Zoey was still searching.
Messages climbed past one another on the monitor faster than she could properly read them. Normally that wasn't a problem. She could catch half a sentence, turn it into a conversation, lose the original subject somewhere along the way and somehow keep going anyway.
Tonight, every message seemed to reach her brain and leave again without bringing an idea with it.
Her water bottle rested between both hands. She rolled it once against her palms, watching another cluster of messages disappear toward the top of the chat window.
Beside her, Layla remained standing.
"We can do as you wish. It's your stream."
Her voice was quiet, but there was no hesitation in the answer. Layla didn't turn toward the camera or shift her weight after speaking. She simply remained upright beside Zoey's chair, hands at rest, apparently prepared to wait until Zoey decided what came next.
That somehow made deciding feel considerably harder.
CHAT:
she's so composed it's actually frightening
just standing there like a beautiful statue of judgment
zoey is LITERALLY being held hostage by politeness
she said 'your move'
Zoey swallowed.
She lowered the water bottle to the table and pressed both hands flat against her thighs. Her fingers stayed there for several seconds, held deliberately still against the soft fabric of her sweatpants while she stared at the monitor.
She needed something that could turn twenty empty minutes into an actual livestream again. The chat kept moving while she searched, questions and jokes passing through the column faster than she could settle on any of them. Then another question appeared, and this time Zoey's attention stayed with it.
That could work. Probably.
"O-okay then! Uh... chat? Any... questions? For Layla? About skincare? Or...um...existence?"
The last word came out after a brief search for something else to put there. Zoey pulled her mouth into a smile for the camera, wide enough that maintaining it quickly became an effort.
At least she'd found something to do.
The reaction from chat was immediate.
CHAT:
ZOOM IN ON HER FACE RN
she's not blinking I'M WORRIED
layla's aura is giving final boss tutorial level
Beside her, Layla finally moved.
She turned her head toward Zoey, the motion accompanied by a slight tilt.
"Is it a Q&A? May I sit?"
The two questions came with exactly the same seriousness as everything else Layla had asked that evening. She made no move toward the empty chair before receiving an answer.
Zoey stared at her.
It took that simple request for something painfully obvious to finally catch up with her.
Layla had been standing since the stream started.
Through the introductions, the products, the application, all of it. There had been an empty chair within reach the entire time, and at no point had Zoey actually offered it to her guest.
A fresh wave of heat climbed into her face, and this time it had very little to do with Layla being beautiful or standing too close.
She was the host.
Zoey's eyes flicked toward the empty chair, and irritation turned sharply inward. How had she not noticed? She'd been so busy stumbling over products, losing track of her own sentences and reacting to every little thing that she'd somehow forgotten one of the most basic courtesies she could have offered someone she'd invited onto her stream.
Her viewers thinking she was a disaster didn't matter. That reputation had survived far worse than this, and her chat had been documenting the evidence all evening anyway.
Layla was different.
Zoey didn't want her leaving tonight thinking she'd been invited over only to spend the entire stream standing beside someone who couldn't even remember to offer her a chair.
CHAT:
SHE ASKED???
the power of her manners is terrifying
she's been standing like a painting for 5 minutes AND ASKED TO SIT???
ZOEY SHE'S BEEN STANDING THIS WHOLE TIME GIVE HER THE DAMN CHAIR 😭
"YES! yes! Oh my god yes please sit you've been standing l-like some kind of marble sculpture! A really pretty one! I mean- not that I've been staring! Just- please sit! Please!"
Zoey's foot was already moving before she finished. She hooked it against the leg of the empty chair beside her and shoved it backward in Layla's direction.
The chair rolled farther than she'd intended.
Zoey grabbed the edge of her desk as the movement pulled her sideways in her own seat, one foot leaving the floor before she caught herself.
[VIP] hannaH: SHE KICKED A CHAIR AT HER LIKE 'YOUR THRONE, MY LADY'
Zoey's face tightened.
Layla simply stepped to the chair.
She lowered herself into it without hurry, gathering the black fabric of her dress naturally with the movement before it settled around her legs. Once seated, she placed both hands neatly in her lap.
Then she waited.
At least they were both sitting now.
With the immediate problem solved, however, Zoey became painfully aware of how she'd solved it.
Somewhere between realizing she'd left her guest standing and desperately trying to fix it, she'd apparently become comfortable enough to kick a chair across the floor at Layla like they were old friends hanging out in her room. The intention had been good. The execution had involved a rolling chair, one foot leaving the floor and Hannah publicly announcing the arrival of Layla's throne.
Zoey looked down at herself. One hand was still gripping the edge of the desk from catching her balance, her oversized hoodie had bunched around her waist, and she'd sunk back into her chair with all the grace of someone who had narrowly survived an encounter with her own furniture.
Beside her, Layla sat with the black fabric of her dress settled neatly around her legs and both hands resting in her lap.
Zoey suddenly felt very aware of the difference.
She'd wanted to make a good impression tonight. Somehow, she'd gotten comfortable enough around Layla to forget that goal for several minutes, only to remember it immediately after kicking a chair at her.
