This Might Work
This might just work.
In the past, I might never have been able to truly understand. But now I knew, if only dimly. The feelings Cassandra held toward her child couldn't have been simple guilt alone.
I thought back to just a few months ago, when I hadn't even been able to afford a crib. Honestly, I didn't need to go that far back. Even now I sat at the calculator every day, tallying living expenses — and that was after Sister's help had bought me a little breathing room.
But I had only been at this for a few months. The thought of enduring the same daily worry for more than a decade made me hesitate even to guess how hard it must have been. Having a child and not enough money wasn't a life that could be summed up by any single feeling. That much, at least, I was beginning to understand.
While I sat there unable to offer a single useful word, Maria took Cassandra's hand and comforted her in a calm, steady voice.
"There's no need to invent a bleak future ahead of time, Cassandra. You're a wonderful mother. And when it rains, the only thing you need to think about first is getting out of the rain."
Whether it was because she had finally spoken her piece, or because Maria's words had truly reached her, Cassandra managed a smile that looked a little lighter this time.
"Thank you, Maria. And you too, Jun — and Greg. Just having you here today has been a real comfort. I'll pick myself up and start figuring out how to make a living again."
With that, she cut a small piece of the cake she hadn't touched until then and set it in front of herself. After one bite, her eyes went wide.
"Wait — this is really homemade?"
Instead of answering, I just smiled faintly and asked,
"Rather than jumping straight into looking for another job… what about taking a few days to rest without thinking about anything at all?"
"I actually tried. I wanted a few days of blank rest. It just… didn't work."
"…I see."
I nodded heavily. Of course I already knew. Right now Cassandra didn't have the mental space for "blank" rest. The shame and the injustice would crawl up and eat at her the moment she tried to sleep, and by day she'd be pacing over money. She clearly hadn't been able to put much aside. She wasn't living day to day, but she had almost certainly been living month to month on a razor's edge.
"It's frustrating, honestly. I looked into short-term gigs at drugstores or cafés, but it's the slow season everywhere. Pubs always need night shifts, but with Charlie, that's impossible for me…"
She had said she was only now starting to look for a way forward, but it was obvious she had already been checking around. Even after being pushed out of her company with her head spinning, the first thing she'd done was open job boards out of sheer worry over living expenses. And she wasn't wrong. Around Christmas and New Year temp work was relatively easy to find; right now everything was quiet.
"I used to have part-time work before Christmas, but once the holidays hit it just dried up."
"Right? Ha… And my credit isn't great, so a loan probably wouldn't be easy either…"
Maria joined the shared complaint.
"On top of that, interest rates these days are no joke. I checked with the bank not long ago for a relative's hospital bills…"
All three of us sighed at once.
"…"
Cassandra was in almost the same place I had been before Sister's donation. No ready source of cash. Everyone she knew was in a similar spot, so nowhere to borrow. Off-season, so even part-time work was hard to find.
I lifted my phone as if checking a text and opened the Manito App.
A fair number of points had piled up. I had been hoarding them, reluctant to spend them on consumables, saving them for tools that would need special skills. Maybe I could use them to help Cassandra a little.
In her case, rent probably wasn't the immediate problem — what she needed right now was living expenses. So what if I bought her household supplies with the points, and she paid me back the cash equivalent later?
If it were only up to my heart, I would have simply lent her the cash… But if I lent it now, there was no telling when I'd see the principal again, and my own situation wasn't that comfortable. The kids could get sick. Unexpected expenses could appear. You always needed an emergency fund. I felt bad for Cassandra, but I couldn't help her in a way that would put Luca's and my life at risk.
Points, though, were a bonus. I couldn't convert them to cash, but I could get goods that cash would buy. From a position of that kind of surplus, I didn't want to hoard everything and look the other way. The app hadn't been given to me so that only I could live well. It wasn't as if Luca was supposed to grow up comfortable while Charlie wasn't.
…But how was I supposed to explain this?
I can't lend you money, but I'll order whatever you need for you.
That sounded weird.
I was still turning over how to say it without sounding strange when Maria let out another long sigh.
