Marisa and Komei.

Wednesday night, Marisa and Komei showed up at the home venue together.

Although, because Marisa was now trying to become a Doctor of Nutrition, Derek saw her at the hospital frequently, Yulia hadn’t talked to her former employee in several days. And then Yulia realized she hadn’t even seen Komei in several days.

The couple was still there the next morning, and Yulia went over to catch up after Derek and the teens had left for the day. “Komei, where’ve you been?,” she inquired.

“I opened that kitchen appliance store I was telling you about,” he explained. “’Komei’s Kitchen Stuff’—catchy, huh?”

“So, I’ve spent the last few days doing nothing but selling appliances to customers.”

“Because I was already Level 10 in Charisma,” he continued, “it didn’t take me very long to get my Bronze badge in Sales,”

“then my Silver,”

“then my Gold,”

“at which point I could ‘Dazzle,’ and sales just took off from there! Of course,” he confessed ruefully, “my register skills still aren’t very good,”

“but my restocking ability makes up for it—I can restock an item immediately after I sell it, and STILL beat the customer to the cash register!”

“I DID finally get a Bronze in register, but that’s all so far,” he admitted.

He went on. “By the time my store reached Rank 5, I had sold enough appliances to make $100K!—which was my LTW!”

“Wow!,” said Yulia, impressed with her former employee. “So, what’s next for you?”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “the NEXT part has actually already happened!”

“With the money I earned from sales, PLUS the $83,000 I got from community grants for getting my store to Rank 5, I bought the old Aubrey Manor!”

“AND,” he continued, almost without taking a breath, “I got Marisa over to my new house this morning under the pretext of advising me how to redo the kitchen—since she’s such an experienced cook and all. She’d had an overnight shift at the hospital, and I knew she was exhausted and needed to sleep. But I begged her to come over on her way home to her apartment, and I promised her it would take only a few minutes.”

He related the rest of the story to Yulia:

************************

“Komei!,” Marisa had gasped. “This is a LOT of house!”

“Yeah, and it needs a LOT of work!,” he responded. “Come on—let me show you the kitchen. I’m really going to need some help figuring out what the heck to do with it!”

“I see your point,” Marisa commented, after examining the space. “It almost doesn’t make any sense for the kitchen to be here in the front of the house—that nice bay window kind of encourages a dining room, don’t you think? Maybe the kitchen would be better in the back of the house. I bet you can re-use these cabinets, though.”

The two walked through the rest of the mostly empty first floor.

“There sure IS a lot to do here,” Marisa mused.

“Yes, but I already did a couple of the upstairs rooms,” said Komei, excited. “Wanna see?” He sprinted upstairs without waiting for her answer.

“What do you think?,” Komei asked excitedly, as he showed her a beautiful, airy bedroom,

with a luxurious ensuite bath.

“This is gorgeous!,” Marisa said. “Whose room is this?”

“Yours, if you want it!,” Komei told her.

************************

“So then she hugged me,” Komei told Yulia. “And then I left her alone so that she could decompress from work,” Komei explained. “I was feeling pretty confident, though. I mean, we’re both Fortune Sims, so I’m pretty sure I know what makes Marisa happy.”

“That’s great!,” Yulia enthused. She was very happy to think that two of her former employees might be building a life together.

Komei got up and walked away to talk to one of his customers who was waiting on a cooktop delivery, and Yulia took that opportunity to talk to Marisa.

“I hear you have NEWS!,” Yulia teased her.

“Yeah,” Marisa said, blushing a bit.

“I’m really lucky Komei’s such a gentleman—I was so out of things earlier this morning that someone could really have taken advantage of me! After he left, I took a shower in that incredible bathroom—probably the best shower of my life!”

“Then I put on a robe that Komei had told me he’d left for me in the armoire,”

“and crawled into that wonderful bed. My head was spinning, quite frankly, and I figured I’d better get some sleep in order to think clearly..’

