I, Deer, Descend

A wide conference room. An enormous television hung on the wall, and the screen was quietly putting out the news.

In front of a police station, Director Kim Jungi stood with both arms pinioned while reporters swarmed him like a pack of beasts. A mask covered his face, his cap was yanked low, and his head was bowed.

And immediately after—

Click.

Someone killed the television. A few short words came with it.

At that, the people seated around the round table nodded all at once, as if to say they agreed. Ten or so of them. They had gathered today to discuss a matter of real weight.

The matter was the running of the Busan International Short Film Festival.

The chairman, who bore overall responsibility, was the first to break the silence.

"The opening date is exactly one month out, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's too late. Pull it forward a week, and in exchange, give the submission window a little more room. The point is to hold this as early as we possibly can. The moment we slip into the second half of the year, everyone gets buried."

Every person there nodded and wrote down what they had just heard.

"The window you described does seem like the best timing."

One of the staff nodded. As he saw it, the chairman's reasoning was sound enough. Spectators and industry people alike would be swamped the instant the second half of the year arrived, and that would mean absences at the festival.

"That's what I'm telling you. The small things—we don't need to pick over every one of them, do we?"

"No, sir. It's all proceeding well."

"Is the set finished? We're screening outdoors this time, aren't we?"

The staffer seated across from him answered.

"The stage and the screen are already installed, but we're still debating the chairs. Given what a film festival is, people have to sit for a long time, and if the seats are too hard, a fair number will get up and leave halfway through."

"Use the best you can find. Don't save money."

"Yes, sir. Understood."

"Good. Then that's settled.... Let's see...."

The chairman scratched at his head, looking troubled.

"...From here, we have to talk about the festival jury."

The jury.

Four short syllables, and yet the weight of them was plain. Unease rose, all at once, across the faces of the staff seated around the table.

One of them spoke, carefully.

"The only juror we had actually confirmed was Director Kim Jungi, and then, of all things, that scandal broke.... So as of now, we don't have a firm yes from a single person. Everyone seems to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be watching their step."

"Tell me about it. Of all people, for that to happen to Director Kim Jungi."

The chairman's face crumpled, and he rubbed at his jaw.

It would be nice if every director felt the passion of the Busan International Short Film Festival and came of their own accord. Reality and expectation, however, do not line up. The world does not turn on goodwill alone. It meant that directors who had already grown as big as they were going to grow, and earned as much fame as they were going to earn, needed a reason worth coming all the way out here in person.

And the bait they had meant to use was Kim Jungi.

"Director Park, I hear Director Kim Jungi will be coming as well...."

"Director Lee, word is it isn't only Director Kim. Quite a few of them are coming...."

Yes. That was how they had planned to string the invitations together, one name hauling in the next.

And then Kim Jungi had to go and land himself in a scandal.

Now, far from helping, the name Kim Jungi had become a stumbling block.

The chairman clicked his tongue.

"Make our position unmistakable. We've cut ties with Director Kim Jungi."

"Understood."

"And we need a new marquee master...."

The deliberation did not last long.

A name came to the chairman almost at once.

"Director Go Taemin. I hear he's making a new film on the subject of music, but he won't have gone into production yet. Put another way, this is when he's at his most idle. Go after him. Be relentless."

"So we push Director Go Taemin as the marquee master.... How widely do we circulate the proposal? And how many jurors are we aiming for in total?"

"We need ten, at minimum. If we want to pull any buzz."

"Then I'll take it as the more, the better."

Tat-tat-tat—

The staffer in charge of securing the jury began hammering at his laptop, and the chairman went on.

"The set, the jury—things like that are only the basic frame. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Then from here, let's talk about how we draw in as many people as possible. Starting with the invited guests."

The staffer who had caught the chairman's eye spoke up.

"Inviting actors isn't a problem. However...."

"However?"

"Inviting master directors from overseas. Are we truly going ahead with that as well?"

"We have to. This year, let's try everything we can."

"Understood. And the countries?"

"The country doesn't matter. Fire the proposals out everywhere, and bring back whoever accepts."

Perhaps because so little time remained before the short film festival, the meeting rolled forward without a single snag.

And so, by the time the notes the staff had taken on everything decided ran past a full ten pages—

"All right. Last of all, the most important problem."

A rather grim look settled over the chairman's face.

"As you know, the Busan International Film Festival has two divisions. One is simply the film festival. The other is our short film festival."

"Yes, sir."

"They're bundled together, but the gap between the two is severe. Set beside the regular festival, the short film festival gets almost no attention."

"It does tend to be that way. The sense that a short film sits a tier below a regular film is everywhere. There's also the fact that once actors and directors climb past a certain level, they start avoiding shorts."

