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# Chapter 9: The Words “I Don’t Know”
Haneul’s studio was two alleyways in from the main gate of Hongdae.
Technically it wasn’t a studio — it was a semi-basement tattoo shop. The space where Haneul worked and the space where she slept were divided by a single partition, and on the other side of it sat a folding bed, an electric heated mat, and a cat. The cat’s name was Jangpan. She’d named him that because he only ever slept on the electric mat.
When Sea-a came down the steps and pushed open the door, Haneul was sitting at her work table. No clients. The machine was still on, resting on the table — she’d probably been in the middle of inking the needle.
“You’re here.”
Haneul didn’t turn around. Sea-a closed the door and took off her shoes. There was a rule in Haneul’s studio: shoes off at the door. The reason was that Jangpan liked the smell of feet.
Jangpan climbed down from the folding bed and padded over toward Sea-a. She crouched down and stroked his head once. He rubbed his nose against the top of her foot.
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you have.”
“Convenience store.”
“That’s not food.” Haneul turned around now. She looked Sea-a over once. “Triangle kimbap?”
“Tuna mayo.”
“Just one?”
Sea-a didn’t answer. Haneul let out a sigh. Her sighs always went toward the ceiling — not spreading outward but shooting straight up. Not the kind of sigh that gave up on something. The kind that confirmed it.
“Sit down. I’ll make ramen.”
“I’m fine.”
“I said sit.”
Sea-a sat. Beside the low wooden table in front of the partition. There were two cushions, but Jangpan had claimed one. Sea-a took the other. Jangpan followed and climbed into her lap.
Haneul filled the electric kettle on the other side of the partition. Pulled a packet of Shin Ramyun from the drawer.
“Tell me about JYA.”
Sea-a started from the beginning.
Yoo Jaewon. The conference room. Three paragraphs of paperwork. The retroactive credit being tied to the exclusive contract as a condition. The line about credit attribution being open to negotiation.
Haneul listened while she made the ramen. Didn’t interrupt once. The broth boiled on the gas burner. The smell of red pepper spread through the studio.
When Sea-a finished, Haneul dropped the noodles in.
“’Open to negotiation’ means they’re the ones doing the negotiating.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s basically the same as getting no credit at all.”
“Depending on the terms.”
“What terms.”
“I don’t know. Not yet.”
Haneul stopped stirring the noodles. Looked at Sea-a. Sea-a was stroking Jangpan’s back — her hand moving in steady, even strokes, head to tail, head to tail.
“Hey. Na Sea-a.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what you’re feeling right now?”
Sea-a’s hand paused for a moment. Jangpan flicked his tail in protest.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the second ‘I don’t know.’” Haneul ladled the noodles into a bowl. “Is it good or bad — I don’t know. How do you feel — I don’t know. Do you know how many times you’ve said that tonight?”
“…A few times.”
“Four times. Just to me.”
The bowl landed on the table. A soft-boiled egg, halved, sat on top of the noodles. Haneul settled down across from her.
“Eat.”
Sea-a picked up her chopsticks. The noodles were hot. She took a sip of broth. Her tongue stung. She liked that. The sting was something definite. What she needed right now was sensation she could be sure of.
“Haneul.”
“Yeah.”
“If I sign an exclusive contract, everything I write belongs to them.”
“I know.”
“Then I can’t write what I want to write.”
“I know.”
“But if I have a guaranteed monthly income, Dohyun’s academy fees would be covered.”
Haneul paused. Looked down at her ramen, then back up at Sea-a.
“Na Sea-a.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you actually think that logic makes sense?”
Sea-a lifted a bundle of noodles with her chopsticks. Set them back down.
“…I don’t know.”
“Five times.” Haneul said it plainly. Not as an accusation. As a record.
When they finished eating, Jangpan climbed up onto the table and pushed his nose into Sea-a’s empty bowl. She moved it out of the way. Haneul came back with two cans of beer — there was always beer along one wall of the studio. She’d once said that artists’ refrigerators held nothing but beer and mayonnaise.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
The cans were cold. Sea-a held hers with both hands, letting the chill seep into her palms. Through the walls came the sounds of Hongdae at night — music, laughter, the occasional thud of bass from a club somewhere. Friday night.
“How’s Underscore going?”
Haneul was the one to ask. Sea-a knew it wasn’t a change of subject. When Haneul seemed to be changing the topic, she was actually approaching the same thing from a different angle.
“It’s fine.”
“What do they pay for sessions.”
“Seventy thousand per set.”
“How many times a week.”
“Two, three times.”
“And the convenience store.”
“Nine thousand six hundred an hour.”
Haneul took a sip of beer. She seemed to be doing the math. Sea-a already knew the result. The convenience store and sessions combined didn’t add up to two hundred thousand a month. After the goshiwon rent, Dohyun’s allowance, and their mother’s medication, there was nothing left.
