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# Chapter 12: Park In-cheol’s Words
Park In-cheol’s text arrived at 2:17 in the afternoon.
Sea had just finished her shift and was untying her apron. She was in the convenience store’s storage-slash-changing room — really just a narrow space packed with cardboard boxes and a single clothing hook — when her phone buzzed against her hip. She checked the screen while folding the apron.
“Na Sea, would you be free around four o’clock today? I can come to Hongdae. Any café works.”
She read it, slipped the phone back into her pocket, and set the folded apron on the shelf. The room smelled of cardboard — packaging material, styrofoam, old paper. She stood in that smell for a moment.
Four o’clock. Two hours.
A list of possibilities scrolled through her mind. She could go back to the goshiwon and sleep — she hadn’t gotten proper rest on Haneul’s fold-out bed last night, and the ache behind her eyes hadn’t let up. Or she could walk to the library near Hapjeong Station and sit there. The library was warm and quiet, and that combination sometimes made her want to cry. There was something almost aggressive about being allowed to do nothing in a warm place.
She typed back: “Yes, that works.”
She didn’t suggest a location. Park In-cheol would decide that. In this industry, whoever proposes the meeting place is the one who wants something more — Sea had never been taught this, but she’d known it for some time. The things you learn through experience have no source. If someone asked where she’d picked that up, she wouldn’t be able to say.
Park In-cheol replied quickly. A café name and address near Exit 4 of Hongik University Station. Sea opened the map to check. She knew the area — had never been inside, but had passed the alley before and glanced through the window. Warm wood and indirect lighting. The kind of place that charges as much for coffee as an ice cream bar.
She tucked away her phone and walked out of the storage room.
She spent the two hours at the Han River.
It was a fifteen-minute walk from Hapjeong Station to the riverside park. Sea made that walk often — not for any particular reason, just because the Han River was the largest free space between her goshiwon and the convenience store. Wide spaces let her thoughts spread out. Narrow spaces made them pile up.
The winter Han River was almost empty.
Cyclists passed at intervals along the bike path. River wind worked its way through her jacket. Sea pulled the zipper up to her chin. The padding on her left shoulder had lost some of its filling — worn thin from too many rounds in the washing machine. She’d been meaning to fix it for two months now.
The water was gray. Winter rivers were always gray — as though they didn’t reflect the sky so much as absorb it, pulling the color down into something darker. Sea leaned against the railing. The wind hit her face. Her eyes stung.
Dohyeon’s voice played back in her head.
I figured I didn’t need to keep going to the academy.
She gripped the railing with both hands. The metal was cold. That coldness traveled up through her palms and into her wrists. She held onto it — the way a sharp temperature could stop thought for a moment. When her mother had been a haenyeo, Sea used to wait on shore listening to the waves while her mother dove. The waves were steady. Steady things made waiting bearable.
Dohyeon hadn’t said it was because of the tuition. Which meant it was because of the tuition.
Sea had known.
She’d known, and she’d said, “Okay.”
That was the form her most common lie took — not false information, but false acceptance. Not pretending not to know, but pretending it was fine. She was aware that every time she did it, something like air leaked out of her. She didn’t know from where. The way padding disappears from a jacket — a little at a time, until one day it’s just gone.
The river moved. She watched it.
A melody started in her head.
Just two notes at first. A low E up to F. Then the F dropped a half step. It repeated — E, F, F-flat. She turned those three notes over in her mind, again and again, like setting something to float on the water. A rhythm formed. Not triple time — four beats. Walking pace. No, waiting pace. The pace of holding your breath.
She took out her phone and opened the voice memo app. There at the railing, in the open air, with the wind off the river, she hummed those three notes.
Barely audible. Swallowed by the wind. But it was enough. The memo caught it.
She stopped recording and saved the file. “231118_HanRiver.” Date and location. Her voice memos always had just the date and location. No titles. Giving something a title made it into something, and once it was something, there were stakes. Sea wasn’t ready for stakes yet.
That was how things went into the drawer.
Out of Exit 4 at Hongik University Station, a narrow alley began.
