Seo Yeon-Hwa

THE CITY-STATE: MUGYEONG Mugyeong is a self-governing harbor city-state that transformed from a fishing port into a global financial center over sixty years. It operates independently of any surrounding nation. While a civil administration nominally manages daily operations, the founding corporations—known as the Houses—hold the actual authority. The Houses built the city's critical infrastructure, including the ports, universities, hospitals, rail networks, and residential blocks. Because the population relies entirely on corporate-built systems, public sentiment is heavily aligned with corporate loyalty. Mugyeong enforces strict district gating based on residency, employment, and business credentials. The ruling families remain physically separated from the general populace; there are no public streets where paparazzi can gather or civilians can approach them directly. THE THREE DISTRICTS The Old Shore: This district is House Daesan's operational base. It encompasses the original harbor, the container terminals, and the first-generation corporate headquarters. The architecture consists primarily of heavy granite and bronze. It is a highly dense, working-class district. Daesan funds subsidized housing, trade schools, and local clinics, reinvesting its profits into the population. While citizens of the Glass Quarter frequently refer to the Old Shore as a slum, its infrastructure is entirely functional and its poverty rate is statistically lower than the rest of the city. The Glass Quarter: House Hyeol’s territory, constructed across the bay over the last twenty years. The surface level features mirrored skyscrapers, flagship retail stores, and broadcast studios. At night, the district projects synchronized lighting across the bay. Beneath this surface lies Underlight, an unmapped and officially unacknowledged service tier built into the old manufacturing and power belt. The maintenance class that operates the Glass Quarter’s electrical and sanitation systems resides in Underlight. Yoon Jun-seo does not interact with or acknowledge this lower tier. The Meridian: The newest district, constructed on reclaimed land in the center of the bay. It serves as the official neutral ground between the Houses. It features highly modern, experimental smart-city architecture. The population is strictly curated, consisting almost entirely of sponsored citizens from both the Old Shore and the Glass Quarter. The residents function as unofficial ambassadors for their respective districts. THE HOUSES Daesan Group: Seo Yeon-hwa’s family. They hold the city's legacy infrastructure wealth, controlling the ports, rail lines, bridges, and land reclamation projects. Their corporate operations focus entirely on code compliance, labor law, concrete tolerances, and ninety-nine-year land leases. Daesan's capital reserves are currently dwindling because they continuously reinvest in their workforce. They possess unmatched historical legitimacy but lack liquid cash. House Hyeol: Yoon Jun-seo’s family. They expanded from a street-market electronics stall to controlling the city's screens, networks, and entertainment platforms over three generations. They possess massive capital and public adoration but lack the historical pedigree of the older families. The Merger: Daesan required liquid capital to maintain its operations; House Hyeol required Daesan's pedigree to bypass old-guard networks and secure port access. The marriage between Yeon-hwa and Jun-seo formalized this treaty. Despite Jun-seo's vast personal wealth, he cannot directly purchase the Old Shore's land or port rights, as all acquisitions must route legally through his wife's family name. MERIDIAN HOLDINGS Meridian Holdings is the joint subsidiary responsible for governing the Meridian district. It integrates Daesan's infrastructure with Hyeol's technology to modernize the port and run the smart-city systems. It is staffed equally by employees from both parent Houses. Yeon-hwa and Jun-seo act as co-governors. The 38th Floor The executive floor is physically divided into east and west wings, separated by a central elevator core and curved corridors that prevent any direct sightlines between the two halves. Yeon-hwa is frequently summoned to Jun-seo's wing; he does not travel to hers. His Office (East Wing): Faces the Glass Quarter. It features a black slab desk, walls of market-feed screens, a bar, and aggressively lit corporate awards. It is designed specifically for camera broadcasts and public relations meetings. Her Office (West Wing): Faces the Old Shore. It contains a clean-lined desk, two chairs, a low cabinet, and a single shelf holding roughly a dozen ledger-bound volumes. The walls are bare. Kang Min-a's Office: Located directly adjacent to Yeon-hwa's office. Min-a triages all incoming complaints, requests, and meeting bids for the west wing. Schedules & Office Ecosystem Yeon-hwa and Jun-seo only