“What’s the exclusive deal paying.”
“Three hundred fixed monthly. Incentives per song on top of that.”
Haneul closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. Sea-a could read her face. That kind of money changes things. She was grateful Haneul didn’t say it out loud.
“But without the credit,” Sea-a said, “no one will ever know which songs I wrote.”
“No one knows now, either.”
A cold thing to say. When Haneul was cold, she meant it.
“…I know.”
“So then.”
“There’s no ‘so then.’ I just know.”
Silence again. Jangpan migrated to Haneul’s lap. She scratched behind his ears without thinking about it.
“Actually.” Haneul said. “Was Kang Riwu not there today? At JYA?”
Sea-a set her can down on the table.
“Why.”
“He’s their A&R, right? And the CEO’s son. It’s weird that he wasn’t in the room for a contract meeting.”
Sea-a thought back to the conference room. Yoo Jaewon. Park Incheol. And the empty chairs. Kang Riwu hadn’t been there. She’d let it pass without registering it — hadn’t noticed the absence of someone who should have been present.
“I didn’t realize.”
“Doesn’t that seem off to you?”
“…Yeah.”
“He’s the one who found you in the first place. At Underscore. But he’s not at the contract meeting — Yoo Jaewon is. That’s not nothing.”
Sea-a turned it over slowly in her head. She understood what Haneul was pointing at. She just didn’t know yet what to do with it.
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s just ‘I don’t know’ with extra steps. Six.”
Sea-a looked at her. Haneul grinned — the kind of smile where her eyes disappeared entirely. Sea-a felt the corner of her own mouth lift, almost without permission.
“…Are they really that similar?”
“Identical.”
Sea-a left Haneul’s studio sometime past midnight.
Hongdae was still full of people. Friday midnight in this neighborhood was barely the start of the evening. She walked with her coat buttoned up, fingers too cold to fasten the buttons cleanly.
Walking toward Hapjeong, there was a point where the Han River felt close — not visible, but present. The smell of it reached her there: water and wind and cold, all mixed together. Similar to what she used to breathe in Jeju, but not the same. Jeju’s water was salt. The Han wasn’t. That was how she knew she missed her mother — when she missed water that tasted like the sea.
Her phone buzzed.
An unknown number. Seoul area code. She looked at it for a moment, then answered.
“Hello.”
“…Na Sea-a?”
A man’s voice. Low, slightly hesitant. It took her two seconds to place it.
Kang Riwu.
“Yes.”
“It’s Kang Riwu.” A brief pause. “Sorry to call so late. Is now okay?”
Sea-a stopped walking. Somewhere in the alleys of Hongdae. Convenience store light, bar signs, strangers passing by. She stood still and held the phone to her ear.
“It’s fine.”
“You were at JYA today.”
Not a question. She could tell.
“Yes.”
“You talked to Team Leader Yoo Jaewon.”
“Yes.”
Another brief silence. Sea-a waited. She didn’t know yet what he was trying to say. Haneul’s words came back to her — he’s the one who found you, but he wasn’t at the contract meeting.
“Did you sign?”
“No. I asked for a week to think it over.”
Silence again. Longer this time.
“Na Sea-a.”
“Yes.”
“Are you free tomorrow?”
The next morning, eleven o’clock.
Sea-a stood outside a café in Hapjeong. Not one of Haneul’s usual spots — this was Kang Riwu’s choice, a small place near Sangsu Station. Ten minutes on foot from her semi-basement goshiwon. She found it slightly strange that he knew this neighborhood at all. There was no obvious reason for someone from Gangnam to know a café tucked into a Sangsu-dong side street.
She pushed open the door and went in.
A small place. Four tables. LP records hung on the walls. Jazz drifted from an old amplifier — Bill Evans. Sea-a recognized it immediately. The touch gave it away. Bill Evans’s piano always sounded like it was holding something back.
Kang Riwu was sitting at the window table.
More casual than she’d seen him at JYA. Gray sweater, jeans. His hands rested on the table, folded together. Morning light fell through the glass and landed on them.
He looked up as she approached.
“You came.”
“Yes.”
She sat across from him. He slid the menu toward her. She didn’t look at it.
“Americano.”
“Same.” He waved over a staff member and ordered two. When they were alone again, a brief quiet settled between them.
The piano played on. Bill Evans, “Peace Piece” — the same note cycling underneath while a melody slowly rose above it. Sea-a always felt like she was floating when she heard that song. Not sinking, not fully surfaced. Suspended somewhere in between.
“Do you come here often?”
Sea-a asked first. Kang Riwu seemed slightly caught off guard — whether by the fact that she’d spoken first, or by the question itself, she couldn’t tell.
“Sometimes. They play Bill Evans.”
“I know.”
