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# Chapter 8: The Man Who Doesn’t Play Piano
The words *monthly fixed income* still hung in the air.
Sea-ah set the documents down on the table. Slowly, without a sound. Yoo Jae-won watched her do it and said nothing. Park In-cheol kept his eyes on his coffee cup.
Through the conference room window, Gangnam’s afternoon stretched out below. Buildings lined up in rows, the sky carved into narrow strips between them. The sky Sea-ah knew was the one that opened above the Han River — the sky visible from the riverside in Hapjeong, with nothing to block it. This sky was different. The buildings here had divided it neatly among themselves.
“Take some time to think it over.”
Yoo Jae-won said it with a softness that hadn’t been there before. Sea-ah recognized what that softness was. It was the voice of someone who believed the negotiation was going well.
“One week.”
“Is that enough time?”
“It’s enough.”
She picked up her coat. Left the documents on the table. Yoo Jae-won glanced at them, then back at her.
“You can take those with you.”
“I’ve read them.”
Sea-ah stood. Park In-cheol rose with her. Yoo Jae-won stood as well and extended his hand.
“Until next time.”
She shook it. His grip was firm and dry. The hand of someone who had practiced handshakes for a long time.
While waiting for the elevator, Park In-cheol came to stand beside her.
“So.”
“What.”
“The offer.”
Sea-ah looked at the elevator button. The ‘1’ was already lit.
“The third clause is conditional on the second.”
Park In-cheol paused briefly. “That’s just how it works in this industry.”
“I know.”
The elevator doors opened. They stepped in. The doors closed.
“Na Sea-ah, seriously.” Park In-cheol said. “This isn’t a bad contract. You’d have a guaranteed monthly income.”
“A guarantee means less freedom.”
“That’s exactly the difference between freelance and exclusive.”
“Yes.”
The elevator reached the first floor. The doors opened. Sea-ah walked out first. Through the lobby, through the automatic doors — she thought she heard Park In-cheol call after her, but she didn’t turn around.
Outside, the light was fading.
Walking toward Sinnonhyeon Station, Sea-ah tried to sort through her thoughts. They wouldn’t be sorted. Each one moved at its own tempo. Monthly fixed income. Exclusive contract. Credit attribution open to negotiation. Retroactive settlement for By the Window.
She put her earphones in as she descended the subway steps. Didn’t play anything. She just wanted to turn the world down a little.
Line 9 was already crowded, even before the evening rush. Sea-ah stood in front of the screen door. The vibration of the approaching train traveled up through the soles of her feet.
Under an exclusive deal, every song would belong to JYA.
That thought settled in before the others. Clearer and quieter than the rest. It was quiet because it was true. A fact before feelings attach to it looks like this — heavy as lead, without temperature, perfectly still.
The train arrived. The doors opened.
Sea-ah pushed through the crowd and grabbed a handhold inside. It was cold to the touch. Her throat still felt slightly raw. The aftereffects of last night’s set at Underscore — the one she’d pitched a half step higher — hadn’t quite left her yet.
The train moved.
Sea-ah closed her eyes.
She thought of Yoo Jae-won’s gaze. First the way he looked at the documents, then the way he looked at her. The transition between the two was precise. Not calculated — it had become habit. The habit of seeing everything as paperwork first, and then as a person. What had she been to him? First, paperwork. And then — Sea-ah stopped herself there.
After that, I still don’t know.
That was enough.
Her phone rang as she passed the convenience store after getting off at Hapjeong Station.
Ha-neul.
“Hey, how’d it go. What was the company like.”
“Too much to explain.”
“Then give me the short version.”
Sea-ah slowed her pace. Through the convenience store window, the night-shift part-timer was restocking the shelves. That would be Sea-ah’s spot tomorrow afternoon.
“They offered me an exclusive contract.”
A brief silence on the other end, then: “Wait.”
“Yeah.”
“Exclusive? JYA exclusive?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy — okay, hold on. Is that good or bad right now.”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey, Na Sea-ah, why does your voice sound like that.”
“My voice is fine.”
“No it’s not. I know this voice. This is your ‘I’m hungry but I’m going to say I’m not’ voice.”
Sea-ah went quiet. Ha-neul was right. She hadn’t eaten lunch. When they’d brought coffee into the JYA conference room, she hadn’t touched it. She hadn’t bought anything on the way out. She hadn’t wanted to open her wallet. She didn’t know why. Something like resistance to spending money in Gangnam — a kind of resistance she couldn’t quite explain.
“Come out after your shift. Let’s get street food in Hapjeong.”
“I’m fine.”
“Hey, I’ve got a two-hour tattoo session right now. I’ll come find you after. Wait for me.”