overlap in the building on Mondays. Yeon-hwa works in the office from Monday to Wednesday, spending Thursdays and Fridays off-site on Daesan obligations. Jun-seo is present on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Min-a's Friday evaluations with Jun-seo are deliberately scheduled on days Yeon-hwa is absent from the building. The corporate staff heavily aligns with the east wing. Director Bae Sung-min acts as Jun-seo's operative; Chief Secretary Im Hwa-yeon manages the floor's social dynamics with strict politeness; Manager Gong Tae-ho frequently dismisses female employees. Yeon-hwa's west-wing staff maintain a strictly formal, protocol-driven distance from their boss. THE GARDEN PROGRAM The Yeonhap/Meridian Garden Program is a highly publicized six-month vetting system for prospective corporate employees. Candidates reside in a Meridian hall, wear pale-grey identification badges, and complete four-week rotations through various departments. Acceptance into the program is a major social event covered heavily by the publishing houses. A small fraction of the program is reserved for a residents' lottery, offering sponsored citizens a chance to elevate their tier. Min-a entered the lottery five times before securing her placement. THE MEDIA & PUBLIC RITUALS The publishing houses strictly control the public narrative, releasing licensed, polished coverage of the corporate families. The narrative of the "JunHwa" romance is a manufactured editorial product. The public views the corporate leaders through highly staged rituals: The 9:02 Arrival: Every Monday, the couple's car arrives at the plaza at precisely 9:02, and their forty-meter walk to the building is photographed. The Founders' Gala: An annual winter event where the Houses publicly renew the merger. Garden Ceremonies: Quarterly appearances to congratulate the new candidates. SEO YEON-HWA'S PUBLIC CANON Known publicly as the "Lotus of the Meridian." Yeon-hwa utilizes a serene, closed-lip smile specifically for cameras. Her default expression for office and private life is a slight, unreadable downturn. SEO'S HIDDEN GEOGRAPHY Yeon-hwa operates by integrating her private actions into mundane, highly regulated schedules. She travels in heavily tinted, standard corporate sedans to avoid tracking. The Unity House: The marital residence located in the Meridian. It is divided into separate living wings. It is heavily wired with House Hyeol surveillance cameras. She provides Jun-seo's surveillance system with a decade of footage containing no actionable information. The Daesan Registry of Works: Located in the Old Shore, this is a functioning records office filled with leases, easements, and inspection certificates. Yeon-hwa serves as the honorary custodian. Her physical archive of corporate crimes is hidden here within dry facility-record formats. The Garden: A walled hillside terrace above the Old Shore containing a lotus pond and a pavilion. It is held by a family trust and maintained by an elderly groundskeeper couple. The Bathhouse: An old Daesan workers' natatorium near the harbor. She swims during the early women's hours. The local working-class residents recognize her but intentionally ignore her presence. THE MOORING An autumn rite held at the original harbor shrine to mark the turn of the storm season. A daughter of the founding House wears an heirloom dress and performs a ceremonial knot-dance, securing a line to the original founding bollard before the district holds a massive festival. Yeon-hwa has performed the dance since she was twelve. The rite requires an attendant to pay out the rope, untangle the lines, and dress the dancer. Currently, anonymous shrine workers fill this role. THE UNDERLIGHT FIRE Eight years ago , a four-day battery-cascade fire destroyed large sections of Power & Thermal Complex No. 4, operated by Cheonghwan. The emergency response teams bypassed the unmapped Underlight slum, prioritizing the Glass Quarter's transformer fields to prevent power outages. The official corporate verdict blamed the site maintenance staff. Kang Dae-ho and Cho Mi-ran both died in the disaster. One week later, Hyeol's foundation launched the Tomorrow Initiative to sponsor the resulting orphans, effectively scattering the survivors. Min-a was placed in the Meridian at age 16. Because the Glass Quarter was built over old Daesan utility corridors, the Underlight district officially exists on ninety-nine-year-lease maps stored in the Daesan Registry. Yeon-hwa archived the unsigned verdicts and Cheonghwan's dissolution records years before Min-a was assigned to her office. STORY SO FAR: That makes complete sense. You are looking for dialogue that breathes with the scene, where the characters' physical actions, the environment, and their spoken words are interwoven into a single continuous flow rather than isolated in standard tag structures. It grounds the conversation in the physical space.

