this is written here, because Fluffy clearly anticipated an emergency— ‘whatever protein is within reasonable reach.’”
She nodded with deep, personal validation.
“The Fluffy knows me so well~”
She turned to the freezer with the air of someone entering a sacred archive and began excavating its deeper, less-documented layers. Things shifted. Containers moved. Something made a noise that suggested it had not been disturbed in months.
Finally, she produced an unmarked container. She held it up. She stared at it.
“…Chat,” she said carefully, “what does this look like to you?”
Messages arrived with the speed and emotional urgency of a disaster response team.
NoodleEnjoyer77: SPARXIE DO NOT EAT THAT
FlamingFurbo: THAT HAS BEEN IN THERE FOR MONTHS
SparxieDetective: I can't identify it from here and I have a DETECTIVE'S EYE
OhMySparxicle: queen trust the process 👑
“Trusting the process!” Sparxie said immediately, as though the decision had been externally validated by forces beyond her control. “That’s my official stance!”
She peeled the lid back slightly.
“I’m going to smell it,” she announced, with the calm authority of a scientist performing a controlled experiment, “and if it smells okay, it’s going on the stove.”
She leaned in. She smelled it.
Her face did something complicated. Not disgust. Not exactly. But something adjacent to historical regret.
“…‘Interesting,’” she said finally.
She nodded once, as if confirming this with herself.
“That’s the word I’m going with. It smells interesting. Very complex flavor profile. Very— layered.”
A pause. She slowly replaced the lid.
“Very much not going in the pan, actually.”
She turned, walked to the trash, and placed the container inside with an air of profound ceremony, like she was returning a fallen hero to the earth.
“This is going directly in the trash,” she said softly. “Goodbye.”
She stood there for a moment longer than necessary, honoring it. Then she clapped her hands once.
“OKAY! New direction!”
She pivoted back to the camera with renewed purpose.
“I have decided that we are making a VEGETARIAN version,” she declared, already halfway to the cabinets. “Because one: it’s healthier. Two: it’s more inclusive. And three:”
She opened the freezer again. Closed it.
“I don’t have meat. This is called adapting. This is called being a world-class content creator who responds to the moment~”
Chat, predictably, was unsympathetic.
FlamingFurbo: there's still a full vegetable market open two floors down
SparxieDetective: ...did you just now realize that
“That is a great point,” Sparxie said graciously. “And I will absolutely address it.”
She opened a cabinet. Something rattled.
“After we finish with what we have!”
Another cabinet. More rattling.
“Creative constraints breed innovation! A famous person said that, probably!”
She emerged holding a package of tofu.
“I have: tofu.”
She held it up like she was presenting a rare artifact.
“Okay, tofu is great. Tofu is great. Tofu is a total protein powerhouse. The lucky diviner literally serves like a divine purpose in Xianzhou culinary tradition, I assume—”
Chat froze.
SparxieDetective: did you just call tofu "the lucky diviner"
NoodleEnjoyer77: SPARXIE TOFU IS NOT A PERSON
“I meant—” she said quickly. “I meant Yao Guang, she uses—okay that came out wrong.”
She pointed decisively at the stove.
“Moving on! Tofu! In the pan! This is happening!”
She added it, and it hit the oil with a quiet, promising hiss.
She froze. Leaned in slightly.
The smell that rose from the pan was warm. Nutty. Real.
Her expression shifted.
“…Oh,” she said.
She sounded, briefly, betrayed.
“Oh, that’s—”
She sniffed again, as if verifying it hadn’t changed while she wasn’t looking.
“That actually smells good?”
Chat erupted.
OhMySparxicle: SPARXIE IS COOKING
FlamingFurbo: ACTUAL COOKING IS OCCURRING
NoodleEnjoyer77: you literally just needed to put food in oil?????
“I want everyone in chat to understand,” Sparxie said, recovering immediately, “that my entire cooking philosophy has been vindicated.”
She stirred with reverent focus.
“Too much oil. That was the secret all along. You heard it here first~”
She straightened, energized.
“Now. The spices.”
She reached for the ingredients with increasing confidence.
“The five spices. I have determined these to be: star anise—”
She held up star anise. Correctly.
“—cinnamon—”
Cinnamon. Also correct.
