Monday came the way Mondays always did.
Heavy.
I was at the studio by 9 AM. Not a big office. Eight designers, two project managers, one creative director named Brian who drank too much espresso and talked too fast and was somehow always right about everything.
We worked with brands, content creators, streaming platforms, small media companies, the occasional corporate client who wanted something that didn't look corporate.
It was good work. Consistent work.
I had my earbuds in and was halfway through a brand refresh for a fitness app when Brian knocked twice on the glass partition and pointed at the conference room.
"Five minutes," he said. "Bring a notebook."
Three of us filed in. Me, Jade who handled most of the social media branding projects, and Kuro who was the best motion designer in the building and knew it.
Brian closed the door and pulled up his laptop.
"New client came in this morning," he said. "Big one. And when I say big I want you to understand I mean the kind of big that changes our portfolio permanently.
The kind of client that other clients see on our roster and suddenly stop negotiating rates."
Jade leaned forward. "Who is it?"
"Content creator & Streamer.
"She's new but I'll tell you...."
"Her platform numbers are significant. Over a million subscribers, brand deal history with three major companies, merchandise line, the works."
Brian turned the laptop around briefly to show a revenue summary sheet then turned it back before any of us could read the name at the top.
"We have been sending her team outreach emails for eight months. Standard stuff. No response."
"So what changed," Kuro said.
"She reached out to us." Brian said it simply.
Like he still wasn't entirely sure it had happened.
"Directly. Bypassed her management, went around her agency contact and emailed me personally on Friday night."
The room was quiet for a second.
"She wants a full brand overhaul," he continued.
"New visual identity package. Logo refresh, color system, typography guidelines, streaming overlay suite, merchandise design templates, social media asset library. The full scope.
She wants everything rebuilt from the ground up with a cohesive creative direction." He paused.
"She also sent a specific request in the email."
He looked at me.
I stopped writing.
"She asked for you by name, Ethan."
Jade turned to look at me. Kuro raised an eyebrow.
"She mentioned your portfolio specifically," Brian said.
"Said your aesthetic sensibility was aligned with her brand direction. Her words.
" He closed the laptop.
"I am not going to pretend I know how she found your portfolio or why she chose you but the client has made a request and we are not in the business of turning down requests from clients like this."
I put my pen down slowly.
"Did you send her my portfolio in any of the outreach emails?"
"No. The outreach emails were generic agency pitches. Your name was not in any of them."
The room was quiet again.
She had found my portfolio herself. Which meant she had searched for me. Which meant at some point between Friday night and Monday morning someone had looked up Ethan Cruxs and gone deep enough into the results to find my professional work and form an opinion about it.
Friday night.
The same night Lumi had gone live and said things directly at the camera that made my spine go cold.
"Ethan." Brian was looking at me. "You with me?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Sorry. What's the next step?"
"She cannot do public meetings. Privacy reasons, her management's terms, standard stuff for high profile creators. You will need to go to her."
He slid a folder across the table.
"Initial creative brief is in there, NDA for you to sign before you review it, and the standard client onboarding contract for her to countersign. She wants to discuss creative direction in person before we lock the scope of work."
I opened the folder.
A printed sheet on top. The standard agency onboarding document we used for all new clients. Company name field, contact name field, address field.
The company name field said: Halo stream co.
The contact name field said: Raina Takahashi.
The address said: 14 Opalvine Court, Northridge Hills.
I did not recognize the name. Raina Takahashi. It meant nothing to me. I had never heard it before.
"Streamer," I said. "What platform?"
"Multiple. Her primary is a live streaming platform but she has presence across four channels."
Brian stood up.
"I'll send you the brief overview before you head out. She's expecting you by 2 PM."
The cab dropped me on a wide residential street that was too quiet for its own good.
Northridge Hills was the kind of neighborhood that did not advertise itself.
No gates, no obvious security, just wide streets and large properties set back from the road behind mature trees and careful landscaping.
The houses here were screaming luxury. They were simply built in a way that made it clear money had never been a question.
14 Opalvine Court was at the end of a curved private driveway.
I stopped at the bottom and looked at it for a moment.
Pink.
Not aggressively. Not the pink of a child's bedroom.
It was a soft, deliberate blush tone on the exterior walls, the kind that looked almost white in certain light and unmistakably intentional in others.
The architecture was clean and modern. Floor to ceiling windows on the upper level. A front garden that was immaculate without looking maintained, the kind of result that costs serious money to make look effortless.
It was beautiful, very beautiful and eye catching.
I walked up the driveway with the folder under my arm.
The front door was matte white with a brushed gold handle.
I rang the bell.
A woman opened it.
Not who I was expecting. Older, professional, the kind of assistant who has been doing this job long enough to have no expression when she opens doors for people.
"Mr. Cruxs," she said.
"Yeah."
"Please come in."
The inside was cool. Climate controlled. The floors were a pale stone tile that clicked softly under my shoes. The walls were white but the art on them was not subtle.
I stopped walking.
The wall to my left ran the full length of the entrance hallway and every piece on it was Lumi♡Live.
Large format prints. Some were illustrated, the avatar in different poses, different outfits, the pastel palette rendered beautifully at scale.
Some were what looked like limited edition merchandise art, signed in the corner.
One was a full canvas print of the logo, the heart shape rendered in soft neon pink against a deep background.
At the far end of the hallway a framed photograph, the only photograph on the entire wall, showed a real woman standing with her back to camera looking at a monitor.
On the monitor was Lumi's avatar mid-stream. The woman's posture was straight. Controlled. Her hair was dark.
I could not see her face.
So this was a Lumi fan.
A serious one. The kind with money and access.
Some fans made it far, became moderators, became unofficial community managers, built careers adjacent to the creators they followed.
This must have been one of those.
A wealthy fan with enough industry connections to have a production company attached to her name and a legitimate reason to hire a design agency.
It made sense.
I relaxed slightly.
The assistant led me through the hallway into a sitting room that faced the back garden.
More Lumi art here, smaller pieces, a shelf with merchandise I recognized from the official store.
A limited edition figure still in its box.
Several enamel pins in a framed display case.
"Ms. Takahashi will be with you shortly," the assistant said.
"Can I get you anything."
"Water's fine. Thank you."
She left.
I sat down and opened the folder across my knees and went back through the brief.
Halo stream co. Full brand identity system. Visual overhaul. The client maintains full creative approval across all deliverables. Standard language. Nothing unusual.
I picked up the client overview sheet.
At the bottom, in small print under the heading Client Background, was a single line I had missed in the conference room.
Primary platform handle: Lumi♡Live.
The folder slid off my knees.
I caught it before it hit the floor.
I sat there holding it with both hands and stared at the wall in front of me.
The Lumi merchandise on the shelf. The prints in the hallway. The figure in its box.
Not a fan.
The creator.
Lumi♡Live lived here.
And she had asked for me by name.
From the hallway behind me came the soft sound of footsteps. Unhurried. Deliberate. The click of heels on stone tile getting closer.
I did not turn around immediately.
I straightened the folder. Squared the papers. Put my pen in my hand.
Then I stood up and turned.
She was standing in the doorway.