[Owen POV]
It was Christmas morning. Micheal had put a giant tree in the center of the courtyard, with decorations everywhere.
"Owen. It's for you." Elena handed me a present. It was a medium-sized box wrapped in a candy cane–patterned Christmas wrapper with a green ribbon.
"Thank you. And this is for you." I gave her a gift bag. She brightened instantly, quickly peeking inside it.
I ripped off the wrapper and saw some shirts neatly folded inside the box.
"Hmm?" I picked one up and felt the fabric with my hand. The nostalgic feeling hit me instantly.
"This…" I widened my eyes slightly.
Elena giggled, watching my happy face with satisfaction, and said, "I saw in your memories the kind of shirts you wore in 2025. I told Jasper to recreate them."
They looked like modern Uniqlo shirts—breathable, stretchy, and oversized, but with a proper fit, not just baggy. She had given me some jogger pants and straight-cut pants made with comfortable material.
"I love it," I muttered, really touched by her effort. "Look. This shirt even has a print on it." She pointed it out.
It mimicked my drawings from a children's book—the kind with a gothic fairy-tale feel.
"Open yours," I told her.
She smiled with excitement and took her gift out of the bag.
"Ohh! It's the hat I said I liked." She immediately put on the beret.
I smiled and said, "Glad you like it."
"Owen! Look!" Micheal called to my attention from afar. As I turned, he showed his gift, the one he got from Djalu. "He gave me a bike!"
It was a 1975 Norton Commando Roadmaster restored by Djalu.
Everyone got a gift that they liked for Christmas.
I received a gift from Sarah Michelle Gellar, and from Lisa Kudrow, Steve Carell, Ralph Macchio, Jenny Ortega, George Burnett, Jessica and Lenny Sloane, Maya Sloane, and also from Claire Donovan—who made sure to give a gift to every star who made her money this year.
"Owen, whose present do you like the most?" Micheal asked. He was being nosy.
"Elena's is a close second." I replied.
Micheal was frazzled. "Not the first?"
Everyone knew I loved her present the most, so they were confused.
"Whose present got first place?" Sandra asked.
I smirked and said, "My dead ex-wife's present."
"AH!!" Elena finally remembered.
As Jack Kennedy, I got the biggest gift of all.
Two months ago, I was approached by Loreal and Johnson&Johnson.
I had licensed the skin lotion to Loreal, and a Viagra-like drug to Johnson&Johnson.
Loreal had been selling my lotion for six months, and Johnson&Johnson had sold my Viagra for three months. By now, the royalties from both had brought me nearly $75 million under a year.
The annual royalties projection from the two sales would earn me $200 million in one year—$100 million from each formula.
The big pharma and skincare companies were really salivating over the formulas right now. A lot of them were reaching out to me.
Both of my partners wanted to change the exclusivity to outright ownership to ensure I wouldn't do any deals with the others.
Basically, they wanted to cut me out from profit sharing, and make them the owner of the formulas.
I didn't mind if they would pay a premium for it. I also hadn't made the mistake of selling the formulas outright before seeing how the products performed.
If I did that, I might not get the amount I sold it for right now.
During the negotiation, I brought Elena with me.
Elena, with her mind-reading, uncovered their hidden agendas and internal numbers.
I realized they were planning to expand aggressively—something I hadn't agreed to in the licensing contracts. That gave me leverage.
When I told them I knew about their strategy and confidential company information, they were surprised.
They hesitated, but after some back-and-forth, Loreal settled at 18 times the annual royalties to get the deal. My previous exclusive right with them would've been for 10 years, which was around 10 times.
For the Viagra formula, I asked for 15 times the annual royalties, and Johnson&Johnson accepted without much negotiation.
After 35% tax, I walked away with $2.145 billion net profit. They could now grow the market for these products more aggressively since they owned them outright.
"It's all thanks to my ex-wife," I thought, praying for her slightly. The woman had made me her sex-slave for over two years, and now I finally got my spousal support.
Some might think selling the ownership was stupid. Some even said it to my face.
But I knew Pfizer was working on the actual Viagra drug, so competitors were coming.
Loreal could only aggressively promote the lotion for 2–3 years before someone might crack the formula.
Still, I might have made more than $2 billion in 10 years if I kept my ownership.
However, if I sold it right now and invested around $500 million into Amazon, which had $6 per share, and $500 million into Apple, which had $1 per share, by 2006 the value of those shares would have been $65 billion.
It was far more than the royalties I would have made from these formulas.
I didn't know if I could survive till then, but with this, I had ensured the continuous growth of my sect members, even when I wasn't around.
I would only put 500 million into 4CLOVER, the rest would be invested and be used to open up companies.
"So making movies isn't the best way to make money?" Gael said with a confused look.
I nodded at him, "Yup. Right now, all of the movies 4CLOVER has distributed did give us a profit, but honestly, the movie business came with a great risk.
"Movies are like… gambling. Every film is a brand-new product — different story, different cast, different audience. You can't reuse the same one twice.