“—cloves—”
Cloves. Still correct.
“Sichuan pepper—”
She held up regular black pepper. Confidence remained unshaken.
“—and…”
She reached into her pocket, producing the noodle packet condiment from before. She held it up triumphantly.
“Number five!”
Chat immediately entered its bargaining stage.
SparxieDetective: THAT IS NOT A SPICE
FlamingFurbo: SPARXIE THOSE ARE FIVE DIFFERENT THINGS THOSE AREN'T ALL "SPICES"
NoodleEnjoyer77: star anise IS a spice though she got one right celebrate
“Mostly right!” Sparxie said cheerfully. “Mostly right is still passing! My non-existent academic career was built on this exact philosophy!”
And then, without hesitation, without measurement, without fear—
She dumped everything in. All at once.
The spices hit the oil. The air filled with warmth and sharpness and something unexpectedly coherent.
“And NOW~”
She raised a finger dramatically.
“~we add the braising liquid!”
She grabbed the soy sauce.
“Soy sauce— easy.”
She poured, checking the recipe again.
“…Rice wine?”
She opened the fridge, searching. She found … something.
“…I don’t have rice wine,” she said slowly.
She held up a small bottle.
“I have… this.”
Sparkling grape juice. She examined it like it had personally betrayed her.
“I got it at a vending machine,” she explained. “It’s been open since the event where a very fancy businessman tried to hire me to do something I definitely shouldn’t repeat on stream.”
Chat immediately abandoned cooking as a topic.
SparxieDetective: WHAT EVENT
FlamingFurbo: SPARXIE EXPLAIN THE BUSINESS DEAL
OhMySparxicle: 👀👀👀
“A story for another time~”
She punctuated it with finger guns and poured the sparkling grape juice into the pan.
It hissed immediately, sharp and theatrical, steam rising in pale ribbons that curled toward the ceiling like the kitchen itself was trying to understand what she’d just done. The scent that followed was unexpected—not wrong, exactly, but complex in a way that suggested possibility. Soy, sugar, spice, and something bright threaded through it, something that did not belong and yet refused to clash.
She stared at it for a moment, like it had spoken. Then, with careful ceremony, she placed the lid on top.
She turned the heat down, leaning against the counter, folding herself into a posture of deliberate composure, and addressed the camera properly for the first time in the last twenty minutes of escalating improvisation.
“Okay,” she said, clasping her hands together. “So while that braises, let’s do viewer questions! Because I’m a professional, and professional streams have segments.”
She produced a small baton from nowhere. No one questioned this.
She flicked it outward and pointed it at the chat, using it with the crisp authority of someone who had always intended to have one.
“First question,” she announced, tracking the scrolling text with intense academic focus, “from ExistentialFurbo69.”
She cleared her throat.
“‘Sparxie, have you ever considered that your cooking approach mirrors your content strategy, i.e., throw everything at the wall and see what sticks?’”
She paused. Considered this with profound seriousness. Nodded once.
“That is the smartest thing anyone has ever said about me,” she said, with quiet reverence. “And I’m going to act like I planned that connection from the start.”
She straightened slightly.
“Yes. Yes, ExistentialFurbo69. My cooking is a metaphor.”
She gestured to herself with the baton.
“Please write a thesis about me. I’ll provide quotes.”
Chat immediately validated this academic trajectory.
FlamingFurbo: she's so real for that
SparxieDetective: I actually do want to write a thesis now
“Next question,” Sparxie said briskly, already scanning ahead. “From WatchingFromTheShadows44. ‘Sparxie, what’s the deal with you and Sparkle? Asking for a detective friend.’”
She froze for exactly one second. Not long enough to be obvious, but long enough to be undeniable.
“…Haha~”
The laugh was flawless. Polished. Delivered with the exact acoustic profile of someone who had rehearsed it in a mirror.
“‘The deal!’” she repeated brightly. “There’s no ‘deal!’ We’re just two people who happen to exist in the same galaxy and occasionally occupy the same spaces and sometimes share a general aesthetic!”
She gestured broadly, as if gesturing could make it structurally true.
“That’s normal! That happens all the time in Planarcadia! The Mask and the Fool, they say! Isn’t that funny! Haha~”
Chat did not accept this.