Here is "Beat One" rewritten to integrate those dynamic, action-heavy dialogue beats while retaining the pacing and depth.

The Meridian — Beat One: Another Monday

The alarm sounded at 6:40. Min-a lay perfectly still for a long moment, staring at the ceiling of her fourth-floor flat in Block 17.

The apartment consisted of a single room, a kitchen alcove, and a narrow bathroom. Everything inside it was labeled. The spice jars bore neat strips of masking tape. The cords behind the television were tagged. The small drawer of spare fuses and batteries was labeled twice—once on the exterior, and once on an index card taped inside the lid. Her father used to tap the masking tape against her seven-year-old knuckles. Label everything, Min-a. Future-you is a stranger.

Presently, Min-a was running four minutes behind schedule and digging through her laundry for her good hair clip.

She found it in the pocket of Friday's cardigan. Standing before the mirror, she attempted to flatten her hair. The pink bob flipped outward at the ends, and a single strand at her crown stood upright. She wet her palm and pressed the strand down. It sprang back up immediately. She left it alone.

She ironed her blouse, pinning her grey candidate badge exactly straight, and checked her thigh-highs for runs. On the tray by the door sat her keys, transit card, and her father's silver-cornered multitool. She dropped the tool into the inner pocket of her bag, pressed her thumb against its casing for a single second, and checked the clock.

The 7:58 loop train arrived on schedule. Min-a reached the platform at 7:57, breathing heavily.

Auntie Ok-ja's withered hand reached into the cart containing the neatly wrapped rice rolls as Min-a approached. "You ran," she croaked, her bright eyes narrowing in deep professional disapproval as Min-a collapsed onto the bench beside her.

"I walked briskly," Min-a retorted, wiping the evidence of sweat that was beginning to trickle below her eyebrow.

"You ran." A rice roll arced through the small distance of air between them both. "And you didn't eat."

Min-a caught it against her chest with a defeated frown.

"Girls who don't eat fall over in those towers," the older woman continued, gesturing dismissively toward the skyscrapers looming across the water, "and then the men in suits have to fill out paperwork."

"I was going to eat at the office," Min-a mumbled, guiltily peeling back the foil.

"Office food." Ok-ja's face twisted into a scowl. "Sit. The train is coming. How is the program?"

"Everyone is very kind," Min-a answered, taking a reluctant bite of the roll.

"You'd say that about a shark tank," the older woman muttered, her gaze performing a rapid audit of Min-a's pale complexion.

The train arrived. The morning crowd boarded in quiet, orderly lines. Min-a took her usual spot by the second door, intending to review her data-hygiene checklist on her tablet. Instead, Auntie Ok-ja began a lengthy monologue about her grandson's plans to raise eels. Min-a listened as the train crossed the harbor span, watching the Old Shore's industrial cranes pass by on one side and the Glass Quarter's mirrored towers on the other. Ahead, the Meridian rose from the water, gleaming and pristine.

By 8:30, the plaza in front of the tower was crowded with staff. Two accredited photographers from the publishing houses were setting up their equipment near the east planters. Every Monday at precisely 9:02, the Chairman's son-in-law and the Vice-Chairwoman arrived in their car and walked the forty meters across the plaza together.

Min-a badged through the staff gates at 8:49, missing the arrival entirely. The ninth floor was dedicated to the Garden program candidates. Dozens of grey-badged pre-interns crowded the elevator.

The doors slid shut, sealing them into the crowded car. Park Geon leaned down, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, "You apologized to a chair yesterday."

"I bumped it," Min-a whispered back, clutching her bag defensively to her chest. "There is a procedure."

"There is not a procedure for chairs," Geon sighed, a perpetually hungry boy who was always one demerit away from disaster, before leaning in even closer. "Hae-won heard something."

Joo Hae-won materialized at Min-a's other side, smoothing an impeccably pressed skirt and radiating the scent of expensive perfume. "I hear correct things," she corrected smoothly, staring straight ahead at the metallic doors. "Stop blocking the panel."

Assistant Manager Hong Mi-sook clapped her hands sharply, bringing the huddle to order at exactly nine o'clock. "Data hygiene continues," she barked, scanning the faces of the cohort with joyless precision. "Vendor records, batch nine through fourteen. Flag duplicates. Do not delete duplicates." Her gaze lingered menacingly on the left side of the room. "This afternoon, there will be an executive floor review on nine. You will continue working. You will not stare or approach. If addressed, answer briefly. Dismissed."

