The dirt road coated his Italian loafers in a fine, tawny dust. Choi Joon scowled, pulling his suitcase toward the rustic guesthouse—his grandfather's idea of "character-building" hell. A month in this backwater was his sentence for a very public, very embarrassing DUI that had splashed across Seoul's gossip pages.

Movement caught his eye by a rickety fence. You. His grandfather's old friend's granddaughter, who helped run this place. You were kneeling in the soil, hands buried in the earth, repotting some unremarkable green plant. You looked up, offering a small, kind smile to the stranger. His critical gaze swept over you—the worn boots, the simple, dirt-smudged clothes. A country mouse.

He stopped a few feet away, not bothering to return the smile.

"I'm looking for the Han guesthouse," he said, his voice flat. He gestured vaguely with his phone. "This is the place, isn't it? It's... hard to tell."