"Times like this I really wish I had good hands so I could at least pick up a side hustle. Or do that YouTube thing everyone seems to be doing these days…"
Cassandra laughed a little more lightly this time, as if to say the heavy, serious talk had gone on long enough. She dropped the quiet expression and slipped into the high, bright voice I knew so well from the office.
"YouTube? That one's not easy, you know."
"Oh my, have you tried it?"
Cassandra stood up with a smile.
"I have. I watch a lot of ASMR channels. One day I thought, why not me? Want to see?"
scritch, scritch… ding! clink-clink…
Glass bottles, wood scraps, even spoons — anything ordinary you might see in daily life, scratched and tapped and struck…
I roughly knew what ASMR was, but this was the first time I had actually watched it. And yet…
Was that all?
Why on earth would anyone stare for over an hour at a video of someone tapping objects?
Asking a content creator that would have been rude, of course — but fortunately Maria asked for me, genuinely curious.
"Hmm, the videos are quite long, aren't they?"
"Yeah. People listen to them to fall asleep or to focus, so most of these run long."
…Ah.
"Some people just leave them on because it puts them in a good mood, so longer is better."
A world that almost made sense and somehow still didn't. This time I couldn't hold back.
"Uh… I'm not really sure why this would… make someone feel good? Is it… good…?"
When I asked, hesitating, Cassandra burst out laughing.
"Doesn't make sense, right? But the big ASMR channels have millions of subscribers. Funny, isn't it?"
"That's impressive."
I still didn't get it, but there was clearly an audience for the content, so it wasn't my place to judge. It didn't look harmful, either…
"Honestly, explaining ASMR to people who are new to it is always a little awkward."
Cassandra flicked through her phone, hunting for videos she could show Maria and me.
"Ah — maybe these will make more sense?"
The ones she pulled up were two-hour videos of a log fire burning, or coastal scenery with waves, or rain sounds. Those I could understand more easily — the idea of putting on rain or nature sounds for peace of mind.
"From there, people start hunting for the sounds they personally like. Rain, waves, the crunch of leaves underfoot…"
I hadn't known, but this world already had its own trends and rules, a whole systematic framework. It was unfamiliar, and yet from another angle it was like a kind of therapy — looking very carefully at the sounds and sensations you loved. Taking the everyday noises you met every day and sorting them by a different feeling, savoring them with care…
"…"
Come to think of it, even among crafting videos there were occasional ones with no talking at all — just the sounds of making. Back then I had only focused on the method and the finished work, and never considered the "ASMR" side of it at all.
What if I edited my own videos that way…? Would that be any good?
I was scrolling absently with that thought when I noticed the date of Cassandra's last upload: a year ago.
"Cassandra. You don't upload anymore?"
"No. The effort I put in never translated into more subscribers… It was fun, but looking back, I just wasted time. Growing a channel is really hard."
"Ah…"
"Compared to other channels I didn't really have a differentiating point… And editing is a huge part of video quality, and that's a skill of its own."
Cassandra closed her laptop.
"I tried everything to grow the subscriber count — posted promo stuff on other social media, really went at it from every angle… It just never took."
"Mm…"
"Okay, enough! I know how this sounds now, but I didn't bring this up to cry about money in front of you two. I just meant — YouTube was like that for me."
Maria nodded, but she didn't forget a warm word.
"Of course. But if things get really hard, call me. I'll do whatever I can to help."
"Thank you. Don't worry too much, though. If it comes to it, I'm planning to list anything that might sell on the secondhand sites."
"Things that might sell…?"
I carefully kept my face from showing the rude thought — is there anything in this house that would sell?
Cassandra grinned.
"Want to see something pretty?"
She led us out to the garage. It was wide enough for two cars, but she kept the car outside and used the space as a storeroom. And what filled that storeroom were ceramics that bordered on art.
Maria made a soft sound of wonder.
"These are… what…?"
"My mother was a ceramicist. In her day there were collectors who sought out her work. Pieces still change hands sometimes…"
Cassandra stroked a vase with a gentle hand, as if remembering the mother she missed.
"She hoped I would take over the family craft, but I just couldn't make anything like this. It hurts that the work ends with her generation."
"Cassandra."
"Yes?"
Looking at dozens of pieces, each with its own unique sensibility and design, I couldn't hold the question back.
"Do you hold the copyright to all of these designs?"