Life 404: Success Not Found

Chapter 2: CEO of the Bathroom

Freza sat on the cold toilet lid, staring at his phone screen, which was shattered into a thousand cracks. In front of him, a cheap ring light he’d bought with his last remaining food money three days ago emitted a white light that made his eyes ache. The aroma in the room was a blend of cheap orange-scented floor cleaner and the desperation evaporating from his very pores.

On the phone screen, a man with teeth that were far too white and a suit that looked more expensive than Freza’s self-esteem was shouting passionately.

"Why are you still poor? Because you have a slave mentality! Stop working for someone else’s dream! Be your own boss! Build your empire now, or you will rot in the corners of history as a spectator to someone else’s success!"

That man was Coach Rendy, a motivator who claimed to have become a billionaire since he was a fetus through "positive energy" investments. Freza, who had just been fired from his position as Senior Intern Specialist of Regret because the company went bankrupt after the CEO was caught huffing illegal helium, felt Rendy’s words like a divine slap of realization.

"I don't need an office," Freza whispered to his reflection in the crusty bathroom mirror. "I am the office."

And so, on that gloomy morning, a revolutionary business entity was born: "AER-VIBE: Atmospheric Aesthetic Solutions."

The concept was simple, yet to Freza, it was the pinnacle of 21st-century marketing brilliance. He would sell air. But not just any air like he used to blow into bottles at his previous job. This was air that had been "curated," "aesthetically blessed," and packaged in minimalist glass jars.

"People don't buy products, Fre. They buy the narrative," he muttered as he applied a transparent sticker with an elegant serif font onto a washed-out old jam jar.

The label read: AER-VIBE No. 01: "The Silence of Sunday Morning in Paris." Ingredients: 99% Nitrogen-Oxygen Mix, 1% Melancholy, 0% Toxic Productivity. Warning: Do not open if your vibes are not immaculate.

Freza began photographing the jar on top of the bathroom sink. With a little "grain" filter and dramatic contrast settings, the toothpaste-stained sink was transformed into an "industrial-chic" background. He uploaded it to I*******m with an incredibly long caption, full of English buzzwords he wasn't even sure he understood, ending with the hashtags #SelfMadeCEO #StartupLife #Minimalism #Manifesting.

"I’m not selling empty air," Freza reassured himself as his stomach growled, having been filled only with tap water. "I’m selling the space to breathe in a suffocating world."

For the first two hours, nothing happened except for one like from a bot account offering fake followers. Freza began to doubt Coach Rendy. However, in the third hour, a digital miracle occurred. An influencer with 500,000 followers, known for her "slow living" lifestyle, shared Freza’s post.

"Finally, a brand that understands the importance of the essence of space. This air from @AerVibe_Official really helps me with grounding. So aesthetic!" the influencer wrote.

In an instant, Freza’s phone notifications exploded.

"Orders are coming in! Ten jars to South Jakarta! Fifteen to BSD! One to Ubud!" Freza jumped off the toilet, nearly slipping on a bar of soap.

The price per jar? 250,000 Rupiah. The capital? Zero, because he got the jars from scavenging the trash bins behind luxury apartments, and the air... well, he captured the air by waving the jars around inside his bathroom, which he claimed possessed "pure spiritual acoustics."

Within a week, Freza was officially a CEO. He no longer ate antacids for breakfast; he ordered artisan coffee that cost as much as his monthly electricity bill. He started wearing non-prescription glasses to look more "visionary" and frequently spoke about scalability and disruption to his landlady when she came to collect the rent.

"Ma’am, don’t focus on this chump change for rent," Freza said, sipping his coffee with an arrogant flair. "Focus on the fact that in this building, a unicorn is growing. Do you want me to pay in cash, or do you want 0.001 percent equity in AER-VIBE?"

His landlady just stared at Freza as if he were a piece of lizard droppings that had suddenly learned how to talk. "Pay in cash, or I’m throwing your junk into the gutter this afternoon."

Freza snorted. "Slave mentality," he muttered as he pulled a stack of cash from his "Paris air" sales out of his boxer shorts pocket.

However, being a CEO turned out to be exhausting. His bathroom had now transformed into a factory. He had to constantly "harvest" air. He even installed a small fan near the ventilation hole to ensure there was a "circulation of energy." He began to feel pressured by market expectations. His customers started demanding new variants.

"Hey, do you have a 'London Old Library Ambience' variant?" one buyer asked in his DMs. "Hey, why did the jar I got yesterday smell like mothballs when I opened it?" another complained.

Freza panicked. He began doing research. He burned a little bit of paper inside the jars for the "London" variant and put dried orange peels in for the "Summer in Bali" variant. He worked 20 hours a day inside the bathroom. He was the CEO, the operations manager, the factory worker, and the complaints admin all at once.

The hustle culture he used to mock, he now embraced tightly. He had no time to actually shower in his own bathroom because the room was filled with jars ready for shipping. He began to feel short of breath in the middle of his own air business.

The climax happened when a digital business magazine wanted to interview him. The headline read: "Freza: The Young Man Turning Oxygen into Gold."

"What is the secret to your success, Mr. Freza?" the journalist asked via Zoom. Freza used a virtual background of a luxury office, even though behind him sat a rack of moldy towels.

