150. The Size of the Bonus
150. The Size of the Bonus
***
BaTalk!
Hayoon stopped editing when BaTalk went off in the middle of her work and let out a little laugh.
"Soyul really must be bored."
BaTalk went off several times a day. Most of those notifications were from Soyul.
Normally, BaTalk had never gone off like this before. It was unfamiliar, but Hayoon didn't mind it.
But the BaTalk she checked this time...
was something else entirely.
Rin.
[The RinTube channel seems to be doing really well right now. You can think of the amount I'm about to send as a kind of bonus. So you'll have to keep working hard, okay?]
"A bonus..."
It wasn't a message in the RinTube group chat but a personal message. Serin had sent her a message saying she would give her a bonus, so Hayoon felt happy, but also puzzled.
'There's still time before payday, and she's already giving out a bonus?'
She would be getting her salary before long, but receiving a message that she'd be getting a bonus even before that left Hayoon both puzzled and pleased.
After all, she'd blown through months of savings buying an Another World connection capsule, and her living expenses were already tight.
About a minute passed as Hayoon waited with a fluttering heart for BaTalk to go off again.
BaTalk!
Hayoon grabbed her phone as if she'd been waiting and checked BaTalk.
Rin.
[Icon of an otter holding a bundle of bills and scattering them]
【—Receive 5,000,000 won.】
"...!!"
The moment she saw the amount, Hayoon froze.
Her eyes went wide at the amount and the icon on the screen.
"Five million won?"
Hayoon mumbled the amount blankly, then checked it again, but she couldn't believe it.
'The bonus is five million won...?'
Wondering if this even made sense, Hayoon instinctively moved to type a message instead of accepting the money.
Park Soyul.
[...Is this really a bonus? The amount is way too big]
It looked like Soyul had received a bonus too, and was cautiously sending a message.
Kim Hayoon.
[Right. The amount you're giving as a bonus is really too big... I don't know if I should accept it]
As she sent that message, Hayoon's hands were trembling without her realizing it.
She had never imagined the first amount she received from Serin would be this large. The amount exceeded anything she'd expected, so she was happier, but at the same time completely flustered.
She couldn't be sure whether she should just accept such a huge sum.
So Hayoon couldn't bring herself to press the "Accept" button under the icon of the otter scattering bills.
......
Meanwhile, Soyul, who had also received a large sum from Serin under the name of a bonus, was equally taken aback.
It wasn't wrong to say she had been expecting a bonus, or that she had been waiting for payday, but she was flustered all the same.
The contract she'd first received by email clearly stated a fixed monthly salary of three million won, with the possibility of additional bonuses. That was roughly what the contract specified.
As someone who had worked as an editor before, Soyul knew those were pretty good terms for a channel just starting out.
She'd only found out later that Big Cat, the NewTuber she'd worked for before, had paid her exploitatively low wages.
But the credential of being the editor for a million-subscriber NewTuber had looked too good, so she'd endured it and worked for several months.
So even though bonuses had been mentioned, Soyul hadn't expected much.
Rin.
[Icon of an otter holding a bundle of bills and scattering them]
【—Receive 6,000,000 won.】
So the amount now on her screen was beyond anything she'd imagined, and Soyul simply couldn't believe it.
"...This is insane."
Staring blankly at her phone, Soyul mumbled and checked the amount again.
—6,000,000 won.
No matter how she looked at it, a six-million-won bonus was an unbelievable sum.
It had only been about a week since RinTube started. And yet here was a bonus this huge.
Of course, since she managed the channel, she knew RinTube was bringing in a fair amount of revenue. But the monetization request had only recently been approved, so as far as she knew, the accumulating revenue couldn't be withdrawn yet.
Which meant the money Rin had just sent was coming straight out of her own pocket. Soyul's first thought was whether she could really accept it.
Kim Hayoon.
[Right. The amount you're giving as a bonus is really too big... I don't know if I should accept it]
From Hayoon's message, she could tell this amount hadn't been sent only to her. But even so, it was too much to call a bonus.
"Sh-should I just accept it?"
She even thought about just accepting it now, before Rin changed her mind later, but she couldn't bring herself to press the "Accept" button on BaTalk.
It was a completely different feeling from when she'd looked at the one million won Big Cat had sent and hadn't pressed "Accept."
A feeling of being happy and dazed at the same time.
Park Soyul.
[Rin... this is too much money, so I think you'll need to cancel it and adjust the amount.]
Kim Hayoon.
[...Right. It's too much to accept as just a bonus. I feel weird taking it too.]
After that.
Hoping Serin would give them a concrete answer, Soyul and Hayoon kept messaging in the RinTube group chat.
But Serin gave no proper reply.
As if telling them to handle it themselves.
Faced with a completely unexpected, enormous bonus, Hayoon and Soyul kept wavering and hesitating.
Their growing anxiety was only released twenty minutes later, when Serin finally wrote a reply.
...
Rin.
[I was in the shower, and neither of you accepted the money I sent. Why did you send so many messages?]
Rin.
[Both of you, accept it already. I don't go back on my word, and I have absolutely no intention of changing the amount.]
