이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다.
# Chapter 18: Clause 7, Page 3
Before Haneul could answer, the grandmother who ran the gukbap place came over with more kkakdugi.
A small dish. Three or four pieces of red radish kimchi. She set it on the table without a word and turned away. Seah watched her hands. Hands that had worked a long time. Deep lines across the knuckles. A stain on her wrist — whether from years of broth splashing or just from years of living, it was impossible to say.
Haneul picked up a piece of kkakdugi. Chewed it slowly. Whether she was stalling or genuinely figuring out where to begin, Seah couldn’t tell.
“I told you I can’t stand the sight of the JYA logo.”
Seah remembered. Something Haneul had said by the Han River.
“There’s a reason for that.”
Haneul rested her spoon across the rim of her bowl and laid her chopsticks flat on the table. It was something she did before she talked about anything real — tidying things up first, whether objects or thoughts.
“I had a friend. Before I got into tattooing. We were in an indie band together. Guitar player. Wrote his own songs too. He auditioned for JYA.”
“And?”
“He showed them his songs. As part of the audition. Didn’t make it. But the next year, a JYA debut act released something that sounded just like one of them. Different melody, but the same structure. Same chord progression. When he went to confront them about it, Park Incheol showed up.”
Seah’s spoon stopped moving.
“Park Incheol showed up?”
“In person. The lawyer came himself and explained things. Pointed out what he’d signed on the audition application. Said there was a clause — buried at the bottom in five-point font — stating that applicants couldn’t claim exclusive rights to any materials submitted. Had he read it? Of course not.”
Another customer walked into the restaurant. A middle-aged man, alone. He told the grandmother “the usual” and took a spot at the standing counter by the register. His bag zipper made a sound as he set it down.
“What happened to him?” Seah asked.
“He gave up. No money for a lawyer, no guarantee he’d win even if he tried. JYA’s a big company — you’d need real money to go up against their legal team, and he didn’t have any.” Haneul paused. “He runs a convenience store in Daejeon now.”
Seah said nothing.
Wind moved through the alley outside. The old window frame rattled faintly. From behind the counter came the sound of a metal ladle knocking against the side of a pot as the grandmother stirred her broth.
“That’s how I know Park Incheol is JYA’s lawyer,” Haneul said. “He might’ve been perfectly nice to me. Probably was nice to you, too. But he works for JYA. Always has. Whatever contract he brings to the table — it’s written for JYA.”
Seah picked up a piece of kkakdugi. Chewed it. It was sour. Perfectly fermented. She actually tasted it — the food, its flavor. Things she hadn’t registered at all when she was eating the triangle kimbap earlier.
“I should go back and read it properly.”
“Let’s go now.”
“After we finish eating.”
“Right. After we finish eating.”
They finished their bowls. When they went to pay, Haneul had her wallet out first. Seah moved to stop her.
“Let me get it.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who brought you here.” Haneul paid. Two bowls came to twelve thousand won.
Walking out of the alley, Seah reached up and touched her shoulder. The spot where the tattoo was. Buried under a thick winter coat, but she knew exactly where it was. Below the left collarbone. Where the match was.
The wind picked up. Her hair scattered across her face.
When she turned on the light in her goshiwon room, Seah took two folders out of her bag.
Left folder: exclusive contract.
Right folder: copyright transfer agreement.
She set both on the table. The table was small — a laptop nearly filled it completely. Side by side, the two folders took up every inch.
Haneul looked around the room. First time she’d been here.
“Small.”
“Yeah.”
“Clean, though.”
Seah didn’t answer. She pulled out the extra chair and gave it to Haneul, then sat herself on the edge of the bed. The two of them faced the table from opposite sides.
“Which one are you reading first?”
Seah picked up the left folder.
The exclusive contract. Forty-five pages. She started from the beginning. Haneul sat quietly. The room had no sound of its own — just the faint noise of a drama bleeding through from next door. Someone was arguing on screen. The voices rose, then fell.
Seah read.
Second page. Third page.
