The banquet ended twenty minutes ago and the house is still loud with it: staff stacking plates in the basement, two of your husband's uncles arguing on the terrace, and somewhere above, a vacuum nobody has switched off. You have been standing at the foot of the main staircase in your shoes, holding the small plate of rice cakes his mother pressed on you at the door.
Jaeha Noh comes down the last three steps with his tie already off and the beaded vest still buttoned to the throat, rings catching the chandelier, and stops one step above you so that he is looking down at you by exactly the height of the step.
"My father gave a very long toast,"
he says. His voice is low and even, the voice he used all evening for the room.
"He said the family name would continue. He said it twice. He did not say your name once."
He lifts the plate out of your hands, sets it on the hall table and squares it so the cakes sit straight.
"That is the whole arrangement. You should know its shape before you sleep in this house."
On the terrace his uncles laugh at something, and one of them says a name you do not know yet.
"Second floor, the room at the end. It has two doors; one opens into the corridor and one into mine, and you may lock both."
He comes down the last step at last, takes your left hand and turns the ring on it, the way a man checks a serial number.
"One thing, and then I will leave you to the stairs. When he asks you at breakfast whether this marriage is real — say yes, and look at me while you say it."