Sea arrived at 3:50. The café Park In-cheol had named was deeper in the alley. The café’s name was written in English on the glass, and warm yellow light seeped from inside. She pushed open the door.
Coffee hit her first. Then wood. Then something sweet — cinnamon or vanilla, she couldn’t quite tell. She filed it away. She might need it later.
Park In-cheol was already there, by the window. An Americano in front of him, the seat across empty. He raised a hand when he saw her.
Sea ordered a hot Americano at the counter. Park In-cheol said he’d get it. She said, “It’s fine,” and took out her card. She knew exactly how much was in her account — 23,000 won before today’s wages hit. The Americano was 4,500. She did the math. Enough left for a convenience store lunch box for dinner.
She carried her coffee to the window seat.
Park In-cheol was in his early fifties. He looked tired — whether that was just his face or just today, she couldn’t say. Gray knit, black coat. He had a JYA business card, but he didn’t look like a company man. He didn’t look like any kind of company man. He existed somewhere in between — the face of someone who had once genuinely loved music and, at some point, forgotten that.
Sea had seen that face before. The indie scene was full of it.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.”
“You got the hot one. Were you cold?”
“A little.”
Park In-cheol glanced at her thin jacket. Then said nothing.
“You spoke with Director Yoo Jae-won yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
Sea took a sip of coffee. It was hot. The tip of her tongue burned slightly.
“There were a lot of conditions.”
Park In-cheol nodded.
“And they were all designed to work against me.”
“That’s an honest read.”
“Which is why you have more to say, I’m guessing.”
Park In-cheol smiled — a tired smile.
“You’re right. What Director Yoo gave you is the standard contract. It’s what JYA always puts on the table first with new artists. That’s where the negotiation starts.”
“Negotiation.”
“If you walk away, it’s over. But if you show willingness to negotiate, JYA will take another look at the terms.”
Sea turned to the window. People moved through the alley. Two college students, laughing, walking together. She couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“So you’re telling me to negotiate.”
“Before that, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Park In-cheol set down his cup and placed both hands on the table. Sea looked at them. Thick-knuckled, with small scars across the backs. Hands that had spent years with an instrument.
“The songs you wrote.”
“Yes.”
“‘West Window.’ ‘Next Season.’ ‘Pretending Not to Know.’”
Sea sat still.
Three titles, all at once, from someone else’s mouth. It felt strange — those songs didn’t have her name on them. They’d been released under Park So-jin’s name, under the label of JYA’s in-house composition team.
“I know about the credit issue.”
Park In-cheol said it plainly.
Sea wrapped both hands around her coffee cup. The ceramic was warm.
“…You knew.”
“I found out recently. About a month ago.” He paused. “Before that, I genuinely thought they were the in-house team’s work. I’m not in A&R — the information never came through my channel.”
“How did you find out?”
“Kang Ri-u told me.”
Sea said nothing.
Kang Ri-u.
The name seemed to ring out in the café — which wasn’t quite right, because Park In-cheol had spoken quietly, and there were other customers, and background music played softly. But to Sea, it landed with a different kind of weight. Like something she’d set aside on a shelf had just been placed back on the table in front of her.
He hasn’t posted a piano video in over a year.
Haneul’s words came back to her.
“Kang Ri-u.”
“He was tracing the origins of certain tracks through his A&R work and found them. That was three months ago.” Park In-cheol said. “It hasn’t been formally addressed inside JYA yet. But Kang Ri-u wanted to find you before deciding what to do with it.”
“He found me?”
“Through me. He asked, and I traced the connection.”
Sea mapped it out in her mind. Kang Ri-u found out three months ago. Asked Park In-cheol. Park In-cheol found the path. That path led to the conference room with Director Yoo.
“So that meeting yesterday —”
“The exclusive contract offer is real. JYA genuinely wants your talent.” Park In-cheol said. “But that’s not the whole story. Kang Ri-u wants to meet you.”
Sea set her coffee cup down.
One motion. No sound.
“Why.”
