Chapter 45: Chapter 45
The money did indeed drop into his bank account and thank god for it. Owen thought he was going to be living paycheck to paycheck. His savings were officially blown so there was nothing else to lean on. His existence now depended on work and work alone. Overtime was going to be necessary.
Since it was Saturday. That meant he could kick back and relax. Usually, he would be taking Isabella for a picnic but they fulfilled their weekly health quota yesterday at the mall. Owen lay in the living room couching, eyes closed and vaguely listening to the show Ophelia put on. It was an action-romance Turkish show. Great stuff. He liked the accuracy of the gunshots a lot. Very realistic.
Due to his injury, Isabella was in charge of all cooking-related matters. He could hear her prancing around and waiting diligently for the frozen pizza to warm up. In the meantime, Owen tugged at the white bandages on his wrist. When he showed Masafumi the wrist injury he received from the amusement park ghost, he was shocked and handed him a roll of white bandages.
"These are ofuda papers that I've turned into bandages for you," Masafumi had said. "It's a special paper medium from my hometown that can hold the properties of a kanji symbol. For example, if you write fireball, then that is what will appear when you activate it."
"How the hell hasn't ANY government discovered this?" Owen remembered asking, puzzled as he was handed the roll of bandages.
"Because you need to be born with the talent to use your inner energy and that talent is super rare, even in my hometown. Back in the old days, it was more common. These days though, it's probably one in a billion."
To put a long story short, the main property of the bandages was to soak up magical/spiritual energy and then divert it back into the flesh. Owen's own spiritual energy was essentially healing his wound—or so Masafumi claimed. It all depended on how strong he was. For Masafumi, curses and soul-inflicting injuries such as the one he experienced took a week or two to heal. For Owen, it was anyone's guess.
"Don't worry, willpower plays a part in it too. You, my friend, possess willpower unlike anything I've seen before. That is we are best friends!"
"Right..."
Owen still couldn't believe that ghosts and the supernatural existed. What a weird world it was.
"Dinner is ready," Isabella said. With that, Ophelia bounced off the couch.
Owen took a little time as he adjusted his bandages. Afterward, he joined them at the table.
"Huh."
"Hm."
Owen and Ophelia traded looks. The dinner Isabella set up consisted of pizza and garlic bread. Clearly, she put a lot of effort…into warming everything up.
"Which store?" they asked simultaneously.
"...the convenience store from across the street," Isabella answered, almost guilty. Quietly, she handed them both a five dollar bill. "You were right, I can't cook for shit."
"Heh." Ophelia smoothened the bill out. "I'm gonna buy poptarts with this money."
'I think I'll just save up.'
"Can I use your money for poptarts, Owen?"
He handed it over. "Sure."
"I'll share!"
After some smiles and laughter, they got to eating. The pizza was warmed to perfection. Well done. Because of his wrist, Ophelia fed him. "Open wide!"
He closed his mouth and chewed. The second bite was better than the last. He gave an appreciative nod at Isabella, then Ophelia. 'Princess treatment rules.'
"By the way, I'm surprised we got accepted so fast," Owen said. "For the monetization program, I mean. I thought that would take at least a couple minutes.
"That. Yeah, I talked to someone about it," Isabella said.
"Oh?"
"I'm in a Discord," Isabella explained, "with some other up and coming WuTubers. One of them helped me out."
"You're making friends?" Owen smiled. "That's wonderful."
"Talk about back-handed praise…"
"Sorry, sorry. But I mean…you know…good job!" He would have thrown a thumbs-up but it wasn't possible due to his bandaged wrists.
Without having to say anything, Isabella said, "Her name is Maki. She's a VTuber that does theory videos like me. Our content is pretty similar, although she's split between SNaF and actual gameplay videos."
"Oooh, nice."
"She's from LA too so she knows a few folks. She hasn't broken through but someday she will. She's been at this way longer than you or I have. She's had over a dozen accounts in the past ten years."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. She said one time she tried to be a Triverr-focused channel and ended up wasting two thousand dollars in two months."
Triverr, an online marketplace website for services. For example, a person could hire a video editor or a voice actor from there. Owen had in fact hired someone from Triverr to make his channel banner and icon. It was one of the reasons for his frustrations; the quality of everything he did was decently high (in accordance to his budget), so why did he never get viewers?
"She got a decent chunk of money from it," Isabella continued, "but shut it down last year when she got decently big on VTubing."
VTubers…he was familiar with them, although most of his knowledge was limited to clips and the big names. It wasn't an industry he was particularly interested in despite the broad connection to anime. There was just something about it that made it too intense for his liking. But if Isabella planned to ever dabble in it, then he was all ears.
"How many subs?"
"Eighty thousand."
"Sheesh. How many do you have?"
"I'm almost at eighteen thousand. Theory videos tend to be one and done for a lot of people."
"Right, they watch the video, fulfill their curiosity, and click off."
"Mhm, mhm."
"So is it just Maki you're close with?" Owen asked.
"Ah, well, Maki has a circle of friends that I'm kinda getting close to. Her closest friend is Laya and we're both pretty chill with each other. So…yeah. I hop into voice chats when | can though. I only recently joined so obviously I'm not best friends with them."
Owen's smile couldn't be prouder.
Meanwhile, Ophelia chewed on her pizza slice and asked, "What's a VTuber?"
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