10
10. The Contract
As soon as dawn broke the next day, I woke up.
“Yaaawn......”
Even though the sun had not yet risen, Kwon Shinyong got out of bed and headed downstairs.
Rubbing his sleepy eyes, Kwon Shinyong walked out of the house and headed straight for the stable.
‘Looks like no one else is awake yet.’
Creak.
When I opened the stable door, the smell of horse manure greeted me, along with the sight of the horses that were
already awake.
“Good morning, everyone.”
Neigh!
Most of the horses snorted at my greeting.
But there was one horse that answered me.
“Chunsik.”
Neigh!
When I called his name, a black horse stuck its head out toward the entrance, letting out a pleasant whinny.
Kwon Chunsik. He was the horse I was currently responsible for.
“Did you sleep well, Chunsik?”
Neigh!
I stroked Chunsik’s head, and he let out a happy whinny.
“Want to go for a little walk?”
Neighhhh!
I placed the nearby reins into Chunsik’s mouth.
Perhaps because I had been taking care of him for several months, he no longer became frightened whenever I touched him.
‘These guys are really timid.....’
At first, I had been unable to approach them easily because of my own trauma involving horses.
But apparently, trauma wasn’t something exclusive to humans.
Chunsik had originally been a horse destined for slaughter, but Jeongmin’s father had bought him cheaply and brought him
here.
However, because Chunsik had already been hurt by humans, he had completely closed his heart.
‘Then he became friends with the kids first.’
Perhaps horses had their own preferences, or perhaps Chunsik instinctively felt that children were safe.
He gradually became closer to the kids, and they took good care of him as well.
They brushed him often, let him play in the water, and gave him delicious snacks, slowly helping him open his heart.
‘And then..... I ended up taking care of him.’
The children were going to school and wanted to play elsewhere, so they gradually started coming less often.
Emma liked animals, but she wasn’t particularly fond of large animals like horses, so she had actually found Chunsik
uncomfortable to be around.
In the end, since I had been accompanying the children, I gradually started taking care of him, and eventually, he
completely opened his heart to me as well.
“There are a lot of clouds today.”
The weather couldn’t always be perfect.
Today, the blue sky was covered with clouds.
‘The sun hasn’t risen yet, but.....’
There was already enough light filtering through to see the clouds, so it seemed the sun would rise soon.
“Let’s go.”
Neighhh!
Holding the reins, I started walking forward.
After walking for quite a while, I finally spoke.
“Chunsik.”
They say that people can only heal the wounds in their hearts through other people.
But everyone must have had at least one or two moments when they wanted to tell their innermost thoughts to someone who
couldn’t talk back.
For me, Chunsik was that kind of presence.
“I don’t want to work.”
Neigh.
Whatever I said, Chunsik didn’t even pretend to listen.
He only remembered his own name.
Since he acted as though he were listening without actually understanding anything, my thoughts naturally began spilling
out.
“I want to rest more.”
Neigh.
“But I worked on a setting guide yesterday..... and my body seems to be telling me that it’s rested enough.”
Normally, it would have taken me several hours just to make a setting guide like this.
There had even been times when I spent an entire day, or even more than a week, working on a single setting guide.
“I haven’t finished everything yet..... but after writing this much, I think it’s about time I started writing web
novels again.”
Of course, I meant after returning to Korea, not while I was in Canada.
“But I’m scared.”
I honestly admitted that I was afraid of starting a web novel series again.
I was afraid of starting that long relay all over again, but more than that, I was terrified of facing my readers once
again.
[The Woman of New York] is just a hobby...... Whether I make money from it or not doesn’t matter. Just getting the
advance payment is enough.
It was something I had written as a hobby, and I already knew that hobbies weren’t likely to generate impressive
profits.
“I want to run away.”
The expression “completely collapsed” would have been appropriate.
Once I had experienced the taste of rest, I no longer wanted to work.
And when I tried to start working again, I was afraid I would return to the way I had been before.
The fear that if I went back to those days, I might never be able to escape again wrapped itself around my entire body.
Neigh!
“.....Hey. Why did you suddenly stop?”
Neigh! Neigh! Neighhhh!
“Do you want me to stop talking now?”
Neigh!
This guy was gradually becoming some kind of mystical creature.
“You can’t understand me anyway, can you?”
Neighhhh!
“Ah..... So you’re annoyed because I keep talking and haven’t been moving forward, right?”
Neigh!
“I don’t know..... I think I’m gradually starting to understand what you’re saying too.”
After spending so much time together, it felt like he understood me the moment I spoke.
“Well, I have been talking too much by myself.”
We hadn’t even gone very far after coming outside, so it was understandable that Chunsik was getting annoyed.
“Let’s go. Come on.”
Neighhhh!
I pulled on Chunsik’s reins and continued walking forward as he let out a pleasant sound.
‘The sun..... is rising.’
I could see the sun beyond the distant mountains, spreading a reddish glow and bringing light to the world.
The cloud-filled sky gradually brightened, revealing a vast blue sky worthy of being called the heavens.
“Haa.....”
Looking at the breathtaking sky, I smiled faintly.
“Nature always gives us gifts..... Is that what they say?”
Perhaps it was because humans were born from nature.
Nature always seemed to share some kind of gift with us.
“I’m hungry.”
As I stared at the vast sky, all the worries I had been carrying since yesterday disappeared, leaving only hunger.
---
Aron wiped the sweat from his neck with a handkerchief and muttered.
