Chapter 150. Convincing Irene. (2/6)

Irene leaned forward over the steering wheel resting her forehead against it desperately holding back her tears.

“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.”

“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!”

“Precisely. Sell your soul to me and I’ll make all your problems go away.”

“You’re just a kid, what can you possibly do!”

“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.”

“How am I supposed to believe that?”

“It’s quite simple actually. Some simple cold hard facts and calculations. It’s all elementary and child’s play for a devil like me.”

“Cheap words don’t mean anything if you can’t provide evidence.”

“You want evidence, then I’ll provide you with it right now.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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 income 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.”

“Are you an idiot? That’s not anywhere near enough to do anything. I make over $2000 from my full-time jobs.”

“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 income tax is. What you truly make from each job with your gross combined income after taxes and deductions are applied is about $1500-$1600 a month.”

“So what? I’d still be $900-$1000 short. Where would I get the rest?

“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 plans 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.”

“But… but… I’d still be short $300-400…”

“Haha… that’s where I come in.”

“I can’t possibly ask you to pay more. You’re already paying rent.”

“Well, actually... even if I don’t contribute, in reality, you’ll only be in the negative by about $40 every month you know.”

“What! How is that possible!”

“Simple you fool, taxes.”

“What? Taxes? But how?”

“Did you forget taxes and deductions are heavily dependent on the combined gross income of both your jobs? Meaning, your income increases to $1800 off of a 40-hour workweek on one job instead, dummy.”

“That much?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re proposing to just raise your rent by just $40?”

“Hmph! Absolutely not.”

“Uh… well, I guess I could do a small bit of overtime at one job or something.”

“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.”

I took out a folded-up piece of paper from my pocket and presented her the contract.

“Wait… hold on a second… have your savings? That’s way too much. I can’t possibly accept that much. I’m fine even if I don’t make a cent and have a zero balance in my account 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…”

“Wrong idea? What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t this… kind of sound like marriage?”

“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 relationship with another person because of some absurd piece of paper and giving you some stupid little benefits.”

“Who gives a shit what the government thinks of your relationship 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?”

“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.”

“Are you insane? What do you think you’re doing putting a condition like forfeiting your life to me if you betray my trust?”

“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.”

“I can’t sign this.”

“You will sign it. I won’t change the condition.”

“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…”

“It is just a trivial number. Besides that, I need to do this as… I need to act fast with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Though age is a trivial number, the fact remains that certain things will still be affected by it. For example… fertility.”

“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!”

“But if things are delayed, 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 can come 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.”

“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?”

“I’m glad 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, incomes, 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.”

“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.”

Suddenly, Irene’s expression froze when she saw something on the spreadsheet.

“R-R-Ran! You made some kind of mistake here!”

KiraMinoru

In case anyone remembers the random author note I made in the past months ago when I said I was in too deep by making spreadsheets working out their taxes and other shit, this was it.