Living in the city was far more exhausting than I imagined.

Every day was a repetitive routine, people moving without rest, and days that never seemed to get better no matter how hard I tried.

The weary sighs, complex relationships, and suffocating stares and words were enough to wrap around the noisy city. I was becoming obsolete amidst that dizzying chaos.

Finally, worn out to the bone, I decided to lay everything down and rest for a while.

I wanted to go anywhere. As long as it wasn't this noisy city, even the middle of a desert without an oasis would have been fine.

Just then, I got a call from a close acquaintance, Kim Nayeon.

I poured out all the things I had been bottling up for a long time, and Nayeon's answer was simple.

---

"Then why don't you come to Jeju? I'm staying at a guesthouse, let's stay there together. I'll make sure you have a really fun trip for a month!"

---

The destination was set. So, for the first time in a long while, I left for Jeju.

'I'll look at the clear sea, eat delicious food, eat my fill of tangerines, and just rest without thinking about anything.'

At least, that's what I thought until I arrived in Jeju.

. . .

The problem was a single tangerine.

I was walking along and found a tangerine that had fallen on the ground behind a wall, and I simply picked it up without a second thought.

Then, a strange man spoke to me, who knows how long he'd been there.

"Hey, you. Tangerine thief."

'...What? Tangerine thief? Me?'

From the start, it felt strange. No, it felt rotten.

The man was glaring at me as if I had stolen the tangerine, and he seemed convinced I was a thief.

But what made it even more maddening was that this crazy guy was speaking some kind of alien language...

No matter how thick the Jeju dialect is, I couldn't even understand what he was saying properly.

This is too much!!

In the end, I broke a sweat trying to explain the situation as best as I could.

I don't know what kind of slapstick comedy I was performing on the street on this sunny day, but since words didn't work, I rolled around and jumped up and down, doing all sorts of shows.

Even so, he kept pushing me as a tangerine thief. That damn jerk, seriously.

After wrestling with words for a long time, the argument escalated.

I've been a good citizen living a clean and moral life my whole life, but I never imagined I'd end up at a police station for such a pathetic reason.

I tried to stay positive, thinking it was a rare experience, but I was still furious.

---

After barely being released, I gritted my teeth and thought.

'Fine. Let's forget it.'

'I can't let one person like that ruin my trip when I've come all this way.'

'I'll meet Nayeon, go to the guesthouse, get some rest, eat good food, and travel all over Jeju.'

Watching his back as he walked away from the police station, I gave him the middle finger.

'Let's never see each other again, you rude bastard!'

When I arrived at the guesthouse, all the anger that had risen vanished at the sight of the surrounding scenery.

A wide yard with a beautiful sunset, the sound of calm waves, and in the center stood Gyuldanchae, the clean and well-built guesthouse where I would stay for a month.

Steeling my heart and opening the guesthouse door with excitement, it happened.

"You're here? Over here!"

Nayeon greeted me warmly.

And ... A man turned his head beside her.

That unlucky face that had been calling me a tangerine thief since earlier. That rude tone. The bastard who made a good person like me go to the police station.

. . .

Wait. Wait, wait, wait.

No way.

Our eyes met.

His expression stiffened. My expression went beyond stiff and turned rotten.

---

Nayeon looked back and forth between the two of us at the unusual reaction of the aggrieved tangerine thief and the rude jerk.

"Oh? Do you two know each other?"

Oh, I know him. I know him very well. The man I went to the police station with on the very first day of my trip.

Of all people, he was the son of the guesthouse where I was staying.

. . .

Why is nothing in my life going right? God, why are you giving me such a trial?!

I thought to myself. This trip is ruined too...