You're a Mean Boss
“Hold on! I’ve got three brights now! What should I dooo?”
“Aw, stopping now would be no fun at all!”
Once everyone had the rules down, they no longer needed me hovering nearby.
When I figured we had enough footage for the video, I tidied up the camera out on the terrace and slipped quietly into the living room.
There I found the kids sound asleep in the middle of a little fortress they had built—cushions, blankets, toys, and stuffed animals piled in a careful circle all around them.
I had been keeping half an eye on them while they played, but I never expected them to go full architect like this.
“……They sleep just fine even without Dad around.”
Normally Luca bolted the second anyone said “bedtime,” as if he had a sixth sense for it. Tonight he had seized the chance to play with his toys to his heart’s content—and still only managed to stay up a mere fifteen minutes past his usual time.
Reni had fallen asleep right beside him, each of them clutching one arm of the same rabbit plushie. He looked just as deeply under as his little brother.
They had already brushed their teeth right after dinner, so I could put them straight to bed. With autumn settling in, skipping a bath for a day or two was perfectly fine.
I carried Luca to the bed first, then scooped Reni into my arms. Unlike Luca, who could have been carted off without noticing a thing, Reni stirred just enough to rub his eyes.
“Mmnh… Dada…”
“Yeah, sweetheart. You can keep sleeping. Night-night…”
“……Mmnh.”
I laid him down and changed him into pajamas. Something must have amused him in his half-dream, because a tiny smile flickered across his face before he drifted off again.
After tucking the blanket around him and making sure he was truly out, I gave him a few gentle pats, then changed Luca as well. Unlike his big brother, Luca slept so deeply he would never have known even if I shook him awake.
I closed the bedroom door behind me just as Vanessa stepped in from the terrace.
“Just put the kids to bed?”
“Yeah. Need anything?”
“Oh, nothing big. Any chance I could get a cup of warm tea?”
I nodded and gestured for her to take a seat.
“What about the others…?”
“They just started a fresh round, so they’re fine. Hwatu is seriously fun! I completely lost track of time.”
“Glad you enjoyed it.”
Greg was already shuffling the cards like a pro; I figured they would be fine without me for a good twenty minutes. I set a pot of water on the stove and asked,
“Peach blossom tea okay? Honestly, that’s all the tea leaves I have in the house.”
Vanessa smiled and nodded.
I smiled back, then turned to dig through the cupboards. Every decent teacup and mug had been carted down to the office, so there was almost nothing proper left at home. Serving tea in one of my everyday glass tumblers felt wrong, but deep in the back of the cupboard I spotted a mug I had made ages ago.
I really ought to set aside some proper cups for guests from now on.
Glug…
Hot water poured into the mug, and peach blossom petals floated gently to the surface.
“Wow. Pretty.”
“It’s peach blossom tea from the neighbors downstairs. They seem to know their tea, so it’s actually pretty good.”
“You get along well with the neighbors, huh?”
“They’re the only neighbors left in this villa now.”
I had noticed it before, but Vanessa’s glamorous, hard-to-approach image was only surface-level. In person she was surprisingly down-to-earth.
Evan had said he hoped I would outpace her someday, but that hadn’t been a warning to keep my distance. Being friendly couldn’t hurt.
Speaking of which, when is that online bookstore supposed to open…?
I was drifting off into thought when Vanessa tapped the side of the mug with a fingernail and continued.
“This cup is gorgeous too. You made it, right? I think I saw it on YouTube.”
“Yeah. Pretty long time ago, though. I’m surprised you found the video.”
“It’s perfect background noise while I’m working or just hanging around. Puts most ASMR channels to shame.”
“Really? Cassandra’s editing is definitely strong in that department.”
“I see.”
Vanessa stared at the mug for a moment, then said,
“Starting a studio couldn’t have been easy. That’s impressive.”
“The starting part itself wasn’t that hard. What’s coming next will be.”
“There’s that saying—getting started is half the battle. I’ve thought about it myself, but the more I looked into actually doing something, the more it felt impossible.”
“What parts?”
I had heard she traveled with a fairly large staff on shoots. As a quasi-celebrity influencer she must have money. Was there something else holding her back?
“Hiring people is never simple. There’s a huge mental difference between bringing someone in for a one-off job and having salaries go out every single month.”
Same thought I had. I let out a quiet huff of laughter without meaning to.
“Oh, the payroll definitely keeps me up at night. Even if this month is fine, next month and the month after that…”
And then there was the office rent every month. Right now Evan’s investment was covering things via video revenue, but eventually those fixed costs would be impossible to ignore.
If those worries were the issue, wouldn’t signing with an agency solve it for someone like Vanessa?
When I asked, she gave me an unexpected answer.
“I already tried an agency once, back at the very beginning.”
“And you left, so I’m guessing it wasn’t great.”
“A younger, prettier girl came along and it was obvious they only cared about her after that.”