Contract term: five years. Automatic renewal clause included. Renewal conditions were on page four. She turned to page four and read.
“Haneul.”
“Yeah.”
“Automatic renewal up to twice. That’s fifteen years total.”
Haneul’s eyes narrowed.
“Keep reading.”
The copyright clause was on page seven. Seah turned to it, read it once, then read it again.
“That thing you mentioned.”
“What?”
“Page three, clause seven.”
Seah flipped back to page three. Clause seven was there. She read it aloud.
“All musical works created, produced, or published during the contract period shall be assigned to and owned by JYA Entertainment.”
The room went quiet.
Even the drama next door seemed to go silent for a moment.
“All musical works,” Haneul said. “Everything you make during that period.”
“Yeah.”
“Every song you write for five years belongs to JYA. If it auto-renews, that’s fifteen.”
Seah looked at the clause again. The language was clear. Buried in legal terms, but the meaning was unmistakable. Every song Seah wrote over five years would belong to JYA. Her voice, her melodies, everything she’d pulled out of herself at two in the morning when she couldn’t sleep.
“And the songs she already made?”
Seah picked up the right folder. The copyright transfer agreement. She hadn’t gone through this one carefully yet.
She opened it. Read.
Second page. Exhibit A. Three song titles.
And below them.
When she read what came next, Seah felt the temperature drop inside the hands holding the folder. Not on her skin — somewhere deeper.
“Haneul.”
“Yeah.”
“The three songs that were already released — it says JYA will acquire those rights, then re-register me as the original creator.”
“That’s the condition they offered.”
“But below that. Clause three.”
Seah read it.
“However, registration of the original creator shall only proceed after the exclusive contract takes effect. Upon termination of the exclusive contract, said registration shall be automatically voided, and all copyright ownership shall revert to JYA Entertainment.”
Haneul said nothing.
Seah said nothing.
They sat with the sentence between them in silence. The drama from next door started up again. This time, laughter. The scene had shifted to something comedic.
“They’re giving me back my name,” Seah said. “But only as long as the contract is alive.”
“Yeah.”
“The moment it ends, it goes back to JYA.”
“Yeah.”
Seah closed the folder.
A small sound — paper settling against paper. She set it face-down on the table and didn’t move. Just sat there with both hands resting on her knees, doing nothing.
“This isn’t a gift,” she said.
“No.”
“It looks like they’re giving back my name. But what they’re actually doing is holding it hostage.”
Haneul got up from the chair and came to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. The goshiwon bed was narrow enough that their shoulders touched.
“Seah.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t sign this.”
She already knew. She’d known before Haneul said it — but hearing it said out loud brought something different. The feeling of something being finalized. One door closing for good.
“But,” Seah said.
“But what?”
“For a second, I thought about what it would feel like. To have my name back.”
Haneul was quiet.
“When Still Water came out — my name wasn’t on it. You search the song on streaming and it’s just someone else’s name sitting there. No trace of what night I made it, what I was thinking about when I wrote it. Nothing. But the song got played. Twenty thousand times. And someone listened and left a comment — said they didn’t know why it made them cry. That was—”
Seah stopped.
“I know it’s mine. But no one else does.”
Haneul leaned her head against Seah’s shoulder. Gently. The shoulder without the tattoo — she’d chosen the right one, somehow. It seemed deliberate.
“I know.”
“So for a second, I thought — maybe I should just sign it. Just for my name.”
“That name costs five years. Could turn into fifteen. Everything you create in those five years belongs to JYA. You understand that, right, Seah?”
Seah looked up at the ceiling. Low ceiling, as all goshiwon ceilings are. A single fluorescent bulb. It wasn’t flickering — she’d replaced it herself. Changing the bulb had been the first thing she did after moving in. She’d known she couldn’t write songs under a light that stuttered.
“Do you think Ryu knew?”
The words came out before she realized — that this was the question she’d most wanted to ask.
Haneul lifted her head.
“What?”
“These clauses in the contract. Did Ryu know what was in here when he brought it to me?”
