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# Chapter 6: Before Signing
Seah saw the JYA Entertainment headquarters for the first time as she stepped out of Exit 3 at Sinnonhyeon Station on Seoul Metro Line 9.
She’d known it would be big. The address had been printed on the business card Park Incheol slid across the café table on Saturday, and she’d pulled up satellite images on her maps app during the commute. But satellite images and standing in front of the actual building were two different things. Twenty-three floors of glass and black granite caught the afternoon sun and threw it back at her. The lobby was floor-to-ceiling windows, and through them she could make out the silhouettes of people moving inside. The JYA logo was carved into the pillar beside the entrance — thin letters, cold, and utterly sure of themselves.
Seah stood in front of the building for about thirty seconds.
She squeezed her hand inside her pocket, then let it open. Black slacks, white shirt, grey coat over it all. Haneul had called yesterday and said, please, for the love of God, don’t wear that puffer jacket. Seah had listened. She wore the coat instead — but the lining was thin, and her thighs were already cold. November in Seoul had no business being this brutal.
Just go in.
She walked up to the automatic doors. They slid open.
The lobby was warm. No — warm wasn’t quite right. The temperature was precisely controlled. None of the wind or smell from outside existed in here. Seah’s sneakers made soft sounds against the marble floor. She had a brief flash of regret about the sneakers — followed by the reminder that she didn’t own anything else.
A woman sat behind the reception desk, hair pinned up neatly, wearing a blazer with the JYA logo embroidered on the chest.
“Hello. How can I help you?”
“I have an appointment with Team Leader Park Incheol. I’m Na Seah.”
The receptionist checked her screen and gave a small nod. “One moment, please.”
Seah stood beside the desk. On the left wall of the lobby hung oversized promotional posters of JYA’s artists. Park Sojin’s poster was among them — the promo shoot for her latest single, By the Window. White dress, standing before a window, light flooding in from outside. Seah had written the melody for that song at two in the morning in her goshiwon room. A room with no window.
She decided not to look at the poster.
Park Incheol emerged from the elevator. He was in a suit today instead of the baseball cap from the café. He seemed taller than she remembered — whether because this was his territory, or because she had somehow shrunk, she couldn’t say.
“You’re here. Let’s head up.”
No greeting. Seah fell into step toward the elevator without offering one either.
Eighth floor. Park Incheol explained in the elevator that A&R and the contracts division were both up here. Seah nodded. Background music played in the elevator — one of JYA’s artists. She thought the production was good. It was good production. That was simply the truth.
“Today we’ll start with a quick meeting with the head of A&R, then go over the contract details.”
“Contract?”
“Yeah, nothing formal yet — just listen first. It’s preliminary stuff.”
Seah wasn’t sure what preliminary meant in this context, or why preliminary stuff required her to come all the way here. But the elevator doors opened, Park Incheol walked out, and Seah followed.
The eighth-floor corridor was quiet. Carpet absorbed their footsteps. To the left, a glass-walled conference room — people inside studying something on a screen. To the right, an open-plan office. Multiple monitors, headsets, coffee cups. As she passed, Seah caught glimpses of the screens. Chart data, streaming figures, graphs. Music translated into numbers.
Park Incheol knocked on the conference room door at the end of the hall.
“Come in.”
One man inside. Early forties, maybe. Short hair, metal-frame glasses, a crisply ironed shirt. He stood as they entered and extended his hand.
“Hello. I’m Yoo Jaewon, head of A&R.”
Seah shook his hand. “Na Seah.”
“Please, sit.”
She sat. Yoo Jaewon took the seat across from her. Park Incheol sat to the side. The conference table was large. A lot of empty space stretched between Seah and Yoo Jaewon.
Yoo Jaewon spoke first. “I wanted to meet you in person. Ever since I heard By the Window.”
Seah said nothing.
“I heard the original demo. Before the arrangement. Park brought it in. Honestly? The demo was better than the final release.”
“…I see.”
“Your melodic construction is distinctive, but it’s also immediately accessible. Not many people can do both at the same time.”