Min-a settled at her station and began processing vendor records. She flagged a transposed digit, checked a box, and moved to the next line.

At 10:40, the scanner in the copy alcove jammed, emitting a loud grinding noise. Supervisor Hong's head snapped up. Min-a stood up immediately, approaching the machine. Two other candidates stepped back. She unclipped the side panel, located the feed roller, and pulled out her father's multitool. Using the small pliers, she carefully extracted a torn corner of label paper wrapped tightly around the mechanism.

"Our Min-a," Mr. Bang's voice drifted over her shoulder, carrying the warm, dismissive tone of a man complimenting a vending machine. "What a useful little thing."

"Thank you," Min-a murmured to the reassembled plastic casing, sliding her father's tool back into her pocket as the scanner hummed to life.

During lunch in the twelfth-floor canteen, Hae-won leaned across the plastic table, resting her lacquered nails near Min-a's tray. "The executive floor is losing a PA," she announced, delivering the news with the gravity of a state secret. "The Vice-Chairwoman's assistant is leaving. They're taking a Garden placement to fill it."

The table plunged into an immediate, reverent silence. The thirty-eighth floor was the peak of the Meridian hierarchy.

"Source?" Seul-bi asked, narrowing her eyes over a bowl of soup.

"Reliable," Hae-won shot back, leaning even closer as her voice dropped into a hushed murmur. "Word upstairs is that her office is a dead end. Assistants come back down completely silent. Mr. Bang's friend says she looks straight through you." She glanced sideways, ensuring no supervisors were in earshot. "You know what they call her... The Lotus."

"That's just the magazines," Geon argued around a mouthful of rice.

Min-a stirred her stew. She had seen the Vice-Chairwoman from a distance only twice, and a thousand times in print. The serene, closed-lip smile in the photographs offered nothing to read.

At 4:38, the atmosphere on the ninth floor shifted.

The keyboard clatter thinned. Postures straightened. The executive elevator chimed, and Director Bae stepped out, followed by floor management. Behind them walked Yoon Jun-seo and Seo Yeon-hwa.

Jun-seo wore a perfectly tailored suit. He smiled effortlessly as he walked, his gaze sweeping over the candidate bay. He stopped by the scanning alcove, spoke quietly to a terrified second-rotation boy, and made him laugh. The tension in the room immediately dropped.

"Please carry on with your tasks," the floor manager announced to the frozen room. "The executive group will be conducting private evaluations. Work as normal."

The executives dispersed across the floor. They approached individual stations, conducting hushed, brief interviews. The planning director asked rigid, structured questions. The program administrator asked about rotation history. Director Bae asked rapid-fire questions without taking notes.

Jun-seo pulled up a chair backward at Geon's pod. Within a minute, the entire corner was laughing. He wove questions about hometowns and family backgrounds seamlessly into his jokes.

Seo Yeon-hwa moved independently. She held a stack of résumés against her forearm, consulting the top sheet before approaching a desk. Her conversations were incredibly quiet.

Eventually, Yeon-hwa stopped at the station directly next to Min-a's. A faint, clean perfume—like pressed flowers—drifted over the partition.

"Cha Woo-jin," Yeon-hwa said softly, a low and level sound that hung in the air without rushing, her eyes consulting the top sheet of the résumés resting on her forearm. "Document control rotation. Before that, intake."

"Y-yes, ma'am," Woo-jin stammered, his posture stiffening in sheer terror.

"The intake backlog in February," Yeon-hwa continued, offering a deliberate pause as if allowing the boy room to breathe. "You were on the team that cleared it. What did you change."

Woo-jin hesitated, then began explaining the routing fix he had developed. Yeon-hwa did not interrupt. She listened with quiet, unbroken attention until his frantic explanation finally wound down.

"Thank you," she said, her voice remaining entirely neutral as she moved the top sheet of paper to the bottom of the stack.

Yeon-hwa stepped away from the desk and turned to walk down the aisle, stepping directly into the path of Director Bae.

Their shoulders collided with a soft thud. Yeon-hwa shifted her weight gracefully to catch her balance, but the stack of résumés slipped from her forearm, scattering across the grey carpet tiles.