“He wants you to hear it from him.” Park In-cheol said. “My role is just to connect the two of you.”
“Connect.”
“If you’re willing, I’ll let him know.”
Sea looked out the window. People passed through the alley. The sun was tilting. The light at four in the afternoon was thinner than morning light — the same brightness, but without warmth. She’d always found that strange. That light could change temperature with the hour.
Pretending Not to Know. Kang Ri-u knew that song was hers.
Next Season. That one too.
West Window. That one too.
Songs she had signed away without credit. Not just handed over — she’d signed contracts. She had known what it meant when she signed. Dohyeon’s academy fees had been two months overdue. There were hospital bills for her mother. One sheet of paper became two months of living expenses. She had made that trade.
She’d told herself she didn’t regret it.
That was a lie. She did. In the early hours of the morning, listening through earbuds as those songs played in someone else’s voice on streaming services. Reading interviews where that person said, “I wrote this song from my own experience.”
Every time, Sea had taken out her earbuds and found something else to do.
“…You’re asking whether I’m willing.”
“That’s right.”
“How am I supposed to know if I’m willing when I don’t know what happens if we meet?”
Park In-cheol looked at her for a moment.
“That’s also an honest answer.”
“Do you know what he wants?”
“Your music.” Park In-cheol said. “Genuinely.”
Genuinely. Those two syllables snagged on something. In this industry, genuinely meant one of two things — that it was real, or that someone wanted it to look real. Sea was still learning to tell the difference.
“I’ll think about it.”
Park In-cheol nodded. He didn’t push further. That surprised her more than anything — she’d expected him to press.
“There’s no rush.” Park In-cheol said. “But waiting too long could shift the timing.”
“The timing.”
“Kang Ri-u wants to hear what you want to do before formally raising the credit issue inside JYA. If he doesn’t hear from you, he’ll act on his own judgment.”
Sea felt the weight of that.
If Kang Ri-u filed a formal complaint — her name would surface. The credit theft would come into the open. Whether that was good or bad, she couldn’t know right now. It could be good: her name restored, credit recovered. It could be bad: she had signed contracts, and legally she had transferred the rights. She could end up facing JYA directly, with no protection.
Kang Ri-u would know that.
Which was why he was asking first.
“Understood.”
She said it.
That phrase again. Understood. This time it meant something different — not false acceptance, but real comprehension. I’ve taken stock of the situation. Park In-cheol nodded.
She left Park In-cheol at five o’clock.
Walking out of the café, she thought about texting Haneul, then didn’t. Haneul would be with a client at this hour. She’d said once that her hand trembles if she checks her phone mid-session.
Sea came out of the alley onto the main street.
The area around Hongik University Station was easing into evening. Shops were turning their lights on. A line was forming outside a tanghuru stand. Sweet smell mixing with cold air. Sea walked past it.
Your music. Genuinely.
Park In-cheol’s words repeated themselves in time with her footsteps.
She didn’t know how to take it. People had always wanted her music — but what they wanted was never her music exactly. It was what they could make from it. Raw material. There was a look A&R people got when they listened to a song: what can I do with this? Sea knew how to recognize that look.
She didn’t know yet what kind of look Kang Ri-u had.
She hadn’t met him.
Well. Once.
Sea stopped walking.
Outside Club Hapjeong. A week ago, at night. She’d been leaving after a session set, and there had been a man standing in the smell of cigarette smoke near the entrance. He’d spoken to her as she passed — asked if she’d skipped the key change in the last chorus. Asked if it was intentional.
That was Kang Ri-u.
She had known. Known and walked past anyway — she hadn’t connected the name then. Or hadn’t wanted to. It had been uncomfortable to think that someone she’d met at a club was the son of JYA’s CEO, and more uncomfortable still to think about what that might mean.
Which means he already knew. That night.
Who she was. That those songs had come from her.
Sea stood still for a moment on the main street outside Hongik University Station, the evening crowd moving around her. The smell of the night was coming in — grilling meat, frying oil, car exhaust. She breathed it all in and thought.