***
4 p.m.
Click.
I pressed the "Stream ON" button and parted my lips.
"Ah, the Wednesday, August 18 stream has started."
Even saying the stream-opening line felt unfamiliar because it had been so long.
I'd only taken about four days off from personal streaming because the weekend hiatus overlapped with scrims, but the fact that I felt this awkward showed I still couldn't shake the feeling of being a beginner streamer.
[Rinha]
[rh]
[Whoa!]
[Is a 4-year hiatus real?]
[Whoa finally streaming!!]
[No but you said you'd turn on the stream when you had time after scrims!!]
[Tell us the G1 scrim stories!!!]
[Rinha!!]
[How long has it been since I heard this voice]
[I seriously thought I was going to die because I missed your voice so much T_T T_T T_T]
Chat messages rose rapidly over the chat window, which had turned green once the stream started. It really had been a long time since I'd looked at chat, and I felt a strange sense of fondness.
"Honestly, the scrims were more tiring than I expected, and I had a lot of other things to do, so I couldn't turn on the stream in case it interfered with the scrim schedule. It feels really strange seeing you all after so long. Nothing much happened for you all during the four days I wasn't streaming, right?"
[Rin not streaming is a big deal for us though??]
[fr it's seriously a huge deal]
[With a 4-year hiatus there was seriously nothing to watch, I was bored]
[I held my breath until Rin turned on the stream and almost died]
[A 4-year hiatus is so wrong]
[Is it just me or does Rin's voice sound extra lively today?]
As I looked at chat messages saying they'd been bored without the stream or that they'd wanted to hear my voice, I found myself fiddling with my hair. I was embarrassed for no real reason.
Then I calmly said what I actually felt.
"Honestly, it feels like it's been so long since I streamed that even talking into the mic feels really awkward right now."
—Ding!
『Crato donated 50,000 won!!』
《If you schedule scrims over weekends from now on... the hiatus is seriously too long!!》
『CroissantIsDelicious donated 50,000 won!!』
《Hurry up with the G1 scrim stories!! I swear I waited for this the whole hiatus fr》
"Ah, thank you both, Crato and CroissantIsDelicious, for the donations. I'll try to adjust any future hiatus schedules so they don't overlap with scrims, and make sure I don't take long breaks from streaming. As for the scrim stories... oh, right. Hold on."
While thanking the back-to-back donation alerts, I realized I'd forgotten to put up a notice.
Even if I'd gotten pretty famous, new viewers were still coming in steadily. So in case anyone didn't know, I put up a line of text on the right side of the stream screen.
【No Donation Reactions】
After putting up that brief one-line notice, Serin slowly began explaining today's planned stream content.
"For Part 1, I think I'll do Just Chatting and talk about what I've been up to while getting back into the feel of streaming. Then in Part 2, rather than telling you everything about the G1 scrim stories you're all looking forward to, I'll be sharing my personal scrim recap. And for Part 3, I'll play Another World for a bit."
Serin spoke smoothly without hesitation, then put up white text on a black background as if organizing the schedule.
August 18 Stream Schedule.
—Part 1: Just Chatting and life updates.
—Part 2: G1 scrim stories. Scrim recap.
—Part 3: A short Another World session.
Since it had been a while since her last personal stream, she'd prepared up to three parts so she could stream a bit longer.
"Since I took a few days off, I'm planning to stream for a while today."
[Why is today's stream so packed fr]
[So excited for the G1 scrim stories lololol]
[Didn't Rin just win everything?]
[A 3-part stream is insane, insane]
......
The stream continued like that. During Just Chatting, she talked a little about what she'd done over the weekend hiatus, and then one chat message caught her eye.
[Rin, but are you watching the RinTube videos too?]
"RinTube? Of course I watch them. I even know the title of the latest RinTube video..."
Serin had been answering the chat naturally, but then she suddenly paused.
[Why'd you suddenly stop talking lolololololol]
[That video...!]
[Rin watched that video too?]
[Can't you just say it one more time?]
[I listen to it every day on NewTube, but I want to hear it live lol]
[You're only looking at me!!]
[lolololol you have to watch it at least once a day]
Serin let out a small sigh as she watched the chat scroll by quickly, then half-resigned, parted her lips.
"You're... only looking at me. I guess you've all seen the RinTube video too?"
[If you don't watch RinTube, fr why are you even watching Rin's stream?]
[Even new viewers have to watch RinTube first lololol]
[It's a legend among legends]
[I was so sad when the VOD got deleted, but I never thought it would go up on RinTube lololol]
Thinking that video would keep being brought up as embarrassing past material forever, Serin continued chatting with viewers about various topics.
Then Serin suddenly parted her lips and said she had something to tell them.
"Oh, and before long, I think I'll be doing a collaboration stream with someone."
[???]
[Plea?]
[Who?]
[Isn't it Plea again?]
Serin looked at the curious chat and smiled.
"If I give you a small hint, it's an Another World-related collaboration. Oh, and it's not Plea. What I can say for sure is that it's someone who'll surprise you all when you find out."