"But a formula, like the lotion or the drug I sold, can be sold to everyone, again and again. The market scales. Once it works, it keeps working.
"Movies don't. Even a masterpiece might flop just because people weren't in the mood that week, or the era wasn't prepared for it yet."
Micheal asked, "If it's a gamble, why are you doing it?"
I smiled and said, "Cause I'm having fun with it."
…
We watched the movie Deck the Dads on Fox in the afternoon.
The premise was simple: two dads whose houses were side by side were trying to one-up each other in showing their Christmas spirit.
Ed O'Neill, known as Al Bundy in this era, faced off against another sitcom dad in a comedic battle.
O'Neill had a daughter, and the other had a son. Both teenagers decided they'd had enough—so did their spouses.
So, when the dads climbed onto the roof to outcompete each other again, the others took the ladders away—leaving them trapped while it snowed heavily.
The only way they could get back into the house was if they made up with each other.
It was a TV Christmas movie, so it was really safe.
There was even a subplot where the dads saw the daughter and son kissing from afar, which almost made them want to jump off the roof.
The daughter was played by Elizabeth Anne Allen, a TV actress who only had small roles at this time, and the son was played by Wentworth Miller, a newcomer.
Allen would go on to play a witch in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Wentworth Miller would later be known for his role as Michael Scofield in Prison Break.
I made the dialogue a mixture of Community and Modern Family, with two or more plots converging into one another. It felt like an hour-long TV episode.
Manufacturing the VHS copies cost about two dollars each, with packaging and shipping adding another fifty cents.
I printed roughly a million units through 4CLOVER Distribution, which brought the total cost to just under four million.
When Deck the Dads hit stores on December 20th, sales started modestly—mostly parents picking up copies for their kids or last-minute gifts. But everything changed on Christmas Day.
Families who watched it together began talking about it.
Local news outlets and morning shows mentioned it as a "surprisingly heartfelt Christmas gem," the kind of movie you could watch again right after finishing dinner.
And they also praised Ed O'Neil for his surprisingly wholesome character in the movie.
By December 26th, rental stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were nearly wiped out, not just my tv movie, but almost every stock in the store.
That's how big the video market was in 1996.
Deck the Dads shelves were empty by noon, and clerks had to write "Out of Stock – Returns Tomorrow" on the display boxes.
Sales surged too—people who rented it the first night came back to buy their own copies.
By the end of the week, over seven hundred thousand units had sold, and the VHS run had already cleared more than two million in profit.
It was more than anyone expected from a small, family-oriented comedy.
The Scaled One: Legacy rentals spiked by 200% overnight. Stores started placing double orders, and even discount retailers like Kmart and Walmart began selling the tapes directly.
By December 31st, the movie had sold and rented out nearly 900,000 copies in total—earning about $5.8 million in revenue against a $350,000 production budget. After subtracting distribution costs, the film cleared around $4.5 million in profit.
Both of the straight to video movies were really successful, which increased the 4CLOVER brand recognition.
"By the way," Sandra asked, "why is the director's name Jack Harper? Why didn't you use Kennedy's name?"
"Yeah," Agustin added, "even in Fantastical Halloween, you used Jack Harper. Is there a legal reason you're not using Kennedy?"
"Well, I did tell my biological father I'm abandoning the name. The industry knows the last name—so that's enough," I replied.
Elena furrowed her brows, looking puzzled. "So your real name is Jack Kennedy. You deal with the bank as Jack Kennedy. Your company's under Jack Kennedy.
"Your director's name is Jack Harper. Your actor's name is Owen Chase. How many identities do you have?!"
I chuckled. "Including all my past lives? Around thirty, I think."
Michael blinked. "Wait—you lived ten lives before this?"
I nodded. "I kept changing identities. At one point, I was living with seven at the same time—during my murim days.
My teacher at the assassination theater used to tell me; 'The moment you grow attached to one name, you die. An assassin doesn't have an identity—he only wears masks.'"
I added, "He also said; 'Your enemy should know you by one name. Your friend should know you by a different one. Your family, a different one.'"
We talked, we laughed and we watched some Christmas movies.
Gael asked, "Hey, we never watched Serpent Son."
"It's R rated, but I think with Micheal and Sandra, we can get in." I replied.
People under 17 needed a guardian to watch the movie after all.
But we didn't go during Christmas. We went to watch it a few days afterward.
…
At the theater, the lights dimmed, and we finally watched the first movie I had ever starred in—at least, in this world.
I sat next to Gael and Elena. We filled up the entire row of the middle section in the theatre.
"There's barely anyone watching the movie," Elena commented, looking around with furrowed brows.
"That's because it's a weirdly artsy film," I replied, my voice audible enough for the people in front of me to hear.
The old man turned to me and said, "Keep it down in the theater. It will hide your ignorance better."
"Oh, sorry," I replied to him. Elena held back a laugh, wondering how the man would react if he knew I was the star of the film.
I have changed a lot since then. On the screen, I had the appearance of a young boy—around eleven or twelve years old.
The movie started.