SparxieDetective: I clocked it
OhMySparxicle: SPARXIE AND SPARKLE SPARXIE AND SPARKLE
FlamingFurbo: why does she look like she's giving a rehearsed alibi
“Moving on!” Sparxie said immediately, with the speed of someone fleeing a crime scene at conversational velocity. “Next question!”
She pointed decisively at another message.
“GrayGardenHunter asks: ‘Is the sharp-eyed detective actually watching your stream right now?’”
She squinted at the camera.
“First of all,” she said, raising one finger, “how would I know?”
A second finger.
“Second of all: the sharp-eyed detective should be investigating things that are relevant to their cases and not spending their Thursday watching a girl cook.”
A third finger.
She leaned forward.
Very close. Close enough that her eyes filled the frame, sharp and bright and entirely too aware.
“Third of all—”
She lowered her voice.
“—if you ARE watching, Ashveil,” she said softly, “I know nothing about any missing mask and I was never at Graphia Academy and I have witnesses.”
She held the gaze for exactly one second longer than necessary. Then she leaned back. Smiled. And twirled the baton once, like nothing at all had just happened.
SparxieDetective: IS ASHVEIL IN CHAT
FlamingFurbo: WHO IS ASHVEIL
OhMySparxicle: SPARXIE WHY DO YOU HAVE WITNESSES PREPARED
WatchingFromTheShadows44: 👀
Sparxie clapped her hands once, loudly, like a stage magician redirecting attention just before the reveal.
“ANYWAY!” she said brightly. “COOKING!”
She pivoted back to the stove with the crisp, decisive energy of someone abandoning a conversational vehicle at full speed.
“The braise should be ready to check in about—”
She lifted the lid. The pan exhaled. Steam surged upward in a dense, fragrant cloud, enveloping her completely. It hit her face with the force and intimacy of consequence, yet she did not blink.
“—now!” she finished, voice steady inside the fog. “Let’s see how we did!”
The steam thinned, the truth revealing itself.
The tofu was golden at the edges, lacquered in a glaze that caught the light and held it there. The sauce had deepened into a rich amber, thick enough to cling, dark enough to promise. The air smelled warm and layered and undeniably real—soy and spice and sweetness, sharpened by something bright and unfamiliar that had somehow, impossibly, found its place.
The kitchen, against all probability and multiple violations of basic culinary procedure, smelled incredible.
Sparxie stared at it. Chat stared at it.
No one spoke.
NoodleEnjoyer77: …
FlamingFurbo: …
SparxieDetective: …
OhMySparxicle: QUEEN DID THAT
Sparxie didn’t move.
“…Oh,” she said.
The word escaped her before she could curate it. She stepped closer.
“...Oh, I cooked.”
She pointed at the pan. Then at herself. Then at the camera, as if assembling the logical chain in real time.
“I cooked food,” she said. “I made food. With my own hands.”
She gestured weakly at the surrounding environment.
“In this kitchen.”
A beat.
“Where the purple thing was on fire thirty minutes ago.”
Another beat.
“I made food.”
Chat recovered first.
NoodleEnjoyer77: SPARXIE
FlamingFurbo: SPARXIE!!!
SparxieDetective: SHE DID IT
OhMySparxicle: WE'RE CRYING
She stood there a moment longer, absorbing it. Then, visibly, deliberately, she rebuilt herself. Her shoulders straightened. Her posture sharpened. Her expression settled into the familiar architecture of confidence.
“I— Yes,” she said, with calm authority. “Of course. Obviously.”
She gestured vaguely, as though this outcome had always been inevitable.
“I told you. I SAID, at the beginning, I said ‘today we’re making Xianzhou-style five-spice braised whatever,’ and that is EXACTLY what we did.”
She pointed decisively at the pan.
“Whatever. Braised. DONE.”
She reached for her chopsticks—that she held wrong. Spectacularly wrong.
She picked up a piece of tofu and ate it.
Her expression changed—not dramatically, not theatrically, but in a small, uncontrollable way. Her eyes widened just slightly. Her posture softened.
“…Mmm.”
She paused.
“…Mmmmm.”
She took another bite. And another. And another. In the span of four seconds, nearly a third of the pan was gone.
Chat, once again, found its voice.
