Why he does it.

Once Alice stopped laughing, she walked up to me and hugged me, burying her face in my chest while still giggling.

“I love you so much,” she said.

I hugged her back and kissed the top of her head. “You okay?”

“I am now.”

“I got you your chicken sandwich,” I told her.

She looked up at me. “And just when I thought I couldn’t love you more.” She straightened up and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Come on, let’s go.” She held my hand and we went down to the kitchen together.

“What happened up there?” Mila asked. “Did you stay there fooling around? We’re all hungry, you know.”

“Yeah, you can fondle tits AFTER we eat, Oliver,” Grace said.

“No, sorry, it’s my fault,” Alice said, going over to the counter. “My dad called. He kept… insisting I go to another university.”

“Oh.” Mila’s face fell. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s fine. Sorry to keep you all waiting. So, do we move things to the table, then?”

“Actually, we were wondering if we should eat here or in the living room,” Noelle said. “We could watch a movie while we eat.”

“Or watch funny dog compilations,” Mila said.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate that I love those? It’s almost unfair,” Sarah said. “Show me a thumbnail with a dog or a cat and I always end up clicking.”

“...”

A unfair, huh? A thumbnail with a cat to get those views…

…

Dammit. And here I had almost put it past me.

And in another example of this mental connection being annoying at times, all it took was for me to remember that exchange at the mall for my mood to fall and for the girls to immediately turn their heads to me.

“What the hell happened?” Sarah asked. “Did I say something?”

“You were super happy just a moment ago,” Noelle said.

“Did something happen while on your date with Fern?” Diana asked.

I grumbled and shook my head, mostly to shake off the sourness. Really, I can’t let that stupid interaction ruin my mood, especially when, like Noelle said, I was just feeling really happy.

“Something stupid,” I said. “Come on, let’s eat in the living room. I’ll tell you there.”

We moved the food, the plates and the drinks to the living room, right next to (or below in the house plans) the kitchen. The smell still seemed too stimulating for poor Red, at least until Diana served him his dinner right next to where I served Cake hers.

We left everything on the big, octagonal coffee table and sat down. With the three couches around the table, we could fit around 9 to 12 people comfortably, and yet we were 7. There was space to spare. I sat on the couch across from the TV with Alice to my right and Noelle to my left. Mila and Sarah sat on the couch to my right and Diana and Grace on the couch to my right. The table, thankfully, was big enough to fit everything without it getting too cluttered. Actually, I’m going to thank Grace’s foresight for this one.

As Mila browsed through the home page of the streaming app to look for a movie to watch, Alice nudged me with her shoulder. “Alright, spill it. What happened?”

“Nothing too bad. Just… something that got to me more than it should, and that’s nothing new. Also, nothing to do with Fern.” I unwrapped my hamburger and crushed the paper into a ball with a single hand, clicking my tongue. “We stopped to listen to two girls playing music in the mall. They were playing anime songs with a keyboard and a violin. They were really good and they were recording, so when they were done, we approached them because Fern wanted to know if they had a channel.” I sighed. “They did, but it turns out they knew me from mine, and it seems they don’t like me. They said I only got the views I had because I used a cat in the videos to fish for them.”

“Which is true,” Sarah said bluntly, earning her an elbow to the side from Mila. “But it is!”

I chuckled. “Yeah, it is. It was Isabelle’s idea, and I went along with it. And it’s true the videos that don’t have Cake in them have lower viewership. It just… shocked me at that moment. Remember how I felt an immediate connection with Diana and Fern, and how I felt immediate distaste for some strangers that I only met once? Well, there was nothing like that from these girls, so for them to… hate me for the way we do our videos caught me off-guard. And I guess… part of me wanted to believe my music could stand on its own.”

“I… I do think having Cake there has inflated your numbers a bit,” Noelle said. “You’re overlapping with the people searching for funny cat videos, after all. That’s like… at least 80% of the internet.” I nodded silently, but Noelle continued. “But remember why you started in the first place. Was it for fame? For money?”

“...” I chuckled. “No.”

I just wanted… to share. There comes a point in most artists’ lives where you wonder if others would like what you do. We try to tell ourselves it’s fine if nobody else does, because in the end we do it for ourselves, but… I realized during the school festival that I wasn’t content with just that.

“I want to make people happy,” I said. “I’d like my music to make people feel something. Something positive.”

“I think you and Cake already achieve that,” Mila said. “A lot of people love your videos.”

“I don’t think it’s bad to want more, though,” Diana said. “You got your start. Maybe it’s time to move on to the next level?”

“Like what, dropping Cake from the videos?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, that’d feel wrong,” Mila said.

“Maybe… Maybe it’s time to make a second channel?” Noelle suggested.

“Wait, you can do that?” Alice asked.

“Of course. Why couldn’t you?” Grace asked her.

“I don’t know. I kind of assumed you made one account with your email and that’s it.”

“You make another account with another email,” Noelle told her, giggling. “I have one for random clips and another one for full stream VODs.” Noelle then turned to me again. “So… Yeah. Why not start a new channel to keep the full versions of your songs and covers there? That way you keep the original point of the main channel while those who want more of the music can go to the second one.”

“...” I sighed. “Yeah, I might do that, but I have to talk about it with my editor, a.k.a. my sister. And if I do that… I want to do it in at least another month, not too soon.”

“Hm? Why?” Sarah asked.

Grace snickered. “Because if he does it now it’ll look like he let what those girls said get to him. It’ll seem like an attempt to prove them wrong. By the way, what’s their channel name?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“I just want to check their stuff.”

“Yeah, I remember a man with a shotgun saying something similar.”

Grace grumbled, but it was better to keep ourselves away from drama. Upset as they made me, the healthiest thing to do is move on.

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