Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

I know financial Chapters can get boring, which is why I space them apart and avoid repeating them constantly, but they are still important. These details are necessary, especially in a business-focused story, instead of doing what many chuunibyo fanfics do where children suddenly gain absurd amounts of money out of thin air with some explanation.

Yes, it may be boring to some readers, but I cannot simply say he made billions and leave it at that—otherwise, what would even be the point of this entire fic? In the same way I cannot just say characters fucked without writing how their relationship developed and how they fuck, I also have to show how the business empire is built.

And don’t worry, it is only this detailed because it is the beginning. Later on, during events like the Dot-com crash, you will mostly receive some background information and hard numbers rather than deep explanations. It is similar to how I went into detail explaining how a bloated movie studio operated during the first film arc, but never repeated those in-depth explanations in later arcs. So these foundations have to be written now.

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******

In the home office in Laurel Canyon, Marvin read the Bank Indonesia statement at four-thirty in the morning — the Los Angeles timestamp on the news that was breaking in the Asian morning — and felt the particular quality of confirmation that is different from satisfaction. Satisfaction is what you feel when something you hoped would happen has happened.

Confirmation is what you feel when something you knew would happen has happened, and the knowing is verified by the knowledge.

He let the feeling sit for approximately ten seconds. Then he called Elena.

”The band has been widened,” Elena said, without greeting. She had clearly been awake.

”I know. Expand the position.”

”To what size?”

”Another twelve million notional today. Spread across the one-month and three-month tenors, weighted toward the three-month to give the thesis maximum resolution time.” He paused. ”What’s the current NDF pricing for the three-month?”

”2,810. Implied volatility has jumped to thirty-two percent annualised — the move this morning has the market pricing more uncertainty, which is making the contracts more expensive.”

”The increased cost is worth paying. The directional conviction justifies the premium.” He was quiet for a moment, running the numbers in the notebook. ”What’s the total notional on the current rupiah book?”

”Sixteen million entered on the eighth and ninth. The twelve million today brings us to twenty-eight million.”

”Target is thirty million total as discussed. Complete the final two million over the next two to three trading sessions — no urgency, just establish the full size without moving the market.”

”Done.”

He hung up and spent the next hour reading the overnight reports from the Jakarta team.

The picture they painted was of a government and a central bank that had, in the space of twelve weeks, exhausted the political will and the technical credibility required to maintain the policies they had been defending. The rate increase of early August had failed to stabilise the currency. The foreign capital outflow had not reversed.

The banking system’s non-performing loan problem was becoming visible in the quarterly reports of the larger institutions, whose executives had previously managed to maintain the fiction of solvency through the application of generous valuation assumptions to assets whose true values had been deteriorating for months.

The situation in Indonesia was going to get considerably worse before it got better.

---

The team in Seoul filed their August 15th report at six in the morning Korean time — nine in the evening, Los Angeles time on August 14th — and Marvin read it when it came through, cross-referencing the data points against his own notes.

The KOSPI had fallen eight point three percent from its July 2nd level, underperforming the Nikkei (down three point two percent) but outperforming Jakarta’s JSX (down eighteen point seven percent). The won was trading at 893.5 per dollar — marginally weaker than the 889 level at which David had opened the conversation on August 9th, but still broadly stable in a way that was increasingly anomalous given the scale of the regional depreciation around it.

The Korean financial press was running a series of editorial pieces arguing that Korea’s industrial base and export competitiveness would insulate it from the contagion, pieces whose confidence bore an inverse relationship to the actual condition of the financial system supporting the industrial base.

What was not in the financial press, but was in the Seoul team’s report, was this: two of the five major Korean commercial banks had, in the previous two weeks, quietly approached their foreign correspondent banking relationships to request extensions on short-term dollar borrowing facilities that were due to mature.

One of the requests had been declined — the foreign bank involved had cited general risk appetite reduction for Asia as the reason, a formulation precise enough to be accurate and vague enough to be politic. The other had been extended at a materially higher spread — approximately 120 basis points above LIBOR, up from the 45 to 60 basis points at which similar facilities had been rolling earlier in the year.

The rollover stress was beginning to manifest. Earlier than David’s original October estimate, and in a form that suggested the underlying problem was larger than even the pessimistic scenario had priced.