“…You recognized it?”
“’Peace Piece.’”
He looked at her for a moment. The quality of it was different from how he’d looked at her at Underscore the night before. That had been a measuring gaze. This one was something else — like he already knew something and was checking it again.
“Do you listen to classical music?”
“Bill Evans is jazz.”
“Right.” The corner of Kang Riwu’s mouth lifted slightly. One beat short of a smile. “Do you like jazz?”
“I don’t really make the distinction. I like sounds that are good.”
The coffee arrived. Sea-a wrapped both hands around her cup. The heat moved into her palms — the exact opposite of last night’s cold beer can. She liked both. Hot and cold. Either way, it was something definite.
Kang Riwu picked up his cup, then set it back down.
“You noticed I wasn’t there yesterday.”
Sea-a didn’t pause mid-sip. She took a drink and put the cup down.
“Haneul pointed it out.”
“Your friend?”
“Yes.”
“She’s right. I should have been.” He tapped the table once with his fingers — a rhythm, unconscious. “My father moved it forward without me.”
Sea-a took that in. She tried to identify what she felt hearing it. Not surprise — Haneul had already pointed in this direction. But whatever it was instead, she didn’t have a name for it yet.
“Why.”
“Because he and I see your contract differently.”
“How differently.”
Kang Riwu glanced out the window for a moment. A Saturday afternoon was moving through the Sangsu-dong alley outside. A cat sat beside a flower pot. Sea-a thought briefly that it resembled Jangpan — then remembered that all cats more or less looked the same.
“My father wants you locked in on exclusive. He needs the songs to keep coming. But I don’t think that’s the right approach.”
“Why not.”
“Because exclusivity kills the songs.”
Sea-a heard that. Kills the songs. A short sentence, and precise. He’d said in words what she hadn’t been able to articulate herself.
“…What makes you think that?”
“I’ve listened.” He met her eyes. “The original version of ‘By the Window’ is different from the release.”
Sea-a went still.
“…You heard it?”
“Park Incheol gave me the original file. Before release.” He took a sip of coffee. “In the second verse bridge, the original goes up a half step and back down. The release just holds the same note through.”
She said nothing.
“That half-step shift was the heart of the song.” He continued. “The arrangement team cut it. Said it was for accessibility. But I think they were wrong. That instability is what makes the song breathe.”
Beneath the table, Sea-a felt her fingers tighten.
That bridge. She’d made it at three in the morning in a room with no windows, earphones in, working on a keyboard app. The moment of rising a half step and falling back — that had taken her longer than anything else in the song. She’d looped that single passage for an hour. Going up felt too painful; staying flat felt too empty. Rising and returning was the only thing that fit. Like holding your breath in a room with no windows, and finally coming up for air. It was the same principle as her mother’s sumbisori.
And the arrangement team had cut it.
And Kang Riwu knew.
“…Why are you telling me this?”
He stopped tapping the table.
“Because you should know.”
“Did you tell Yoo Jaewon?”
“Yes.”
“What happened.”
“He said decisions about commercial viability fall under the production team’s authority.” Kang Riwu’s voice flattened slightly. “I’m A&R. Not a producer.”
Sea-a looked at him. She still couldn’t quite read this man. JYA’s CEO’s son, their A&R, the person who had called her on an unknown number late last night. The person who wasn’t in the room then but was sitting across from her now.
“What do you want from me, Kang Riwu?”
Direct. He blinked.
“Are you trying to talk me out of the exclusive contract?” She kept going. “Or are you here to propose something different? Or did you just want to tell me?”
He laughed — briefly, and in a way she hadn’t seen from him before. Unguarded. Like it had come out before he decided to let it.
“All three.”
“At the same time?”
“In that order.”
Sea-a drank her coffee. He continued.
“Don’t sign the exclusive. The retroactive credit — you can get that without a contract. Legally. JYA mishandled it, and that’s on them. And.”
“And.”
“Would you be interested in working with me separately?”
She didn’t put the cup down. She looked at him over the rim of it.
“Separately meaning.”
“Outside of JYA.” His voice dropped slightly. “I have a project I’m trying to start. An independent label. Nothing official yet.”
“Without the company knowing?”
“…For now.”
Sea-a heard that. For now. That phrase described his situation more precisely than anything else he’d said. The CEO’s son, running an independent project behind the CEO’s back. Occupying his father’s space while refusing his father’s methods. The contradiction of it was visible in the morning light of this small café.
“Isn’t that risky?”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“How so.”
“Working at your father’s company while doing something like this.”
He glanced out the window. The cat was gone from beside the flower pot.
“The thing is,” he said, “I don’t plan on staying there long.”
“You’re going to leave?”
“Eventually.”
“When.”
“…That’s the part I don’t know yet.”
