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# Chapter 13: The Smell of Paperwork
Park Incheol had arrived before her.
When Sea-a pushed open the café door, he was already at a window seat, eyes on his laptop screen, coat still on. Two Americanos sat on the table — one half-empty, one untouched. Sea-a noticed. He’d ordered for her before she arrived, knowing she would come. She didn’t decide whether that was consideration or pressure.
He looked up and closed the laptop.
“You made it. Sit down.”
Sea-a set her bag down and pulled out the chair. The café was warm. Through the window, the Hongdae alleyways stretched out below a pale sky. Four in the afternoon was an awkward hour in this neighborhood — not lunch, not dinner, the day mostly gone but night not yet arrived. People drifted through the streets like they couldn’t quite decide where they were headed.
“Coffee okay? I got it warm.”
“Thank you.”
Sea-a wrapped both hands around the cup. Her fingers were still cold — the Han River railing had left its trace. The warmth spread slowly from her palms to her fingertips.
Park Incheol watched her for a moment. He waited until she set the cup down.
“You worked hard yesterday. Sorry for calling you out of nowhere like that.”
“It’s fine.”
“What did you think about the JYA offer? Last night.”
Sea-a paused. The way he phrased it was strange. Not what do you think, but last night — a specific window of time. The question assumed she’d had time to think it over. And behind that assumption was something else: an expectation that she’d already arrived at an answer.
“…I thought about it a lot.”
“I’m sure you did. It’s that kind of offer.” Park Incheol took a sip of coffee. “But let’s set the exclusive contract aside for now. I asked you here today to talk about something else.”
Sea-a rested her hands on her knees. A gesture that said: I’m listening.
“You saw Kang Liwoo on your way out of the conference room yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“He took an interest in your songs.” Park Incheol spoke slowly. “He asked me about them, and I explained the situation. That there’s an unknown composer who received a pitch from our CEO.”
Sea-a heard the words land.
An unknown composer.
That was how he referred to her. She didn’t think it was wrong — she was unknown, in every practical sense. No name. A name absent from credits was no different from no name at all. And yet hearing it from Park Incheol’s mouth directly made her breath snag for just a moment.
“And?”
“He said he wants to listen to the songs himself.”
Sea-a looked at him.
“Which songs?”
“The ones you’ve written. The released tracks.” Park Incheol paused. “But there’s a problem.”
Sea-a waited.
“Your name isn’t on the credits for any of those releases.”
Music drifted through the café — a jazz cover of something. Sea-a knew the original but didn’t have the space to place it right now. Park Incheol’s words sat on the table between them. She looked at them without moving them aside.
“I know.”
“Right.” He nodded. “Can you prove those songs are yours?”
Sea-a’s fingers went still against her knees.
“…What do you mean?”
“On paper.” Park Incheol’s voice dropped — not quieter, but more precise, like a blade finding its edge. “The copyright on those released songs. Whose name is it registered under?”
Sea-a didn’t answer.
Park Incheol didn’t wait for one.
“You wrote those songs — I know that, and CEO Oh knows that. But officially, right now, as things stand, those songs don’t belong to you.”
The first time Sea-a sold a song, she was twenty-two.
Sold wasn’t quite the right word. She handed it over. A small agency connected through a friend of a friend needed material, so Sea-a sent three songs. The person in charge said they’d use one. They named a price — two hundred and fifty thousand won. Sea-a knew it was low. She agreed anyway.
Two hundred and fifty thousand won was Dohyeon’s school uniform budget that month.
There was a contract. Two pages, A4. Sea-a read every line. There was a clause she didn’t fully understand — something about copyright ownership — but she didn’t ask. Not because she was afraid the deal would fall through, but because she wasn’t sure the other person would bother explaining. She already knew, even then, that showing you didn’t understand made you look weak.
She signed.
The second song went to a different agency. So did the third. Each contract looked more or less the same. The amounts crept up — the third was five hundred thousand won. Sea-a didn’t think of it as her value rising. She’d learned that prices were negotiable. She just never negotiated. She took whatever was offered.
All three contracts contained the same clause.
Copyright shall transfer to the commissioning party upon execution of this agreement.
Sea-a had known.
She’d signed anyway.
