"Comments"

After a mini heart attack and a few hours of refreshing my book’s page to watch for views, my novel got pushed further into the depths of the website known as AntHill. Dozens of books, new and old, took my rightful spot at the top, leaving me as a speck of dust on whatever algorithm this website ran on.

The view number stayed at a big fat ZERO. I kept refreshing the page, but that number was dead set on staying as low as it could get. I half expected to see a negative one at some point.

“This suuuucks,” I spun in my chair, turning toward June and Cal. June was taking a nap on my bed, and Cal was digging through a box of old junk. “When do I get scouted and turned into an anime?”

“Right when you stop thinking it's that easy,” June replied. “Auri, it's time for a break.”

“Well…” I spun back to the screen and investigated several of the new novels. “This novel came out yesterday and already has hundreds of followers and views.”

“It’s either botted, or he's got a great marketing campaign.”

“Marketing campaign?”

“Yeah,” June opened her eyes and turned to me. “People will post on social media and buy ads to get more views.”

I checked out how much an ad was on the website, but it turned out to be about 100 bucks for a campaign.

“If you'd like, I could go and hunt for one hundred bucks, fair princess,” Cal said as he placed a plastic tea cup on his head like it was some sort of accessory.

“Cal, a buck is a dollar,” June pulled a dollar bill and handed it to him. “Let me show you this before you end up buying something expensive without money.”

“He almost bought a crotch rocket…” I mumbled.

“This parchment smells very funny,” Cal sniffed the dollar. “It makes my nose hurt.”

“Ookay…” I snatched it and stuffed it in my desk. “Stop sniffing money. You have no idea where that's been.”

They say that a lot of the money out there has been in some nasty hands and pockets. I don’t know what that smell was, but that dollar reeked.

“Hey, that was mine!” June said as she got up and took the money out of my desk. “I say just be patient, Auri. People don't usually become famous overnight.”

“Yeah, but I want to.”

“And that’s why you'll keep failing at it.” Her words were harsh, but her tone was playful, like the little green dude who lives in the swamp. “Look, I'm going to crash on your couch tonight, okay?”

“We’ve pretty much got a communal home thing at this point, so why not,” I shrugged. “Oh, make sure to change out Octo’s water before bed, by the way.”

“Yeah, I’ll go take care of it.”

She was going to be taking the couch, but I needed somewhere for Cal to sleep. If we were married we could both use my bed, but we had to wait a few years for that.

“Cal, where would you like to sleep?” I asked.

He started inspecting around the apartment. It wasn’t a big place, but he really looked over everything before deciding to stake it out right outside my door.

“This will allow you plenty of privacy, and I’ll be a stone's throw away,” he said, sitting down against the wall. “You will be protected as long as I am here.”

He was just hunched over in a really uncomfortable position.That was not going to be good for his back!

“At least take a pillow…”

Cal kinda fought for the right to just sleep with his back against the wall, but I at least was able to wrap him up in a blanket and lay him on the floor. He claimed that anything more would make it hard for him to get up incase of an emergency.

It was going to be weird waking up in the morning with all these people living here. June was one thing, but two dudes I’d strangely known since middle school were bizarre in a way. But who cares when one of them is my husbando?

Giddiness made me feel all energized. In the morning, I wanted to make Cal pancakes shaped like hearts. Oh, what if I added in strawberries cut into hearts too? He’d love it!

*Ding!* “You’ve received mail!”

“Yeeep!” I screeched at the voice coming out of my computer.

*CRASH!*

“Princess!” Cal bust down my door. “Is everything alright?!”

“My door…” I slouched, hopelessly gesturing to the door that now laid on the ground. “I wasn’t in any danger or anything, you know?”

“Oh…uh…” Cal rubbed the back of his head nervously. “Well, I can’t really take any chances.”

*Ding!* “You’ve received mail!”

There was that voice again. I sat down at my computer and realized I had the sound way up. I usually had my earbuds in or the sound off, so I wasn’t used to hearing that outloud.

“The computer seems to have chainmail for you,” Cal said.

“Do you not know what mail is?” I asked.

“I am male.” He pressed a hand to his chest.

The concept of mail existed in his world, but I guess I never gave it a proper name. With a quick explanation, he understood, but now he started to question why homonyms existed.

Anyways, I checked out the Email and surprisingly discovered that I got notifications of comments on my book!

“Eeeee!” I squealed with joy. “This is it, Cal! This is where I get famous!”

I immediately opened up the book’s page to find…

“Five comments!” I squealed again, hugging Cal's arm tightly. “O-M-G I can't believe it!”

“This is very good, fair princess,” Cal said. “These com-ents, what do they say?”

I opened up the messages and read them outloud in order of oldest to new.

-“Wow.”-

-“Nice.. :)”-

-“great. .☆”-

-“Your work is very good. I would like to take it and bring it to life through the power of digital design. Please contact me at MAY@Nope.org with all of your social accounts so we may have private chat.”-

-“Good Anime.”-

“Oh my god!” I spun around in my seat. “They love me! And they want my work to be an anime! Eeeeeh!”

Cal nodded along proudly. “I knew you could do it. I never had any doubts you would be the best writer in all the land.”

*Swoooon!*

This was so exciting. And the best part was that someone was actually offering to bring my work to life with digital expertise! This was going to be my ticket to the high life!!!

\(>v<)/