“And when I woke up from my nap, I realized I wanted to be married to Komei….”

_______________________________

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

A compressed “how to make money from a retail store” post! (As well as another illustration why $100K is the easiest/fastest LTW.)

As Wen had sagely figured out (from the earlier post in which Yed had to move in with Komei briefly in order to buy Genya’s dance/fitness studio), I WAS background playing Komei and Marisa.

In the first couple of days in Belle Townhouses, Komei got his Charisma to Level 10, bought the kitchen appliance store, developed some rudimentary cooking skills in order to impress the talented and pretty sous-chef he fancies (!), invited her over for dinner (okay—slightly burnt grilled cheese!) a couple times and, starting from Rank 0 at 10:28 Thursday morning and no sales badges, he had his Gold badge in Sales by 6:48 that evening: < 8 and 1/2 hours! (Yes, he used the Energizer.) He stayed at the store continuously till Saturday evening at 5:02 p.m. He was doing well, and could have stayed there ad infinitum (even with NO employees, which you may have noticed!), but left because: he’d reached Rank 5, so had gotten all the community cash awards, he was at $200K plus of available cash, and he wanted to buy a snazzy house so he could convince Marisa to move in with him. Remember, keep your eyes on the prize!

Ah, the wonderfulness of a man who knows that real estate is the best gift….

Twins, College, and Permaplat (but not for Yulia).

Previously, on the afternoon of Yasiu’s birthday, Yedrek and Yanastasia were again leaving for the studio. “Good grief!,” teased Yed. “You’ve got that same dress and shoes in ANOTHER COLOR?”

Yana barely looked up from her practicing. “Wow, and look at YOU, Twin!,” she said sarcastically, noticing the Adidas logo on his shirt. “A product endorsement?--and you’re not even a real athlete!”

“Yet!,” he retorted.

They went to the studio, where Yana resumed her usual workout,

and Yed did a lot of weeding at the extravagantly planted venue.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yana slipping into a tent, and called to her, “Hey—I could use some help here!”

“Maybe later,” she called over her shoulder. “I need a nap.”

**********

When Yana got up, she felt a bit guilty, so half-heartedly trimmed a few bushes. ‘I sure hope no one who knows me—and whose opinion I actually CARE about—sees me,’ she thought, disregarding regular customer Joe Carr as not worthy of her interest.

Despite Yana’s lack of customer appreciation, the studio reached Rank 4, at which point the teens went home for Yosh’s birthday.

******************

Early morning after Yosh’s birthday, Yevgenya awoke and went down to the dining hall to do her assignment. The guy in the llama jacket she’d met last evening, Bruce Rusewicz, was there, chatting up another student.

‘That guy sure gets around,’ she mused.

After finishing her assignment, she headed out to find some place to practice piano and work on Creativity.

Rather than return to Loungarama Leisureland, the atmosphere of which she found a bit boisterous, she decided to try King’s Music Hall.

Just outside, she saw Daniel Parmeley, a boy she recognized from her “Survey of Everything” class.

But before she could talk to him, Bruce Rusewicz headed her off.

“I see you everywhere!,” Genya remarked. “Do you ever sleep?”

“I’ve got a lot of people to meet, and not nearly enough time!,” the boy said, somewhat mysteriously.

Once inside, she sought out Daniel. “Hi!,” she said. “I think you’re in my survey class, right?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “I actually sat behind you today. I noticed you were blogging about food before class started.”

“Are you interested in cuisine,” she asked hopefully.

“Not at all—I eat only to stay alive.”

Genya quickly switched topics, and tried to talk to Daniel about fitness, and then about music and dance, but it turned out he was not interested in those hobbies, either.

‘Oh, well,’ Genya thought, resigned. She turned around and saw another girl in a llama jacket, so greeted her. Her name was Elle Wolosenko, and not only did she share Genya’s interest in cuisine, she was also a Fortune Sim, and had a LTW of owning 5 Top-Level Businesses.