So Park Incheol was right. Officially, on paper, those songs weren’t hers. A name missing from the credits was the same as no name. A right signed away in a contract was the same as gone.
“I knew.” Sea-a said.
Park Incheol studied her for a moment.
“You signed knowing that?”
“I read it. That clause.”
He was quiet for a beat. Took a sip of coffee. Looked out the window, then back at her.
“Na Sea-a.”
“Yes.”
“Why.”
A short question. Just that. Sea-a understood exactly what it was asking — why did you sign knowing? Why didn’t you protect your rights? Why did you let them go for that price? All of it compressed into one word.
She looked at her coffee cup. A few drops of condensation had gathered on the outside — moisture from the air clinging to the warm surface. She watched them for a moment.
“Because I needed to.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
Park Incheol nodded. The nod looked less like understanding and more like confirmation. Sea-a felt the difference, but she didn’t correct him.
“So here’s the issue.” He rested his fingers lightly on the table. “Kang Liwoo wants your songs. But those songs officially don’t belong to you. He prefers to contract directly with composers — except on paper, there’s no composer to contract with.”
“…What about songs I write going forward?”
“Future songs can be yours. If the contract is done properly.” Park Incheol said. “That’s what I want to talk to you about today.”
Sea-a looked at him.
“Not the exclusive contract?”
“The exclusive is JYA’s proposal. I’m offering something different.”
He reached into his bag and produced a white envelope. Not thick — two or three pages at most. He set it on the table but didn’t push it toward her.
“I’m not a label CEO. You know that.”
“Yes. You said freelance management.”
“That’s right. I don’t sign artists — I connect them. Between artists and companies.” He tapped the envelope lightly with one finger. “What I’m proposing is this: the songs you write from now on get registered under your name, and I connect them to the companies or artists who want them. No exclusivity. You write freely, I sell. Thirty percent of proceeds is my commission.”
Sea-a listened. And while she listened, she calculated.
Thirty percent.
She didn’t know if that was high or low. She didn’t know the industry standard. She should have known, and she didn’t. That same ignorance was what had put her pen on a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-won contract. She was aware of that.
“What exactly does Kang Liwoo want?” Sea-a asked.
Park Incheol paused.
“Songs.”
“Specifically.”
He looked at her. For the first time, something shifted in his expression — not someone waiting for an explanation, but someone deciding whether to give one.
“JYA has a new artist. Mini-album planned for early next year, but they haven’t found the title track yet. That’s Kang Liwoo’s job — he’s their A&R.”
“Is he looking for my existing songs, or asking me to write something new?”
“The latter.” Park Incheol said. “But it’s not a formal commission yet. He wants to hear your work first. In person.”
Sea-a looked down at the envelope.
“And this?”
“A management agreement. For me to represent you. Read it carefully before you sign anything. You can send it to a lawyer if you want.”
Sea-a set her hand on the envelope.
A lawyer. She didn’t know any lawyers. There might be someone in Haneul’s clientele with a legal background — though imagining a lawyer getting a tattoo took her a moment. Or maybe it didn’t. There was so much she didn’t know.
“Do I need your approval to meet Kang Liwoo directly?”
Park Incheol looked at her.
“No. You can meet him yourself if you want.”
“But you’d prefer I sign the management agreement first.”
A brief silence. Then Park Incheol let one corner of his mouth lift.
“You’re sharp, Na Sea-a.”
She didn’t react.
“You’re right.” He said. “I want to be the connection before Kang Liwoo approaches you directly. That’s my job. But if that’s not what you want, you don’t have to go through me. He was in that conference room yesterday — he knows your name. He might reach out on his own.”
Sea-a picked up the envelope. It weighed almost nothing. That felt wrong somehow — what was inside it couldn’t possibly be light.
“I’ll read it.”
“Take your time.” Park Incheol finished his coffee. “And Na Sea-a.”
She stopped with the envelope halfway into her bag.
“The JYA exclusive — that’s still on the table. There’s room to negotiate. Credit guarantees, copyright stake. What CEO Oh wants isn’t your name, it’s your songs. Whether those two things can be separated is a decision only you can make.”
Sea-a tucked the envelope into her bag.
“Understood.”
“Think it over.”
She stood and shouldered her bag.
