The Editor (1)

"You're really going to hire them like this?"

Noona looked at me over the job posting I'd put up.

Offering an editor fifty million won a year, incentives on top of that, was enough to worry her—and I was hiring two. Even at the low end, that meant a hundred million won a year in fixed costs. Pay out that kind of money and then add incentives, and would there be anything left? That was the shape of it.

Her worry was a wasted one.

I pulled up the Mutube payout page on the spot and showed her the amount waiting to be settled.

"Th-thirty thousand dollars? Then that's... eek! Almost thirty-seven million won?"

She knew my channel was doing well, but she hadn't known the actual numbers, and the pending payout made her jump.

"How long's it been since I requested that last payout? Anyway, this piled up in less than a month. And that's with me doing the editing. Imagine what happens once ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠professional editors are making the videos."

The worry wiped clean off her face. At this rate, three months would more than cover both editors' base pay. Even setting the cafe aside, she understood that Mutube alone could carry two editors without any strain.

"Still... isn't fifty million a lot? I was watching something on Mutube the other day, and they said producers at the public broadcasters make around thirty or forty million."

"They do?"

"Mm. Unless you're a producer everyone knows by name, it's hard to break into the hundred millions. Private networks seem to pay more, but... even then, as far as I know, you don't make real money unless you're a star producer."

For a second I wondered if I'd set the wage too high. Then I shook my head.

"Which means the people who want to be paid like that are the ones who'll apply. They don't have to be star producers. Talented people with a good eye who aren't happy with what they earn—they'll come, won't they?"

Skilled people always want to go where they're recognized, and the usual measure of that recognition is money. A base of fifty million a year, with incentives on top tied to the videos—maybe not star-producer territory, but the odds were very high that fairly well-known, genuinely capable people would apply. I was even expecting working producers from the terrestrial networks and from cable.

"Then I hope someone really good applies."

"Yeah."

I was ready to put at least a hundred million won into editors. Just as she'd said, I wanted people who could actually do the work.

Three days later, my inbox exploded.

It had already been collecting mail of every sort. Now it was crammed with an absurd number of messages—so many that checking them one by one was barely possible.

The inbox was chaos itself. Some of the mail was actually about the editor job. Plenty of it was useless. A lot of people wrote as fans of one animal or another, or to request a collaboration, but the biggest pile by far was about the pay. Are you really offering fifty million won? How big is the incentive? That sort of thing, more than anything else.

I had no choice but to run it all through the filters the mail service provided, give it one rough pass, and only then start reading. Once I'd filtered out a batch of keywords, what remained were the people who had genuinely applied. A few prank emails still stuck out, but it was vastly better than before.

"Now this is actually readable."

"Right? The ones who just came out and asked for money were too much."

Noona, looking through the inbox beside me, pouted. We were being serious, and these people were messing around. Of course it didn't sit well with her. Knowing there was nothing to be done, we started checking the videos the applicants had made, one by one.

"This one's really... honestly, the ones you make look cleaner, Suhwan."

"I know."

We shook our heads at the very first video. Even at a glance, the quality fell well short of anything I'd put out. You could see straight through it—they'd applied on a whim, just to take a shot, because the money was good.

I didn't need to watch any further. I deleted the video and the email with it, then went through the applicants one by one, sorting rejects from possible hires. Weighing the requirements and pulling out the videos that actually fit took a full week, just to settle on ten candidates. Applications kept stacking up the whole time I was choosing.

I deleted every email except those ten. I'd given them a week. Still having no video was no different from admitting they worked too slowly. Sure, someone might have seen the posting late. That was... their problem.

At any rate, with ten finalists in hand, I used Mutube's livestream for the first time in my life. It was my first broadcast, announced all of thirty minutes before I went live, and already thousands of viewers had crowded in.

"Hello, everyone! This is Shinsu, from Shinsu and the Spirit Beasts!"

I lifted a hand toward the camera Noona was holding. The animals I'd gathered beside me raised their front paws as one. Even the birds spread a single wing, as if they were greeting the audience too.

"Our spirit beasts say hello as well."

Natae was sprawled on his back and refusing to so much as twitch, so I shook his front paw for him and finished the greeting.

Ka-ching!

"Uh... yes. Looks like we've got a fan of Yubu's. Thank you. Yubu, you say thanks too."

"Hm. I know not what this is, yet you have my thanks!"

Yubu gave his wings a single flap. That alone must have been enough—a chat from the user called YubuEatThatMeat flickered up and vanished just as fast.