Seah tried to decide whether this was a compliment or an analysis. It seemed to be both. And both seemed to have a purpose.
“Do you have other songs?”
“I do.”
“Would I be able to hear them?”
Seah glanced at Park Incheol, then back at Yoo Jaewon. “Right now?”
“If possible.”
She took out her phone. Voice memos, a long list of files. The most recent one — untitled, last modified fourteen minutes ago. She’d finished it at two in the morning last night. No one had heard it yet.
Here? Now?
Seah set the phone on the table and hit play.
The audio quality was poor — voice memo, recorded alone, no accompaniment, the faint hum of her air conditioner layered underneath. And yet the melody came through. Her voice came through.
The conference room went quiet.
Yoo Jaewon’s eyes narrowed slightly. Park Incheol leaned forward, elbows on the table. Seah found it uncomfortable, hearing her own voice alongside other people. It always felt strange to hear herself from the outside — not because the recording sounded different from how she imagined, but because it never quite felt like hers. Like something had slipped free of her and was now floating in the room, unclaimed.
The two-minute-forty-second demo ended.
A beat of silence.
“What’s this one called?” Yoo Jaewon asked.
“It doesn’t have a title yet.”
“When did you write it?”
“Last night.”
Yoo Jaewon looked at Park Incheol. Park Incheol answered with his eyes. Seah tried to read what passed between them and couldn’t.
“Na Seah,” Yoo Jaewon said, turning back to her. “Would you consider working with us?”
Seah left the JYA building two hours later.
A document envelope in her hand. Twelve pages of A4. Yoo Jaewon had handed it to her at the end. Read through it and think it over. There’s no rush.
She walked toward Sinnonhyeon Station, holding the envelope at her side instead of putting it in her bag. It felt heavy, then didn’t. Its actual weight was nothing — just twelve sheets of paper.
She stopped at the entrance to the subway station.
Pulled out her phone. Sent Haneul a KakaoTalk message.
I’m in Gangnam right now. You free?
The reply came in ten seconds.
yeah why are you in gangnam. i’m at the tattoo shop in hongdae when you coming
Haneul’s tattoo shop was tucked into an alley near Hongdae’s main gate. Second floor of a two-story building. Up the stairs, a sticker on the door read SCAR TISSUE. Haneul ran it alone. Seah had never asked how much the rent was.
She pushed the door open and walked into a mix of ointment and ink. Haneul was perched on the work chair scrolling through her phone. No clients today.
“You’re here.” Haneul set her phone down. “What’s with the envelope. Are those transfer papers?”
Seah put the envelope on the table and pulled a chair over.
“JYA offered me a contract.”
Haneul went still. “…JYA? The JYA?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Park Incheol set this up?”
“The head of A&R talked to me directly.”
Haneul picked up the envelope and pulled out the pages. She started going through them one by one. Seah wouldn’t have thought Haneul knew how to read a contract — but she read it with more focus than expected, her brow drawing together.
“Exclusive songwriting contract.”
“Yeah.”
“Two years.”
“Yeah.”
“Every song you write during that period belongs to JYA.”
“……Yeah.”
Haneul put the pages down and looked at her. “Seah. Did you actually read this?”
“Not all of it.”
“You need to read all of it.”
“I know.”
“If you know, why didn’t you? Look — page three.” Haneul snatched the pages back up and held them out in front of Seah. “Exclusivity clause. You can’t sell songs anywhere else for two years. This could include your session work at Underscore.”
Seah looked at page three. Read it. Haneul was right.
“And this.” Haneul tapped a specific line with her finger. “Credit attribution is determined at the company’s discretion. Seah, you know what that means.”
“I know.”
“It means you could put out another song with your name nowhere on it. Like By the Window.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying I know.” Haneul dropped the papers on the table. “Then why did you bring it all the way here. Have you already made up your mind, or are you hoping I’ll talk you out of it?”
Seah didn’t answer.
Haneul exhaled. She dragged the work chair over and sat across from Seah. “How much is the signing fee.”
“Monthly salary of two-fifty, plus performance incentives when a song is released.”
Haneul looked at her. Seah looked back.