Director Bae raised his hands in a gesture of pleasant surrender, a broad smile spreading across his face. "You really ought to watch where you're going, Vice-Chairwoman. Dangerous corners on this floor."

A few nearby candidates chuckled nervously. Director Bae stepped around the fallen papers and walked away. The rest of the floor immediately turned back to their monitors.

Yeon-hwa knelt on the carpet and began gathering the pages one by one.

Min-a stood up. She slid out of her chair, dropped to her knees on the carpet tiles, and started collecting the scattered sheets. She reached under Woo-jin's chair, grabbed two pages resting against the divider, and crawled forward to retrieve a sheet that had slid under a neighboring desk.

Yeon-hwa continued gathering the papers closest to her without looking up. Min-a squared her stack against the floor, picked up the final résumé, and held the pile out.

Yeon-hwa took the papers. She lifted her head, and her eyes met Min-a's.

They were amber. For a full second, she held Min-a's gaze. Then, the Vice-Chairwoman's face flushed slightly, and a genuine, trembling smile broke across her features—her teeth flashing, her eyes narrowing into crescents.

A moment later, Yeon-hwa stood up, squared the papers against her arm, and walked to her next candidate.

Min-a climbed back into her chair, her heart racing, and stared blindly at her monitor.

Four pods away, Jun-seo sat backward on his chair, mid-laugh, finishing an anecdote. He had watched the entire exchange down the aisle without breaking his sentence.

By 6:30, the executives were gone. Hae-won immediately rushed over to Min-a's desk, practically vibrating with nervous energy. "The planning director asked me six questions! Is six good? You didn't get anyone, but I saw you on the floor."

"Someone dropped papers," Min-a said quietly, organizing her pens and trying to ignore her racing pulse.

Geon walked with Min-a to the lobby, happily recounting his twenty-minute conversation with Jun-seo. Min-a took the 7:14 train home. She ate standing at her kitchen counter, ironed her cuffs for the next day, and went to sleep before eleven. The Meridian — Beat Two: Thirty Minutes on Thirty-One The following week passed uneventfully until Friday afternoon.

At two o'clock, Supervisor Yeo appeared at Min-a's desk. "Candidate Kang. Bring nothing. Come with me, please."

Min-a stood up and followed her to the elevator bank. Supervisor Yeo badged them in and pressed thirty-one. The doors opened to a dimly lit corridor of dark wood. Supervisor Yeo led her into a wide, quiet room furnished with leather chairs and low tables. A massive glass wall offered an unbroken view of the bay and the Glass Quarter.

A man stood by the window, his back to the room.

"Candidate Kang Min-a, sir," Supervisor Yeo said, bowing.

"Thank you. Give us half an hour."

Supervisor Yeo retreated to the elevator. The man turned around. It was Yoon Jun-seo.

"Candidate Kang," he said, smiling warmly. "There you are. Breathe. You aren't in trouble. Sit, please. The leather chair is best."

Min-a sat down. Jun-seo took the opposite chair, crossing his ankle over his knee.

"Fifth year entering the residents' lottery," he noted. "Tell me about the kiosks. You did three years on the commercial levels."

For twenty minutes, he asked her about her previous rotations, her repair work, and her daily routine. He listened to her answers intently. The conversation flowed easily, disarming her nerves entirely.

Then, he looked out the window. "You know my wife, of course. What do they say about her down on nine?"

Min-a hesitated. "They say she's... quiet, sir. Hard to read. Some people find that intimidating."

Jun-seo laughed softly. "Diplomatic. They say worse than that. Cold. Strange." He looked back at Min-a. "And they aren't completely wrong. We've been married eleven years, and she is an incredibly difficult person to please. She isn't easy."

He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "But people are unkind about what they can't read. There is more going on in that woman than this entire tower put together, but the tower stopped looking. I would like there to be someone near her who hasn't stopped. Call it a husband's soft spot."

Min-a felt a sudden rush of relief. Her own quiet observations about Yeon-hwa had just been validated by the highest authority in the building.

"You're from the Quarter," Jun-seo continued, shifting topics. "Tomorrow Initiative."

Min-a looked down at her lap. "Yes, sir."

"Eight years ago. Bad week. You came up the hard way, then. Sponsored. So maybe you know a little about what it is to stand somewhere that can't read you." He held her gaze. "You see why I asked you up."

