Chapter 70: Busy Day.

Chapter 70: Chapter 70: Busy Day.?

[Pepper POV]

'I'm worried.'

As I drove Edward to the recording studio, I saw that he was taking a nap as he had woken up so early today.

'He's been pushing himself lately.'

Putting a jacket on the young teen's body to cover him up from the cold, I drove a bit slower than usual to let him sleep a little bit longer. I couldn't help but to notice that he put a huge burden on himself. It was as if... he feared that the moment he stopped working, he would lose all of his value.

"(sigh) The curse of a genius. But I guess that's my role in his story. I need to prevent him from crumbling." I muttered underneath my breath as I glanced at him.

Suddenly, I got a call from a close friend. I pushed the button on my bluetooth earphone to answer it and spoke in a slightly toned down volume lest I interrupt Edward's sleep.

"Pepper, we're already here. Where are you?" Mitchell asked me. I guessed he had already arrived at the studio.

"Patience my boy. A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to," I replied.

"The ring is already in Sauron's hand. The fire of Mordor has already spread throughout the lands, Gondor has Fallen and the men of the Riddermark are now slaves to the dark one's will." Cam interjected, in which I assumed he had snatched the phone from Mitchell.

Cam had recently been complaining about how he was the only one that had been left behind while Mitch and I enjoyed watching Edward's performance by ourselves without thinking about him. That was why I called him over today, just to rub his nose in the fact that no matter how much he pestered me , he would never get to see the magical moment once more. And also to finally shut him up.

"Don't be so dramatic. I'll be there in another 10 minutes. Besides, I gave you guys the wrong time anyway, so no one else is there yet."

"What? Why?!" Cam asked in frustration. I giggled and said, "Why indeed."

[Mitch and Cam's commentary]

Mitchell tried to explain, "Okay. A little while back, Cam gave Pepper the wrong time for a party."

"A LITTLE WHILE?!" Cam was offended by Mitchell's effort to downplay the pettiness. He said, "It was 7 years ago! I didn't even remember it. But he held a grudge for 7 whole YEARS!"

Mitchell waited for Cam to calm down before saying, "So yeah. He played us. But he already showed "mercy" and toned down the retribution because we have a baby."

"Otherwise he would have left us stranded in the middle of the desert for a day." Cam added with fear in his eyes.

"He wouldn't do that." Mitchell said smilingly. Cam turned to him and asked, "Wouldn't he Mitchell?.... wouldn't he?? Of course He would."

Mitchell looked at the camera with a frozen expression as he thought about the possibility of that actually happening.

[Commentary ends]

We arrived at the recording studio at noon. As I saw the studio, I couldn't help but let out a disappointed sigh.

"If only mother trusted me."

I had a talk with my mother– a rich widow that inherited almost all of my oil magnate father's wealth for a chance to relocate the studio somewhere nearby a few days ago at her annual dinner party, but she wouldn't let me do that as she thought I was currently being tricked by an incubus that would siphon away all of her wealth.

"Pepper!" Mitchell called out to me in excitement after I parked the car. Ed was still sleeping so I held a finger on my lips and hushed Mitchell quickly. He took a look at my driver's seat and nodded in understanding before we moved a bit further from Ed to have a talk.

"So. How did it go? Do you have more money yet?" Cam asked snarkily as he joined Mitchell and I while holding Lily in his arms.

"Are you crazy, bringing a baby here? She could burst an eardrum!" I said in horror as I saw the asian baby in Cam's eyes.

"Don't be dramatic. It's a studio. And see, I brought headphones for her." Cam said excitedly. He dressed her up like a panda, probably because of her heritage. That made me wonder, 'Is she Chinese? I remember she's from a different country.'

Mitchell noticed my confusion and said in defense, "She grabbed the clothes today and wouldn't let go. So we dressed her up in the clothes she picked." He brought his palms together before saying, "Back to the original topic. Are you sure you can launch the album without more funding?

"If only she would listen to me. And come to meet Ed. I know she wouldn't be able to withstand his charms." I said in disappointment. "To answer your question... No. But we can release his singles in a few days.... Mother threw me a check for being her favorite son. Although I am her only son... and only child."

Mitch and Cam nodded in acknowledgement of my misery before I continued, "The revenue from that will be reinvested into his album production. Right now, I only have money for his music video production. I can't even host brunch this week. I'm like you, I tell you. POOR. POOR!"

"If you need help, I can talk to my dad. He might not seem like it, but he's Edward's hardcore fan. Manny said he listened to the song 7 years everyday, and even sang the song in the shower."

"Really? Is your father rich?" I asked Mitchell in excitement.

"Have you seen his wife?" Cam interjected.

"Maybe I did. But I don't remember." I replied.

"Believe me. You would remember." Cam said with a slight nodding. Mitchell nodded too, but I still didn't understand why they were doing that at the moment.

We walked to the front door, but before I could press the keypad to enter the password, a hippie opened the door from the inside and excited the studio.

"Oh. You guys are not pizza delivery men ." The music engineer Leo muttered while being completely high from the marijuana he was smoking. "Or...are you the pizza store owners? I'm starving. Where's the pizza?"

I gazed contemptuously at Leo and said, "You're so high that you can't even recognize your boss?"

"No. My boss is a sassy little man. Not a sassy little pizza store owner, a wimpy ginger, and a large red balloon."

"Hey! No one calls my husband a balloon." Mitchell said defensively. Cam patted Mitchell's shoulder and said to him, "Mitchell, there's a red balloon floating right behind me. But it's good to know what you are thinking about."

Mitchell realized he had fucked up, and he turned toward Leo in contempt. "You know what? You're fired!"