They both knew what two-fifty meant. Seah’s current income — convenience store shifts, about 1.3 million a month. Session vocals at Underscore, around 600,000. Sporadic recording sessions on top of that. More than half her months came in under two million total. Subtract the goshiwon rent, her mother’s medication, Dohyeon’s allowance, basic living costs — and by the last week of every month, Seah’s bank account sat somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 won.
Two-fifty was different.
“Hey,” Haneul said quietly. “I can’t tell you not to do this.”
“I know.”
“But Seah. If you sign this, your name might not be on your own songs again.”
“…I know.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
Seah looked out the window. Evening was beginning in the Hongdae alleyways. Café lights flickered on. People were slowly multiplying on the streets below. Music drifted up from somewhere — guitar, the words almost audible, almost gone.
“It’s not okay.” Seah said. “But right now I don’t have the money for Dohyeon’s college entrance application fee.”
Haneul closed her mouth.
“My mom has a checkup next month. That hospital is in Gangnam. Do you know what they charge just for a consultation?”
“……Seah.”
“I had 32,000 won in my account the last week of this month.” Seah kept her eyes on the window. Her voice was low and flat. “That’s the reality. Whether my name is in the credits or not — there are things more urgent than that right now.”
Haneul said nothing.
Neither did Seah.
They sat like that for a moment — inside the smell of ointment and ink, while music kept drifting up from the street below.
“Have you eaten?” Haneul asked.
“……No.”
“Then get up. Let’s go get tteokbokki.”
The tteokbokki cart in front of Hongdae’s main gate opened at seven. Haneul was enough of a regular that the auntie greeted them warmly. They settled onto plastic stools and ordered two portions. Haneul added two fish cake skewers without asking. Seah didn’t stop her.
The smell hit her sharp and spicy. Broth bubbling. Fryer oil threading through the night air. Seah held her hands close to the pot and felt the heat settle against the backs of her fingers. It was the first time all month she’d felt genuinely warm.
“So what was the A&R guy like?” Haneul asked, lifting a fish cake skewer.
“He seemed sharp.”
“Is that good or bad.”
“It’s just true.”
Haneul chewed and studied her. “A&R at JYA — that’s under Kang Minjun, right. The CEO.”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t someone say his son works in A&R? If you’re there, you’d run into him.”
Seah picked up a piece of tteok. “Who is he.”
“Kang Riu. CEO’s son slash A&R team member slash —” Haneul pulled out her phone and started searching. “— 800,000 Instagram followers. Just for existing and being pretty.” She held the screen out. “Look.”
Seah looked. An Instagram profile. Black background, white text: KRU. Nothing else. The most recent posts — a photo of piano keys, an old LP record, the Seoul skyline at night. No face anywhere. 820,000 followers.
“He posts stuff about music production. But never his face. Very mysterious.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Seah, it’s not about being interested — if you join JYA, this is someone you’ll have to deal with. Better to know in advance.”
Seah chewed her tteokbokki. Spicy. Good.
“I haven’t decided to join JYA yet.”
“Yeah?” Haneul reached for another skewer. “But Seah — when you brought up Dohyeon’s application fee back there, that was basically a decision, wasn’t it?”
Seah didn’t answer.
Haneul watched her for a moment. “Hey. Can I ask you one thing?”
“What.”
“Writing songs with no name on them. How much longer can you do it? Not physically — I mean in here.” She touched her own chest.
Seah stared at the broth. It was boiling. Small bubbles kept rising to the surface and breaking apart.
In here.
She didn’t know exactly how much longer she could take it. Less that she lacked a way to measure it — more that she’d been avoiding measuring it entirely. Because if she measured it, she’d get a number. And if that number turned out to be smaller than she expected, she didn’t know what she would do.
“I can still manage.” Seah said.
Haneul looked at her for a moment. Then she nodded. She didn’t push further.
They finished the tteokbokki. A gust of wind moved through the alley. Seah’s hair scattered across her face. She reached up to pull it back into a tie — then left it.
She got back to the goshiwon at nine.