“Park Incheol.”
“Yes.”
“Those released songs — the copyright. Is there a way to get it back?”
He met her eyes.
“There is.” He said. “It won’t be easy. There may be costs involved. But it’s not impossible.”
Sea-a filed that somewhere in the back of her mind. Not left on the table — more like placed in a drawer. One she would absolutely open again.
“Thank you.”
She walked out of the café.
The Hongdae alleyways were losing the light.
It wasn’t even five o’clock, but the sky was already dimming. Winter days collapsed fast. Sea-a knew this, and yet every winter it caught her slightly off guard — night arriving before it had any right to. Darkness before she was ready.
The envelope sat in her bag.
She felt its weight as she walked. Two or three sheets of paper shouldn’t weigh this much. It wasn’t the paper — it was what the paper contained. A decision. That was what was heavy. Sea-a wasn’t good at decisions. More precisely: she wasn’t good at decisions made for herself. Dohyeon’s tutoring fees, her mother’s prescriptions, the convenience store shift schedule — those weren’t decisions. They were necessities. Things without alternatives.
Park Incheol’s envelope had alternatives.
She walked and tried to understand why that made it harder.
She was heading toward Hongdae Station when her feet slowed on their own. A pojangmacha stood open along one side of the alley. Not even five o’clock and two seats were already taken — two men who looked like office workers, working through a bottle of soju. The smell reached her: fish cake broth, soy, heat rising from the pot. Sea-a stopped.
She was hungry.
She should have eaten something when she left Haneul’s place this morning. She hadn’t. She could have grabbed something during her convenience store shift. She hadn’t. She could have bought something at the Han River. She’d just stood there instead.
Sea-a stepped up to the stall.
“Fish cake, please.”
“A thousand won.”
She pulled out her wallet and handed over a single bill. Took the skewer. The owner ladled broth into a paper cup. Sea-a bit into the fish cake.
It was hot. The heat traveled down her throat and spread through her stomach. She closed her eyes for a moment. The firm, springy texture, the salt of the soy broth — it lingered on her tongue. She recognized this warmth, and not just as temperature. It was the warmth of something filling an empty space.
She drank the broth. Held the paper cup in both hands because it was almost too hot to hold.
Her phone buzzed.
Sea-a finished the broth and checked the screen. Unknown number. Seoul area code. Skewer still in hand, she answered.
“Hello.”
A brief silence.
Then a voice.
“Na Sea-a?”
Low and unhurried. She had heard it exactly once — in the hallway outside the conference room last night. Two words. Wait — one moment. Those two words had stayed with her.
Sea-a looked down at the skewer in her hand.
“That’s me.”
“This is Kang Liwoo. From JYA. We briefly crossed paths yesterday outside the conference room.”
“I know.”
“Ah. You knew.” Something small moved through his voice — not quite surprise, more like a minor recalibration when reality didn’t match expectation. “Have you been in touch with Park Incheol?”
“I just met with him. A few minutes ago.”
“Just now.” Kang Liwoo was quiet for a moment. “Good timing on my part, then.”
Sea-a turned the phrase over. Good timing — which meant there had been some degree of coordination. Park Incheol first, then Kang Liwoo. The two of them had already talked.
She noticed that. She said nothing.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk about your songs.” Kang Liwoo said. “Directly.”
“You can go through Park Incheol.”
A pause.
“I could.” He said. “But I don’t think I’d hear what I actually want to hear if I did.”
“And what is it you want to hear?”
“Why you wrote those songs.”
Sea-a felt her hand tighten around the skewer. Wind moved through the alley. The pojangmacha’s plastic sheeting rippled. The smell of fish cake broth scattered into the cold.
“Does that matter?”
“It does, to me.” Kang Liwoo spoke slowly, not explaining but confirming something to himself. “A good song has a reason behind it. If I understand the reason, I can anticipate what comes next. Songs I can anticipate are easier to sell.”
Sea-a let that settle.
“So what you want to know is whether I’m easy to sell.”
“…Is that how it came across?”
“That’s what you said.”
A longer silence this time. Sea-a didn’t find it uncomfortable. She sensed him rethinking something.
“You’re right.” Kang Liwoo said. “That’s what I said. But it’s not the whole of it.”