"Or...They could just be best friends. I don't know. I still think we shouldn't put labels on it if they aren't revealing their relationship." The manly voice said.

Lily ignored both of them and muttered, "Wait- Disney allowed them to post this?... Why?"

"I think that's because she didn't advertise the game directly. It also helped in maintaining their star's innocent image, so I think Disney won't cause any trouble." 'Rookie' hypothesized.

"Or, they made a deal with Edward. We don't know what is happening in the background. But one thing's for sure, the game will blow up really quickly."

Despite her efforts, Lily didn't actually believe that Edward could make a good game, especially after she watched the trailer. It was just a bird jumping around passing hurdles in her opinion.

But after playing the game, her first impression was proven wrong. The game was just so addictive for her she couldn't stop playing, and she was sure that most people would feel the same way as her.

"The best part is the bird's taunts. I passed 10 hurdles, and it said, [Is that all you can do? And here I thought I was the one with the bird brain.] I want to roast that bird. Deep fry it. Hot wing sauce it-"

"Shut up Rookie." The manly voice screamed. "The premium version is better. You can unlock a certain perk after passing 10 hurdles. I'm already at 50 points now. Wait- why can't I play it anymore?"

"Huh. What happened?" Lily asked in concern. "Is the game broken?"

"No. The bird is telling me to rest. He's holding a protest banner and has bandages all over his body. I can get back to the game after 20 minutes. Ohhh, I guess it's because I have been playing for 2 hours straight."

"Ahh...Really? He stopped people from playing? Won't it be bad for him?" Rookie asked.

"No. I think he made this to stop people from getting addicted." Lily replied with a bright smile on her face. "He's a brilliant man." She mumbled while flashing a fanatical glint in her eyes.

"Oh. But I can play a minigame in between." The manly voice said.

"A minigame?" Lily asked.

"There's a few options to choose from. A baby bird flight test- which is a bit sadistic cause I need to throw the bird from its nest and prevent it from falling to their death, a word guessing game, and a bird feeding game." Rookie explained.

The game would soon break the record for the fastest game to reach 100 thousand downloads, and would reach 1 million downloads in just 3 days.

"Hey, will he stop singing...you know, if he becomes rich from the game?" Rookie asked, his voice turned a bit lower from the depressing thought.

"Nah. He's a bonafide musician. He won't stop singing." The manly voice replied. "Lily, are you there?"

"Y-yeah. I'm still here. Okay, I also think he won't stop singing. Wait, did you guys check the credit section of the game?" Lily said as she opened the game on her Iphone.

"All of this...is basically his solo work!" Lily said in excitement. "Our sailor is a genius!"

...

[Edward POV]

"80,000 downloads? Seriously?" I asked while being flabbergasted as I heard Alex's report.

"That's only in the Apple store. You're at 75,000 downloads in the Android store. It's a bit slower there, but the numbers are starting to increase at the same rate as the Apple store." Alex said in excitement.

"O-Okay." I replied with a stutter as the game debut had passed through all of my expectations. A few articles had come out about an artist who also moonlighted as a programmer– some criticism about my decision, and some clickbait articles about me and Taylor that contributed to the virality of the game.

"In my previous life, the game developer used "I will delete the game soon," marketing scheme to make people download the game as fast as they could, but I guess I don't have to follow him on that." I mumbled to myself after hanging up the call with Alex.

Only 5 hours after the game was uploaded into the stores, I had received more than 45,000 dollars in net profit after subtracting the platform tax and the server fee for the game. The ads, especially the ads revenue was pouring into my account. My decision to include the option to watch 30 second ads to decrease the waiting time for 5 minutes was correct.

"Pepper, we can upgrade the quality of the music video!" I said in excitement to Pepper as I jogged lightly towards him. Now that funds had been injected into my accounts, I could decrease the burden on Pepper's shoulders– However, he was adamant about rejecting my help.

"I'm the CEO. I need to handle this problem on my own. Also, you don't have to worry. My mom is an avid Twilight fan. When the music video is released, she won't have a choice but to open up her wallet."

"But Pepper. Accepting my help now will make the music video better since we would be able to use higher quality props and effects. That way, we can get a bigger profit."

After some relentless badgering, Pepper finally said in defeat, "FINE. But you're taking a bigger cut after this."

"What- NO!"

"No debates. Oh boy, you're making me have a headache. I need to sit down far away from you." Pepper said as he ran away from continuing the discussion.

The film producers arrived at 4 pm, and after I performed the song "It Will Rain" to them, the producers loved it so much that some of them even tried to hug me afterward. Of course, my Pepper shield wouldn't let them do that.

Cam didn't mind the Pepper shield and hugged me tightly after hearing the song. Mitchell asked, "This is one of the songs you wrote at the very beginning right?"

"Yeah. I wrote it 2 years ago." I replied casually despite Mitchell and Cam's over exaggerated reactions. They gasped and tried to cover their mouth in a dramatic way, but I ignored them and went to play with Lily instead.

"Did you like it, Lily?" I asked as I leaned into her face. She was still sitting in her car seat at the moment, and kept sucking on a pacifier.

"Bah..Bahh..." Lily smacked my cheeks lightly after spitting out the fake nipple and gripped my clothes tightly. "Bah..Buh...Bed..."

"Bed?" I opened my eyes wide when I heard that. Mitch and Cam were frozen, and Pepper was shocked by the baby's first word.

"Bed...BED..." Lily called out to me many times as she thought she had finally managed to call my name.

Cam cried immediately and said, "She's never even called us "DADA" before... Why is he so special??!" Cam leaned his head on his partner's shoulder before Mitchell hugged him and patted his back.

"Yeah. Let it all out."

(A/N: The lyrics and reactions will be written during his music video release.)