Chapter 150.


    <strong>Chapter 150. Convincing Irene. (2/6)</strong>


    <span style="font-weight:400">Irene leaned forward over the steering wheel resting her forehead against it desperately holding back her tears.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Irene, there is a way to save you. A way where your children won’t be unhappy in the future. A way where you will be happy. A way where you can watch them grow up. A way where you stay healthy and live a long life. A way where you can take it easy and not work yourself into the grave. A way where you won’t suffer at all.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How! Such a way is obviously too good to be true! With such offers, there’s always a catch! Do you want me to sell my soul to the devil or something!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Precisely. Sell your soul to me and I’ll make all your problems go away.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re just a kid, what can you possibly do!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I can save you, Irene. It would be as simple as snapping my finger. All you’d need to do is sign your soul away to me, your everything.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How am I supposed to believe that?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s quite simple actually. Some simple cold hard facts and calctions. It’s all elementary and child’s y for a devil like me.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Cheap words don’t mean anything if you can’t provide evidence.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You want evidence, then I’ll provide you with it right now.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“If your daughter works just 25 hours a week at minimum wage all your problems will go away. With just that it is more than enough for you to quit your full-time job.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s impossible. Do you think I’m a fool? Also, do you expect me to take away all my daughter’s hard-earned money and leave her without a single cent to show for it?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Aren’t you naive to think I wouldn’t predict you’d say that? Whoever said she’d give you all her money? All she needs to contribute is $600. She will be able to save $580 all for herself every single month. Each month her gross ie would be $1250, as children don’t pay taxes she’d only have deductions to worry about. She’d be left with about $1180 after deductions.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Are you an idiot? That’s not anywhere near enough to do anything. I make over $2000 from my full-time jobs.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh do you now? Do you really make that much? No, you do not. Don’t lie to me. We both know about how dreadful ie tax is. What you truly make from each job with your grossbined ie after taxes and deductions are applied is about $1500-$1600 a month.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So what? I’d still be $900-$1000 short. Where would I get the rest?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes, you would. But… the situation isn’t so simple you know. I’ve already discussed this with Rosa and after she starts working, if Alicia ns to contribute to the household she will as well. This is why I said your daughter only needs to pay $600 for everything to work out.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“But… but… I’d still be short $300-400…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haha… that’s where Ie in.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I can’t possibly ask you to pay more. You’re already paying rent.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, actually... even if I don’t contribute, in reality, you’ll only be in the negative by about $40 every month you know.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What! How is that possible!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Simple you fool, taxes.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Taxes? But how?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Did you forget taxes and deductions are heavily dependent on thebined gross ie of both your jobs? Meaning, your ie increases to $1800 off of a 40-hour workweek on one job instead, dummy.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That much?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then you’re proposing to just raise your rent by just $40?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hmph! Absolutely not.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uh… well, I guess I could do a small bit of overtime at one job or something.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No, you don’t need to do that. I said absolutely not because I don’t intend to leave you broke every month unable to save a single penny for yourself. My proposal is to split half my savings every month up with you. My monthly savings is $710, meaning I will give you $355 every month. This isn’t free by any means though. You are selling your soul to me in exchange. All you have to do is sign the dotted line here.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I took out a folded-up piece of paper from my pocket and presented her the contract.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Wait… hold on a second… have your savings? That’s way too much. I can’t possibly ept that much. I’m fine even if I don’t make a cent and have a zero bnce in my ount every month. What I get in return is to see my children growing up, and plenty of free time to myself to enjoy life. That’s already more than enough for me to sell my soul to you. I don’t need your money. Besides that… if you do this… I’ll… get the wrong idea…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Wrong idea? What do you mean?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Doesn’t this… kind of sound like marriage?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Marriage? Haha. Perhaps it is. Actually, I quite like the sound of this now. Rather than marrying someone, I’d much rather have their soul belong to me in this sort of manner. Marriage has always been something I’ve viewed as utter rubbish. It’s just the government acknowledging your rtionship with another person because of some absurd piece of paper and giving you some stupid little benefits.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Who gives a shit what the government thinks of your rtionship or their shitty little benefits? Why do people care so much? Why not just sign contracts between each other like this instead? Isn’t it fine as long as the two parties acknowledge each other’s status and uphold the contract of their own free will?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Irene, this idea of yours that this being like marriage isn’t a bad one. But in my eyes this supersedes marriage. In exchange for offering me your soul, my life is yours. In the event of a breach of contract, should I betray your trust in an unforgivable manner, my life is forfeit to you. Half of what I save every month shall also belong to you. In exchange for these two conditions, I receive your soul. Those are the terms I wrote up in this contract.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Are you insane? What do you think you’re doing putting a condition like forfeiting your life to me if you betray my trust?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Your trust is worth that much. As a man with nothing to his name, I don’t have very much to offer you, so I can only provide you with such an offer.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I can’t sign this.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You will sign it. I won’t change the condition.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“But I’m already so old, why are you going so far to get this entangled with me? Doing something you’re considering as being a level above marriage? I’m already double your age…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It is just a trivial number. Besides that, I need to do this as… I need to act fast with you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What do you mean?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Though age is a trivial number, the fact remains that certain things will still be affected by it. For example… fertility.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“F-Fertility! Are you an idiot? What are you thinking about? You’re thinking of having a child with me? You’ve lost your mind. You should first be focusing on your girlfriends!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“But if things are dyed, what about you? I want you to raise one more child in your life. For your own sake. One that you can peacefully watch growing up from birth. So you cane to love yourself again. So you don’t hate yourself for missing out on those two years where your daughter and son grew up without you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“For my own sake... Do you even know how hard it is to raise a child? It costs a lot of money. Where would we get that sort of extra money?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m d you asked. Here’s a spreadsheet showing what our savings would look like every month over the next eight years. It contains work schedules for everyone, ies, a general tax breakdown throughout intervals of our lives, monthly expenses, monthly savings after expenses are deducted, and the eight-year saving schedule all in one package. It’s basically a summary of everything we just went over with a more in-depth detailed analysis.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“And as you can see, by taking advantage of us students working with 0% taxes, we can cut the household tax bill by more than half what you were paying when you had three jobs. Fuck the government and their taxes. By yourself, I estimated your tax bill to be about $1382 a month. With all of us working and contributing, it brings it down to a measly $610 for two and a half years. After that, it will be about $695 for possibly four more years. Then finally, post-graduation, if we were to stay with those jobs for some time, it would be $775.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Suddenly, Irene’s expression froze when she saw something on the spreadsheet.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“R-R-Ran! You made some kind of mistake here!”