“What’s the rest?”
“That part I’d rather say in person.”
Sea-a looked at the end of the skewer. She’d finished the fish cake. Just the bare stick left in her hand. The pojangmacha owner pointed toward the trash bin. Sea-a tossed it in.
“When?”
“Now works, if you’re free.”
She started walking again, toward Hongdae Station.
“Not now.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“I have a convenience store shift ten to two.”
A brief pause.
“Are you free after two?”
Sea-a kept walking and ran through it in her head. Tomorrow afternoon. She needed to read Park Incheol’s contract. Show it to Haneul. Call Dohyeon — actually talk to him about the tutoring situation.
“Yes.” Sea-a said.
“Wherever is convenient for you. Your call on the location.”
She thought for a moment. Somewhere convenient. She couldn’t immediately answer that about herself. Her goshiwon was where she felt at ease, but it wasn’t somewhere she could bring anyone. The café near the convenience store overlapped with her work route. Haneul’s studio would require asking Haneul first.
“Anywhere in the Hongdae area is fine.”
“Got it. I’ll send you the place.”
“Okay.”
The call ended.
Sea-a pocketed her phone and kept walking. The paving stones passed beneath her feet in steady rhythm. The sky had finished darkening — not dusk anymore, just night.
Kang Liwoo’s voice stayed with her.
A good song has a reason behind it. If I understand the reason, I can anticipate what comes next.
She turned it around. If he understands the reason, he can anticipate. If he can anticipate, it’s easier to sell. Which meant he wanted to make her predictable. A predictable composer was manageable. Something you could draw from whenever you needed.
Sea-a knew that.
And she’d agreed to meet him tomorrow anyway.
Because he’d asked. Why did you write those songs? No one had ever asked her that. Not Park Incheol. Not any of the agency contacts who’d taken her songs. They’d handed her contracts, named prices, taken the music and left. Not one of them had asked why this melody, why these lyrics, what she’d been thinking when she wrote it.
Kang Liwoo wanted to ask because it would help him sell.
But asking was still asking.
Sea-a recognized something shameful in herself — the fact that she was placing any weight at all on a question asked for commercial reasons. But shame and truth were separate things.
On the way back to the goshiwon, she stopped at a convenience store.
Not the one where she worked — the CU at the entrance to her alley. She picked up a triangle kimbap. Tuna mayo. And a cup ramen. There was an electric kettle in her room. Boil water, pour, wait three minutes. That was dinner.
She paid with two thousand-won bills at the register.
The goshiwon door swung open. The smell hit her first — the specific staleness of an unventilated space. She was used to it. She cracked the window. Cold air came in.
She sat at the desk and pulled the envelope from her bag.
Opened it.
Three pages. A management agreement, just as Park Incheol had said. Sea-a started from the beginning and read slowly. When she hit a word she didn’t know, she stopped and searched it on her phone. Neighboring rights. Exclusive license. Transferability clause.
The kettle clicked off.
Sea-a set the contract down, peeled back the ramen lid, poured the water. Closed it back up. Three minutes.
She went back to reading.
Halfway through the second page, she found something that didn’t match what Park Incheol had told her.
She stopped at that clause.
Article 4 (Priority Rights to Works): During the term of this agreement, Party A (Park Incheol) shall retain the right of first negotiation with respect to all works created by Party B (Na Sea-a). Party B may not enter into any agreement with a third party regarding said works without the prior written consent of Party A.
She read it twice. Then a third time.
May not enter into any agreement with a third party without prior written consent.
That wasn’t freedom. Park Incheol had said this wasn’t an exclusive arrangement. You write freely, I sell. But under this clause, if Kang Liwoo approached Sea-a directly and she wanted to sign with him — she’d need Park Incheol’s approval first. Without it, she couldn’t.
She peeled back the ramen lid. Steam rose. She worked the noodles loose with chopsticks.
Park Incheol had said today: I want to be the connection before Kang Liwoo approaches you directly. That’s my job.
That sentence and this clause fit together. She felt them click into place — not like a puzzle completing, but like something being uncovered. It didn’t make Park Incheol a bad person. He was protecting his own interests. That was understandable. But framing it as non-exclusive, packaging it in the language of freedom — that was something else.