She hung her coat on the hook behind the door and set the JYA envelope on the desk. Desk was generous — a fold-out table barely fifty centimeters wide, covered in her laptop, earphones, a notebook with voice memo file names scrawled in it, and a stack of her mother’s prescription receipts.
Seah sat down and spread the contract open.
This time, she read from the beginning.
Page one. Parties to the contract. Party A: JYA Entertainment Co., Ltd. Party B: Na Seah.
Page two. Contract term. January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2026. Two years.
Page three. Exclusivity clause. During the contract period, Party B may not provide, sell, or transfer musical works to any third party without prior written consent from Party A.
She read that sentence twice. Prior written consent. Her session vocal work at Underscore could fall under this. Haneul had been right.
Page four. Copyright assignment. All music copyright created by Party B during the contract period shall be assigned to Party A.
Seah paused.
Assigned to Party A. Meaning every song she wrote would belong to JYA. Every melody, every chord progression, every lyric. All of it.
Page five. Credits and publication. Credit attribution for musical works shall be determined at the discretion of Party A and in accordance with Party A’s marketing strategy. Party B shall have no right to object.
No right to object.
She read that sentence three times.
Seah had already known that being left off the credits for By the Window was no accident. But to put it in a contract, in writing, and ask someone to sign it — that was something else entirely. This wasn’t an oversight. This was policy.
Page six. Compensation. Fixed monthly salary of 2,500,000 won. Performance incentives based on commercial success of released works (to be negotiated separately).
She looked at the number.
Dohyeon’s application fee. Her mother’s Gangnam hospital. The goshiwon rent. When she ran the math against two-fifty — there was something left over. More than there was now.
How much longer can you hold on in here.
Haneul’s question came back.
Seah closed the contract. Got up and walked to the window. The goshiwon window was small and set high in the wall. If she stood on her toes she could see the alley outside. At this hour it was dark — one streetlamp, one convenience store glow.
She picked up her phone.
Sent Dohyeon a KakaoTalk message. Hey, when’s the deadline for your college entrance application
Reply in thirty seconds. This Friday, why
She put the phone down.
This Friday. Three days.
Seah looked back at the envelope on the desk.
Then she opened her voice memos. The most recent file — the one she’d played in the JYA conference room. She put her earphones in and pressed play.
Her own voice filled the quiet.
No accompaniment, the air conditioner underneath, recorded alone at two in the morning. A melody made in a goshiwon room. Like By the Window, written in a room with no window — this song had no title either. A nameless thing.
Seah listened with her eyes closed.
This is mine.
Not JYA’s yet. She hadn’t signed anything. This melody still belonged entirely to her.
The moment I sign, this becomes Party A’s.
She didn’t stop the playback. The melody continued — through the earphones, her own voice, in a space that only she could hear, all the way to the end.
The song finished.
She pulled the earphones out.
The envelope sat on the desk. The contract was inside it. So was Dohyeon’s application fee. Her mother’s hospital in Gangnam.
And separate from all of that — the melody that had just played through her earphones. Still nameless. Still nothing yet. But entirely, completely hers.
Seah reached for her notebook. Picked up a pen.
She didn’t open the envelope. Didn’t sign anything.
Instead she started writing — lyric fragments she’d wanted to lay over the melody, pieces that weren’t finished yet. Her hand moved. Under the fluorescent light of her goshiwon room.
The next morning was Monday.
Before her morning shift at the convenience store, Seah checked her phone. A KakaoTalk from Haneul, sent at two in the morning.
hey na seah you’re asleep right. lol probably not. there was something i wanted to say while we were eating tteokbokki but i just didn’t. when i asked you how much longer your heart could take writing songs without your name on them, you said ‘i can still manage.’ i felt kind of scared after that. not ‘i’m fine’ — ‘i can still manage.’ that kept coming back to me. anyway eat real food. not a convenience store triangle kimbap. actual food.
Seah read it. Read it again.
Haneul had caught the difference between I’m fine and I can still manage.
Seah had caught it too. She’d said it anyway — because it was the most honest thing she could offer right now.
She typed back. yeah. i’ll eat.
