Recruiting Sub-Mods (2)
I let out a long sigh. “Ugh… I hate this…”
The gallery was still burning. At first I’d told myself it would die down in a day or two, but the backlash was far stronger than I’d expected. It refused to settle. This place had never been heavily moderated to begin with, so was this really the right call? I wished Jiyun would come and comfort me. But if I told him I was upset because of the gallery, he’d probably look at me with contempt and ask if I was really the kind of person who ran a place like that…
“Haa…”
On top of that, everyone was now dead set on driving me out. At the beginning I hadn’t even known there was a system that could cut moderators, so I’d just played dumb. Then I learned that reporting someone could actually get them removed and I was shocked. What do I do…? I don’t want to abandon the place I built with my own hands.
“Noona, let’s eat.”
“Okay. Go ahead and start without me.”
I really didn’t feel like eating today. Damn it. I’d lashed out in irritation and deleted everything, never imagining the gallery would catch fire like this. I was so annoyed.
“Mom says to come out.”
“God, seriously──”
When I looked up at Jiyun standing over me, my anger eased a little. Since Jiyun also frequented the incest gallery, he had to know exactly how chaotic things had gotten. That aside, why was he smiling? Seriously. He had no idea how his sister was feeling.
“This is delicious.”
Eating while watching Jiyun helped calm me down at least a bit.
But the moment I checked the notifications, my irritation flared right back up. Why the hell were people bringing up the panty-thief little brother story? I hadn’t even seen Jiyun’s thing since he was little. Well… I had felt it once, but still.
“Byun, can you come here for a second?”
“What is it?”
“This logo… I’d like it moved a little more to the left.”
“Like this?”
“Hmm… that’s better, but could you nudge it just a tiny bit to the right? Right in the middle between where it was originally and where it is now.”
“It’s pixel-based, so no matter how much I adjust it…”
“Just try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll redo it.”
“Fiiine…”
Haa. To fix this properly I’d have to start the whole thing over from scratch. I was already dying from stress, and now work had to be this picky too.
“Haa…”
In the end I left the office without solving either the work problem or the gallery problem. I really hated ending the day with such a bad aftertaste. That was exactly why I often stayed late. Even if I finished within an hour, I’d never get overtime pay… Of course, since we were on a comprehensive salary system, no amount of overtime ever earned extra money anyway.
“Oh.”
On my way home, dragging my feet, I passed the convenience store where Jiyun worked. Right, today was one of his shifts. We could walk home together later.
“Welcome~”
“Hey~”
“Why are you here again…”
“……”
For a second I got pissed, but I barely held it in. What did he mean, “again”? Obviously I came to see my little brother.
“I can come if I want. You don’t like it?”
“No, I like it.”
“What are you buying today?”
“Cup ramen. Jiyun’s favorite.”
“Again.”
“Um… stockings?”
I hadn’t actually planned to buy anything, but if I wanted to leave with Jiyun I had to purchase something.
“…Again.”
“When do you get off?”
“One hour left.”
“Another whole hour?”
“We don’t work nine-to-six here…”
Haa. I’d wanted to relieve my stress by walking home with Jiyun. These days just looking at him was enough to make me feel better. He was like a comfort doll. A comfort doll that reliably relieved the stress in my body, my heart, and down there.
“Jiyun.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
He’d probably answer me honestly. I asked him, in the most roundabout way possible, what he would do if the head mod caused trouble.
“If it were me, I’d expand the store and hire two part-timers. A lot of bigger places have two people on shift together, right?”
“Really…?”
Hire two part-timers…? Did that mean I should recruit sub-mods? Actually, since I was basically managing everything alone, it wouldn’t be a bad idea. In my heart I wanted to make Jiyun do it, but… he didn’t even know about the gallery…
“Why?”
“Nothing! Just… a friend of mine is getting flamed for something like this.”
“Ahh…”
Luckily he didn’t seem to realize it was about me. Still, thanks to Jiyun I’d come up with a plan. My little brother really was the best.
“I’ll make you ramen when you get home later.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You only have me, right?”
“Noona’s the best.”
Once I got home I finished preparing to welcome Jiyun.
“You’re back?”
“Where’s Mom?”
“She said she’s going to Aunt Kyung-soon’s to chat.”
“She’ll be late then.”
I made Jiyun the ramen, then headed to my room──
“Noona.”
“Yeah──huh?!”
Jiyun suddenly placed his hand on top of my head. My heart pounded wildly in surprise. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me…
“What?”
“Why are you suddenly stroking my hair…?”
“Just because.”
What was with that relaxed expression? If he looked like that, it felt like he wouldn’t mind even if I jumped him first. …Or would he? Ah. Suddenly I felt an ache.
“Thanks for the food.”
“Mhm.”
…Still dazed, I went into my room, gulped down some water, and cooled my head. There was only one thing I needed to do right now. Apologize for the current situation and recruit new sub-mods.
