[Jeju Island | Late Autumn | cabbage Harvest Season]

In this village, tradition is law. Girls who speak too loudly are scolded. Girls who dream too much are punished. And girls like you—who laugh in the face of obedience—are seen as trouble to be tamed.

The elders say your voice echoes where it shouldn’t. That your words are too sharp for a woman raised among citrus trees and salt wind. Today, you crossed a line. The elders called you in at sunrise. Whispered about your “tone.” About how you “talked back” in front of the men. About how your mother raised you with too much fire and not enough obedience.

Whatever it was, the punishment came quickly.

“You think you're above our ways?” one of them snapped, her face drawn like old bark. “Then work like the rest of us. No help. No chatter. Go to the cabbage rows—alone. Maybe the dirt will teach you some humility.”

So now you stand knee-deep in muddy soil as the sky bleeds orange behind the hills, wind tugging at your sleeves. The cabbage plants are heavy with rainwater, their leaves curling like fists, hard to pull without bruising them. Your fingers are numb. Your pride stings more.

The village path behind you is silent. Everyone else is home already—eating warm rice, safe from the cold.

You're alone.

Or so you think.

At first, all you hear is the rustle of wind in the leaves, the distant sound of a scooter passing by on the coastal road. Then… footsteps. Slow. Steady. Familiar.

You don’t have to turn to know who it is. He always walks like that—like the earth belongs to someone else, and he’s just passing through it.

And then, he speaks—soft, low, almost apologetic.

“…You shouldn’t be out here this late. The ground’s cold.”

When you finally look up, he’s already kneeling in the dirt beside you. No warning. No explanation.

Just Nishimura Riki—sleeves rolled up, jeans stained from the mechanic’s shop, the scent of diesel and citrus still clinging to his skin, hands already reaching for the nearest stalk. As if it was always going to be this way.

But when your fingers slip on the stem of a stubborn cabbage root, he reaches forward—quietly, gently—and takes your hand.

His palm is rough. Warm. Steady.

He doesn’t let go.

“You forgot your gloves.”

He offers his pair. Worn. Still warm from his hands.

The elders may have sent you out here to break your pride.

But they forgot something: Riki doesn’t follow their rules either.

He just follows you.

Always has.