Guh... just kill me.
Returning to Baumkuchen Studio, Kei stood at the entrance, afraid to open the door... Her brain trembled at the mere thought of what she had just done.
Using room-cleaning as an excuse to kick her father and brother out of the house, then hiding in the bathroom masturbating while reciting lines only a manga heroine would say...
She genuinely didn't know how to face Moeha and Rin Ito. But compared to them, she found it even harder to face her father and brother. After cleaning the room as fast as possible, she fled the house, hesitating until nightfall before finally gathering the courage to return to Baumkuchen Studio.
Seeing the lights on next door at the Fujiwara household made Kei breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed they were at home... at least she wouldn't have to worry about facing Moeha tonight.
But... why were the lights in Baumkuchen Studio's living room also on? Everyone should have gone home by this hour; given how much they slacked off, there was no way they'd be drawing this late at night!
Could they be throwing an orgy?
Even if they were having an orgy, they should be in the basement. Letting her mind wander, Kei opened the front door, walked through the entryway, and entered the living room.
It wasn't Sahoto and Mihari, but Utaha, Eriri, Megumi Kato, and Nanami. Right now, they were editing Nanami's voice recordings and handing them over to Megumi Kato to bundle into the game code. Next to their workstations were stacks of boxes that had just been delivered today.
This was already the final stage. Once finished and subjected to basic testing, the files could be handed to Rin Ito to burn onto discs. Since they used sample development tools and didn't add any overly flashy tricks, strictly following the tutorials and carefully checking each step meant no major bugs would crop up.
"Is there anything I can help with?" Kei proactively approached and asked, hoping that keeping busy would help her forget today's events!
"Uh..." Nanami hesitated. They did need help, but unlike Utaha and the others who visited every weekend and hung out after class, Nanami had never shared a party with Kei and rarely came over normally.
"In that case, please sort these items into separate packages, Kei-chan. Just pack one of each item together." Utaha bluntly ordered Kei.
"Alright, no problem, leave it to me."
Kei lined up the boxes one by one in the empty spaces. Opening a box, the first thing that caught her eye was a poster printed with a beautiful anime girl.
The shameful pose with her legs spread wide open made Kei's cheeks turn slightly hot. The other boxes contained similar merchandise: acrylic stands featuring the same girl, tin badges, and various other cheap novelties meant as pre-order bonuses for the game.
Though it was just simple, tedious work, it was effective in helping Kei push those embarrassing plays out of her mind!
While Eriri and the others busied themselves with How to Train a Boring Girlfriend, Kei was too embarrassed to ask Rin Ito to help her film anymore, so she could only lock herself in her room to keep practicing her beauty vlogs alone.
Even though Kei didn't want to make money purely off her looks and knew filming videos was just a roundabout way of doing so, video creation was different from live-streaming. Live-streaming relied on 'donations', whereas making videos earned ad revenue from views. Although both relied on looks to draw people in, the perception was completely different.
Kei wasn't the only one trying to make money during the holidays; aside from the wealthy young ladies who treated playing in a band like a game of house, the other girls around Rin Ito were also plotting ways to earn an income over the break.
...
Money in the anime subculture was incredibly easy to make.
A tiny acrylic stand, a tin badge, a collaboration toy, or a dakimakura cover could be sold at astronomical prices, dozens or even hundreds of times their manufacturing cost.
Rin Ito, Utaha, and Eriri belonged to the crowd that harvested money from this subculture, but Marin, unfortunately, was the type who squandered her wealth on it.
The posters plastering her walls and the figures packing her cabinets were anything but cheap, not to mention her collections of limited-edition merchandise and special-edition games.
And those were just typical anime hobbies. Marin, who loved cosplay, also had to dump money into outfits. To afford premium cosplay gear, both Marin and Sajuna would work part-time jobs during their free time.
Sajuna usually worked as a clerk at a cake shop, but even with that, her budget remained incredibly tight.
In reality, the cosplay costumes were the relatively inexpensive part.
The true money pit was the camera gear.
While average people used their phones to snap pictures at conventions, Marin used a DSLR. No matter how expensive a phone was, it had a hard ceiling, but camera equipment was a literal black hole. The prices of various lenses alone could make one's eyes pop—definitely not an expense a high schooler could comfortably shoulder, costing even more than Ryo's instruments.
Marin's parents both worked overseas and were never stingy with providing her money, but even when Marin slashed her budget to the absolute minimum and bought cost-effective gear, it was still far beyond what typical 'allowance' could handle.
Not convenient store cashiers or flyer distributors like traditional high school part-time jobs, those jobs simply didn't generate enough cash to buy camera gear.
Of course, she didn't resort to quick cash via compensated dating or sugar daddy gigs either. Instead, she worked as a model—a reader model.
She wasn't a professional runway model, but an amateur chosen directly from the magazine's readership.
She didn't sign with a massive agency to walk high-end fashion shows, but instead participated in fashion magazine shoots as an ordinary girl.
Marin, who loved reading fashion magazines, had mailed her photos to an editorial team with a 'might as well try' attitude, and even she never expected to actually get selected.
While the pay wasn't an astronomical fortune, shooting for magazines earned far more than checking out items or stocking shelves at a convenience store, and Marin genuinely enjoyed the job where she got to model trendy clothes.
Normally, she could only take on small gigs over the weekends, but the holidays provided ample free time!
Marin: [I'm doing a photo shoot for a magazine right now. Juju-sama, want to come visit me on set?]
Sajuna: [What would I even do there?]
Marin didn't answer directly but immediately spammed several photos of the set to Sajuna.
Marin: [Juju-sama is so cute, you might get spotted by a talent scout or something.]
Marin: [And the pay is way better than working your part-time gig at the cake shop.]
Marin: [You can also bring Shinju along with Ito-kun. Maybe it'll help cure her inferiority complex.]
Shinju lost her inferiority complex a long time ago!!!!!
Recalling the events of the past few days made Sajuna's mouth twitch... In the past, Shinju was merely shy and insecure, but ever since undergoing Rin Ito's 'therapy', Shinju had recently developed a strong penchant for teasing her! Not only did she snap lewd photos of her to send to Rin Ito, but she even... she even used the gadget he provided to electrocute her until she squirted completely!