Here we are, writing Fred's chapter. Not his only chapter, obviously... It was solo hard writing a business-y Fred, I tried to still throw in his personality and charm but sometimes you gotta be serious. Fred is my absolute favorite BH6 character, even though I write Wasabi way more, so this story is super fun for me to have them all together. Also, without meaning to, I really mapped out a story where each important character (sorry, not this time Hiro) kinda gets a chapter alone with Wasabi in or around the beginning.
Which begs the question, who's he going to interact with next? ;)
Wesley pulled up to the house. No, house wasn't the right word. This was a mansion.
"Mr. Ginger?" A butler asked when he knocked on the door.
"Yes, sir."
"You may call me Heathcliff. Master Frederick wishes to interview in the garden. Follow me please." Wes took a deep breath. This was nerve-wracking. This was technically his first job interview. Did he have his resume? He checked his pockets and was relieved to find it neatly folded. Would he get points off for folding it? He'd lucked into the job at the cafe, Tadashi had gotten that for him. This was different. He decided, right off the bat, that he wasn't going to mention Tadashi, at least not until after he did or didn't have the job. Tadashi wasn't going to secure work for him again. If he wanted to seize his dreams, he needed to do it by himself.
"Thank you, sir."
"Heathcliff."
"Thank you, Heathcliff." He was still super nervous as he followed Heathcliff out to the garden. Frederick Frederickson leaped out of his seat when he saw Wesley.
"Wesley Ginger delighted to meet you. Let's get down to business."
"I'm happy to meet you too, sir." Fred's face scrunched up in a momentary frown, and then he laughed.
"Oh no, no, no. You don't have to call me sir, we're peers. I just want to chat a bit because I really get the feeling that you'd be awesome for my team but I wanted to hang for a bit before we solidified that." Wesley was feeling super overwhelmed. Fred was both so casual and so daunting at the same time that his head was swimming and all he could do was nod.
"You said in your interview that your little brother watches my content?" Fred said as an icebreaker, and that did help Wes feel a bit more at ease.
"Oh, yeah, Khary's a big fan."
"That's awesome, you'll have to let me give him some merch, okay?"
"O-okay." Tadashi had been right, only a few minutes into the conversation, and Fred had already offered him free stuff.
"Your application said that you'll be attending San Fransokyo Institute of Technology in the fall? That's cool, the other person I hired for this job is also going to be going there."
"Th-the other p-person?" Wes stammered.
"Oh, yeah, I was reviewing applications and there was this one woman who seemed to catch more of an aesthetic vibe, she's going to be working on making my videos pop visually, but I want you because you seem organized, logical. I can bounce ideas off someone like you. You'll also be working with my editor to make things flow, stuff like that."
"I don't mean to sound unprepared but I'm not sure if I exactly understand what role I'll be filling if you hire me."
"Oh, you've already got the job. Most everyone who applied ended up admitting they were underage or they weren't actually interested. Of the handful of legitimate applications, yours was the only one that felt… Real. Well, yours and Itzel's but that's beside the point. As for what you'll be doing, I need a brain. See, I've given this a lot of thought. My videos are fun, people have fun, people laugh, but I'm not the best I can be for my fanbase. I know most of the people who watch me are kids and I want to make fun content without convincing them to do stupid stuff. You'll be my brain, my conscience, a fresh set of eyes. I need you to tell me when an idea is unforgivably stupid, or when I'm going too far, or when my videos look terrible, the works. Can you do that?"
Wesley felt like he couldn't move. That was a lot to process, it was a lot more emotional energy than handing someone a coffee and telling them to have a nice day. This rich guy was asking him to critique everything he did as a YouTuber. Wes could hardly ask to borrow someone's pen. He didn't think he had the guts to be brash.
"Uh, sure." So he lied. He'd find the courage because right now saying no didn't seem like a better option, though he knew he was just delaying the inevitable.