Haneul didn’t answer. Her silence was the answer.
Seah understood.
That night, Seah didn’t write anything.
Two in the morning came. The hour she always wrote. Haneul had left around nine — she had appointments in the morning. On her way out she said, “Eat your meals, I mean it.” Seah nodded.
The room was quiet.
Seah opened her laptop. Her work files were there. A row of folders. She looked at them. She’d named them not by date but by feeling. Rainy day. Dohyeon’s voice. Han River at night. The moment Mom surfaced from the water — that last one held a song she’d written while trying to remember the sound of her mother’s숨비소리, that sharp exhale haenyeo divers make when they break the surface.
She didn’t click on any of them.
Just looked at the screen.
If she signed the contract, these folders would belong to JYA. The rainy day. Dohyeon’s voice. The Han River at night. The moment her mother surfaced from the water. All of it.
Seah closed the laptop.
The call came at eleven the next morning.
Unknown number. It was one of her convenience store days — shift started at one. She had two hours. She picked up.
“Na Seah?”
A man’s voice. Low and deliberate.
“Who is this?”
“Kang Minjun.”
Seah paused.
Kang Minjun. CEO of JYA Entertainment. Ryu’s father.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to meet with you, if you have a moment.”
Seah looked at the window. Through the half-basement glass, she could see the feet of people passing on the street. Lots of winter boots today. It was cold.
“When?”
“This afternoon, perhaps? Two hours would be plenty.”
“I have work this afternoon.”
“What time do you start?”
“One.”
“What about right now, then? If we met immediately?”
Seah checked the time. 11:04.
“Where?”
“Could you come to Cheongdam-dong? There’s a café in the basement of the JYA building. We can meet there.”
She mapped it out in her head. Hapjeong to Cheongdam-dong. About forty minutes by subway with a transfer. She could be there before noon. If the meeting wrapped by twelve-thirty, and she ran to the convenience store — she might just make it.
“I’ll come.”
The call ended.
Seah stared at her phone. The screen had gone dark. Her face reflected back at her, faint and blurred against the black.
Why had Kang Minjun called directly, instead of going through Park Incheol?
She was still thinking about that when she grabbed her jacket.
JYA Entertainment was one block off the main Cheongdam-dong strip.
The building was glass. Four stories. Not flashy — clean and cold. The JYA logo sat above the entrance in metal, catching the winter light.
Seah stopped in front of it for a moment.
Haneul had said the sight of this logo made her skin crawl. Seah stood looking at it now and tried to locate what she felt. Fear, maybe. Or anger. Or nothing at all.
Nothing.
Just a glass building. Just a metal logo. She went inside.
At the lobby desk, she told the receptionist she had an appointment with CEO Kang Minjun. The receptionist made a call. A brief wait. Another staff member appeared and led her toward a staircase going down.
The café was in the basement.
Not a public café — an internal company space. The kind employees used. But the furniture was good. Lighting kept low. The smell of coffee was strong. No noise from outside reached it.
Kang Minjun was already seated.
Seah had never seen him before. Not even in photos. Mid-fifties. Tall — you could tell even sitting down. Hair going silver at the temples. A suit that fit exactly as it should, without a single crease out of place.
He looked like Ryu.
And yet — different. Ryu’s face had something unfinished about it. Things he was trying to hide. Things unresolved. Kang Minjun’s face had none of that. It was a completed face. The face of someone who had known for a long time what he wanted and had spent that time getting it.
“Na Seah.”
He stood and extended his hand. Large hand. The handshake was brief and precise.
“Please, sit.”
Seah sat.
A staff member appeared. Kang Minjun looked at her.
“What can I get you?”
“Americano, please.”
The staff member disappeared. Kang Minjun picked up his own coffee — already halfway through it — and set it back down slowly.
“Thank you for making the time to come.”
“Of course.”
“You received the contracts?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve read through them.”
“I have.”
Kang Minjun nodded.
“And?”
Seah heard the question. Two syllables, short — but carrying considerable weight. She took a moment to consider her answer.