Sea-a ate the ramen.
It was salty. It was always salty. She’d developed a habit of adding a little extra water — it diluted the broth, ruined the flavor, but salt was worse than bland.
Wind scraped at the window from outside.
An alarm went off in the room next door, then stopped. She glanced at the clock. Six in the evening. Her neighbor worked night shifts. Somewhere in the months she’d lived here, she’d pieced that much together — she’d never once seen his face. In goshiwons, you didn’t look at people in the hallways. That was the unspoken courtesy.
She finished the ramen and threw out the cup.
Unwrapped the triangle kimbap. The tuna mayo was cold. She ate it anyway.
Then she opened the contract again.
Article 3 this time.
Article 3 (Term): This agreement shall remain in effect for a period of two (2) years from the date of execution.
Two years.
She stared at the number. In two years she’d be twenty-six. Dohyeon would be nineteen. He might be applying to college. She had no idea what state her mother would be in.
Two years of needing Park Incheol’s approval before she could sign anything with anyone.
She closed the contract.
Picked up her phone and opened KakaoTalk.
Hey, are you free tomorrow?
Haneul replied fast.
Got a client in the morning, free after 3pm. Why.
Can you read a contract for me?
What contract. I don’t know law.
You don’t have to. Just help me figure out what’s normal and what isn’t. I’ll explain everything.
A pause. Haneul thinking. Then:
lol fine. come over. Jangpan will probably be thrilled to see you.
Sea-a set her phone down.
The closed contract sat on the desk. Beside it, the empty ramen cup. Cold air slipped in at the edges of the window. The room was getting chilly.
She reached up to close the window and stopped.
The melody she’d started at the Han River was moving again in the back of her mind. E, F, F-flat. Three notes. They’d come to her on the river and followed her here — arriving now at a different temperature. At the water it had been cold. Now something had been added to it. She could smell paperwork. Could still smell fish cake broth. Ramen.
She opened the voice memo app on her phone.
Hummed the melody. Quietly, low. Careful not to bleed through the wall. E, F, F-flat. The next note came on its own — D. And with D, the whole thing became a phrase. E, F, F-flat, D. Four notes, one sentence.
The tempo of waiting.
Sea-a recorded it.
Saved the file and closed the app.
Kang Liwoo had asked why she wrote those songs.
She’d never thought about it. The songs had come out of her because they needed to. Because of Dohyeon’s tutoring fees, her mother’s medication, the goshiwon rent. If those were reasons, then they were reasons. But they weren’t the kind of reason Kang Liwoo was asking for.
She let herself think about it.
What was she actually thinking when she wrote those songs.
The sea off Jeju. The sound her mother made surfacing from the water. Sumbi sori — the exhale-cry of the haenyeo. A song of being alive. Whenever she found a melody that made her hear that sound, she knew she’d found the right one. She followed it. That was all there was to it.
Whether she could say that to Kang Liwoo, she didn’t know.
If she did — he would decide whether it had commercial value. Whether her mother’s breath breaking the surface of the sea was something that could sell.
Sea-a checked herself. Was she bothered by that thought.
Yes.
Then she shouldn’t meet him tomorrow.
But she’d already said she would.
She closed her eyes. The room was cold. The window was still cracked open. Wind came through.
The fish cake at the pojangmacha had been hot for a moment. That warmth hadn’t lasted. She was cold again now. She didn’t mind the cold — she thought more clearly in it. Her mother used to come up from the water after a long dive and make that sound, every time. The sumbi sori. It had always struck Sea-a as something close to song. A cry shaped by cold water and the body’s relief at breaking the surface.
She closed the window.
Pulled the blanket toward her.
She would meet Kang Liwoo tomorrow. Before deciding whether to sign Park Incheol’s contract. Before showing Haneul the clause. Before calling Dohyeon.
Tomorrow, Kang Liwoo would ask her why she wrote those songs.
She still didn’t have an answer.
But she knew one thing — she wouldn’t let him see that. Showing you didn’t know something made you look weak. The industry had taught her that. A two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-won contract had taught her that.
She pulled the blanket over herself.
The phone screen went dark.
The room went dark with it. The door next door clicked shut — her neighbor heading out for the night shift.