Marvin noted this. He moved the Korea won program start date from September 1st to August 25th.

---

By the 19th of August, his entertainment works’ financial terminal sitting on the desk finally rendered its blood-chilling verdict.

The telephone on the desk rang. Marvin picked up the receiver, his eyes locked onto the glowing green digits of the stock ticker.

”Marvin,” the voice of Andrew Cohen echoed through the line. The senior Wall Street broker sounded breathless. The sheer violence of the market’s movement had rendered him quiet for the first ten seconds of the call.

”Read me the terminal, Andrew,” Marvin purred, his voice a smooth, velvety baritone that completely belied his eleven years of age.

He leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, projecting the aura of an emperor receiving a battlefield casualty report from his general.

”It’s... it’s a massacre at least in US, Marvin,” Andrew finally exhaled, the disbelief heavy in his throat. ”The August tranche has crossed expiry. And it crossed it with a violence I have rarely seen in my entire career.”

The $883,200 three-month position—the financial fuse born from the initial February reinvestment, fed through the May rollover, and aimed at the late summer tech boom—had detonated exactly as Marvin had calculated.

”Yahoo didn’t just climb, Marvin,” Andrew read the raw data, shaking his head in his New York office. ”It’s surging. It completely shattered the resistance lines. It pushed past fifty-six dollars a share this morning, dragging every single leveraged position with it like a riptide pulling debris downstream.”

The options contracts, struck near $38 back in early June when the stock was hovering at an uncertain $40, had originally been purchased at a premium of four to five dollars.

They now carried a eighteen dollars of raw, intrinsic value. The arithmetic was almost uncomfortable for the veteran broker to process.

”A three-and-a-half times return on the $883,200 principal,” Andrew confirmed, his voice dropping to a whisper. ”Total payout upon liquidation: $3,091,200.”

Over three million dollars in pure profit from a single, rolled position that had started its life as a modest $400,000 short-term bet just fourteen months earlier. The compounding mechanics hadn’t just worked—the financial machine had consumed everything around it, feeding on market volatility until it had grown into a leviathan.

”Congratulations, Marvin,” Andrew said, waiting for the inevitable, ecstatic celebration of a child who had just become a multi-millionaire in cash.

But Marvin didn’t celebrate. The Incubus felt no adrenaline, only the satisfaction of an executed small puzzle of grand strategy.

”Do not liquidate it into cash, Andrew,” Marvin issued the only instruction that made logical sense to his mind. ”Roll it forward.”

”Roll... all of it?” Andrew stammered. ”Marvin, it’s three million dollars. You are entirely exposed—”

”I did not stutter,” Marvin commanded, his tone dropping into an authoritative register that instantly silenced the broker. ”The entire $3,091,200 is to be redeployed immediately. Purchase a fresh set of three-month calls. Set the expiry for late November. Price the strike just above the current market. Light another fuse, Andrew. A much, much larger one.”

”Understood, Boss,” Andrew swallowed hard, his fingers flying across his terminal keyboard to execute the trade.

Marvin placed the receiver back on the cradle. He steepled his long fingers and looked at the full, sprawling picture of his financial empire.

The 31,576 raw shares of Yahoo! currently entombed inside the Scarlet Capitals holding accounts were now valued at $1,768,256. It was nearly three times his original equity outlay, sitting entirely untouched, compounding its value in silence.

The two remaining, leveraged options structures—the $532,000 September tranche and the $532,000 October position—were both deep in the money, their intrinsic values accelerating with every passing hour of the trading day.

And now, the largest single position of his entire Wall Street campaign— $3,091,200 bet in fresh November calls—sat fully loaded and waiting for the winter surge.

The machine had started with just under a million dollars of borrowed Hollywood capital. It was no longer recognizable as the same machine.

A soft knock on the doors broke the silence of the study.

”Enter,” Marvin called out, seamlessly shifting his aura into something warmer and far more inviting.

Amy pushed the door open, carrying a thick stack of manila folders smelling sharply of fresh printer ink. Even after weeks of working directly for him, stepping into Marvin’s immediate proximity still sent a pleasant, electric shiver down her spine. His handsomeness—the dark, golden-brown hair falling effortlessly over his forehead, the deep, nebula-blue eyes that seemed to see right through her—was enhanced by a subtle, constant pulse of Incubus charm. It made her heart flutter, demanding her attention.

