Chapter 59: New Face Interview, Part 2

In school life, club activities can serve as a good excuse.

For example, no one complains if a student council member is 5 minutes late to class due to an urgent student council task.

The Game Release Club, which was currently offering her a membership, seemed like a breakthrough to Hong Seo-hyun.

‘If I play my cards right here, I might be able to slack off on assignments, right…?’

Hong Seo-hyun realized a bit late that she wasn’t cut out for the video industry.

The first-year curriculum focused on the basic video editing skills she wanted to learn.

She decided there was no need to go back to a general high school in this kind of atmosphere.

She thought she would stay here and continue to hone the basics.

But things were different from the second year.

They just threw high-level editing assignments at them, assuming they knew everything.

If she rushed to complete the assignments, she wouldn’t even have time to plan her YouTube channel, which she really wanted to do.

She was stuck from the planning stage.

Video editing often continued until dawn.

After struggling to finish one assignment, she would spend the next few days in a daze as if her soul had been sucked out.

As she burned through time like that, the next assignment would come, as if it had been waiting.

‘If I use the club as an excuse, I’ll feel less guilty about skipping assignments, right…?’

Hong Seo-hyun didn’t want to waste her time on overly specialized major assignments forever.

So, she was thinking of using the Game Release Club as an excuse to drop major assignments.

“If it’s a free club, can I drop some major assignments using the club as an excuse?”

“Well, it shouldn’t be a problem?”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Hayoon answered quite plainly.

“We plan to continue our business even after graduation. Getting a job isn’t our goal, so we just drop assignments when we’re busy.”

“Business?”

“Yes, well, we don’t plan to end it with just one project……. Didn’t we talk about this?”

Of course, Hayoon also wondered if she had made a mistake after saying that, so she made eye contact with Choi Arin and Do Jin-ho.

“I thought you were taking care of everything?”

“I was just going to gain experience and see how things went at first. But after making 30 million won just from funding, I don’t see a reason to go anywhere else. If we do this a few more times, I think we can make it big, so I’ll stick around.”

“Well, that’s what they say?”

It took less than a breath for them to reach an agreement.

Choi Arin and Do Jin-ho.

If Cosplay Holic’s funding had hit rock bottom, they would have run away without looking back.

But at this point, when a certain amount of profit was secured, it was a more foolish choice not to look forward to the next one.

The first project’s funding was 36 million won.

More than enough reason to stick together for the next project.

‘Is the welfare good? Or is the pay good?’

At this point, Hong Seo-hyun couldn’t help but be tempted.

She didn’t know for sure, but there must be a reason why both of them were so positive.

“So. To put it simply, you’re the boss?”

“I don’t give out salaries, but I do provide appropriate pay for outsourcing, so you can think of it as being a client.”

“Then can I negotiate the pay with you? Of course, I plan to join.”

Hong Seo-hyun was very proactive, even reaching the stage of proposing a deal herself.

And Hayoon.

“Hmm, then shall we talk about money for the rest of the time? Let’s just talk about this between the two of us.”

She doesn’t turn people away.

Especially if that person is a talent who can help her project.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Choi Arin and Do Jin-ho stepped out of the club room for a moment.

Hayoon and Hong Seo-hyun sat facing each other with a desk between them and started the conversation.

The first thing they did was to go over the release progress of Cosplay Holic.

Considering that she was joining mid-way, she wanted to inform her of the current status as much as possible.

“You drew this?”

“Yes, Arin did the backgrounds and objects, but I did all the characters.”

“Oh, no, wow….”

Hong Seo-hyun was astonished.

The quality of Hayoon’s illustrations was surprisingly high.

‘I thought the Game Release Club would be different, but….’

This was a level of quality that even game companies would scramble to recruit.

The word “pretty” automatically came to mind as Hong Seo-hyun looked at the illustrations, and her mind started racing.

And soon, she came to a conclusion.

“As I said, I want to use the Game Release Club as an excuse to drop some major assignments…. Would that be okay?”

“Well, that’s perfectly fine. Our advisor is a bit stubborn, so even if the major teachers protest, he’ll block them all.”

“Th-then I have nothing more to ask for. If I have time, I can easily make game PVs and sing.”

“Uh… Didn’t you say you wanted to talk about pay? You seem like you’d do it for free…….”

As if flipping a switch.

Hong Seo-hyun suddenly started to take a very low stance.

If there was one thing she wanted.

Money?

She didn’t care about that.

