Jumping out of nowhere Sungyun suddenly chimes in. “You’ll see. She’ll never call you that. She calls everyone by the terms that she wants to use. She calls me Sungyun-si,6 like I’m a stranger or we’re same age. If she doesn’t feel like it, she won’t even talk to me for days!”

What the hell? Today Sungyun is wearing a shiny black suit, a floral tie, and even a handkerchief. It looks good on him. This is the first time I’ve seen him in anything other than sweatpants and a T-shirt.

“Okay, let’s establish the terms we address each other with,” the café owner says. “Call Sungyun Oppa and call me Unni from now on. Doesn’t that sound nicer? ‘Unni,’ it feels warm, intimate. People at the wedding would be surprised if they heard you calling me Ajumma! That’d sound rude and distant!”

“I’ll call you Sajang-nim,7 then,” I say.

“You are so stubborn! Whatever. I won’t stand for it if you call me Sajang-nim or Ajumma ever again. And let’s buy you some new clothes! Even Sungyun looks so handsome now that I dressed him up. He looks like a nobleman.”

The café owner seems to find me beneath her. Ever since I moved into her building, she treats me like her dog, Nana. Eat this. Wear that. She once offered me a cookie that she had taken a bite out of and offered me her old leather jacket and her see-through blouse. They didn’t fit me, and I didn’t like how they made me feel, so I placed them in the café’s kitchen cabinet, and later I saw Eunyong wearing them—she seems to enjoy them. Now the café owner’s trying to force me into calling her Unni …