Hana "Cherry" Chen's Arc

Chapter 10 of 14

Hana opens the next decoration menu and sees two pet slots unlock. Chat starts spamming names before she even reads the requirements. Both teams need a cat. She scans the submitted usernames and finds two that mention cats: marshmallowcake-butter67 for the good team and rudezoeyrules2017 for the bad team. She builds a cottage with a moss-covered roof and splits it down the middle. The hero side gets warm windows and flower boxes. The villain side gets shadowy corners and twisted vines. She places a pink heart-shaped cat bed on the hero lawn and a black skull-shaped bed on the villain side. Chat immediately starts fighting about which cat would win in a real fight. Hana tries to place a statue of both cats meeting in the middle, but the calico looks too sweet and the black cat looks too angry. The image shows them mid-battle, claws out, teeth bared. She hovers over the placement button and hesitates. Donations flood in demanding she change the statue to something friendlier. Chat splits again — some want the cats to be enemies, others want them to be secret friends. Hana reads a comment asking if she'll ever say no to chat's ideas. She realizes she hasn't actually rejected a vote yet, only locked things in place after the damage was done. The statue still sits unplaced in her hand. She could spin the wheel again and let chat pick something softer. She could build a neutral meeting point that doesn't look like war. Hana places the battle statue directly between both cat beds and locks it immediately. Chat explodes with celebration and outrage in equal measure. She tells them this is what they voted for — rival cats mean rival everything. Two subscribers leave. Five new ones join. Hana stares at the split cottage and the fighting cats and knows she just chose conflict over compromise for the first time on purpose. She didn't wait for chat to push her into it. She made the call herself.