“Oh!,” Genya exclaimed. “You should meet my mother—she’s only a few stars away from getting her OWN 5th Top-Level Business!”

The two girls talked for a while, then Genya went to practice piano. As soon as she’d gotten another Creativity point, she went back to her dorm.

She was fairly hungry and, after assessing the not very nutritious snacks that were available in the dining hall’s fridge, she decided to make a good breakfast for herself. And for whoever else happened by.

She was joined for breakfast by JJ Huffman, a Popularity Sim who wanted a career in Journalism. ‘Gee—everybody seems to know what they want to do except me!,’ she thought.

By the time she finished breakfast it was 7 a.m., so she tried calling Yosh.

“Hey, little one!,” she cried, happy to hear her younger brother’s voice. “Though I guess you’re not so little anymore, huh?”

Yosh told her all about his birthday party, which Genya was very sorry to have missed.

“It’s okay, Sis,” he said, good naturedly. “I know you just started at Uni, and you must be overwhelmed.”

The siblings hung up a few minutes later, and Genya found herself wondering why both her brothers were so normal and her sister was such a drip.

*******************************

After he hung up with Genya, Yosh looked for any scholarships he might be eligible for,

and was excited to get three.

Yana—who had an “interim” LTW of earning $100K—reached permaplat status before she left for school on Wednesday.

*******************

When the three teens got home from school several hours later, Yed brought home a really cute girl.

Unfortunately, they had negative chemistry,

but at least Yed realized his own interim LTW of earning $100K.

Thrilled that his younger son was interested in a science career, Derek had gotten the boy a Surgical Training Station.

Yosh loved the present, and immediately set about practicing surgery (if carelessly).

Yed was occupied with his friend from school, and Yana had less than zero interest in running the studio without him (‘Too much like work!,’ in her opinion), so she took advantage of her new permaplat status to use a thinking cap to get her Creativity to Level 8,

and so to merit another scholarship.

When Derek came home from the hospital, he helped Yosh with his technique.

When Yed’s schoolmate left, he figured it was too late to go to the studio, so donned a thinking cap and worked on his Charisma,

and also merited another scholarship.

Later in the evening, Yana maxed out her enthusiasm for Music and Dance, quickly changed into an evening gown, and resumed playing piano.

‘I RULE!,” she announced aloud gleefully, though no one was nearby to hear her.

___________________________

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

I think it’s safe to say that Yana will not be running a business in the future….

Oh my word, that Bruce Rusewicz guy is unattractive! Anyone who’s doing an Uglacy—don’t overlook HIM!!!

I figure I’ll show how much trouble Genya goes through to find a nice guy, because that’s real life. Grayson Kimbrell went to Uni with her, but he must be off doing his own thing because she hasn’t run into him. And Genya doesn’t know herself yet, so she can hardly know what romantically she’s looking for. The Sim she hit it off most with so far is Elle Wolosenko (and Genya’s not gay).

Anybody else notice JJ Huffman was nearly invisible??? WTF??? Are there student ghosts???

Dang!—how did Yosh get the Footwork award? I don’t remember ever even seeing him at the ballet barre!

My brilliant idea of a week ago was to have teens have an initial, “interim” LTW of “Earn $100K.” I think it’s the easiest LTW to satisfy anyway—I’ve done it with a CAS Adult in as little as just under 5 days (my latest Sim contestant achieved it very early on a Saturday morning), and it’s effortless for teens with one or more entrepreneurial parents. (That is, not 2 salaried parents, but at least one with some self-employed business sense). Keep this in mind, folks, for when you really want the gypsy to show up with the genie lamp, but she doesn’t….

Gosh—I had high hopes for that girl that Yed brought home from school—EXCELLENT genetics! Too bad he hates her….

I’ve never before noticed a Sim autonomously change into formal wear when maxing hobby interest in Music and Dance via piano! (I know it doesn’t happen via the ballet barre—the dancer keeps wearing her gym clothes.)