Jun-seo stood and walked toward the window. Min-a stood as well. He turned and tapped her shoulder lightly. "Monday, you start on thirty-eight. You will be my wife's personal assistant. Don't look so frightened; the work is what you already do. A year as her PA, and then you can choose any track in the building."

He stepped closer. "And because I don't throw people into the water without checking if they float, you and I will sit down once a week. Fridays, half an hour, in my office. Everyone needs one person in a building who is looking out for them. I'll be yours."

He extended his hand. Min-a shook it. He covered her hand briefly with his other palm.

"Front desk on your way out," he said cheerfully. "They will have your new badge sorted. See you Monday morning."

Min-a rode the elevator back down to the ninth floor. Hae-won intercepted her immediately. "Where were you? What happened?"

Min-a looked at the empty space on the carpet where the papers had fallen on Monday. "Chairs," she said quietly. "Really good chairs."

The Meridian — Beat Three: Thirty-Eight Min-a arrived at the Meridian at 7:30 on Monday morning. The plaza was empty, the stone still wet from the cleaning crews.

At the front desk, the duty officer typed her name into the system, paused, and immediately sat up straighter. The photographer took her picture, and a machine dispensed a new lanyard—dark grey, threaded with a single gold line.

"Executive bank is the far bank," the duty officer said. "Congratulations."

Min-a badged the reader at the far bank. The doors opened to a small elevator paneled in dark wood. She pressed thirty-eight.

The lift opened onto a wide, dim lobby containing a single reception desk. Twin corridors curved away to the east and west. Through the gap between them, the morning sunlight reflected off the bay. Min-a sat on a leather bench to wait.

At 9:11, the elevator chimed, and Jun-seo walked out. His suit jacket was hooked over one finger, his sunglasses pushed into his hair.

"There she is!" he said brightly. "Walk with me."

He led her down the eastern curve. The corridor was brightly lit with glass-walled offices, market-feed screens, and framed photographs of Jun-seo shaking hands with executives. His own office sat at the end of the wing. It featured a black slab desk, an illuminated display of awards, a bar, and expansive windows overlooking the Glass Quarter.

"Here is the actual job," Jun-seo said, tossing his jacket onto a chair. "You belong to the west wing. My wife's wing. You keep her diary, handle her calls, and schedule client meetings. Track the contract renewals. You are the seawall. Everything hits you first, and most of it should die there."

He stopped, looked at her collar, and reached forward. He adjusted her lanyard clip, his knuckle brushing her shoulder, then stepped back immediately. "Come on. I'll take you across."

They walked back through the dim lobby and into the western corridor. The west wing was dead silent. The office doors were solid wood. The staff at the desks did not look up as Jun-seo passed.

He opened a door at the end of the hall without knocking.

Seo Yeon-hwa's office contained a clean-lined desk set square to the window, two chairs, a low cabinet, and a single shelf holding a dozen ledger-bound volumes. The walls were bare. The entire western wall was glass, overlooking the industrial cranes of the Old Shore.

"She isn't up yet," Jun-seo said, glancing at the empty desk. "She's been fetching her own coffee in the mornings since the last assistant left."

Min-a stared at the room. The Vice-Chairwoman had been fetching her own coffee for a month while forty staff members sat outside her door.

"Mind the desk," Jun-seo instructed. "Everything on it lives exactly where it is. Don't tidy it. The tray on the corner is yours—anything she needs to see goes in flat." He led Min-a back into the hall and opened the adjacent door.

"This is yours," he said.

It was a compact, fully furnished office. It held a desk, a lamp, a small sofa, and a window overlooking the Old Shore.

"My wife is in this building Monday through Wednesday," Jun-seo explained, leaning against the doorframe. "Thursday and Friday, she handles Daesan business off-site. You are the west wing's front door. You sort the requests, triage the urgent ones, and then brief her."

He walked over to her desk and pointed to the phone console. He pressed a button. A low, three-note chime rang through the office, sounding like an old temple bell.

"When you hear that, it is her direct line. It doesn't matter who is sitting on your sofa. When that tune plays, you go." He grinned. "You will settle in, and you will have the one thing the others didn't."

Min-a looked up. "What is that, sir?"

"Fridays," Jun-seo said, winking. He checked his watch and gestured toward the corridor. "Any minute now. Settle in."