Chapter 30: It’s Good to be Young, part 2

-Clink.

With the familiar sound of the bell, the cafe door opened, and a woman with a familiar appearance entered.

Her name is Park Ji-hye.

Twenty-six years old this year, she is a voice actor who recently became a freelancer after her exclusive contract with a broadcasting company ended.

She is a so-called genius type of voice actor, who prepared thoroughly after graduating from a junior college and became a voice actor without failing.

As such, she is young, and in this industry, she is in the position of a newcomer wherever she goes.

Even the juniors who joined the same broadcasting company as her this year are all older than her…

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Uh…”

What are these guys?

One of them looks like a typical middle schooler…?

A high schooler?

Anyway, she looks young, like she just copied her outfit and makeup from YouTube or something.

The other one is dressed up nicely, but at best, she looks like a college freshman.

‘I wondered why I was getting work during this time…’

She was happy to get work during the drought period right after becoming a freelancer, but it felt like she had been called to record for a high school club project.

‘This is annoying…’

Park Ji-hye’s rising expectations plummeted, and she sat down in the seat across from Min Hayoon and Choi Arin with a sullen expression.

And Min Hayoon.

“Nice to meet you. Voice actor Park Ji-hye. I’m Min Hayoon.”

“Ah, yes. Hello. I’m Park Ji-hye.”

“…Ah, ah! I’m Choi Arin.”

She poked Choi Arin’s side, who was so nervous that she couldn’t speak, to make her introduce herself, and then she started to talk in earnest.

“No, you don’t have to be sorry. I just want you to judge based on the contract terms.”

“I’ll do my best.”

In fact, Park Ji-hye isn’t that much older than Min Hayoon and Choi Arin to be scolding them.

She seems older because there is an 8-year age difference with Choi Arin but being twenty-six years old means she is a clueless new member of society who just graduated from college.

It was evident just from the fact that she couldn’t manage her facial expressions at the meeting for the contract, and Min Hayoon appealed to her emotions by digging into that gap.

‘No, it’s not just appealing to emotions.’

Min Hayoon’s most powerful weapon is money.

A voice actor who has just become a freelancer can’t drastically raise their appearance fee just because they have become a freelancer.

But.

Min Hayoon is different.

She knows that Park Ji-hye will become a big shot in the Korean voice acting industry, and she is well aware of the anxiety unique to freelancers with unstable incomes.

So, Min Hayoon will scratch Park Ji-hye’s itchy spots and lead the negotiations.

“First, please take a look at this. This is the standard contract form we received from the voice actor association.”

“A standard contract form?”

“Yes, we haven’t made any changes to it. Especially the mutual protection clause.”

First, she presented the standard contract form and pointed out the biggest anxiety factor that voice actor Park Ji-hye would have.

“Here, you can see all our contact information, and even if there is a delay in payment, you can use these contacts to go directly to each other and get it immediately.”

“Uh… Usually, people don’t talk about this, right? It shouldn’t be a key issue…”

Of course, Park Ji-hye was quite taken aback by Min Hayoon’s attitude.

Generally, contracts are conducted in a way that each party emphasizes the conditions that are favorable to them and hides the unfavorable conditions.

Even if that weren’t the case, these kinds of provisions for emergencies are usually mentioned only minimally.

If you mention the provisions related to wage arrears too slickly, the other party might be reluctant to sign because they might feel uneasy.

“Aren’t you worried that there will be problems with money or schedule adjustments because of our age? I think it’s important to emphasize this because of that.”

She isn’t someone Park Ji-hye is going to trick and rip off, but someone she will work with on three or four more projects in the future.

To build a strong relationship with her, she had to take this kind of risk.

“And if you look here…”

“Ah…?”

After that, she mentioned various other detailed provisions and went over the anxiety factors that Park Ji-hye must have felt.

And finally.

“First of all, we would like to offer a contract for 12 hours of recording at 550,000 won per hour.”

“550,000 won? Per hour?”

“Yes, per hour.”

And judging by Park Ji-hye’s reaction, she seemed quite surprised.

She probably didn’t expect a contract worth 550,000 won per hour to come to her within a year of becoming a freelancer.