For the first time, Layla's attention shifted fully toward the chat window.
Messages continued climbing along the side of the monitor, disappearing almost as quickly as new ones replaced them. Her gaze followed the movement for a few seconds.
"Do we take turns reading?"
Zoey flinched and immediately lifted both hands.
"Oh! no no no, don't worry! You don't have to read anything...uh, the donations get read out loud by a voice thingy...text-to-speech. Like, automatic lady voice. She kind of yells sometimes but it's helpful, really."
Her hands made a frantic circle between the monitor and the speakers, as though the motion might somehow explain the system better than she had.
Then they slowly lowered.
Zoey glanced toward the corner of the monitor where her alerts appeared.
"...She's betrayed me in the past, but not today."
CHAT:
THE VOICE LADY RETURNS
text-to-scream
unpredictability entered the room
Lot of trust in her viewers
Zoey read that last message and narrowed her eyes at the screen.
Before she could defend herself, a bright electronic chime cut through the room.
Her shoulders jumped.
The alert appeared over the stream, and the artificial voice attached to Zoey's donation system followed immediately after it, crisp and considerably louder than either woman had been speaking.
TTS ALERT:
"Donation from GreedycheeTos. Question: Is Layla's look fully natural or styled? Either way, stunning."
Any hope that her viewers might behave themselves lasted approximately until the end of the first question.
She glanced at Layla before remembering the final message in chat and very deliberately returning her attention to the monitor.
CHAT:
oh we're STARTING with that one
y'all really opened with god mode
question one and zoey's already vibrating again
DO NOT STARE AT HER ZOEY I SWEAR
Beside her, Layla showed none of the same alarm.
She turned slightly toward the microphone, considering the question with a small tilt of her head.
"My look? Do you mean my clothes? I think they are... seventy percent synthetic."
Her gaze lowered to her dress.
There was no smile waiting behind the answer and no change in her voice to suggest a joke. Layla looked over the black fabric covering her lap with genuine consideration, as though checking whether seventy percent had been an accurate enough estimate.
Zoey stared at her.
CHAT:
OH MY GOD 💀💀💀
she said 'i am made of polyester and mystery'
was it the question ?
A sound escaped Zoey somewhere between a wheeze and a laugh. She bent forward, shoulders shaking, and reached for the microphone as though getting closer to it might somehow restore order.
"I think they meant your, like...your whole look. Your... vibe. The white hair, the eyes, the ethereal thing. Y'know. The part that makes people assume you are an ancient vampire queen..."
The sentence grew quieter toward the end. Zoey's gaze had already wandered away from Layla by the time she reached "vampire queen," suddenly finding the monitor much easier to look at. She pressed her lips together as the last word escaped, but there was no taking it back now. The description had come out far too quickly, and with considerably more detail than someone merely clarifying another person's question probably needed.
Heat crept higher across her cheeks. Zoey adjusted her grip on the microphone and tried to arrange her face into something casual, as though ancient vampire queens were an entirely normal comparison that could have occurred to absolutely anyone.
Layla sat quietly beside her.
Her gaze remained on Zoey while she appeared to consider the clarification. Then she turned her head toward the camera again.
"Oh. That's not styled."
Zoey's laughter stopped. She waited, expecting something to follow, but nothing did. Layla simply sat there with the same unreadable expression, and Zoey began to wonder whether that was really all the answer they were going to get.
CHAT:
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT'S NOT STYLED
she dropped that like she wasn't summoning a thousand theories
LAYLA LORE JUST DROPPED
chat is going full conspiracy board rn
Layla remained seated with her hands in her lap. The sudden acceleration in chat didn't appear to change anything for her.
"It's due to a medical condition. I am albino. That is also why I came with a parasol and gloves."
The explanation landed with the same plain seriousness as her answer about the fabric of her dress.
Zoey's expression changed immediately. Her eyebrows rose, but she kept quiet, giving Layla room to finish.
Layla was silent for a moment before adding:
"For those who can't see, it's like the white monkey you sometimes see in animal documentaries."
Zoey's mouth fell open.
The chat stalled only long enough for the comparison to register before messages began pouring through the window again.
CHAT:
HELLO??????????
NOT THE MONKEY COMPARISON
she really just said that like it was nothing
I'm LAUGHING and CRYING
Layla remained exactly as she had been when she started explaining, hands resting quietly in her lap.
Zoey, meanwhile, looked as though language had abandoned her again.
"I...I...WHAT DO YOU EVEN SAY TO THAT??"
She pushed against the floor with one foot and sent her chair through a complete rotation.
The desk, camera and Layla swept around the edges of her vision before the monitor returned in front of her. Zoey planted both feet on the floor to stop herself, vivid orange-red hair still shifting around her shoulders from the turn.
Layla watched her finish the rotation.
She said nothing.
CHAT:
someone protect her from her own metaphors
layla has the most unhinged explanations
zoey is trying to file an emotional bug report rn
Zoey remained facing the monitor, one hand gripping the edge of her chair.
Somehow, letting chat ask the questions had been the solution she'd come up with but she quickly understood that this did not mean she had made her life easier.