And with Yubu's greeting as the starting gun, donation messages came flooding in. From a thousand won up into the hundreds of thousands, people were paying just to get a hello out of whichever animal they loved. At this rate I wouldn't get through the broadcast at all. I'd spend the entire day answering donations. I asked the viewers to bear with me and told them why I'd actually gone live.

"First, the reason I turned the stream on today is that notice I posted a little while ago. Yes—some of you already know. I'm hiring editors!"

I clapped, clap clap clap, and the animals beside me flailed their front paws, trying to copy me. Another donation chat popped up calling it cute. I ignored it.

"I said this when I posted the notice, but hiring an editor won't be only my call. Your opinions will count for plenty, too. That's why I went live. The final pick, from the candidates I chose, is up to you!"

People cheered, and the chat shot up too fast to follow. Unless a message was very short, you could barely read it. I meant to use the poll rather than the chat, so I started the videos at once.

Every one of them was clean, and the subject of each came through clearly, so people couldn't choose easily. When I opened the vote, the ballots spread fairly evenly across all ten options. The video with the fewest votes still held about seven percent of the total. Each one was showing off a charm of its own.

When the time I'd set ran out, the poll closed. So many people had voted that I caught myself wondering when the audience had gotten this large. I listed them at once in the order of the votes they'd received.

The leader had about fourteen percent. The next, about twelve. Below them, two more sat in the ten-percent range. I took the top four. I'd interview them and, in the end, choose two editors.

"All right. I'll contact the top four of you individually."

With that—the promise that I'd reach out to the four who'd been chosen—I ended the stream. Plenty of people were sorry to see it go, but telling them I'd broadcast again was enough to peel off the ones who wanted to linger.

The moment it ended, I contacted the four finalists. Maybe it was the pay. Not one of them turned the interview down. If anything, one even said they'd come all the way from Seoul in person, worried that anything less might count against them.

Taking everyone's schedules into account, I set the interviews one at a time, and met first with the applicant who had placed fourth.

"Hello! I'm Jeong Hakjeong, applying to be an editor for Shinsu's channel!"

"Good to meet you."

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Third floor of the cafe. The interview, held in the space I used as my studio, opened with a light greeting. I took the résumé he'd prepared, and we moved through a simple question-and-answer—a basic interview, nothing more.

Halfway through, Yubu came flapping through the open window in a rush of wings.

"Huuurk!"

Startled by the sudden appearance, Jeong Hakjeong went rigid and stared at Yubu with open distaste.

This won't do. Sudden or not, if he looked at an animal with that much wariness, I couldn't hire him. Someone that afraid of animals had no place on a channel where animals were the whole point.

"Thank you for coming in. I'll let you know the result within the week."

At that, Jeong Hakjeong bolted as if he were fleeing. Was Yubu really that frightening?

"I came as you bid me. Now give me the meat you promised!"

"Here. Eat."

I tossed a piece of meat I'd set aside into the air, and Yubu shot up in a flurry of wings and snatched it. I'd asked him to do it on purpose, to see how they'd react when an animal barged in.

After that, too, I staged a sudden situation with the animals every time I met an interviewee, and I was able to single out two who wouldn't make the cut. The problem was that one person still hadn't been interviewed.

Please. This last one has to be all right.

If this one shied away from animals as well, I had a real problem. Hoping desperately that there wouldn't be one, I started the final interview.

The last candidate was a woman in her late forties. And she was exactly what I'd wanted: a producer affiliated with a broadcast station.

"Ahang-hang-hang! Hello! You're Suhwan, right? Thank you for the other day!"

"......The other day?"

"Oh, you didn't know? I'm Sehee's mom. You should have heard how Sehee bragged. I was so jealous! If I hadn't been stuck filming that day, I would've stayed home and watched! Still, it was a relief my husband got to take it easy at home because of it. The only thing is, every spare moment I hear someone demolishing the snacks. That's a little much."

Sehee's mother was Sehee all over again. She strung the chatter on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without leaving a gap for a single word. She was Sehee herself. Now that I looked, they even resembled each other—enough that I thought this was exactly how Sehee would look once she was a little older.

Good. If she's Sehee's mom, she won't dislike animals.

They kept a dog at home, so it didn't seem likely. And I wasn't wrong.

"Oh my, you're Yubu? Suhwan, would it be all right if I held him? I've actually never held a bird, but every time I watch the videos I've wanted to pick him up just once."

"Well... go ahead."

"Wow, he's heavier than I expected!"

She didn't so much as flinch at Yubu's sharp beak. If anything, she stroked him all over, and I couldn't sense the slightest reluctance toward animals in her. Thanks to that—if I could call it thanks—I was finally able to choose two editors.

Sehee's mother, and a man my own age. Those two were the ones who made the final cut.