‘This is closer to the hourly wage of a freelance voice actor than a contract voice actor.’

Park Ji-hye, a new freelancer, was surprised and at the same time, she couldn’t help but understand.

So that’s why she emphasized that there would be no wage arrears?

She thought.

“Also, we think we need to split the recording…”

“Split it?”

“Yes, we’re planning to record the demo version first and then record the full version after the game is completed.”

“Then…”

Work is usually arranged in a lump sum, so it’s easier to plan the schedule.

But.

“Our team decided that it was right to pay an additional 100,000 won per hour for the three hours of recording time required for the demo.”

“Th-that much?”

“Yes, it’s printed here in the contract as well. So…”

Money solves everything.

Even if the schedule becomes messy, if you give a little bonus, it’s something you can turn a blind eye to, and Min Hayoon continued to talk about the possibility of holding a voice actor autograph session in the future, preaching her vision until her tongue was worn out.

And Park Ji-hye.

She was blinded by the sweet fruit that Min Hayoon held in her hand and offered her to eat.

‘How much money is this for twelve hours of work…?’

1.95 million won for the demo recording.

4.95 million won for the main recording.

It’s about three months’ salary for an average office worker, and if she takes on other projects during her free time, she will earn even more.

‘I’m going to surpass my annual salary from when I was under contract in my first year as a freelancer. right? No, wow, this… Ugh…?’

Park Ji-hye smiled mischievously as she thought about it, and Min Hayoon, who saw that look, was sure.

The look on Park Ji-hye’s face was very similar to the one Min Hayoon sometimes made when she looked in the mirror.

It looked strangely mischievous, and it was clear that she was a money-grubber.

Min Hayoon smiled, took out the seal she had brought in her bag.

“If you’re satisfied with the conditions, I think it’s time to sign the contract. Don’t you agree?”

“Hmm, well… With these conditions, there’s no reason to refuse, I’ll sign the contract.”

And with Park Ji-hye’s agreement, two seals were soon stamped on two contracts.

After stamping the last page of each contract…

“Great. This concludes the contract. We’ll book a recording studio soon and contact you as soon as possible.”

“Yes, then I’ll see you again then.”

With a very excited expression, Park Ji-hye took her remaining coffee and headed to the counter…

“I… didn’t say a single word…”

“I told you, you just need to be there and look pretty.”

“I guess so…”

“If I was alone, she might have gotten angry, asking what I was up to, so I brought you along. She’s gone now, so let’s get back to drawing.”

“Yeah, let’s do that…”

Choi Arin was grateful that she really didn’t have to do anything, and she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and picked up her pen.

Indeed, artists are most stable when they’re drawing.

“Where did I leave off last time?”

“Didn’t you say you were going to start working on the park background?”

Min Hayoon and Choi Arin chatted casually and started drawing, and Min Hayoon briefly checked if there were any other contacts from other voice actors and closed her email.

The replies were a bit slow, but she was planning to wait for now.

#

A few days later.

“Phew…”

Choi Arin exhaled, holding her breath, and patted her chest once again.

It was the exact same scene as a few days ago.

“With this, we’ve secured voice actors for both heroines… We’ve overcome the biggest hurdle.”

Min Hayoon smiled with satisfaction and sipped her iced coffee.

“But is it okay to give that person an extra 150,000 won?”

Choi Arin asked if she should be that satisfied.

She expressed her concern that the voice actor they had just contracted had an hourly wage of 700,000 won…

“She’s worth that much.”

“You may not know this, but the people we’ve hired are all considered to be top-notch in the industry.”

“Really…?”

“I’m telling you, we just have to succeed now. With our drawings and Do Jin-ho’s coding, which seems to be at least average, we just need to find someone good for sound effects.”

“Is it going well…?”

Perhaps it was because she had been sitting there in nice clothes with her mouth shut during every negotiation.

Even though things were going according to Min Hayoon’s intentions, Choi Arin expressed her doubts, wondering if this was right…

“It’s going very well, and now we just need to find a recording studio.”

“This is definitely going to be a hit.”

Min Hayoon’s long-time intuition was telling her that a demo with a quality that would make otaku go crazy would come out.

Min Hayoon was looking forward to the reaction after the demo was released.