“Ah…”
I hadn’t thought of that.
I was still searching for something to say when Vanessa waved a hand lightly and smiled.
“It happens all the time, so don’t worry about it. Anyway, I’m doing way better than her now. And once people get famous they usually open their own studio or agency, right? I just figured I left a little early.”
The fact that she still hadn’t done either suggested she had taken some real hits when it came to working with people.
“Maybe it’s just me, but I find it really hard to stick with the same person for long.”
“……”
I had never actually worked with Vanessa, so I wasn’t sure what to offer. I said the only thing I could.
“I got lucky. Those two and I already worked together for years, so the chemistry was easy, and they’re both good people…”
“Good people” was a completely subjective measure, of course, but at least those two were good people to me.
“I’m just glad I have people I can trust around me.”
Vanessa looked at me for a moment with a faint smile, then laughed out loud.
“You know companies that feel like family, or ones made only of friends, never last, right?”
“Whoa, cursing us already?”
I knew she was joking, so I had to laugh too.
“I’ve heard that line before, but somehow we ended up like this anyway.”
I glanced toward the terrace, where Greg and Cassandra were flailing their arms and yelling “It’s void! It’s void!” while Mello, for reasons I still didn’t understand, seemed to fit right in with them.
“But rather than worry about things that haven’t happened yet, I’m just going to keep working hard at what’s in front of me.”
I was the boss now. I needed the grit to do what had to be done.
“What a cool boss. And a cool dad.”
“I’m trying.”
“Maybe that’s why so many people stick around you. Are you the type who naturally takes people under your wing?”
I gave a dry little laugh.
“Not even a little.”
“Your words and the results don’t seem to match.”
“Well… you can’t always live exactly according to your personality.”
Saturday morning.
Any morning I had to get Reni to the cathedral was always pure chaos. An extra-late start only made it worse.
I scrambled out of bed, fed the kids breakfast, and was changing their clothes when Reni started fussing.
“Dadaaa, all the new socks are the same color!”
Usually kids complained about mismatched socks, not matching ones.
“Sorry, Dad accidentally ordered a whole set of the same color. Can we just wear matching ones today and tomorrow? The rest are still dirty.”
“Ugh, fine.”
Reni crossed his arms like a tiny grumpy executive, but he still sat down and put the socks on.
Knock-knock!
I was in the middle of the epic war of catching runaway Luca and getting him dressed when someone rapped on the front door.
I opened it to find Greg beaming from ear to ear.
“What are you doing here this early? I figured I’d see you later at the pub.”
We could have gone half a day without seeing each other once a week, but this fiery employee-slash-friend strode right into the house without waiting for an invitation.
“You haven’t checked the channel yet, have you!”
“I saw you posted the playlist last night.”
Greg washed his hands in the kitchen, then immediately scooped Luca up—and got a solid smack on the cheek for his trouble. Undeterred, he turned the toddler around to face forward and kept talking with a huge grin.
“There was barely any response last night, so I was a little disappointed… but overnight the views just exploded!”
“Really?”
Greg had dived into editing the day after the party and uploaded the video Friday evening. He must have been glued to the numbers ever since.
I pulled up the channel I had been too busy to check that morning. Sure enough, the view count had shot up. I couldn’t stop the corner of my mouth from lifting.
“Did the algorithm pick it up?”
“Doesn’t look like it yet… I think it’s because Mello and Vanessa promoted it.”
The channel analytics confirmed it—plenty of traffic had come through their social media.
“So this is the power of big influencers.”
Greg nodded while bouncing Luca.
“Vanessa’s one thing, but Mello’s got a surprisingly hardcore fanbase too.”
Having fans as a makeup artist wasn’t easy; it had to be that rock-solid personal style of his.
Thanks to their goodwill, our channel’s visibility had gotten a nice little boost.
The playlist of our songs was also getting solid responses. You could tell by the way the other performance videos were climbing in views right along with it.
“Great. We should start planning to put out this kind of video regularly.”
Coming up with new arrangements and setups every time wouldn’t be simple, but Greg nodded like a man ready for any challenge.
I’m glad he gets to do something he loves.
The thought made me chuckle.
“So that’s why you came to work on a Saturday morning? You could’ve just called.”
“It’s more fun to celebrate together. And we have to go to the pub anyway, so I just came early.”
“Fine. Then you drive today. Cassandra’s too busy to come.”
With the wedding only a few weeks away, Cassandra was run off her feet with preparations.
Greg stopped bouncing Luca and huffed like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You’re just openly working me now! Today’s not even a workday.”
“Show up at the company uninvited and it becomes a workday.”
Reni giggled at Greg’s outraged tone, and Luca burst into a bright peal of laughter too. Reni I understood—but Luca? Maybe he really could read the room.
“No matter how I look at it, Luca really likes you.”
“I don’t think sarcasm is great for kids’ education.”