That night, Kang Ri-u hadn’t been smoking.
He’d been standing at the club entrance without a cigarette. That had struck her as odd. People who stand outside a club without a cigarette are either waiting to go in, or waiting for something else. Whether he’d been waiting for her specifically — she couldn’t say. But it might not have been coincidence.
She started walking again.
Without stopping the thought.
She got back to the goshiwon at six.
When she opened the door, the smell hit first. The smell of a small closed space. She was used to it — but tonight it felt sharper than usual. Maybe because she’d slept at Haneul’s place. Maybe because the coffee and wood smell from the café still clung to her clothes and made the contrast worse.
She set down her bag and sat on the floor.
The room was small. A single bed, a desk, a mini fridge — that was everything. On the desk sat an old mini keyboard — bought secondhand with two months of convenience store wages. It didn’t have enough keys; she had to use octave shift buttons to reach the full range. But it was enough for catching melodies.
She opened the voice memo app. “231118_HanRiver.” She pressed play.
Wind first. Then her own voice — humming. E, F, F-flat. Repeating. She listened while she pulled her chair up to the keyboard.
She pressed the keys.
E. F. F-flat.
Yes. Those were the ones. She added a fourth — D-flat. A motion that climbed from below and settled a half step down. Repeated, it began to take shape.
She didn’t lift her hands from the keys.
While her right hand held the melody, her left hand searched for the bass. Low A. Down to G. F. Moving beneath the melody, it became something else. Something entirely different.
She ran it once, twice, three times.
On the fourth pass the melody shifted — not by intention. Her hands moved before she decided. The line that had begun on E climbed this time to G before coming back down. Where it met the original three notes, it formed a complete phrase. She played it again. And again.
The room was small. The keyboard was quiet — without headphones she had to keep the volume low, the walls between rooms being thin as paper. She pressed each key as lightly as she could. But she didn’t lose a single note.
What she’d set adrift on the river was returning now through her fingertips.
Dohyeon’s voice was in it. Park In-cheol’s word — genuinely — was in it. Three titles were in it: West Window, Next Season, Pretending Not to Know. Sea was translating them into music. No name attached. No credit. In a room where no one was listening.
That was how she had always made music.
Her phone rang at ten o’clock that night.
Sea had half-fallen asleep at the keyboard — sitting in her backless chair, arms resting on the keys. The vibration woke her. Her neck ached.
Unknown number.
She looked at it for a moment, then answered. A late-night unknown number was one of two things — spam, or someone with nowhere else to call.
“Hello?”
“This is Na Sea, right?”
A low voice. Quiet. Even over the phone there was something distinct about it — someone who spoke slowly. Someone who chose their words.
Sea straightened in her chair.
“Who is this?”
“Kang Ri-u.”
She said nothing.
“I got your number from Park In-cheol. I’m sorry if this is out of line.”
I’m sorry — that it came first was strange. She noted it. Filed it away as information she might use later.
“It’s fine.”
“…Is now an okay time? To talk?”
Sea looked at the keyboard. On the keys, a half-written melody note sat waiting — jotted not on staff paper but on the back of a convenience store receipt. She slid it to the side of the desk.
“Yes.”
A brief silence. Silence from the person who placed the call was unusual. Callers usually prepare what they’re going to say before they dial. Kang Ri-u sounded underprepared. Or like he was sorting through what he’d prepared and choosing again.
“I’m sure Park In-cheol told you most of it.”
“He did.”
“Then I suppose you know why I’m calling.”
“Roughly.”
“Roughly.” He repeated the word. Not an empty echo. “Which part is rough?”
“What you want.”
Another silence.
“Good music.” Kang Ri-u said.
“That part isn’t rough.”
“You’re right.” He said. “That part isn’t rough.”
She turned it over in her mind. That part. It was an acknowledgment that other parts might be. She filed that away too.
“I’d like to meet in person.” Kang Ri-u said. “A call has its limits.”
“What limits?”
“…What I want to say isn’t something I should say over the phone.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when we meet.”
