Romancing on Jeju

The dog was . . .

The dog was fast asleep at Chakyung’s feet. Despite his accident earlier, he looked peaceful and content.

Chakyung sat alone under the glass roof in the courtyard garden. Once the early-morning commotion had died down, there’d been time for more formal conversation. The men introduced themselves and exchanged business cards. The mood was less awkward than it had been, but at the same time, no one had really grown that much closer.

In the end, everyone had scattered off to do their own thing. Hadam went to review a cut of her film with Jaewoong and Pilhyun, and Romi set off for the bee farm with Kyungwoon. They’d had the good sense not to ask Chakyung about the night before. They didn’t even ask whether she’d spoken to Chanmin. It seemed like they were waiting for her to tell them herself.

The other residents had also left to see about their own work. The couple who owned the bookstore said they needed to drop by their shop to prepare for the global beekeeping conference. Other guests had decided to spend their short-term stays relaxing to the fullest and had taken off for the hills or the sea. Ayoung left in a hurry, mentioning something about a meetup for locals in the surf café. Seeing as Sumi from the Honeycomb Guesthouse was coming, it seemed like a gathering of people around the same age who lived nearby.

Chakyung also had things to do. She had to take the puppy to a shelter, and she had to track down Director Dim’s golf bag.

She knew she had to get both tasks done as soon as possible. But the truth was, she didn’t want to do either.

She reached out to pet the dog. He seemed to be deep in a dream, startling a bit in his sleep at her touch but not waking up.

There was one more thing she didn’t want to do, and that was talk to Chanmin. She couldn’t put it off forever. Their relationship wasn’t one where they could slowly drift apart without a word and simply hope things faded out naturally. It may not have been set in stone just yet, but they had a kind of contract to uphold.

A heavy torpor settled over her in the stillness. Her head hurt thinking about what she had to do. Soo-eon came to mind then, as if summoned by the headache. He’d been notably missing from the crowd earlier that morning. She wondered where he might be.

Had the pain in her head traveled down to her chest? She felt a sharp, cold prickling sensation as if her heart were being pierced by a needle of ice. A few days ago, Chakyung hadn’t even known he existed. He had no reason to tell her where he was going. She could have asked Ayoung, but she had no real reason for wanting to know.

Her heart sank at the sound of someone else coming into the courtyard. Chakyung slowly turned around. All the while, she felt her blood turning to ice.

She guessed it was Chanmin from the familiar smell of his sandalwood cologne. Until then, she had liked the scent, but here it seemed out of place. He gave Chakyung a cautious smile as he came to stand in front of her.

“How come you haven’t been answering your phone?”

The dog suddenly looked up and started barking at the sight of Chanmin. He looked like he might lunge at any moment. Chanmin took a step back.

“Hey, what’s going on? What’s with the dog?”

Without answering, Chakyung patted the dog’s head and scooped him up in her arms. “It’s okay, no need to bark,” she shushed the puppy. While she was comforting the dog, she could talk to Chanmin without having to look at him. “My phone’s on the charger in my room,” she said. “I forgot to bring it when I came outside.”

Forgot to bring it, her foot. She just didn’t want to answer Director Dim’s calls. Plus, she hadn’t guessed that Chanmin would be trying to call her.

“I was worried,” he said. “I wanted to know how everything went with that issue you were having yesterday.”

Only then did Chakyung look up at him. They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Chanmin didn’t avoid her gaze. He was that composed.

“I didn’t find the bag. Not yet.”

“Is that so? That’s too bad. I figured if you’d handled it already, we could go for brunch or something. What’ll we do now?”

Chanmin was trying to act natural, like he would on any other day. But now everything about him seemed off.

Chakyung bent down and set the dog on the ground again. “I have to find it. I’d better get going soon.”

They came to an impasse again. Though Chakyung refused to meet his eyes, she could clearly sense Chanmin trying hard to pick up the cut cord of the conversation. He was looking for a way to shift the uncomfortable mood. He leaned back against the table, holding himself up on his hands.

“What’s the matter with that company? What kind of director makes his staff run his personal errands? Isn’t this workplace mistreatment?”

If it had been a mere few days earlier, Chakyung wouldn’t have felt one way or another about Chanmin getting angry on her behalf. Now, she was seething with irritation. She knew he hadn’t genuinely considered the situation from her point of view and thus wasn’t genuinely upset. He wasn’t the type to get worked up over anything that wasn’t related to his own personal benefit.

“Yeah,” Chakyung murmured.

“Can’t you report something like this to the internal audit team? He may be an executive, but he’s still a contingent employee. If he’s accused of misconduct, he would be the one in hot water, not you.”

Chakyung clapped her hands and stood up. The puppy leaped around in front of her.

“It’s fine—just drop it,” she said curtly. “I took on the responsibility, and I need to sort it out. I made the choice, so I should be accountable.”

“It’s because you keep taking on these kinds of things that you’re being used at work. You’re becoming a doormat. If it’s too hard for you to report him yourself, do you want me to do it?” In the middle of his impassioned speech, he stood up and reached into his pocket for his phone. “Should I call Myungjin? He knows a lot of the execs there.”