"The secret is integrity," Freza answered firmly, while trying to suppress nausea from the smell of rotting orange peels in the jars beside him. "We at AER-VIBE don't just sell a product. We sell existential awareness. Every jar we ship contains particles of happiness that we have filtered through a rigorous meditation process."

The journalist looked impressed. "Incredible. And what about the legalities and taxes? Considering your turnover is estimated to have reached hundreds of millions this month."

Freza froze. The word "taxes" sounded scarier than the ghosts rumored to haunt his boarding house.

"Taxes? Oh, we... we are in a stage of fiscal re-evaluation," Freza answered randomly. "As a disruptive startup, we believe that regulation must catch up to innovation, not the other way around."

Two days after the interview aired, a loud knock echoed at his door. Freza thought it was a courier picking up a package of 500 "Himalayan Mountain Vibe" jars (which was actually just air from in front of a fan dusted with a bit of baby powder).

However, when the door opened, three men stood there in neat uniforms with faces that possessed absolutely no sense of humor. On their chests were badges that made Freza’s heart drop into his stomach: The Directorate General of Taxes.

"Mr. Freza?"

"I’m... I’m just an intern here, sir," Freza answered reflexively, reverting to his old defense mode.

"Don't play games. We’ve tracked your bank statements. You are the CEO of AER-VIBE, correct? We would like to inquire about the Value Added Tax (VAT) on the sale of luxury goods in the form of 'Aesthetic Air' and the corporate income tax you have yet to report."

"Luxury goods?" Freza gaped. "Sir, those are just old jam jars filled with wind!"

"In the media, you stated it was 'Oxygen Gold' with a premium price. In the eyes of the law, if you sell it at that price, it is a commodity. And since you have no business permit, no distribution permit from the Health Department, and no halal certification for the air being inhaled, you are also facing administrative fines that are quite... spectacular."

Freza felt his world spinning. Suddenly, his phone vibrated. A notification from T*****r appeared. A user with the handle @FakeDetective had posted a viral thread: "Exposing the Secrets of AER-VIBE: Turns out it’s just air from a cramped bathroom in a back alley! Look at the CEO’s reflection in the jar, he’s wearing boxers with a hole in them!"

The photo uploaded was one of Freza’s product shots. If zoomed in 400%, in the reflection of the clear glass jar, one could indeed see the shadow of Freza squatting on the toilet while holding his phone, wearing floral-patterned boxers that were torn right down the middle.

The netizens were furious.

"I bought 250k air and it turns out it’s just Freza’s exhaust!" "Cancel AER-VIBE! This is a public scam!" "The CEO isn't aesthetic at all, I’d rather buy the air from a tire repair shop, at least they're honest!"

Within hours, orders were cancelled en masse. His I*******m account was reported for fraud and blocked. The tax officers began cataloging the items in his room—none of which were actually valuable except for the ring light and the pile of empty jars.

"So, how much is the fine I have to pay, sir?" Freza asked weakly, sitting on the floor beside a pile of jars that were now nothing more than glass trash.

The tax officer mentioned a figure. Freza calculated it mentally. He would need to sell all his internal organs—including his kidneys, spleen, and maybe half his brain—just to pay the down payment.

"Sir, can I pay in exposure?" Freza asked with the last remnants of his hope. "I have 10,000 followers who are all currently roasting me. That’s really high engagement, you know."

The officer simply handed him a seizure warrant and left after taking Freza’s only valuable possession: the used laptop he used to edit his "aesthetic" photos.

That night, Freza returned to his headquarters: the bathroom.

He sat on the toilet, no longer staring at a ring light, but staring at the one last jar remaining. The jar hadn't been labeled yet. Its contents were truly just air. Stuffy bathroom air, the smell of floor cleaner, and a hint of leftover instant noodle aroma from dinner.

He opened the lid of the jar and took a deep breath of its contents.

"Gross," he muttered. "Smells like failure."

He remembered Coach Rendy’s words. Be your own boss. Freza chuckled softly, the sound of his laughter bouncing off the narrow bathroom walls. He had indeed become a boss. The boss of an empire consisting of empty jars, skyrocketing tax debt, and a reputation more shattered than a cracker stepped on by an elephant.

He picked up his phone and opened a payday loan app that was already flashing red warnings.

"Well," Freza sighed. "At least I don't have to worry about how to make air look aesthetic anymore."

He lay down on the cold bathroom floor, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow, he would have to look for a job again. Maybe apply as a courier, or a dishwasher, or anything at all, as long as it didn't require him to have "positive vibrations."

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. What if I make an online course called 'How to Fail as a CEO in 30 Days'? Plenty of people would buy that because it's relatable.

Freza immediately shook his head violently.

"No, Fre. Don't. Just sleep. Tomorrow is Monday."

He turned off the bathroom light. In that darkness, he realized one thing: free air was actually much better to breathe than air he had to wrap in a narrative just to pay for his vanity. Even if, of course, he couldn't show off that free air on his I*******m Story with a melancholic indie song playing in the background.

The status quo had returned: Freza was still poor, still confused, and now, he had a new allergy to glass jars.