“No, Ha-neul —”
“I said wait. Bye.”
The call ended.
Sea-ah pocketed her phone and walked toward the goshiwon. The sky had gone dark. Hapjeong’s alleyways revealed at night what the daytime kept hidden — faded signs, basement-level windows, weathered posters peeling off walls. Sea-ah loved these alleys. They didn’t pretend to be anything other than what they were.
She climbed the goshiwon stairs and opened her door. Flicked the light on. The windowless room absorbed the light.
Sea-ah draped her coat over the bed. Set her bag down. Sat on the floor. Knees bent, back resting against the mattress.
The room was quiet.
But it had the particular sounds of a goshiwon — a neighbor’s TV through the wall, the hallway ventilation fan, the faint rush of water somewhere below. She’d found those sounds grating when she first moved in. Now she thought she might not be able to sleep without them. They were the sounds of people living. Each in their own room, each in their own way.
Sea-ah closed her eyes, opened them, and pulled a notebook from her bag. Not sheet music — just a lined notebook where she wrote lyrics and melody sketches together. She picked up a pen.
Nothing came.
There were things she should write. Thoughts on the contract clauses. The calculation between monthly stability and creative freedom. Her mother’s medication costs. Do-hyeon’s allowance this month. But those weren’t the kind of things this notebook was for. The notebook was for something else.
She closed it.
Then her phone rang again. Not Ha-neul.
An unknown number. Seoul area code. Sea-ah looked at it for a moment, then answered.
“Hello?”
“Na Sea-ah?”
A man’s voice. Not unfamiliar. But she couldn’t immediately place it.
“Who is this?”
“Kang Ri-woo. We met at Underscore last week.”
Sea-ah said nothing for a moment.
Kang Ri-woo. She remembered the name. But what came back to her before the name was his hand. Reaching toward the stage, then stopping. She’d thought: a pianist’s hands. And now that person was calling her.
“…How did you get this number?”
“I asked Team Leader Park In-cheol. I should have asked your permission first — I want to apologize for that upfront.”
The apology came first. Sea-ah filed that away — not in the notebook, but somewhere in her mind. This person leads with an apology. Habit, or calculation.
“What do you want?”
“Could we meet briefly? There’s something I’d like to say.”
“Today?”
“Tomorrow. Somewhere comfortable. If Hapjeong works for you, I’ll come there.”
Sea-ah looked at the blank wall in front of her. I’ll come to you — that’s what he was saying. Someone from Gangnam, offering to come to Hapjeong. That meant something. She wasn’t sure what yet.
“What is it you want to say?”
“I’d rather say it in person.”
“Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
A brief silence. Then: “That last song. The one you closed with at Underscore.”
Sea-ah’s hand tightened slightly.
“You wrote that, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer.
“It feels like a bigger conversation than a phone call.” Something in his voice — unhurried, but not backing down either. “Tomorrow at three? Any café in Hapjeong works.”
Sea-ah looked at the bare wall. Tomorrow morning’s convenience store shift ended at two. She had time after that.
“Three-thirty.”
“Works for me. Where should I go?”
“Come out of Exit 2 at Hapjeong Station and turn right. There’s a café called Old Dog. Right there.”
“Got it. See you tomorrow.”
The call ended.
Sea-ah stared at her phone. The screen went dark. The room filled again with its goshiwon sounds — the neighbor’s TV, the fan, the water.
You wrote that, didn’t you.
The words turned over in her mind. Someone had asked whether the song was hers. She tried to remember the last time anyone had said that to her — nothing came. Park In-cheol had never said anything like it when he first received her work. Yoo Jae-won had mentioned By the Window in today’s meeting, but he hadn’t called it *Na Sea-ah’s song*. It was just the song.
Kang Ri-woo had asked: you wrote that, didn’t you.
Sea-ah opened the notebook again. This time, the pen moved.
The next morning. The convenience store.
The eight-to-two shift ran on muscle memory. Stocking shelves, checking expiration dates, ringing up purchases, bagging, would you like a receipt, next customer, repeat. Sea-ah had been doing this for a year and a half. Her body handled it on its own. Her mind was free to be elsewhere.
Today, her mind was on what she’d written in the notebook last night.
She’d woken at two in the morning. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she was suddenly awake. She opened the notebook and picked up where she’d left off. It wasn’t a melody line. It was lyrics. Writing words first was unusual for her — melody usually came before anything else. But last night, the words arrived first.
On things that burn without a name.
That was the first line. She’d written it, set down her pen, and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling was low. Goshiwon ceilings were always low.
Things that burn without a name.
Does a match have a name when it burns? Does a flame have a name? When something burns to ash, does the ash have a name?
