Ten Days in the Deep Sea
Han Sarang was a yoga instructor and a Pilates instructor with all of three months' experience behind her, and her results were nothing to boast about. The trouble was her pretty face, and a temperament as straight and unyielding as a length of bamboo.
"You're just an instructor. Why are you so stiff? You trying to pick a fight with me?"
Another complaint landed on her today. The studio where she worked offered nothing but one-on-one lessons in yoga and Pilates, and thanks to her looks and her figure, plenty of people signed up. The lessons themselves rarely lasted long. She simply could not keep a pleasing lie in her mouth.
The other instructors showered their clients with praise, deserved and undeserved alike, and spun the room into something soft and easy. Han Sarang could not bring herself to lie. Put kindly, she was honest. Put unkindly, she had no social sense at all.
"I'm sorry."
Han Sarang bowed her head and apologized. In truth she could not see why she ought to. If she didn't, though, the trouble only grew.
"Ha... seriously. Forget it. Change my instructor. I'll take the class with someone else."
"I—I'll do better. Could you maybe take back the request to switch me out?"
"And how exactly are you going to do better? How am I supposed to take a class with a teacher who says I'm so disgustingly fat I can't even do the moves!"
She had never said disgustingly fat. She had said there was a little extra around the abdomen, so the movement might be somewhat difficult. Dealing with people really was too hard. Even so, Han Sarang bowed her head again. She was desperate. She had to earn money. She was the head of the household.
"I'm truly sorry. I must have misspoken. I'll apologize properly, and it won't happen again."
"I said we're done, didn't I? I don't want to keep taking classes with you, so change the instructor. Now!"
The ruckus in the private lesson room brought the studio manager hurrying in, and with a deft tongue the manager soothed the client back down. Then the manager looked at Han Sarang and heaved a long sigh.
"Sarang. I told you it puts us in a bad spot if you keep doing this."
"That's... I'm sorry."
Han Sarang still could not accept why she was the one who had to be sorry. She hadn't even spoken that harshly. All she had done, sticking to the plain facts, was point out what needed correcting and where things ought to go from here. And yet the client flew into a rage. It was beyond her understanding.
This was a studio for correcting the body. If there was a problem with someone's form, the highest virtue of an instructor was surely to name it exactly and help set it right as quickly as possible. Every time she did, the clients got angry. She lowered the heat of her remarks with every complaint, and she still could not find a perfect middle ground.
"No. Sarang, I really don't think this path suits you."
"What...? What do you mean..."
"I think you'd be better off looking for another road. I'll pay you through today, so don't come in starting tomorrow."
"W-wait a minute, Manager. You can't just spring this on me. This is a violation of labor law."
"Ha... Sarang. We don't have an employment contract with you. It's a subcontract. Job by job. When you teach a class here, you and the studio split the fee. What we pay you isn't a fixed salary, you understand? So report us to the labor office, sue us, do whatever you like. Just know we won't sit still either. We'll bill you for every bit of damage you've done our clients."
In the end Han Sarang had no reply. She packed her things with her shoulders slumped, left the studio, and rode the bus home to a neighborhood where row houses were jammed shoulder to shoulder. She paid monthly rent on a single tiny one-room apartment. The moment she opened the door, someone shot upright off the bed.
"H-honey. Why are you back already?"
It was her husband, Choi Haneul. They had never held a wedding, but they had registered the marriage—something they had done in a blaze of love, without a thought for what came before or after. Seeing him sprawled there in nothing but his underwear, the corners of Han Sarang's eyes climbed.
"Why are you here? You said you were going out to look for a job today."
"Th-that's... honey, it's not like that. Listen. I did go out today, okay? But the company told me to come back another time. Ahaha... I was floored too, I mean..."
He spat out an excuse that didn't hold together for a second. There was no way Han Sarang would fail to see through it.
"You rotten bastard! If you're going to pull this again today, then what! Huh! Aren't you sick of living in a dump like this? You piece of shit! You said you'd make me happy! You... you rotten bastard! Waaaaah!"
Han Sarang struck Choi Haneul with her open palm, again and again, and when the fury still wouldn't spend itself she burst into tears. In the narrow room she wept as if her heart were breaking.
"Agh! That hurts! Honey! I said it hurts!"
Choi Haneul, who had only been taking the blows, slowly pushed himself up and drew her into his arms.
"I'm sorry. Tomorrow I'll really look hard for work. I mean it. You trust me, right?"
"Waaaaah! I don't know! You bastard! Everything's ruined because of you! Hic."
Han Sarang was twenty-six. At that age most people had only just finished university and thrown themselves onto the job market, or were still brand-new hires. For a woman like her, the weight of being the head of a household was far too heavy.
"Huh...? You got fired...?"
"Yeah. I can't hack it anymore! What are you going to do."
Thoroughly sulking, Han Sarang snapped it out in a temper. It had been a job where dealing with people was brutally hard. The women spent every class needling her, and the men kept pressing in, angling for a chance to get her into bed. The pay, though, had been generous. She could make fifty thousand won for every hour she taught.
"Ugh... They said they'd pay you, right? We'll get through this month. Next month's the problem."
"That's why I'm asking what you're going to do! You want us living on ramen for over a month again? I can't do it!"
Han Sarang flared once more. Choi Haneul, who usually soaked up that temper with sheer brass, saw his opening and spoke.