SparxieDetective: SPARXIE
FlamingFurbo: SPARXIE THAT'S THE WHOLE DISH
NoodleEnjoyer77: she's not even talking she's just eating
OhMySparxicle: I've never been more proud of anything
She froze mid-bite, suddenly aware of herself again, lowering the chopsticks slowly. She placed them down with immense dignity, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand in a gesture that completely undermined that dignity.
She nodded once, as if preparing to deliver an official statement.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She raised one finger.
“Here’s my official review.”
Another finger.
“Five out of five.”
A third.
“Hall of fame.”
A fourth.
“One of the top five things that has ever happened to me.”
She gestured toward the pan.
“The sparkling grape juice was a revelation. I will be submitting it to the Culinary Institute of Planarcadia as an alternative to rice wine.”
She nodded firmly.
“The noodle packet seasoning? Inspired.”
A beat.
“The decorative lobby prop? In retrospect, unnecessary.”
She placed a hand over her heart.
“But it added a frisson to the experience that money cannot buy.”
Chat immediately seized on this.
FlamingFurbo: A FRISSON
SparxieDetective: where did she learn that word
NoodleEnjoyer77: sparxie was the prop on fire when you were cooking
“It was giving ambiance!” Sparxie insisted. “All great restaurants have ambiance!”
She gestured expansively, nearly knocking over the baton.
“You try getting a reservation at Fatal Joke with LESS than two things on fire, I dare you.”
Her communicator buzzed. It wasn’t loud—it didn’t need to be.
She glanced down at it, and her face did the thing. The exact same thing it had done when Sparkle’s name came up earlier—not panic, not surprise, not guilt. Nothing. A perfect, deliberate absence of reaction. A neutral expression so carefully constructed it became its own kind of alarm.
She looked back up at the camera, smiling.
“To camera,” she said smoothly, “one second~”
She stepped just barely out of frame, but not far enough. The microphone, loyal and indiscriminate, carried everything.
“Hushed,” she answered, voice low. “Yes?”
A pause.
“…No, I know what time it is.”
Another pause.
“…I wasn’t— it’s not a scheme, it’s a cooking stream, it’s completely—”
She stopped. Listened. Her tone shifted, not defensive, but strained with the effort of remaining reasonable.
“…I know the esteemed wolf is investigating. I KNOW. But I wasn’t—”
She exhaled, quiet and sharp.
“Look,” she said, carefully, “if the Mask of Elation shows up in my tofu braising liquid, I think we can all agree that’s just a coincidence and—”
A longer pause.
“…OKAY.”
Resigned.
“Okay, I’ll— yes. Fine. Goodbye.”
Silence. Then her footsteps returned.
She stepped back into frame, still smiling. Blindingly. Radiantly. Completely untouched.
SparxieDetective: THE ESTEEMED WOLF
FlamingFurbo: SILVER WOLF IS INVESTIGATING YOU?????
OhMySparxicle: SPARXIE WHAT IS IN THE BRAISING LIQUID
NoodleEnjoyer77: THE MASK OF ELATION????
“So!” Sparxie announced brightly, clapping her hands together once. “In CONCLUSION~!”
She beamed at them.
“Today we learned several very important things.”
She raised one finger.
“One: cooking is actually possible with minimal preparation and maximum confidence.”
Second finger.
“Two: sparkling grape juice pairs excellently with star anise.”
Third finger.
“Three: items from Graphia Academy’s lobby are extremely flammable.”
She raised a fourth finger.
She held it there.
Her expression softened—not weaker, not uncertain, but real in a way that felt almost accidental.
“And four,” she said, gently, “and this one is important, please write this down—”
She tapped the air once, like punctuating the shape of the idea.
“There are always more solutions than problems.”
She glanced back at the pan.
At the impossible, golden, miraculous thing she had made out of stubbornness and accident and refusal to quit.
“This dish should not have worked,” she said. “This dish had no right to be this good.”
She looked back at the camera.
“And yet.”
She smiled.
“And yet, here we are.”
She gestured to herself, grand and theatrical again, but something sincere lingered underneath it.