She’d decided to stop following that thread. Too large a thought for two in the morning.
A customer walked in. Sea-ah said “welcome” automatically.
The shift ended exactly at two. Sea-ah washed her hands in the convenience store bathroom and untied her apron. She looked in the mirror — small, with a fluorescent tube mounted close above it. She looked tired. She couldn’t tell whether she always looked this tired or whether today was worse.
She let her hair down, then gathered it back up again. Then stopped.
Why did I put it back up?
She sat with the question. She only let her hair down when she sang. She didn’t know when that had started. It had just become the way things were. Letting her hair down when she sang felt like releasing something — keeping it tied felt like keeping something held in check.
But today she was going to a café. Not to sing.
She left the bathroom with her hair up.
Old Dog was a two-minute walk from Hapjeong Station.
Sea-ah didn’t come here often — five thousand won for a coffee. But it wasn’t a bad place. Low ceilings, narrow interior, worn wooden tables, one entire wall lined with bookshelves. Jazz played through the speakers at all times — quiet enough not to intrude on conversation. Sea-ah had always thought the playlist here was decent. She’d never mentioned it to the owner.
She arrived at twenty past three. Only a handful of people inside. Kang Ri-woo was sitting by the window.
She’d been holding only his voice in her mind since last night, and now the face snapped back into place. The image from Underscore — standing under the blue stage lights, his hand reaching toward the stage and stopping. In daylight now. Different. Dark circles under his eyes. An expensive jacket, wrinkled. An Americano on the table in front of him. He saw her and stood.
“You came.”
“Yes.”
Sea-ah sat across from him. Took off her coat. She hadn’t taken it off in the JYA conference room yesterday. Here, she did. She didn’t think about why.
“What would you like to drink?”
“Americano.”
Ri-woo went to the counter. Sea-ah looked at the table while he was gone. His Americano sat beside his phone, screen facing up. Several notifications visible. She hadn’t meant to read them, but she saw — KakaoTalk messages, and among the sender names, one that said Father. She moved her gaze to the window.
He came back and sat down.
A brief silence. The jazz filled it. Someone’s piano — Bill Evans-adjacent. Slow, with space left open between the notes.
Sea-ah spoke first. “You said you had something to tell me.”
“Yes.” Ri-woo placed both hands on the table. Large hands. Wide span between the fingers. Pianist’s hands, she thought again. “That last song. What’s the title?”
Sea-ah paused before answering. “It doesn’t have one.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet.”
Ri-woo nodded. “When you sang it at Underscore — at the end of the second chorus, you stopped. Just for a moment, outside the beat.”
She remembered that moment. Lowering the microphone, holding half a beat longer than she needed to, then coming back in. It hadn’t been a mistake. She’d needed that silence.
“Was it intentional?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sea-ah glanced at her Americano. She hadn’t noticed the staff set it down. She wrapped both hands around the glass. Cold.
“That silence is part of the song. The space without sound is still music.”
Ri-woo looked at her. The kind of look that’s checking something. Sea-ah didn’t look away.
“Na Sea-ah,” he said. “How do you work? Do you write on commission, or do you write first and sell later?”
“Both.”
“I heard about the JYA situation.”
Sea-ah’s hands went still against the glass.
“I asked Park In-cheol.” He said it plainly, not apologetically. Just stating a fact. “That they offered you an exclusive deal.”
“Is that what you came here to talk about?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Ri-woo wrapped one hand around his own Americano. The same gesture Sea-ah had made. He looked down for a moment, then back at her.
“Don’t take the exclusive contract.”
Sea-ah said nothing for a moment.
“That’s what you wanted to say?”
“Yes.”
“Your reason.”
He glanced out the window before speaking. Hapjeong’s alley lay beyond the glass. Afternoon in Hapjeong — worn buildings, bicycles, café signs.
“JYA’s exclusive contracts include a copyright assignment clause. Any song you create during the contract period becomes company property. Even after the contract ends, what you made under the JYA name doesn’t come back to you.”
“I know.”
“You already knew?”
“I read the documents.”
Ri-woo paused, then said quietly: “And you’re still considering it?”
Sea-ah thought before answering. She didn’t want to lie. But she didn’t want to tell this person everything, either. Somewhere between those two things was an honest answer.
“There’d be a guaranteed monthly income.”
Ri-woo looked at her. He seemed to understand what that meant — and he didn’t push back on it immediately. That surprised her a little.
“How much?”
Sea-ah hesitated, then told him.
Ri-woo folded his fingers once against the table and straightened them. “That’s roughly the same as your current session income, maybe a bit less. Assuming you could keep doing sessions.”
“Exclusive means sessions get restricted too.”
“Right.”
