The car ride was deadly silent. I kept still, my head faced to the window. I didn't need anyone to tell me Roku had plans — not good ones — for me and my twenty-thousand-dollar reward. My hands rested on the soft fur of the car seat as I took in deep breaths, like that alone could keep me alive with whatever plans he had up his sleeves.
"Um, drop at this address and for Kaito, I don't know where you would drop him."
Roku's jealous tone was very evident while he voiced, scribbling numbers and letters on a tiny paper. He didn't bother looking at me when he passed the company's address to the driver.
Lucky for us, the president had been too generous — lending us a car to be driven back home like VIPs even after the wreaking disaster we had caused him.
'This was it...' He hadn't said it yet but I was damn right he was going to say it. My lips curled into half a smile, anticipating my firing setup.
"You're fired. Don't bother coming to work ever again."
Should that have been new to my hearing? No, because I wanted it to happen although my hentai game had to pay for it but it was worth it in the end. A cash reward, a job in the presidential suite and I got fired. It was a win win! Thinking of all the millions of coding and video games Roku kept me awake and insane working on, I truly deserved every good things that happened today.
I still had to play him a while because there was no fun in firing back. I scoffed, letting out a low chuckle, then turned my head slowly to meet his furious little side-profile. I enjoyed every tiny part of this. I scoffed, letting out a low chuckle, then turned my head slowly to meet his furious little side-profile.
"I fixed it, didn't I? You're just jealous because he didn't even care to give you money. Admit it, boss — you're mad because I walked away with a bonus and you didn't even get a handshake "
His mouth dropped wide open uncontrolled and finally his head snapped twice as furious as before toward me. "Oh, I have plenty of reasons to fire you, Kaito. Let's start with the obvious, you opened a flash drive filled with porn during a presidential-level crisis meeting. Then you infected a national server with a virus coded from your filthy little hentai project. Kenshao was this close to being shut down completely because of you!"
I leaned back into the seat, folded my arms, and let out a lazy whistle.
"Mm, you say this is my fault and yet, somehow, I walked away richer, promoted, and on my own terms, I don't need your underpaid job. Sounds like a hell of a résumé booster to me." Roku groaned, throwing his head back against the seat, muttering curses, and probably fighting the urge to strangle me in front of the driver.
I smirked, not looking at him. "You can hate me all you want, boss. But tonight?" I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, grin widening. "I'm the guy who just turned hentai into twenty grand."
.....
"Damn, you told him all that? That's some balls twenty grand gave you. I'm so proud of you Kaito!" His glass clicked against mine while he raised up the glass of whiskey on the rusty table above his head and downed it all down in one gulp.
It was late around 9pm. Okada sat hunched over, counting two grand in five-hundred-dollar stacks, while licking his fingers every few bills like it made him feel richer. "Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…" He muttered, and paused only to take a drag off the cigarette clinging to the corner of his lips.
When the pile hit the full two thousand, he tapped it twice with his knuckles like sealing a deal. "This is enough to renovate this shitty place because of you. Damn, Kaito, I never thought someone like you could bring good luck."
I leaned back in the creaky metal chair across from him, arms folded behind my head, grinning like the cockiest bastard alive. "Guess hentai finally paid off, huh?" I said, half-laughing, with exhaustion running through my face.
Okada snorted, shaking his head, still staring at the money. "You know," He took a long drag out of his cigarette, we should frame this moment. The day Kaito, the walking disaster turned a national scandal into a payday."
Okada leaned back on his stool, blowing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. It hit the fan and bounced back to him. "But seriously bruh, you are the best when it comes to coding hentai pornie games. Kenshao company will never be anything without the mega brain behind every games. Only if that hentai game had gone viral… do you even know how much you would've made? Tens of thousands? Maybe millions? You still got it saved somewhere, don't tell me it's gone for good."
I froze for a beat, staring at him. The grin slid onto my face slowly. In full realization he might just be right. "I always backed my system daily to the cloud and last time I checked, my last update was yesterday. Fingers crossed it's still there."
"Shut the fuck up! Go download it off the cloud now!"
"Yeah," I cut him off, already scanning the messy desk for his laptop. "Lend me your laptop. Let me check it!"
"Holy shit, Kaito, you're insane. You're talking about resurrecting the virus that almost took down the goddamn presidential server!" I shot him a look over my shoulder while I flipped his laptop open.
"And you're talking about how much money I could've made," I said, fingers already flying over the keys. "Tell me again you're not curious what our little demon baby could've earned us if I just… patched her up."
Okada grinned heavily, using the stack of bills to fan himself. "Do it baby, debug that game and brings us millions!"