Then she went to the convenience store. Picked up a triangle kimbap. Paid for it and ate it. Not real food — but Haneul had said so.
At three in the afternoon, after her shift ended, Seah was sitting in a café near Hapjeong Station.
She pulled the envelope from her bag and spread the contract open again. Revisited what she’d read the night before. Page three, exclusivity. Page four, copyright assignment. Page five, credits.
She opened her phone. Searched Naver. Exclusive songwriter contract problematic clauses. Music copyright assignment agreements. How to check credit clauses in contracts.
Results poured in — blog posts, music industry forum threads. She started reading. A lot of legal language. Things she didn’t follow. But certain ideas kept surfacing.
The distinction between moral rights and economic rights. Even when economic rights are transferred, moral rights — including the right of attribution — are in principle non-transferable. However, a clause stating that the creator waives the exercise of moral rights effectively neutralizes them in practice.
Seah looked back at page five of the contract. Credit attribution shall be determined at the discretion of Party A. Party B shall have no right to object.
This was, in effect, a waiver of moral rights.
She took a sip of coffee. It had gone lukewarm.
She kept reading. Key negotiation points in music industry contracts. What songwriters should watch out for. One post had a line that stopped her: “Major entertainment companies write their contracts with precision. Know which clauses are negotiable and which aren’t — and before making any requests, understand how much room the other party has to move.”
Negotiation.
She stayed on that word for a long moment.
She had never negotiated anything. More precisely — it had never occurred to her that negotiation was an option. You accepted the terms, or you walked away. Those were the two choices. But if negotiation was possible. If the credits clause could be revised.
Could that actually happen.
Seah set her phone on the table. Looked out the window. A Hapjeong afternoon. People passing on the street. A woman walked by with earphones in, lips barely moving — mouthing words to something only she could hear.
Someone’s song. She probably had no idea who made it.
Seah picked her phone back up.
She was about to find Yoo Jaewon’s number — then stopped.
She scrolled to a different contact instead.
Two rings.
“Hello?”
A low, unhurried voice. Seah had never heard it before.
“Is this Kang Riu?”
A short pause. “…Yes. Who is this?”
“I’m Na Seah. I had a meeting on the eighth floor with the head of A&R yesterday.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Ah. That person.”
“I have some questions about the contract. I was hoping to ask someone other than the team leader — I need a different perspective.”
This pause was different. Seah could feel something being calculated inside it. How to take this call. How to respond to it.
Then Kang Riu spoke.
“Where are you right now?”
Seah put her phone face-down on the table.
Her heart was beating a little faster than usual. She hated that — it made her feel like her thinking was getting sloppy.
There was a reason she’d called Kang Riu instead of Yoo Jaewon. Yoo Jaewon would answer as JYA. Kang Riu was JYA’s — but he might not be entirely of JYA. She thought back to the Instagram profile Haneul had shown her the night before. Piano keys. An old LP. No face.
It looked like an account belonging to someone who loved music. Someone who treated music as a commodity wouldn’t post photos like that.
Whether that read was right or wrong — she didn’t know yet.
“I’m in a café in Hapjeong-dong.”
“Which one?”
She told him the name.
“Can you give me forty minutes?” Kang Riu said. “I had somewhere to be nearby anyway.”
Seah checked the time. No Underscore performance tonight. She had time.
“Yes.”
The call ended.
Seah wrapped both hands around her coffee cup. It was completely cold now. Wind moved outside the window. The document envelope sat on the table. Inside it, an unsigned contract.
Friday was three days away. Dohyeon’s application deadline.
And in forty minutes, Kang Riu would walk into this café.
She looked out the window. The sun was sitting low, tilting toward evening. A thin wash of amber spread across the Hapjeong alleyways. Someone passed on the street with music playing loud enough to spill out of their earphones — it grazed Seah’s ears for a moment, then was gone.
She noticed that the rhythm of that melody matched the rhythm of the lyric fragments she’d written in her notebook the night before. A coincidence. A meaningless one.
Still, she took out her notebook and wrote down the rhythm before it disappeared.
Habit. Catching melodies wherever they surfaced. Before they were gone.