”Good afternoon, Marvin,” Amy smiled, her cheeks flushing slightly under his magnetic gaze. ”The global tracking reports you requested from Random House, Disney, and Columbia just came across the fax.”

”Excellent. Walk me through it, Amy,” Marvin purred, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk.

Amy sat down, opening the first folder. ”Let’s start with publishing. The children’s literary market is entirely yours. Kung Fu Panda has officially sold nearly 1.2 million physical copies domestically. Random House has completely exhausted their initial supply lines and the novel has officially gone into an emergency second printing to meet the back-to-school demand.”

Marvin nodded slowly.

”Now, for the theatrical run,” Amy continued, her eyes widening as she read the box office receipts. ”The numbers on The Parent Trap are staggering. The North American domestic box office has officially reached $140.9 million as of this morning.”

Amy tapped the paper with her pen. ”The Disney executives project it should easily break the $150 million barrier before it officially leaves theaters at the end of the season. And if we include the current $75.4 million generated from the overseas box office markets... the movie has already surpassed a global cumulative of $250 million.”

Marvin leaned back, his mind processing the cinematic data.

A profound realization struck the transmigrator. In the deep, fragmented memories he had inherited from the otherworldly soul, Marvin had previously operated under the assumption that The Parent Trap only grossed a little over $96 million in North America.

Looking at the current data, it was abundantly clear that the ’other’ Marvin in his mind had been mistaken; the previous soul had likely remembered the global box office of the original timeline and misattributed it as the domestic haul.

Or, more accurately, Marvin’s direct involvement had altered the timeline’s mathematics.

Because Marvin simply couldn’t believe, even for a fraction of a second, that an iteration of The Parent Trap starring himself—an Incubus utilizing supernatural emotional projection on the silver screen—would only gross a mere three million dollars more than the original iteration starring Lindsay. His performance had elevated the film from a quirky family comedy into a cultural phenomenon. The $250 million global footprint was the proof.

”And finally,” Amy said, her voice dropping into a register of awe as she opened the last folder bearing the Columbia Records logo. ”The music. The EP.”

Marvin’s eyes gleamed with dark amusement.

”Tell me about Marvin 1, Amy.”

”It is a total, historical anomaly,” she breathed, sliding the official RIAA certification document across the desk. ”In just three months since its surprise drop... the EP has sold more than 1.62 million physical copies worldwide. It has officially achieved Platinum status across three different continents.”

The controversy that had threatened to derail the album in July had completely evaporated, transformed into the very rocket fuel that propelled it to the top of the charts.

Princess Diana’s strong, unapologetic recommendation—and her defiant publicized press conference in London—had played a crucial role in this victory.

When the most beloved, heavily scrutinized woman on the planet publicly defended the emotional purity of the tracks, the conservative media apparatus was forced to retreat. Diana had provided Marvin with a royal shield.

Of course, the media, the executives, and the fans believed the success was due to raw talent and celebrity endorsements.

They were entirely blind to the truth. The most important, foundational element of the EP’s unprecedented success was the concentrated vocal magic Marvin had seamlessly woven into the recording. It artificially and permanently increased the emotional impact, forcing the listener into a state of hypnotic immersion.

Sound magic was one of the Incubus race’s primary methods of hunting in his past life. A siren song designed to lure prey into the dark. In this life, he had simply weaponized it for platinum records and global devotion.

Marvin looked at the three folders resting on his desk. Wall Street. Hollywood. The Music Industry.

Marvin was actively walking three completely distinct paths, and they were all progressing in perfect tandem. He was no longer just building a career.

Amy sat opposite the desk, a series of thick, embossed financial ledgers spread open before her.

”The cash from your three primary ventures—the movie, the EP, and the book—has officially started to settle into the holding accounts,” Amy reported, her voice professional but carrying an undeniable undertone of awe. ”But as we discussed, it is a long-term liquidity game.”

Marvin leaned back in his leather chair, steepling his fingers. His nebula-blue eyes watched her with patience.

*****

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