Too Much Money to Refuse
"You… do you draw this kind of stuff regularly?"
Wearing the face of someone who had just witnessed something she was never meant to see, my sister pointed a trembling finger at the monitor.
On the screen: a blue-haired, blue-eyed mesugaki getting absolutely wrecked by the massive horn of a rhinoceros beetle.
Apparently the unholy combination of mesugaki plus insect fetish had hit her like a truck.
Yeah. That was the reaction of someone with a normal libido.
So the revulsion I'd felt when I first started drawing it hadn't been for nothing after all.
See? My sexual tastes are still normal. I haven't fallen into the ranks of the truly depraved.
I let out a sigh of relief at that realization and slowly approached her — at which point she started backing away as if a ghost were drifting toward her.
"D-don't come near me! You disgusting little freak!!! U-ugh…"
"Okay, that one's unfair. I don't normally draw stuff like that! I only draw normal things!"
"Don't even try! You call that an excuse?"
She stared at me with the look of someone regarding something truly repulsive.
Ah, come on. This is such a misunderstanding.
Today was the first time I'd ever drawn insect fetish art.
How do I clear this up? If I show her my old commissions, would that fix it?
I cast my mind back over previous jobs.
Vulgar work I absolutely could not show my sister.
Work that had long since left vulgarity behind and crossed into something resembling mental illness.
And finally, commissions so overloaded with incomprehensible premises that even I couldn't make sense of them.
No matter which piece I pulled out, I'd only be showing her a floor beneath the floor. So I quietly nodded.
Alright. Maybe insect fetish is actually pretty tame, as sexual tastes go?
The intense revulsion was just because it wasn't my personal preference.
Having completed that self-justification at record speed, I opened my mouth to persuade her.
"I don't normally draw that stuff. I only took the job because I was desperate for money."
"Even if you needed money, this is a bit much, don't you think?"
"But it was too much money to refuse."
That was the truth.
I'd turned them down four times. Every single refusal, the client just named a bigger number.
Because I took a lot of deviant fetish commissions, insect requests came in fairly often — but insect stuff was so far outside my tastes that I'd always turned them down.
So this time, too, I'd figured a polite refusal would send them on their way.
But the other party was relentless. And loaded.
I'd gotten the rough brief and, as a last desperate gambit, even asked for payment up front.
Our insect-fetish client transferred the advance with chilling nonchalance.
In a panic I'd tried to refund it — but with no idea how much I'd end up owing that editor, I couldn't afford to.
In the end, I became a defeated slave to capitalism and drew the damn insect fetish art.
"Be honest — how do you turn down five times the rate? Sis, the pain only lasts a moment."
"Don't you dare rationalize this, you capitalist slave."
"A slave to capitalism? Sis, if someone offered you five months' salary just to show your panties once, you'd refuse?"
"That's…"
A flicker of hesitation. I didn't let it go.
"See? You're thinking about it too. Dump your humanity for a second and everything after that is happiness. I just made that choice!"
"Shut the hell up!"
"Is it weird for a dog to talk dogshit? And 'dogshit'? Then refute me! In that situation, would you have chosen differently? No — you'd have made the exact same call!"
"Shut up! You fucking pervert!"
Out of arguments, she snatched a cushion off the floor and hurled it at me, then charged in and drove an uppercut straight into my jaw.
Thud!
"Kyeng!"
A fierce pain bloomed in my jaw.
My vision swam like my brain had been rattled, and consciousness started to slip.
Fuck. Can't argue back, so she just overpowers me. This goddamn sister of mine.
Feeling my body tip sideways, I caught her final words.
"A mad dog needs the stick. Oh, and I'm telling Mom about you making money drawing that freaky shit — and about the streaming. You'd better be ready when you come home."
She stormed out of the house, fuming, and through my flickering consciousness I murmured,
"…I'm so fucking screwed."
When I came to again, it was evening.
The moment I got up, I sent the finished piece to the commission client for approval.
Even if I was completely screwed in two days, a million-won commission still had to be wrapped up first.
While I waited for confirmation, I checked my mail on the off chance the editor had replied — and found a response with a thoroughly unsettling subject line.
A subject line reeking of stiff formality.
Wondering if maybe they'd sent it to the wrong person, I clicked in and started reading carefully.
"Let's see… yesterday at midnight. 'I have committed an unforgivable sin. On LaTube, I edited your content to make you look like a sexual deviant and turned you into a public laughingstock.'"
Yeah. That had happened.
They'd smeared a perfectly normal guy like me as a deviant and put me on blast.
But was that really an unforgivable sin? If anything, it had felt like free advertising for my stream, so I hadn't thought much of it.
I tilted my head and kept reading.
"'I know spilled water cannot be gathered back up. And so, as a gesture of deep remorse, I have set the video to private…' What the hell is this bullshit."
They'd already taken it private? That video had been a goldmine for gathering Jeong-gi.
Last I'd checked it had hit a hundred and thirty thousand views, so I'd figured they had a sense of humor — but when I went to LaTube, the video really was gone from search.
"…Alright, just a little more. This feels like they're messing with me."
Wasn't there a saying that too much of something was worse than too little?
Groveling this hard over something so minor was starting to make me uncomfortable.
"'Whatever conditions you name when we discuss a contract, I will accept them all. Even if you tell me to work for free, I will do it. Please forgive me…?' No, what huge crime do you think you committed."
Were they scared of getting sued? Could you even sue over something like this? What on earth were they so afraid of that they'd send a full apology letter?
Under the weight of that mounting pressure, I immediately started drafting a reply.
What do I even say to make this person stop feeling guilty?
Telling them I forgive them when they didn't really do anything wrong feels weird.
Haa… my language skills are pure garbage, so I have no idea what to write. If I make it long they'll just get annoyed reading it, so maybe a few short lines?
After fretting over the wording, I packed a few sentences into a reply. Even by my own standards it came out pretty solid, so I shut down the computer without a second thought.
That should be enough for them to get the message, right?
I wrung every last drop out of my pathetic language skills for that email. They'll understand.
I was sprawled out on the bed thinking that when a reply came in from the commission client.
Approval? Or revision requests?
Please just approve it in one go. At this point even looking at a rhinoceros beetle shell is going to make me nauseous.
"It's a million-won piece so it won't be easy, but please…"
I checked the chat while praying — and thankfully, our client expressed deep satisfaction.
The client launched into an impassioned speech about how hot the piece was, and I half-listened, ready to say goodbye.
But then.
Two million won for a single commission.
Maybe just one more?
Just one more. That's it.