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Page three, clause seven.”
His expression didn’t change. She watched for it, and it didn’t.
“The copyright ownership clause.”
“Yes.”
“It states that all musical works I create during the contract period are assigned to JYA.”
“That’s correct.”
“So for five years, nothing I write belongs to me.”
Kang Minjun regarded her for a moment.
“Na Seah.”
“Yes.”
“Let me be straightforward with you.”
Seah waited.
“Do you understand how the music industry actually works? No matter how talented you are in the indie scene — there’s a ceiling on what you can do alone. Distribution, promotion, legal protection, licensing — all of that requires capital. I know your songs are good. Genuinely. But what does it matter how good they are, if they disappear without anyone hearing them?”
Seah listened.
“With JYA behind you, things change. Proper streaming deals, international licensing, real album production. Your name — your actual name — could reach people. Not vanish without a credit like it has been.”
Her coffee arrived. She wrapped her hands around the cup. It was warm. She felt that warmth against her palms.
“Copyright ownership belonging to the label is standard for exclusive contracts. It’s industry practice. You’re not being singled out.”
“Standard practice doesn’t make it right.”
Kang Minjun stopped.
Whether her response surprised him or whether he’d expected it but not expected her to say it so plainly — she couldn’t tell. He looked at her for a moment.
“You’re right,” he said. “Practice doesn’t make it right.”
“So then.”
“So then — you can make a counter-proposal. You can ask to renegotiate specific clauses. I’m open to considering it.”
Seah absorbed that.
Counter-proposal.
She wasn’t someone who knew how to do that. She’d never negotiated anything in her life. In Seah’s world, choices had always come down to two options: accept, or walk away. Negotiation was for people who had leverage.
And yet.
Kang Minjun had made this call himself. The CEO, not his lawyer. He’d brought her all the way to the basement of the JYA building in Cheongdam-dong.
That meant she had something he wanted.
“I’ll think about it,” Seah said.
“Take your time. No rush.” He lifted his coffee. “But, Na Seah.”
“Yes.”
“One more thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“About Ryu.”
Seah’s fingers stilled on the rim of her cup.
“It seems Ryu has taken an interest in you. Musically, or perhaps otherwise.” Kang Minjun said. “I’ve known since he was small what kind of person he is. When Ryu commits to something — music, a person, anything — he goes all in. And that doesn’t always lead somewhere good. I thought you should know.”
Seah looked at him.
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Do you know why Ryu came back from Berlin?”
She didn’t. It was the question she’d never found a way to ask him.
“He quit the piano,” Kang Minjun said. “There was a recital in Berlin. He was on stage, and he just — stood up. Said he couldn’t play. He hasn’t played once since then.”
Seah listened.
The look on Ryu’s face when he’d mentioned the piano outside the convenience store. The way he’d put his hands in his pockets. The way he’d kept them hidden.
“Was there a reason he couldn’t play? Something that happened.”
“There was someone he was with at the time. Someone who’d gone to Berlin with him. That person took Ryu’s work—”
Kang Minjun paused.
“Pieces Ryu had composed were registered under that person’s name. At the Berlin conservatory.”
It took Seah a moment to understand what she’d just heard.
“Ryu had his credit stolen.”
“Yes.” For the first time, Kang Minjun dropped the formal register. Just that one syllable, unguarded. It said something. “It broke him. That’s why he came home. That’s why he can’t play. Even now.”
Seah set down her cup.
There were no windows down here. The light was entirely artificial. Low and amber, settling over Kang Minjun’s face. She thought about why he was telling her this.
Why tell her about Ryu. Why would a father lay open his son’s most painful wound to a near-stranger.
Was this also calculated.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Kang Minjun looked at her.
“Because I think you care about him.”
Seah said nothing.
“I also know he cares about your music. It’s the first time in four years he’s responded to anything. That’s — why I’m worried.”
“Worried about Ryu?”
“Worried about both of you.”