She had no reason to refuse. Having no reason to refuse and wanting to meet were different things. She knew the difference — and still didn’t stall.
“When?”
He paused. He hadn’t expected a quick answer.
“…Can you do sometime this week?”
“Where?”
“Wherever’s convenient for you.”
She thought about it. Convenient. Figuring out what convenient meant for her took longer than it should have. Not the goshiwon. Not Haneul’s studio — that would need explaining. Not the convenience store where she worked.
“Hongdae works.”
“Alright.”
“Thursday afternoon.”
“Thursday.” He confirmed it. “What time?”
“Three.”
“I’ll find a place.”
“The café from earlier works.”
She said it, and immediately knew it was wrong. The café from earlier. Kang Ri-u would know she’d met Park In-cheol at a café, but he wouldn’t know which one. She didn’t know the name — only the address.
“I’ll send you the address.”
“Okay.”
“Then I’ll see you Thursday.”
The call ended.
Sea looked down at her phone. The call duration flashed on the screen and then disappeared. She sent the café address over KakaoTalk. Kang Ri-u’s profile had no photo — just the default image. She noted that. A person with only a name and a phone number. Someone with 800,000 Instagram followers.
The message was read.
That was it. No reply.
She set down her phone and looked back at the keyboard. The receipt memo had been pushed to the edge of the desk. She brought it back.
E, F, F-flat, D-flat. G, F, E.
Her fingers found the keys.
Thursday was two days away.
Sea spent those two days the way she always did — convenience store shifts, evening standby for club sessions, late-night melody work. Nothing changed. She wasn’t trying to make it look like nothing had changed. It just hadn’t.
Not changing and feeling nothing were different things.
Wednesday afternoon, a KakaoTalk came in from Haneul.
“Wait, you met Park In-cheol?? What happened.”
Sea was mid-shift. She glanced at her phone from behind the counter.
“I’m meeting Kang Ri-u.”
The reply came in three seconds.
“What?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Na Sea I swear you cannot just drop something like this over text. I’m in the middle of a session. My hand is literally shaking. What the hell.”
Sea pocketed her phone. The door chimed. She looked up and greeted the customer.
Thirty minutes later, another message from Haneul.
“Okay but actually, why are you meeting him? Do you even know what he wants?”
“Not really.”
“Sea.”
“Park In-cheol said it’s about my music.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Not sure.”
“Sea. How many times have you said ‘not sure’ this week.”
Behind the counter, Sea closed her eyes for a moment. Haneul’s messages overlapped with Haneul’s voice from the night they’d eaten ramen together. Five times. She pressed her lips together once.
“Three.”
“Okay that’s fewer than before. Good. Hey — text me right after you meet him. Actually text me before too.”
“Why.”
“Because I’m worried about you. Obviously. God.”
Sea looked down at the screen. She pressed the heart emoji instead of typing a reply. Haneul immediately sent back: “okay that actually got me fr wtf.”
Sea put her phone away. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
Thursday morning, Sea finished her shift and went back to the goshiwon.
She showered. Longer than usual — until the hot water ran out. The shared bathroom’s hot water lasted about five minutes. Sea used all five. She stood there until the water turned cold.
She picked out clothes.
There wasn’t much to choose from. Dark jeans, gray long-sleeve. Thin jacket over that. She checked herself in the mirror — no mirror in the room itself, so she had to use the bathroom one. She looked tired. Dark under the eyes. She didn’t know how to fix that, and didn’t particularly want to.
She tied her hair back.
She always tied it back.
She only let it down when she sang.
She wouldn’t be singing today.
At exactly three o’clock, Kang Ri-u was already at the café.
When Sea pushed open the door, he was seated toward the back. Not by the window — further in, against the wall. No coffee in front of him. Just water. His phone was on the table, face down.
She noticed that.
Phone face down. Not silenced — physically turned over. Either a signal that he intended to be present, or a signal that there was something on the screen he didn’t want seen.
Kang Ri-u looked up when she came in. He didn’t stand. He just looked.
Sea ordered a hot Americano at the counter. This time Park In-cheol wasn’t here —