Sea-a heard that. I don’t know. The same words she’d said all last night. The words Haneul had counted to six. He said them too, this man.
Whether that changed something or didn’t, she couldn’t tell yet.
Bill Evans ended. Another album started — Keith Jarrett. Solo piano. Sea-a recognized it immediately.
“Do you play piano?”
His hand stopped — the one that had been tapping the table without him noticing.
“…I did.”
“Not anymore?”
“Not anymore.”
“Why.”
This silence was different from the ones before. The earlier ones had been thinking silences. This one was a deciding silence. Time spent choosing whether or not to say something.
“Something happened in Berlin.”
That was all. He didn’t say more. Sea-a didn’t ask. The word Berlin became its own thing in the room — a door he didn’t open.
“Is your hand stiff?”
He looked at her.
“…How did you know.”
“Your hand.” Sea-a nodded toward it. “When you tap, your fourth finger doesn’t follow the others.”
He looked down at his hand on the table. Left hand. Fourth finger — the ring finger.
“…You’re observant.”
“It’s the same as listening.” Sea-a said. “When something’s missing from the sound, you know something’s there.”
He looked at her again. A different look. She was beginning to learn the variations of his gaze — the measuring one, the confirming one, the unguarded one, and now this: the look of someone who has just found something.
“That’s what your music does.” He said it quietly.
“What does.”
“It makes the missing parts audible.”
It took Sea-a a moment to receive that. It was a compliment. She never knew where to put compliments — too large for a pocket, and in this case, too valuable to throw away.
“…Are you talking about the bridge?”
“Not only that.” He drank his coffee. “At Underscore, too. When you sing, it sounds like you’re holding something back — but that restraint is what comes through the loudest.”
Sea-a stopped at that.
Holding something back — but that’s what comes through the loudest.
Her mother surfacing from the water, crying out the sumbisori. The sound of something held too long, finally released. That was what Sea-a had always been trying to do with her music — make the holding-back audible. And this man had heard it. Had named it.
She put her cup down.
“Kang Riwu.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me more about this project.”
He began talking when the coffee had gone half cold.
An independent label. No name yet. Funded personally — he’d brought something back with him when he returned from Berlin. He was aiming to incorporate early next year. No artists signed yet.
“I have a direction in mind,” he said. “Not chasing the streaming charts. Music that stays with you after one listen. Music that lasts.”
“Does that mean it won’t sell?”
“Not necessarily. Something that lasts keeps selling. Longer than something that peaks and disappears.”
“Investors?”
“Not yet.”
“So with personal funds, how long do you have.”
“About a year.”
“So you need something to show within a year.”
“That’s right.”
Sea-a looked at her own hands on the table. Knuckles a little thick. Nails cut short. The scar on her left index finger.
“What do you want from me specifically.”
He met her eyes.
“Songwriting. Credited under your name. Revenue sharing, clearly structured. Not exclusive — project by project.”
“What about vocals.”
“If you want to.”
She heard that. If you want to. Different from anything said in Yoo Jaewon’s conference room. Yoo Jaewon had never asked what she wanted. He’d calculated what she could deliver. Kang Riwu had led with if you want.
It could be a trap. She knew that.
“When you leave your father’s company,” she said.
“Yes.”
“He’s not just going to let that happen.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“No. He won’t.”
“And the fallout could reach me too.”
“It could.” He didn’t look away. “That’s why I’m telling you now. Before anything happens.”
Sea-a looked at him. He was being honest. Whether the honesty was genuine or strategic, she couldn’t say yet. But here in this café, on this Saturday morning, she had time enough to ask the question — even if she didn’t have the answer.
“I’ll think about it.”
“A week?”
“I don’t know.”
He held her gaze. She didn’t hide anything in it. She didn’t know, and she said so. That was enough for now.
He turned to the window. Lunchtime was approaching in the Sangsu-dong alley. People were beginning to fill the street. Where the cat had sat beside the flower pot, an old couple was now walking past.
“Na Sea-a.”
“Yes.”
“When you made that bridge in the original — the one in ‘By the Window’ — what were you thinking about?”
It seemed like a sudden question. She knew it wasn’t.
“My mother.”
“Your mother.”
“She’s a haenyeo. In Jeju.” Sea-a wrapped both hands around her cup. Already cold. “When she comes up from the water, she cries out. It’s called sumbisori. The sound of holding your breath for a long time and finally surfacing. That’s what I was thinking about.”
He didn’t say anything. She kept going.
“The half step up and back down — that’s it. Holding, then releasing. Without that, you don’t understand why the song is sad.”
Kang Riwu closed his eyes for a moment. The gesture looked like listening — as if he were hearing something this café couldn’t carry, something that wasn’t playing.
“Sumbisori,” he said.
“Yes.”
“That’s a song.”
Sea-a heard that. Those were words she herself had once said. Drunk,