"Right. The problem is that it's seen as nothing more than a stepping stone you pass through."

Turn a game on, and a tutorial is always waiting there. A great many people thought of the short film as exactly that. Directors and actors who already had real stature had no particular reason to make one. The numbers didn't work. It wasn't a profitable job. Spend those same hours on something else, and the return would be far better—so why do it?

The chairman folded his arms, fire in his eyes.

"The people upstairs want the short film festival saved this time, no matter what it takes. How many times have I stressed this? I've been telling you since nearly two weeks ago—each of you, bring one plan. Speak in order. One at a time."

For a moment, no one spoke.

The chairman laid the warning down again.

"The people upstairs didn't merely hand down orders. They gave us an enormous budget, too. So how easy do you have it? You don't have to worry about money. Just come up with ideas. When else are you going to get conditions this good?"

After that, a range of approaches was discussed.

"I think advertising through Mutube would work well."

"You might also consider inviting an idol, just once...."

"Chairman, what if we increased the number of awards?"

The chairman showed interest in the last of these.

"Increase the number of awards?"

"Yes. Honestly, if a short film has a merit at all, it's winning an award and raising your profile. That's about the size of it."

"True."

"But if there are too few awards, people won't even find the will to participate. So the idea is to expand the categories. Add an acting award, a special award, that sort of thing—lay out more bait."

The chairman hummed, arms still folded.

"If there are too many awards, the awards themselves start to feel a little cheap, don't they? What do you plan to do about that?"

"Naturally, I've already thought of a countermeasure for it."

The staffer waved it off, as if to say there was nothing to worry about.

"A countermeasure?"

"Yes. We attach the premise that there may be no winners at all. We aren't forcing ourselves to hand out every last one of that large number of awards. We give them, one by one, only to works that actually deserve them."

"...So we open the chance of winning a little wider and use that as bait, but we don't go showering people with awards either? I like it."

The chairman agreed at once.

"Good. We'll expand the award categories. Let's move on this, and if we had just one more idea worth using, that would be ideal."

That was when it happened.

"Chairman. So long as we raise interest somehow, that's enough, isn't it?"

Someone shot a hand into the air and cut in. It was the staffer in glasses, the one who had kept silent the entire time.

"Why? You have a way to raise interest?"

"Of course I do. What's on the rise these days?"

The chairman thought for a moment.

"Enough. Enough. I know what you're about to say."

His face soon soured.

"Noise marketing, or whatever you want to call it—don't even bring it up. How many events have made some half-baked attempt and done nothing but pile up a hated image? Every last one of them fell straight to the bottom."

"No, sir. It isn't that."

"Not noise marketing? Then what?"

"I'm saying we use streamers and VTubers."

The staffer grinned.

The chairman's expression, for its part, stayed distinctly unimpressed.

"...VTubers?"

"Among younger people, the reach of VTubers and streamers is considerable. This is a generation closer to their phones than to television in the first place. These days, even households with no TV at all are on the rise."

"That much is true. My daughter looks at nothing but her phone."

"Yes. Streamers and VTubers work with the phone as their main stage. Let's place an ad on that side. Whatever the result, exposure, at least, is certain."

"No, but—VTubers. Are those things really doing that well?"

The chairman still had not put away his skeptical look. And no wonder. The same kid who usually sat there nodding off, without a spark of life in his eyes, was suddenly pouring out a passionate speech as if he had become a different person. It almost made you want to hit him.

If only he worked like that on an ordinary day....

Regardless, the staffer pressed on, entirely unbothered.

"It varies, but obviously we'd give the ad to someone who's actually doing well. Hand it to the most popular one, and it spreads through that VTuber's viewers all on its own."

"Yeah, well. You go ahead and see that through yourself."

Meanwhile, the editing team of the short film Sword.

Energy-drink cans had raised a Great Wall across the desk, and stacking them any higher had finally become impossible, so that every kind of trash now rolled about on the floor. The place might as well have been a landfill. And yet, astonishingly, there were people who stayed in a dump like this and worked: Park Joon, director of the short film Sword, and the two or so editors with him.

Tat-tat-tat. Tat-tat-tat. Nothing but the strike of mice and keys. Not a word passed between them.

As if they had forgotten time, forgotten hunger, they stared at the monitors through eyes sunk deep in shadow. The editing program open on the screen was being handled without rest, nearly by the second.

Several hours later, they shut down two of the three computers.

Chair wheels rattled as they drew in around the one machine still powered on. They were no longer working. From here, they would only take in what they themselves had finished.

All three of them sat with their arms folded, and none of them spoke. A long while after that, when the footage at last played itself out and came to an end, they traded looks without a word.