"Honey. No—Sarang. Let's stream."
"Are you insane! Seriously! I told you I don't want to!"
"No, just shut your eyes and grind for a few years, just this once? If we make a pile of money and go overseas, nobody's going to recognize us anyway."
"You think streaming is easy?"
"You'll succeed for sure. You're the prettiest woman in the world."
"If you can't even talk sense... honestly..."
Faced with Choi Haneul's naked flattery, Han Sarang couldn't keep the irritation going. This was love too, wasn't it. When they first met, Choi Haneul had seemed perfect. The looks were good, and so was the fact that he had a goal of making a great deal of money.
But those shining looks had dulled because he never bothered to keep them up, and the grand ambition remained only an ambition—he lacked the effort to act on it. Even so, love had been burning and the rose-colored glasses had stayed on, so she had looked the other way. After the glasses came off, she was getting by on the contract of a registered marriage and on loyalty. He was pathetic, but he was the only person in the world on her side.
"Are you really okay with this, oppa? The people watching internet streams are all men. Even if I act cute for other guys and get all sweet with them?"
"Of course. That's the job. Why would I get jealous over a job."
"They say if you want to make real money, you also have to meet the big donors in private. You're fine with that too?"
"That, absolutely not."
"Hmph."
If he had said yes, she would have flown into a rage. Streaming. It wasn't as if she had no interest in it at all. Once upon a time her dream had been to become an actress. She had given it up because she had no talent for acting, but still.
"Fine. I'll try."
"Really? You're really doing it?"
"Yeah. But you set everything up. So all I have to do is go on."
"Obviously! I've already thought the rough plan through. I'll go buy the stuff right now."
"Right now?"
"Yeah. We've already got a computer. We just need a cam and a curtain, and then we can start right away."
Han Sarang sighed. Hers was a husband who threw himself into things only when they interested him, and she hated that about him. If he would only take an interest in the work of bringing money home, how good that would be. Then she wouldn't have had to suffer at all. But enduring a pathetic husband's pathetic behavior was love too, she supposed.
"Why the hand?"
Choi Haneul held his palm out to her.
"I need money if I'm going to buy a cam and a curtain."
"Ha. Oppa. You don't even have the money for that?"
"Haha... Where would I get money. Just give me two hundred thousand won. I'll buy the cam used, and I'll pick up the curtain at Daiso."
Han Sarang snapped one more time. Even under the slap of her palm, Choi Haneul grinned and bore it. He was already painting a rose-colored future. With looks like Han Sarang's, success was possible. Just three billion won. Earn three billion, and they would spend the rest of their lives at ease.
Ten days had passed since the broadcast began. Contrary to the hope that money would come sweeping in the moment they went live, Han Sarang's stream was still buried in the Deep Sea. It was a broadcast riddled with problems. For one thing, the camera was nowhere near ultra-high definition. Female cams shooting past 1440p and all the way to 4K were everywhere you looked, and here she was using a cam that could barely manage 720, so viewers simply never came in.
Han Sarang's personality was a problem as well. She needed to lay the charm on however she could and gently coax people into becoming core fans, but she had no social sense. She was the underling who absolutely could not endure gabjil. And because she lacked social sense, she lacked the skill to run a broadcast. The back-and-forth had to be fun, yet all she knew how to do was answer what was thrown at her. Even the viewers who barely trickled in had no choice but to leave.
The money earned across those ten days came to 4,200 won. Worked out by the hour, that was about thirty won.
"Hey! What are you going to do now!"
Han Sarang was furious. It was her husband who had sweet-talked her into streaming, and as always, nothing good ever came of listening to that man. The broadcast was on, but it didn't matter. The only viewer in the room was the manager himself, Choi Haneul.
"Ugh..."
Choi Haneul had plenty to worry about too. He had been certain that the moment they went live, the traffic would explode. Han Sarang was pretty. He had never imagined the exposure would be this bad. He had even considered hiring a marketing outfit that promised to handle promotion and bring people in, but it was far too expensive—two hundred thousand won for a hundred favorites and regular viewers. For people with no money, the sum was more than they could bear.
"Sarang. Should we do an adult broadcast?"
After all that fretting, Choi Haneul arrived at a conclusion. The greatest problem with the stream as it stood was Han Sarang's personality. A temperament short on social sense was an enormous obstacle to gathering viewers, so if they wanted to make money this way, they had to go somewhere her personality would not stand in the way.
An adult broadcast. There, personality was no great obstacle. Even if the conversation wasn't particularly entertaining, an adult stream still had people willing to donate.
"You crazy bastard! Is that something you say out loud?"
"Don't get mad. We made four thousand won in ten days. I'm telling you, if we go adult we can make real money. And we don't have to do anything like a Nude Room."
Han Sarang exploded, and of course she did. Choi Haneul hated the idea too. Showing his woman's body to other men.
"Then why would we go do an adult broadcast at all?"
"Over there, a man and a woman appearing together still does well. I'll run the show. You just sit beside me and handle the reactions."
Adult broadcasts were tolerant of a man sitting next to a female cam. People watched them the way they watched live porn, and that was why. If nothing else, Choi Haneul had a good mouth on him. If he became the main act and Han Sarang took charge of pulling people in, the result might be different.
The two of them fought over it for days. That was how deep Han Sarang's revulsion for adult broadcasting ran. In the end, though, she had no choice but to kneel before money.