“.....It’s far.”
He had work left at the company and tasks involving the writers he was responsible for, so he had only been able to come
now.
He had flown on an airplane, but he still had to spend a long time traveling by car, so there was no way he wasn’t
tired.
“This is the place.”
Kwon Shinyong naturally hadn’t invited him to his house.
He had asked Aron to meet him at a café in the city where they had gone to buy snacks before.
‘I was told to look for an Asian man.....’
Since there were very few Asians in Saskatchewan, he had said it would be easy to find him.
Just as he had said, Aron was able to identify him immediately after entering the café.
‘That’s him.’
There was an Asian man looking at a laptop.
But strangely enough, there was also a white girl sitting beside him.
“Excuse me.”
When Aron approached them, the two who had been looking at the laptop raised their heads.
“Are you S-Shinyoung? Shinyong? Are you Kwon Shinyong?”
“Ah. Yes. That’s me.”
“Nice to meet you. My name is Aron.”
When Aron extended his hand, the young Asian man naturally shook it.
“I’m Shinyong. The girl next to me is Emma.”
“Ah. Yes.”
It wasn’t a particularly strange situation.
Aron had traveled all over the place to sign contracts with writers, and among the writers he handled was even a married
woman with seven children.
He didn’t care who happened to be there.
“Was the journey here difficult?”
“Not really. I’ve been to Brazil before, and this was much better than that.”
It wasn’t empty flattery.
That young man had been from a poor neighborhood in Brazil, and when Aron had gone there at the time, he had encountered
countless gangs.
“Here is the contract. If there’s anything you’re curious about, please feel free to ask.”
Contracts were basically the same everywhere.
Of course, there were also contracts that contained private clauses or offered extensive support for OSMU, or secondary
and tertiary adaptations.
‘They aren’t nonexistent..... but adaptations into dramas or movies aren’t easy to arrange.’
It was the same everywhere.
For a drama or movie adaptation to proceed, there had to be an order from the upper management of a broadcasting
company.
No matter how actively a publisher recommended an adaptation, if the broadcaster or distributor didn’t like the work,
turning it into a video production was difficult.
‘Adaptations are ultimately advertising.’
People often thought that an adaptation would make the author a lot of money, but in reality, it didn’t necessarily make
that much.
The amount of money involved in purchasing and contracting the copyrights also varied depending on the work, so if an
author wanted to make serious money from an adaptation, they had to invest directly in the movie or drama themselves.
An author who had confidence in their work might invest, but most authors simply hoped to earn advertising revenue.
“I’ve finished reading it.”
“Is there anything you’re curious about?”
“Not really.”
‘As expected.....’
Writers signing their first contracts usually asked questions about everything.
It was their first contract, and there was always the fear that it might be a scam designed to take advantage of a new
writer.
Even now, some small and medium-sized publishers still pulled such tricks, but there was no way a major publisher like
Rodin House would do something like that.
‘He’s an established writer.’
Aron couldn’t clearly tell what specific works or genres the man usually wrote, but he couldn’t forget the fact that he
was an established writer.
‘We need to sign him exclusively.’
Aron had only seen [The Woman of New York], and the writer hadn’t proven himself yet.
But he was already skilled at handling contracts, and his writing possessed frightening drawing power.
Aron couldn’t let him go.
And he didn’t want to.
“Are you satisfied with the advance payment?”
“Well..... Honestly, I’d appreciate it if you could give me more.”
Knowing that advance payments couldn’t simply be increased without reason, Kwon Shinyong didn’t push too hard.
Back when he had been a writer, he knew that an advance payment was a double-edged sword.
Getting more was good, and getting less was good too.
That was about as far as its importance went.
“How much of an advance payment would you like?”
“If I’m going to be a little greedy..... I’d like $10,000.”
“Ten thousand.....”
The usual advance payment given to new writers was $2,000, while writers who showed promise for future fame received
around $3,000.
Even for an established writer, $10,000 was not an amount that could be offered easily.
‘He’s not testing me.....’
Rather than testing him, it seemed as though he had absolutely no expectations for the work.
It almost seemed as though he wanted to receive a large advance and then simply forget about the project.
“Ten thousand..... is honestly too much.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“Then how about this?”
“Excuse me?”
Aron pulled out an exclusive contract that he had brought just in case.
“This is an exclusive contract. If you sign exclusively with us, we guarantee an advance payment of $10,000 per work.”
“......”
At those words, Kwon Shinyong quietly read through the exclusive contract.
There was nothing particularly complicated in it.
It simply stated that he would write several works under his current pen name.
“There’s no duration.”
“Because we can’t expect the stories to come out quickly.”
Kwon Shinyong held the exclusive contract and thought about it for a moment.
‘There’s really no problem, is there?’
He wasn’t planning to keep using this pen name forever anyway, nor did he plan to write more works in English.
There was no fixed duration, and the advance payment was $10,000.
‘And Rodin House is a major publisher.’
Before coming here, he had heard a lot about Rodin House from Emma, so he already trusted them to some extent.
“I’ll sign the contract.”
“Thank you.”
“Before that, could you tell me what benefits or promotional events [The Woman of New York] will receive?”
Aron was slightly surprised.
‘A writer is still a writer, I suppose.’
Even though Kwon Shinyong seemed to regard this as a throwaway work, he was still interested in what would happen to it.
Aron suppressed the corners of his mouth that were trying to rise and answered.
“Of course.”