"Excellent, do you have a laptop? I'll make sure you have the editing software downloaded on your computer and my editor will give you a crash course, I want you and Itzel and the editor to have a say in the final product. I know that a lot of filming has to be cut to get to the good stuff. You wouldn't believe how many videos I've scrapped entirely… What was I saying…"
"Laptop," Wes reminded meekly, finding his shoes very interesting all of the sudden.
"Right! Do you have one?"
"Sort of, Khary and I share one."
"Oh, okay. Heathcliff!" The butler hadn't been far away.
"Yes, Master Frederick?"
"Make a note, we'll be getting Wesley a new laptop for work." Wes's eyes widened.
"I couldn't possibly accept that, it's too generous-"
"You need it for work. It's my job as your boss to make sure you have everything you need." Fred sounded serious but his eyes were smiling, and that helped make Wes feel just a little bit more at ease. He could easily see now why Tadashi liked this guy. Fred was a nice person.
"Thank you. When do you want me to start?"
"Let's see, today is Friday… I do a bit of filming on the weekend but I don't expect you to drop your weekend plans, so how about you start on Monday?"
"Sounds perfect," Wesley smiled, not bringing up that his weekend plans weren't exactly the most exciting things in the world.
"Now that that's sorted out let's just get to know each other. It doesn't have to feel like a job interview anymore. I don't bite." Wes let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.
"Okay, uh, what do you want to know?"
"What kinds of things do you enjoy doing?"
"I knit in my free time, and I've done a bit of fencing, self-taught." Fred's eyes lit up.
"That's amazing! I'd love to do some fencing with you. I know next to nothing about the sport but you could show me a few things if you wanted to."
Wes didn't hesitate, he immediately agreed. When he said he was self-taught in fencing, he really meant that he'd never held a proper sabre in his life, but he'd learned the movements with Khary and their plastic lightsabers, and he was more than happy to get a chance to do the real thing.
"You're okay with being on camera, right? Because you will be in at least a few of my videos."
"Oh, uh, I don't know, I get nervous, talking in front of people…"
"Okay, we'll just have you on screen for the introductory video. You can bring your little brother to shoot on Monday." Panic flitted across Wesley's face and Fred quickly tried to change directions.
"That came out wrong! I'm not gonna shoot your brother! Ugh… This is why I need a conscience, I'm always saying the wrong thing…"
"You and me both, man. There are so many people I can't even talk to because I'm always messing up. I didn't realize that happened to people who were in the public eye like you."
"I'd say it happens to us more because people hear us more. Not to say you're irrelevant, here I go again, messing up again..." Fred sighed, showing that there were deep insecurities behind his happy, energetic profile.
Wes offered him a smile, "You're fine, I think I get it, I know you weren't trying to be mean. You do have more opportunities to mess up. But I think you do a good job, for the first most. Maybe you're not eloquent, but maybe you don't need to be. People like my brother love your videos."
"I knew I was going to like you. I think we're gonna be good friends." Wes smiled and nodded.
"Me too. I'm actually friends with one of your friends already."
"Oh yeah, really?" Fred seemed puzzled, giving Wesley the first clue that Fred didn't actually have many real friends.
"Yeah, Tadashi Hamada. We've been friends most of my life." Fred lit up.
"Oh! Yeah! I love Tadashi. We should all hang out sometime." Fred and Wes continued to talk about their commonalities, the video games and music they liked, the movies they loved, their dreams. Wes opened up about being worried about SFIT the next year and Fred told him about the online classes he was going to take. After a few hours, there were no more nerves, just two friends talking. Wes thought he would be annoyed by Fred's over the top energy but his enthusiasm just reminded Wes of his little brother. Tadashi had been right, Fred was a sweetheart.
Fred was also as generous as Tadashi had warned. Fred insisted on ordering them a pizza for dinner and sent him home with leftovers and a gift bag of merch for Khary, as well as a t-shirt for Wesley to wear in his first video with Fred. Wes was more than a little nervous about that. So, since it was already past the Ginger family scheduled dinner time, he took his apprehensions and his pizza and went to visit another old friend.