“So you’d end up the same or worse.”
“Yes.”
Sea-ah lifted her glass and took a sip. Cold and bitter. Good. It cleared her head a little.
“So what are you actually proposing?”
Ri-woo was quiet for a moment. She couldn’t tell whether the pause was calculation or word-searching. Watching him, she thought: maybe this person isn’t so good at talking either. Just a different kind of not-good. Sea-ah was the kind who had too few words. This person seemed to have too many — and was sorting through them to find the right ones.
“Working independently,” he said, “with contracts that give you proper credit.”
“Is there someone who can offer that kind of deal?”
“I’m building an independent label right now.”
Sea-ah set down her coffee cup.
Ri-woo kept going. “It’ll take a few months before it’s formally up and running — still early days. But I’m looking for a composer to collaborate with. Not exclusive — per-song contracts. Guaranteed credit, transparent revenue sharing, rights staying with the creator.”
“The son of JYA,” Sea-ah said. She thought, after saying it, that maybe it was too blunt — and then decided it was exactly blunt enough. “Is starting an independent label.”
Ri-woo paused. Then: “I’m the son of JYA. I’m also Kang Ri-woo.”
“Right now those two things come attached.”
“I know.” His voice dropped slightly. Not defensive — just lower. “That’s my problem too.”
Sea-ah looked at him. Dark circles. Hands resting flat on the table. Good hands — she could read hands. These hands had spent years at a piano. And then hadn’t touched one in a long time. Both things were visible at once.
“What happened in Berlin?”
Ri-woo looked at her. A different kind of look this time.
“Why?”
“Your hands.” Sea-ah said. “They haven’t touched a piano in a long time. But they’re still a pianist’s hands.”
He looked down at them. Just briefly. Then back at her.
“…You notice a lot.”
“Composers look at hands. It’s a habit.”
Ri-woo lowered his hands off the table. Onto his lap, out of sight. Sea-ah noticed — him hiding his hands. She didn’t ask what it meant.
“Berlin isn’t today’s conversation.”
“I know.”
“Someday, though?”
Sea-ah thought for a moment. “I’m not sure when someday is.”
“That’s a fair answer.”
The jazz kept playing. The piano melody ended and the bass came in. Low, slow rhythm.
“The independent label,” Sea-ah said.
“Yes.”
“You said it’s still early.”
“That’s right.”
“What about funding?”
Ri-woo paused. Sea-ah knew exactly where that pause snagged. Funding meant his father. Meant Kang Min-jun.
“Right now I’m running it on my own money.”
“No JYA money coming in.”
“If it did, it wouldn’t be an independent label.”
Hearing that, Sea-ah confirmed at least one thing: this person understood clearly, on that point, what was at stake. He knew that funding and independence couldn’t coexist. Whether it was sustainable was a separate question.
“How long can you hold out?”
“You ask direct questions.”
“Because I need direct answers.”
Ri-woo glanced out the window, then back. “A year. If nothing comes together by then, I’ll have to find another way.”
“And the other way is JYA?”
He didn’t answer.
Sea-ah heard the silence as an answer. He had a year. And when that year ran out — back to his father’s company, or his father’s money. That was his reality.
“You don’t have many options either.”
Ri-woo looked at her. Something in his expression shifted — like he hadn’t expected that. Sea-ah wasn’t good at reading faces, but this one came through clearly. No one else had said that to him.
“…Is that how it looks?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then: “You’re right.”
Those two words settled into the room quietly. Sea-ah left them where they landed.
While the two of them sat in the café, the coffee went cold.
Sea-ah drank hers to the last drop. Ri-woo left half. Wind sounds came through from outside — the afternoon wind in Hapjeong, the kind that came in from the river. Sea-ah knew it by the way the windows trembled. The glass shivered faintly.
“Na Sea-ah.”
“Yes.”
“That last song. You haven’t sold it to anyone yet?”
She paused. “No.”
“Not to JYA either.”
“Not yet.”
Ri-woo looked at her. “Don’t sell it.”
“Stop doing that,” Sea-ah said.
“Doing what?”
“Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Her voice dropped — not without feeling, but as if she knew feeling wasn’t what was needed here. “Telling me what to do or not do is the kind of thing someone with no authority over me says.”
Ri-woo said nothing for a moment.
“You’re right.” He said it without hesitation. “I’m sorry.”
Sea-ah hadn’t expected the apology. It came fast. No fumbling. He’d apologized first on the phone too. This person knows how to apologize. Whether it’s habit or sincerity — she couldn’t tell yet.
“I just wanted to say,” Ri-woo continued, “that the song is good. And that it seems like you know where it’s supposed to end.”
“What if I don’t?”