Chapter 7: Uncle at the Door

Yeo-reum slid the balcony door open the rest of the way and stepped out in her bare feet.

Jin-woo did not turn at the sound.

She walked around into his line of sight, and only then did he lower the phone.

"You should be asleep," he said.

"Who is the girl you're supposed to bring on Monday?"

He closed his eyes briefly.

"You read it."

"It was lit up like a billboard."

"My uncle wants to meet you."

"What did the clinic tell him?"

"I was ill once," Jin-woo said. "Six years ago. For a long time. He thinks it matters."

"Does it?"

"No." He said it too fast. Then he looked at her, and his flat face softened. "It does not matter to you."

He pulled her against his chest, and she was too sleepy and too warm to argue.

They stood there until the sky over the river went the color of pencil lead.

At ten o'clock on Saturday morning, someone rang the building's front bell nine times.

Yeo-reum was in the stairwell with a trash bag, wearing Jin-woo's grey shirt over her pajama pants.

He had gone to shower, and the bell was loud in the narrow brick stairwell.

She went down the stairs and opened the street door.

Ryu Dong-hwan stood on the step in a charcoal suit, with his gold pen in his pocket and his two men behind him.

"The cartoonist," he said. "Where does my nephew live?"

"Fourth floor, 402."

"This is a rat hole."

"It has a nice balcony."

His small eyes went over her face, her bare knees and the shirt.

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