She received enough allowance.

What she wanted was none other than….

“Rather than unpaid, uh…. Could you give me some illustrations?”

“Illustrations?”

“Even if it’s a bit low quality, just one a week….”

Illustrations.

Anyone who has prepared to be an Utaite(Someone who covers, primarily Japanese, songs and uploads them online) knows.

Even if you want to make a YouTube video, you need illustrations that cost 200,000 won each.

If you want to ensure quality, you often put two or three illustrations in one video.

If you upload one video a week, you easily spend about 1 million won a month.

“If necessary, I’ll even pay, so is there any way…?”

Hong Seo-hyun had made a rational decision.

Unless Hayoon was offering outsourcing fees at the level of a full-time worker’s salary, it was much more advantageous to receive illustrations on a regular basis.

Of course, this was only advantageous from Hong Seo-hyun’s perspective.

From Hayoon’s point of view, it meant that instead of paying outsourcing fees for vocals and PVs, which could be resolved for around 1 million won, she would have to regularly provide her illustrations to Hong Seo-hyun, which was an extremely unfavorable contract.

‘She’s quite the calculator, this one? Why does she need illustrations, though?’

Since Hong Seo-hyun, who she thought was half a pushover, made such a sharp proposal, she couldn’t help but ask why.

“Can I ask what you plan to use the illustrations for?”

“Ah, I want to run my own Utaite channel…….”

“You want to get free illustrations?”

“Ah, ahaha….”

When Hayoon hit the nail on the head, Hong Seo-hyun laughed emptily, as if embarrassed.

Hayoon, who had been silent for a moment, asked another question.

“Why do you want to run an Utaite channel?”

“Um… Because I’m confident in my singing? Honestly, I think I can sing as well as the Utaites all over YouTube.”

“Then why did you come to a Meister High School…….”

“To be an Utaite, you need to know how to edit videos. You need to know how to make illustrations spin around and use effects that make light burst out.”

“Ah-ha…?”

So.

To put it simply, this person was also quite a radical.

To the point where she would enroll in a Meister High School just to learn video editing skills for her Utaite channel.

It seemed like only these kinds of people gathered around Hayoon.

Should she consider this good or bad?

“It was practically unplanned, then?”

“It’s not that I’m unplanned, it’s that the school gives too many assignments. The allowance I saved to outsource illustrations keeps piling up, but I can’t even think about studying mixing because of school assignments?”

“Well, school is a place that gives assignments….”

“No, shouldn’t they give you some breathing room? I also need time to choose songs to upload to YouTube, practice, record, and watch YouTube lectures to learn mixing and editing, but they don’t give me time.”

Hong Seo-hyun passionately argued that Yongsan IT High School’s assignment-centric approach was the problem, saying that the way they poured out assignments like a mountain was an issue.

Even Hayoon, who was using the Game Release Club as an excuse to drop most of her assignments, found her shamelessness a bit dizzying.

If Park Geun-soo saw this, he would probably grab the back of his neck and collapse.

Dropping assignments is a kind of equivalent exchange where you give up grades, but this is just being stubborn.

But.

“You really hate school, huh?”

“Of course, I hate it. They bury me in a mountain of assignments.”

“Are you going to work hard on YouTube?”

“If I have time, of course. I could even succeed as a singer? If I get the YouTube algorithm right, I could even succeed in Japan. There are quite a few Korean Utaites like that.”

If she has this kind of personality.

If she’s someone who, like Hayoon, isn’t satisfied with just getting good grades in the small confines of school.

‘Should I try to raise this person as an Utaite YouTuber? Successful ones get over a million views, and if I raise her like that and sell her music, it could be quite lucrative, right?’

And the moment that thought occurred to her.

Something flashed in Hayoon’s mind.

‘Utaite…? Vtuber…(a streamer who uses a virtual avatar)..?’

How about raising Hong Seo-hyun as a cash cow?

A Vtuber who plays the games Hayoon makes and sings the opening songs for those games.

When you think about it, Hayoon has all the art and rigging, and she even has broadcasting experience.

Making a virtual character and setting up the broadcasting, which are the biggest hurdles to becoming a Vtuber, are not a problem.

‘She’s worth raising, isn’t she?’

This had a high probability of paying off big if she built it up steadily.

Especially since it was the height of the pandemic, when streaming was popular.

‘It hasn’t been long since I took a break, so there are still many people coming to the cafe….’

It was worth a try in many ways.