Important topics over a nice meal.

We went to the restaurant, ordered our food and caught up while we waited. Alice told the others the same she told Diana and me and Grace told us how it went with her own family.

“Yeah, I talked to them, too. Told my dad first, then my mom. He took it better than she did,” Grace said, stirring her lemonade with a straw. She sighed. “My dad’s biggest issue with this is that he doesn’t like any of the universities in town, but I told him that if he wanted me to study engineering to work with him, then school prestige didn’t really matter. I did feel bad putting my foot down considering the only thing he’s ever asked of me is good grades, but…”

“But you’ve delivered on that already,” Sarah told her. “And it’s not like Hyogen University is bad! It’s just not the best.”

“Yeah…” Grace sighed again. “I guess I just feel kinda guilty. I don’t know. My dad’s a workaholic, but he means well. My mom and I fought, though.”

We winced.

“Does your mother not support your choice of school?” Diana asked her.

“Oh, she doesn’t care that much. She just can’t fathom that I’m making this choice to stay with a boyfriend. To her, all men are evil and only hold women back. It’s why I haven’t introduced Oliver to her. And she still thinks we’ll break up any day, so she doesn’t want to meet him either.”

Yeah, that was something that had me pretty conflicted. Felt like I should try to win her over or something, but Grace was convinced it wasn’t the time, that she’d just dismiss me if not outright tell me to get away from her daughter. Grace wanted to prove I wasn’t holding her back first, but this decision of hers wasn’t proving her point.

“Whatever, I still convinced my dad and that’s what matters. I just hope mom won’t call him to yell at him for agreeing with me.”

“She… won’t really do that, will she?” Noelle asked, hoping that Grace was just exaggerating. Grace’s wry, exhausted smile told her she wasn’t.

Our food arrived and we began to eat. It was a sort of mood reset. We looked at each other’s plates, Sarah stole some of Mila’s fries, I let Alice try a bit of my salmon, Diana shared some of her salad with Noelle and Grace took the chance to order another lemonade. Things were lively and comfortable. We let the atmosphere continue like that, and it was only when we were about done that we turned to Noelle. She had the most to tell us and we didn’t want to interrupt her.

“So?” Mila asked her. “What’s going on with you?”

Noelle took a sip of her grape soda and nodded. “Asked my parents if they’d be okay with me studying medicine at Hyogen. They said it was one of their choices, so smooth sailing there.”

“And the V-Tuber thing?” Sarah asked.

Noelle turned to look at Alice, who took it from there. “They sent her the contract. I gave it a thorough look. It’s pretty much what you guys expected but it’s surprisingly flexible, actually. They’re not asking too much of her. She’d have to livestream a minimum of 10 hours a week, participate in a few collaborations with other members of the agency and upload at least one video a week to the channel. It can be highlight compilations or similar, but it needs to be produced. They’ll even have an editor work with her. I also looked into what she’d be getting paid. Basically, she’d have a salary that’s a bit above the average for a part-time job, but she’ll also be allowed to keep 25% of her subscription and donations and also a percentage of what merch with her image sells. That said, she’d be selling ownership of the ‘Yuria’ brand, and any other intellectual property she creates while under contract will belong to AniLove. She’ll be supported with networking and other resources, like gaming computers, cameras or phones. If she needs something specific, she can ask for it.”

I could see Noelle getting a bit restless. Or more like… giddy. “Ooooh. You’re planning to ask them to buy you model kits, aren’t you?” I asked her, smirking. “You’ll build them, review them on video, then get to keep them.”

Noelle’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. “H-How did you know!?”

“Wow, he’s two for two with the guesses today,” Mila said, laughing.

“A-Anyway,” Noelle said. “I also told my parents about that. They were concerned because they don’t understand the internet very well, but I told them I’d be working under an alias to keep my anonymity. That calmed them down. And to top it all off… AniLove sent me an apology email.”

“Huh?” We all exclaimed.

“They say they investigated the case of harassment against me and found the source to be two members of their team. They even issued a public statement that AniLove was cutting ties with two of their V-Tubers, though they didn’t mention reasons.”

“Holy crap, seriously?” Sarah asked. “They actually fired them?”

“Makes sense to me,” Mila said. “I wouldn’t wanna keep people willing to start trouble over bruised egos in a team, either.”

“I agree,” Diana said. “Sounds like a drastic decision, but it’s telling of how seriously this company takes internal relationships and breaches of trust.”

Grace chuckled. “They had it coming, so I’m glad. Problem is that now Noelle lost her motivation to accept the contract.”

The redhead blushed. “I… Might have overreacted a little,” she said, giggling shyly and scratching her cheek. “Now I feel bad that two people lost their jobs over this.”

“Screw them, Noelle,” Sarah said. “You don’t owe them anything.”

“Even if you take away any judgements of right or wrong and only look at it with a cold business perspective, they still intervened in the company’s hiring of new talent, right?” Diana said. “It’s obvious they’d get kicked out. Who’s to say they wouldn’t do it again? There’s also the fact that we were obviously not the only ones who found out. The company won’t want to be associated with stories of harassment, so the smartest thing to do is, as they already did, let go of the employees responsible and issue an apology.”

“I want to believe it says one more thing, though,” I said, turning to Noelle. “They let go of two of their employees and want to hire you. They’ve announced it publicly. Maybe they think you’re worth all this.”

Noelle’s face went red. “I don’t know about that…”

“Hey, companies exist to make money,” Grace said, grinning. “I wouldn’t pour time, effort and resources into any endeavor that I wasn’t sure wouldn’t turn in profits. You’re that endeavor to them.”

“I don’t know if I can handle that much pressure…” Noelle said, giggling nervously.

“Don’t worry too much,” Mila told her. “Just do what you’ve always done. Don’t feel like you have to do more than you’re asked to. Remember we’re all here to do things together.”

“And if we can help in any way, just tell us,” Alice told her friend. “I should be able to hold a camera if you ever need me to, hahaha.”

Noelle smiled. “Thank you. This means a lot to me. I promise to do my best.”

We made a little toast. To Noelle, to our future. And then…

“So, Oliver,” Diana said after setting her glass down. “When will you tell us about this cute Brazilian fan of yours you met at work?”

MARIA!

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