What It Means to Understand
"Uh... so if I understand this correctly, you ran a fan channel because you liked me?"
"Yes, something like that. I wanted to keep it for myself."
"My streams?"
"No. You, Unknown."
The interview was going nowhere.
"There are plenty of other streamers out there. Why me, of all people? I barely have any experience, and there are plenty of people funnier and prettier than I am."
There it was again.
Every time I opened my mouth, that relentless gaze refused to leave me. It was the look of a hyena sizing up its prey, and she barely even changed expression. Her skin was pale. Was she actively keeping her distance from the sun? If we walked around together, people would probably mistake her for a patient who'd slipped out of a hospital.
She broke the strange silence.
"I fell for you at first sight."
"Ah—my stream, you mean?"
"Yes. You, Unknown."
The conversation kept sliding off at an angle.
I'd insisted on meeting my editor in person because I wanted a real foundation of trust—to know whether this was someone I could rely on. The relationship I envisioned with a Newtube editor was closer to that of equal partners than anything else. Not a simple employment arrangement where I sent footage and received an edited video back, but partners growing a channel together. Figuring out whether your business partner was trustworthy was, by any measure, important, and that was something you couldn't properly gauge without sitting face to face.
But even sitting across from Kang Ah-yoon, I couldn't read her. What did that relentless stare mean? I felt like I had become the thing being observed. Looked at that way, maybe we were observing each other. This was why human relationships were so hard.
The awkward silence that followed was baffling. She didn't seem to have any questions of her own—she only answered whatever I asked. At this rate, we could sit here for hours and the conversation wouldn't go anywhere.
"Did you teach yourself editing?"
In the end, I had to invent questions just to keep things moving. I'd already seen her work with my own eyes, and I was still asking this. It wasn't really about her editing. More than that, I was curious about Ah-yoon herself. I knew far too little. ...And judging by the answers I'd gotten so far, she didn't exactly come across as a normal person.
Maybe because it was a work-related question, this one came back quickly.
"Ah, I majored in film."
A college graduate. I didn't know the details, but she'd studied this professionally. A faintly uneasy feeling settled over me. Why would someone like that want to work as my editor? Would I need to pay her a salary on top of the revenue split?
My hesitation only grew. Looking at her editing, she didn't seem like someone who'd have trouble finding a job. Strictly speaking this was a business, and I had no certainty it would work. There was no capital being invested, but there was time. If Newtube never really took off, every hour she poured in would be wasted. Of course I was worried.
"Do you have a job right now? As for the contract... I was thinking of a revenue-share arrangement. We're not making that much yet. And there's no guarantee it'll grow..."
"I don't mind."
A firm answer. Honestly, I was still worried. Money was the thing people were most sensitive about. Revenue share. It sounded like a lot of money if you didn't think about it. Streamers like Jump, the big-corp names, probably made plenty off Newtube. But that didn't apply to someone who'd only just started streaming.
I couldn't even smile easily at that decisive answer. And it would have been equally strange to talk myself down and tell her to think it over again. Whatever she made of my speechlessness, Kang Ah-yoon added something.
"I'm doing this because I like you, Unknown."
How was I supposed to turn away someone sitting right in front of me, telling me she was doing it out of fandom? I just nodded.
Once our positions lined up, things moved fast. We decided to split Newtube revenue exactly down the middle—my own subjective benchmark, based on her editing. The part I'd expected to take the longest was over in no time. I'd thought we'd need to discuss and find a middle ground, but the person sitting across from me just kept signaling agreement with everything I said.
Was that just her personality? I wished she'd at least said she didn't like something. Her answers were that's fine, I'm okay with that, I understand... I could have sworn I was talking to a tape recorder left on loop.
It didn't take long to wrap up with an agreement to meet again within the week to draft a partnership contract. I forced down the feeling of talking to a wall and laid out everything I'd prepared. Then an awkward silence pressed down on the air.
I wasn't much of a talker myself, but the person who was about to become my editor didn't seem to have any gift for conversation either. Looking at that unchanging blank face, she didn't even seem to notice the awkwardness. She was still watching me, the pop song leaking from the speakers as her background music.
It had been fine when we were focused on talking. Meeting someone's eyes in silence was a completely different kind of pressure. Should I find another topic? We'd already exhausted the work conversation we had in common. I briefly considered asking if she played Last of Quantum—and then how I would even drift the conversation over there from here.
No. Did I even need to keep talking? Everything we'd needed to discuss was already done. Talking a little more wouldn't have been the worst thing, but I hadn't expected to become friends the moment we met. Human relationships were supposed to develop slowly, over time.
"Looks like we're done talking. Shall we get going?"
The moment I started to rise from my chair, Kang Ah-yoon caught my hand.
For the first time, something that might have been called an expression appeared on the face of a woman who hadn't shown a shred of emotion until now. She looked... disappointed. What on earth did she have to be disappointed about?
As if answering that question, she spoke first for the first time.
"Are you streaming today, by any chance?"
"Streaming... I probably will, I think."
"Then, could you give me manager permissions? I'll handle the chat for you, too."
"No, I couldn't ask you to do something like that..."
Newtube was one thing, but live streams actually pulled in a fair number of viewers. Not everyone watching typed in chat, but there were still a lot of messages. Sure, some people crossed the line, but those you could just ignore. It wasn't the kind of thing you asked an editor to moderate. And calling in someone already busy with editing, unpaid, every time I went live? What was I, a sweatshop?
But Kang Ah-yoon added something that made my concerns feel beside the point.
"I'm doing it because I want to."
I simply could not understand Kang Ah-yoon. She was doing it because she liked me. It wasn't strange for a streamer to have fans. Among those fans, there were surely people who would take a loss for the streamer they loved. But my streaming career was short. The number of times I'd gone live so far could be counted on one hand. And she was a hardcore fan of someone like that?
I didn't know much about my viewers, either. Naturally, they wouldn't have much information about me as a streamer. The sliver of myself I showed on stream wouldn't be enough. A period of getting to know each other—in a way, that was exactly where my channel was right now. There might be people who found me interesting. But I hadn't thought anyone would go so far as to take a loss just to help me.
"Is there a reason you're going this far?"
"Pardon?"
"I mean, honestly, isn't it boring? It's not like I have a ton of content the way Jump does. And if you look around, there are plenty of people who are good at Last of Quantum. And also—"
"Because you're captivating."
"Captivating?"
"I'm not watching because of some selling point or some kind of content. I watch because you, Harin—because the person called Unknown is captivating. Everything else is just incidental."
Silence fell. Maybe because we'd come at an odd hour, the café was quiet. There was nothing to fill the stillness at our table. Unlike me, who was flustered, Ah-yoon was still looking at me across the table.
"If you tell me your username... I'll give you manager permissions."
"Thank you."
We'd only just met, and I could already more or less predict the repertoire of answers coming back.
"We've covered everything, so let's get going."
Disappointment crossed Kang Ah-yoon's face again. To be honest, even sitting here was an ordeal for me. There was no proper topic of conversation. The woman across from me just kept giving the same looped answers like a tape recorder, staring a hole through me. It had gone past uncomfortable. I wanted out of this seat as soon as possible.
So I slipped past the hand that tried to catch me again and stood up.
"Next time we meet, I'll buy you a meal, at least."
I offered it with the most perfunctory goodbye I had.