The faces were so gaunt it was hard to believe these were the coworkers one knew. Even so, they read without difficulty the feeling each of the others held. It was something all three of them carried, and fiercely.

"At last...."

The three of them threw their arms around one another's shoulders and drew into a circle. Those feelings had names, after all. Pride, and joy.

"We finished it—!"

"Finished! Finished! Finished! Finished!"

"It's finally over! It's finally over!"

The short film Sword.

It was a sword, quite literally. A blade whetted to a keen edge had at last finished preparing to be swung toward the short film festival.

Meanwhile, the editing room of the short film Wind.

"Hmm."

Yang Ha-rin quietly sipped her coffee. The scene stood in complete contrast to the editing room of Sword. This place, for one thing, was large. It was cleaner than anywhere, and if anything it was full of refined little snacks and things to drink. The editing team, too, was crisp to a person, without a trace of the shut-in wreck about them.

Director Jo Euisin and every one of the others were waiting on nothing but Yang Ha-rin's reaction, now that she had watched the cut. Before long, she nodded.

"Yes. It looks like it came together without any problems."

"Ha ha ha!"

Only then did Director Jo Euisin break into a grin.

"That's all because your acting was so brilliant, Ha-rin!"

"Hardly. You'll be taking an award home soon, Director Jo."

"Of course! That's exactly how it ought to be!"

To Yang Ha-rin's eye, Wind was quite excellent. It stood to reason. From the very start, Wind had been built for a single purpose: winning awards. Short film or not, a staggering budget had been poured into it.

Someone on Director Jo's level has to have a fairly wide network, too.

And the Jo Euisin that Yang Ha-rin knew did, in fact, have a fairly wide network. At the very least, it meant she had no need to fear being pushed out of an award over who knew whom.

After that, Yang Ha-rin left the editing room and climbed into the van.

The road back to the CT Entertainment building. The CEO, who had been waiting inside, asked with a face that could not hide his curiosity.

"Ha-rin. You get back all right?"

"Yes."

"So how'd it look. They finish it properly?"

"I didn't see any problems. It'll probably win an award, too."

"Yeah?"

The CEO nodded, satisfied.

"Oh, right. And this is something I just got my hands on...."

He leaned in at once and whispered it into Ha-rin's ear.

Ha-rin's eyebrow twitched.

"...Is that so? So they actually went and finished it?"

A sneer settled over Yang Ha-rin's face. News that the short film Sword had been completed. On an ordinary day it would have grated. Right now, she was looking forward to it instead, because the Wind she had confirmed with her own eyes had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been that good. Whoever stood across from her, she was confident she could crush them.

"Lee Sua...."

Yang Ha-rin turned the name over for the first time in a long while.

"Get stepped on like a dog. I wonder just how ugly you'll squirm."

Murmuring that, she fiddled with her phone and, out of habit, searched her own name. Today, too, her addiction to online communities had flared.

For a Yang Ha-rin in the grip of that addiction, wandering even into brand-new galleries was nothing strange. Soon, though, her expression went crooked. She had found a gallery she had not expected.

"...?"

What kind of gallery was this. The name alone was unpleasant.

Yang Ha-rin wrote a post without much thought. It was anonymous anyway.

Ding. Ding.

And what do you know—the moment she posted it, three comments landed.

"...?"

Yang Ha-rin tilted her head once more.

What were these animals. Was this a zoo gallery?

And in the same breath, she bookmarked the place.

At that same moment, in Ko Eunbi's studio apartment.

"What?"

Sikarin the VTuber—"Deer," of the group chat—drew her brows together. She had just been hit with an email that made no sense at all.

Ko Eunbi squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. Once. Twice. Three times. By the end she was blinking like a woman unhinged.

"...What? What is this supposed to be?"

The first thing Ko Eunbi did was call a coworker.

The person on the other end was the oldest unnie among the VTubers signed to Neo Live. If anyone understood this sort of thing, it would be her.

"Huh?"

Eunbi could not make sense of that.

Ever since she had started as a VTuber, Eunbi had wondered, now and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then.

Is it really all right to make money this easily? Was getting by in the world always this simple? Then what is labor even for?

In any case, Eunbi soon nodded. If it was a good opportunity, she had no reason to turn it down.

And at the same time, some five hundred remarks for tormenting Sua surfaced in her head. Someday, when Sua dragged herself home worn out from working hard, Eunbi would crow about how easily she herself had made her money, and beat her black and blue.

If she starts crying, maybe I'll press a little allowance into her hand....

Yes. That's how you tame Sua. Heheheh.

Ko Eunbi's expression turned faintly wicked.

Sikarin, a VTuber of Neo Live.

No—this was the moment Deer's broadcast of the festival was set in stone.