‘The minimum post-and-comment count is… five thousand…’
But knowing Jiyun’s personality, he absolutely hated anything bothersome. If he’d wanted to, he would have volunteered to be a sub-mod himself. I didn’t even know his main account name.
Huh? Weren’t they usually unpaid? I thought other places just forced people into it. What should I offer? Hmm… looking at the current mess, it did seem like I should give something…
‘Wait, am I a genius?’
Jiyun was definitely watching the gallery right now. In that case, I needed to dangle something that would tempt him.
Wouldn’t Jiyun apply for this? Maybe I should have said fine dining?
‘Oh right.’
But… I didn’t know Jiyun’s username…?
No way. How was I supposed to find him among all these…!
I Like Siblings
As the Siblings Who Get Along Well Gallery has grown in size, we are recruiting additional sub-mods.
Requirements: Minimum 5,000 post-and-comment count, main account only.
Reward: One meal (not a gift card)
Application Deadline: The day after tomorrow
Applicants, please reply to this post and reveal your full activity logs. Those with prior sub-mod experience, please mention it as well.
Any comments other than applications are strictly prohibited.
……
It looked like things had gotten way bigger than I expected.
‘There were this many lurkers…?’
The gallery didn’t even refresh that often, and even at peak times it only had a few dozen reactions. Yet there were this many applicants for sub-mod? Every single one of them had over 20,000 activity points—an insurmountable wall. My own active account barely scraped past 4,000. And in the incest gallery I’d used anonymous IDs the whole time, so there was no record at all.
“Haa…”
Still, I had to apply. The head mod position and one meal—actually, one meal with Noona—was on the line. As a little brother who truly cherished his sister, I could never allow her to eat with some random guy. Why did Noona have to offer such a weird reward anyway? If it had been a chicken gift card I wouldn’t have complained.
‘What do I do…’
Even if I told her the truth, it would be weird. Not only would she find out I used the incest gallery, but even if I got picked through family favoritism, people would start spreading conspiracy theories about how I was chosen with only under 5,000 points. At that point, the users might not hold back anymore.
I logged into JizonMz. It had been a really long time. I’d quit all my other games, so I hadn’t had any reason to be active. Now here I was using my main account just to apply as a sub-mod. Some people might complain about why I was suddenly showing up, but since most of the old users had posted anonymously, I probably didn’t need to worry about that.
That said, the username was seriously lame. Because I’d made it as a main account I couldn’t even change the nickname. If I’d known this would happen I would have picked something simple and clean.
“……”
But the real problem wasn’t the cringy username. The minimum requirement was 5,000 post-and-comment points. From what I remembered, I was lucky to have reached around 4,000──
Posts Written: 2574
Comments: 4069
Huh? Why was it over? Had I really been that active? I remembered spamming a lot of random posts, but I didn’t think I’d left that many comments. Was this a bug? Or had I been comment-spamming without realizing it?
“……”
Nervous, I looked through the posts I’d written. It felt like every single black-history moment of my life had been collected in this account. There was no way I hadn’t created any black history, so if there was a treasure vault of cringe, this account was definitely it.
……
I had braced myself, but seeing it in person was genuinely disgusting. Now I understood why the conflict between students and people in their twenties kept getting worse. I’d done the exact same things when I was a student, but looking at it as an adult it was just embarrassing. Seeing someone else do it made you project your past self onto them and get angry.
I’d have to set aside some time for self-reflection later.
…?
Why was I insulting Noona? That was something I could never imagine doing. If it had said “Wow, our Noona is so fucking hot” I could understand, but there was no way I would ever think of Noona that way.
──That damn bitch spilled water on my desk and when I got mad at her she just said sorry like it was nothing! So I slapped her and she started crying, what a retard lol
I immediately deleted the post. Thankfully there were no replies. It was a bit of a shock. I couldn’t believe I had done that to Noona. Had I really forgotten about it? Did Noona forget too, or did she still remember?
Sudden guilt surged up inside me. I really hoped she had forgotten.
“……”
I searched through everything after that, but no other posts about Noona appeared. Since it was almost ten years old, she had probably forgotten. Why on earth had I done that?
“Jiyun, what are you doing?”
“Noona.”
“Wha──huh?!”
The moment Noona came out of her room I pulled her into a tight hug. I didn’t know exactly why I had done what I did back then, but I had still done something wrong.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what…?”
“Just… I hit you when we were younger.”
“Did you…?”
Hitting Noona when she was this perfectly arousing now would be a crime. Why had I done that back then? It was a true black history moment.
“Um, Jiyun… can you let go…?”
“Ah… yeah.”
I must have hugged her too hard without realizing it. The warmth of Noona’s body lingered clearly in my arms.
“You surprised me…”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay… really.”
“By the way, why did you call me earlier?”
“Ah…? That’s… I forgot because of you.”
“…Tell me when you remember.”
“Okay.”
Noona ran back to her room and I heard the sound of her locking the door. She’d probably come out on her own when Mom got home.