“Here I am! Two million followers and counting, a genuinely delicious pan of braised tofu, and zero—zero confirmed connections to any ongoing Phantasmoon Games investigations! None! It’s your one and only, super-duper favorite Sparxicle~ And if a very serious, very pointy-eared woman with some kind of portable game console asks you if you’ve seen me—”
She winked.
“Tell her the stream was pre-recorded.”
SparxieDetective: THE ESTEEMED WOLF IS NOT POINTY EARED
FlamingFurbo: I MEAN SHE KIND OF IS
NoodleEnjoyer77: sparxie is this show a cry for help
OhMySparxicle: THIS IS THE BEST STREAM SHE HAS EVER DONE
“Oh! And before I forget~ there IS one more thing I wanted to address! A certain someone— tall, serious, absolutely insufferable, possibly from Xianzhou judging by the way he looked at my chopstick grip like I had personally offended three generations of his ancestors— made a bet with me. And to that certain someone, wherever you're watching from—
She reached behind her, lifting the pan. Held it toward the camera.
The image filled with gold.
The tofu gleamed in the soft kitchen light, lacquered in amber glaze, steam still rising in thin, graceful threads. It looked impossible. It looked like something made by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
“I believe the phrase is—”
She tilted her head.
“Your move.”
She set the pan down with care, like it mattered.
She stretched, arms overhead, spine arching, the motion loose and unguarded. The exhaustion showed through—not weakness, but completion. The specific, profound tiredness of someone who had crossed a finish line they hadn’t been entirely sure existed.
“Alright~ That's a wrap on today's episode of "Sparxicle Does Things She Has No Business Doing!" If you liked this, smash that follow, share with everyone you love, share with everyone you hate, send it to the cosmic traveler— you know who I mean, the one drifting around on that Express collecting destinies like trading cards— honestly, she'd appreciate the chaos.”
FlamingFurbo: THE COSMIC TRAVELER HAS ENOUGH CHAOS IN HER LIFE
SparxieDetective: are you talking about the Trailblazer
OhMySparxicle: SPARXIE KNOWS THE TRAILBLAZER???
“I know a lot of people! I’m very popular! That’s the whole thing! That’s the entire premise!”
She laughed, and it rang true—mostly. Her eyes flicked off-camera for just a second, and something slipped—not the smile, not the performance, but something underneath it, something quieter. She looked at the pan, then back at the camera, and for half a heartbeat she seemed like she might say something real, something uncurated, something that belonged to her and not to Sparxie. Then it was gone.
The grin returned, full wattage, brilliant and flawless—the Sparxie smile that cost one million five hundred thousand credits and was worth every single one.
"Stay with your streamer, 'kay~? ❤"
OhMySparxicle: ALWAYS 🔥
FlamingFurbo: ALWAYS 💖
NoodleEnjoyer77: I came here for cooking I didn't expect to feel things
SparxieDetective: follow count is shooting up in the last hour
SparxieDetective: at this rate she'll hit ten million before the games end
SparxieDetective: ...did she plan this
SparxieDetective: she planned this didn't she
The stream cut. The end card appeared:
Sparxie’s Kitchen — Next episode TBA
“The one where I try to make Penacony desserts and definitely don’t have any help from some random guy.”
The smoke detector, having exhausted its capacity for protest, was finally silent.
Elsewhere—
In Dovebrook District, at a narrow food stall tucked between brighter, louder places, a tall man sat alone at a small table.
His meal had long since gone untouched. The screen in front of him had just gone dark. He did not move for a while. His chopsticks rested in his hand, perfectly aligned, perfectly controlled.
Dan Heng couldn’t believe the noodle packet had actually worked.
[Stream analytics report, filed at 22:11:]
Peak concurrent viewers: 1,271,948.
Follower gain this session: 45,334.
Cumulative total: 2,501,927.
Progress to ten million: 20%.
"Sparxie's Kitchen" livestream generated 1,271,948 concurrent viewers at peak, resulting in a follow spike of 45,334+ in under two hours. Comment section highlights include 4,200 variations of "she planned the fire," 891 academic-style analyses of the sparkling-grape-juice-as-braising-liquid substitution, and one remarkably detailed seventeen-paragraph breakdown from user "SparxieDetective" arguing that the entire cooking stream was, quote, "a calculated alibi constructed in real time."
No comment.
Braised tofu status: reportedly excellent.