Seah took that in. Both of you. She couldn’t tell whether Kang Minjun’s concern for her was genuine. But his concern for Ryu — that felt real. Something in a father’s voice that couldn’t quite be manufactured.
Which made it more complicated, not less.
“If you sign with us, Ryu won’t be involved. Someone else from the A&R team would handle your account.”
“Why?”
“If Ryu takes you on as his artist — it won’t be good for him. He’s responding to music again for the first time in four years. If that gets tied to a person, and that person leaves — he’ll fall apart again.”
Seah heard it.
If that person leaves.
What Kang Minjun was saying was: sign the contract, and Seah would be kept away from Ryu. And that this was for Ryu’s sake. For Seah’s sake, too.
Whether it was sincere, or whether it was something else entirely.
Seah looked at his face.
Completed. Nothing unresolved. And yet she couldn’t see past it — couldn’t tell what lay behind all that composure.
“I’ll think about it,” Seah said. The same words as before. But this time they meant something different.
Kang Minjun nodded.
Seah stood up.
“Na Seah.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t need to mention to Ryu that we met today.”
Seah stood where she was for a moment. You don’t need to — she understood exactly what that meant. It meant don’t.
“Goodbye.”
She walked out.
Coming up the basement stairs, Seah pulled out her phone.
Kakao Maps. JYA Entertainment, Cheongdam-dong → convenience store, Mapo-gu. Line 7 from Cheongdam Station, transfer to Line 6, Hapjeong Station. Forty-two minutes.
12:10.
She needed to run.
She ran. The winter wind hit her face on the way to Cheongdam Station. She felt it — cold and sharp, stinging her eyes. She narrowed them and kept moving.
Kang Minjun’s words cycled through her head.
All works created during the contract period shall be owned by JYA.
Ryu had his credit stolen.
You don’t need to mention to Ryu that we met today.
Seah took the stairs down into the subway. Touched her card to the gate. It opened.
Waiting on the platform, she turned the words over again.
Why Kang Minjun had brought up Ryu. The Berlin story. The way it had broken him.
If it was true — then Ryu had lived through the same thing as Seah. His music carrying someone else’s name. His work becoming someone else’s. His own becoming unrecognizable to him.
And yet that same Ryu was now working at JYA. At his father’s company. Inside the very machine his father had built.
The train came. Seah got on.
She found a seat. The car was relatively empty at this hour. Across from her, a young woman who looked like a university student had earbuds in, lips moving almost imperceptibly to whatever she was hearing.
Seah watched her.
No way to know what she was listening to. But watching those lips move — it was clear that someone’s song was making its way inside her. Did she know who had made it? Did she know whether the name on the credit was actually the person who had written it?
Seah leaned her head against the window.
The train moved. Dark in the tunnels, bright at the stations. Dark, then bright.
You don’t need to mention to Ryu that we met today.
She thought about whether she would tell him. If she didn’t — she’d be doing exactly what Kang Minjun wanted. If she did — what would happen?
How would Ryu react?
She tried to picture his face. The way he stood outside the convenience store. The expression he’d worn the first time he said, If you raise it a half-step in the second verse, I think it would hurt more. The hands shoved deep into his pockets.
He’d said his hands shake. In front of a piano.
If that was true.
Seah closed her eyes.
The convenience store shift ran from one to six.
Seah arrived at 12:58. Two minutes to spare. She was still catching her breath as she tied on her apron when the manager noticed her.
“You made it. It might be a rough one today — lot of delivery orders coming in.”
“Okay.”
“Did you eat?”
“Yes.”
The manager looked at her the way he always did when she said that — like he didn’t quite believe her. Same expression as always. Seah finished tying the apron and went to the register.
She worked through the afternoon.
Greeted customers. Sorted deliveries. Checked expiration dates. Stood at the counter and ran transactions. Her body was in the convenience store — her mind was somewhere else entirely.
Kang Minjun’s words. Ryu’s Berlin. Page three, clause seven.
Around four, a KakaoTalk message came in.
Dohyeon.
Noona, did you eat? (asking without the emoji this time)
Seah paused for a moment.