The opening shot was the boy digging a hole in the ground underneath a tree. Then, he kicked the dead body of an old, redneck-looking guy inside the shallow hole and covered it up.
The camera closed up on the boy's face as he walked with a limp back toward his house. His eyes seemingly looked at the camera while he was taking a second look at the grave.
His eyes were filled with hate—a maturity that seemed out of the ordinary for a boy his age.
The camera stopped on the front porch, where a bloodied rocking chair was seen. Beside the doorsill was a crowbar, stained with blood.
The opening title, Serpent Son, finally appeared, with the rendition of Me and the Devil playing in the background.
"Why do I already have goosebumps?" Micheal said in disbelief. His heart palpitated slightly.
Then, the film cut to a fluorescent-lit office—yellowed paper stacks, ashtrays full of burnt-out cigarettes, the low hum of a fan in the background.
A plaque on the desk read COUNTY SOCIAL SERVICES, 1974. The actors also wore old, 70s style suits.
Two employees sat across from each other, surrounded by folders. A man in his 20s was frantically going through the files.
"You mean to tell me we placed that kid with him?" said the man in the brown suit—his voice edged with anger.
Rainn Wilson played him, his performance raw and weary. The nameplate in front of him read Mr. Hale.
His co-worker, a woman with half-moon glasses, flipped through the files helplessly. "It's what the records say. He-He passed the screening in this state."
"Yeah, because this state doesn't talk to the others." Hale's tone rose. "He's got two assault charges in Oklahoma, one in New Mexico. None of that shows up here. You know why?"
The woman didn't answer.
"Because we didn't care!"
Hale leaned back, rubbing his temples.
He pulled out the file—thin, fragile, the corner stained by a coffee ring. The boy's photo was clipped to it. Dark-haired, wide-eyed, the exact opposite to what was shown in the opening scene.
"Last report says he's enrolled in school," the woman added quietly.
"He hasn't been to school in months." Hale's voice trembled—not with rage, but something worse. Guilt.
"His caseworker signed off without a home visit. She just... signed off."
He stood, pacing by the window. Beyond the glass, the parking lot shimmered under a dim streetlight, rain streaking down like static.
"You ever get tired of doing this?" he asked. "Of pretending the system works?"
She didn't answer. The silence said enough.
The camera lingered on his desk—files scattered, a cold cup of coffee, a photo of Hale with his own daughter. Then, the reel transitioned—no hard cut, just a slow fade into movement.
"I'm going to go find him." Hale said.
"No! You have three more houses to visit today! We're swamped enough already! HALE!" The woman yelled at him as he rushed towards the door.
The camera followed Hale's car along a muddy backroad, headlights flickering in the fog.
Inside the theater, the audience was silent. The mistake by the system was clear to everyone.
George, who was in the foster care system at that time, told me that before the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, there was no national tracking system for foster placements.
Background checks were minimal or inconsistent, especially if a guardian moved across state lines.
Many foster parents were approved based on local church references or social worker discretion, not standardized vetting.
And his friend, was placed into a foster home with his abusive uncle. That was the story of Serpent Son.
The next shot cut back to the cabin. The boy, covered in grime, eyes empty, was sitting by the window.
His stomach gurgled. He then tied up some clothes around his stomach to fight off the hunger.
His eyes were dazed. Then, he decided to write a letter to his friend.
10 minutes into the movie, finally the boy's voice could be heard.
"George. How are you? I'm doing well."
He was obviously not well in the scenes.
"It's been a while since we exchanged our last letter. I'm sorry, I hurt my leg, so I couldn't go to the post office."
The scene turned into a flashback. The abusive uncle was yelling at him, "Stop dancing like a little faggot!"
Then, he beat up the kid, and broke his legs.
The boy, who was wearing ballet shoes, was crying in pain, sprawling around the floor.
The injury hadn't healed yet till now.
"I couldn't practice ballet. My mom will be disappointed in me. Mom and dad used to support me whenever I had a recital."
The scene changed to a deeper flashback with the boy standing in front of the crowd, wearing a male ballerina outfit, and bowing to the audience.
His parents were clapping hard for him.
The narration continued, using the letter as the medium, "I wish we can go play together again. There's a creek here too, similar to the place we used to go."
The scene cuts to him taking clean water from the creek to drink, and then, suffering as his stomach hurts.
The boy was already giving up. He sat on the floor, with his back facing the wall, and his eyes were slowly closing.
Before he could close his eyes, suddenly, a snake slithered towards him.
"Ahh!" He yelled in fear and immediately ran away. However, the snake didn't chase after him.
In the silence that followed, the boy and the snake looked at each other for a while.
Suddenly, the snake said, "I killed your uncle."
"What?" The boy was fearful, and confused. He hid behind a pillar and asked, "You– You can talk?"
The snake hissed and said, "Yes. Only you can hear me though."
The boy's heart palpitated greatly. He breathed heavily, and then his eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious.
Elena was confused, asking with a whisper, "The snake killed the abusive guy? I thought he did, with the crowbar?"
"Just watch." I whispered to her. "You'll be able to figure it out soon."