My favorite season is late autumn. It is that fleeting moment when the summer heat has finally receded, and the air shifts abruptly, whispering the arrival of winter. Just a short while ago, I was in short sleeves; now, I suddenly find myself needing a layer to ward off the chill. There is a peculiar comfort in that small act of reaching for a cardigan or a jacket.
It is a distinct chill—different from the biting cold of midwinter—one that can only be truly felt by a body that has endured the summer. The very act of needing something to stay warm feels like a form of richness in itself. This is not necessarily about “comfort” in the physical sense. Chilled hands can be bitter, and shivering can dull one’s thoughts. Yet, in the simple gesture of pulling a coat closed while thinking, “Well, summer is over, and autumn is deepening,” I feel as though something precious resides.
I believe there is an important distinction between “liking late autumn” and it being “comfortable.” This leads me to wonder: what is this “precious something”? It is likely the inherent value of the transition itself—the power of context. In my work as a composer, I experience this from a different angle. Whether a chord sounds beautiful is not determined solely by the properties of the chord itself. Depending on what comes before and after, the same harmony takes on entirely different meanings and textures. By carefully constructing—and sometimes intentionally disrupting—the context, a single sound finally reveals its true value.
The chill of late autumn follows the same structure. Precisely because we have passed through the long passage of summer, the autumn air reaches the body with a unique resonance. Nature, in its own way, may be performing the “Four Seasons” for us to hear. However, the term “Niki” (Two Seasons), which has gained traction recently, suggests a different reality. Referring to the phenomenon where spring and autumn shrink due to climate change, leaving only summer and winter, “Niki” was even selected as a buzzword in 2025. This shift is more than just a reduction in the number of seasons; it signifies the loss of the “context” we have cultivated over ages. The resonance of late autumn only exists because of the summer that precedes it and the winter that follows. If that context is altered, the very experience of late autumn must inevitably change.
Perhaps our fear of this “two-season” trend is not just about climate anxiety, but a subconscious dread that our sensitivity to contrast and relative change will dull and eventually disappear. This loss may be irreversible; once a context is lost, it does not return in the same form, even if similar conditions align. The texture of late autumn air as we once knew it may never return.
Yet, I have felt through my own experiences that loss is not an endpoint. There was a time when the shifting and loss of personal relationships brought me to a depth of self-understanding I couldn’t reach before. Only through such self-understanding can our understanding of others reach new depths. Experiences of loss do not simply vanish; they trigger a new “crystallization,” transforming into a different kind of value—something that becomes attractive precisely because it carries the weight of melancholy or nostalgia.
Even if late autumn disappears in the era of two seasons, I believe a similar transformation will occur. I have a premonition that a new sensitivity will grow within me—one capable of perceiving the “essence of late autumn” within this new “two-season” context. Subtlety, fragility, and ephemerality are not crushed by the loud and violent; they exist steadfastly on the margins or in different layers, waiting to be found. In music, a single pianissimo note often resonates most deeply immediately after a violent fortissimo. It is in the midst of grand movements that our sensitivity to the delicate is sharpened.
In the harsh reality of these two seasons, I want to be someone who notices these quiet things. With that thought, I will breathe in the next—likely brief—autumn air as deeply and carefully as I can.