Myungjin was one of Chanmin’s rich chaebol friends—Chakyung didn’t like the guy one bit. The first time they met, she’d gotten goose bumps from the feeling of his eyes scanning her from head to toe. But she never said a word of this to Chanmin. She didn’t like the thought of his hanging out with those types, but she figured it was his personal life and she couldn’t interfere. Had their relationship soured while she was pretending not to notice these minor annoyances? She thought they were walking the same path together, yet all the while she’d been ignoring the signs that they were fundamentally different people. In retrospect, everything seemed like a mistake. That was when she realized the relationship, too, had gone all wrong.

“Forget it,” she said quietly.

I’m already a doormat, according to you. Chakyung stared at him coldly. He was still trying to maintain a cool expression, but the act of remaining composed always betrayed the effort that went into it. The harder you tried to appear as if you had it all together, the clearer it became that you did not.

“But if your superior at work is abusing his power, you have to teach him a lesson.” Chanmin really seemed like he was going to make the call. Chakyung felt there was no need for her to watch this performance of his for too much longer.

“I said forget it. It’s my business, and I’ll handle it.”

“Just hold on a second. I wonder if Myungjin’s awake yet—”

“Give it a rest, Yang Chanmin!”

Both the puppy and Chanmin looked absolutely floored. Since she and Chanmin first met and the whole time they were dating, Chakyung had never raised her voice like this. In fact, she’d never shouted at anyone like this since the day she was born.

A shadow appeared by the door that led to the café. It seemed like someone had been peeking in on them, but the shadow just as quickly disappeared. Chakyung composed herself. This was a public space where anyone could walk in at any second.

“Give it a rest. We’ve never meddled in each other’s business before, right? There’s no need for you to handle anything concerning my work.”

Chanmin stood his ground, getting loud all of a sudden too. “I’m trying to help you!”

Chakyung shook her head. “No. We’ve never helped each other like that when it comes to work. If you start doing things like this now all of a sudden, I can only assume there’s another reason for it.”

Chanmin’s face was red, he was so livid. “What? Another reason?”

The hotter his blood boiled, the more the flame in her heart subsided. She didn’t respond. Growing restless, Chanmin hurled the question at her again.

“What other reason would there be?”

Chakyung drew in a deep breath. It took some courage to tell the truth. “We both know why you’re acting like this, Chanmin. What happened yesterday—we’ve been together long enough for you to know I’m not that blind. That’s why whenever you’ve wronged me, you’ve done this—taken out your anger on someone else.”

“Chakyung, why do you insist on taking things the wrong way? I must not have explained things properly yesterday ...”

He took a step toward her. She took two steps back.

“We need to talk about what I saw yesterday, as well as what it is you’re hiding from me. But let’s not have this conversation now. We both came here on business, and we both have things we need to deal with first.”

For the first time that day, Chakyung looked him squarely in the eyes. Until now, she’d thought just the two of them looking out at the same spot was enough. She’d thought that was how they could become a family. But that wasn’t the case. People who wanted to be together in the long term had to face each other, too, even if that meant seeing things they didn’t want to see. When Chakyung looked at him now, though, Chanmin’s gaze wavered, and a moment later he turned away.

“I can explain,” he said, sounding somewhat drained.

“Of course you can. I know you can,” said Chakyung. But an explanation given when he couldn’t even look her in the eyes was nothing more than an excuse, she thought wearily. “Not right now, though. We’ll talk after you finish your work and I finish mine. That way, we’ll have some time to gather our thoughts about what we want to say.”

Chakyung took off the gold chain around her neck. Her engagement ring hung from it. She hated having clunky things on her hands, so she’d taken to wearing the ring on a necklace, which Chanmin had understood. He didn’t wear his ring either. Chakyung never found it strange. She’d thought keeping some distance between them, even when they were walking around together, was good for maintaining a comfortable relationship in the long term. But now being close to each other had become a burden.

Chakyung took her ring off the chain and set it down on the table. It hit the wood with a dull, hollow sound.

“Take the ring,” she said. “Let’s talk things through later.”

“What?” All of Chanmin’s earlier efforts to appear calm had completely disappeared. His face was screwed up in anger. It was the first time Chakyung had seen him like that. She didn’t know he was capable of such a menacing glare.

He took another step toward her, lowering his voice. “Why do you have to go this far?” he said.

In turn, Chakyung stood firm. “Trust me. I still haven’t gone nearly as far as I should.”

Chakyung went upstairs, sat down on her bed, and released the breath she had been holding. She’d needed to say what she said, but it hadn’t been easy to say it to his face.

The puppy struggled and squirmed, trying to climb onto the bed.

“No, sir.” Chakyung raised a hand to stop him. “Hold it right there. You really must have been spoiled rotten by your last owner.”

As soon as she said it, her heart ached. How could a little one that clung to people this easily have been abandoned? She felt so sorry for the puppy that she scooped him up again and set him on her lap.

Being abandoned was something that happened because you loved someone. The first one to leave couldn’t be abandoned.

The puppy tried to lick at Chakyung’s hand. She opened her clenched fist. The ring had left an impression in her palm from where she’d been gripping it too tight. Chanmin had refused to take the ring with him and just walked off. He must have wanted to believe that as long as Chakyung had the ring, there was still room for reconciliation.

But the token of an empty promise may as well not even exist. Chakyung wrapped the ring in a napkin and stashed it in her makeup pouch.

Her phone pinged with a notification on the table. She had a message. She’d completely forgotten about Director Dim. How many of his texts and calls had she missed? It had been about an hour since he’d told her he was headed to the golf course. Chakyung sighed and checked her phone. Just thinking about reading all the unread messages he must have sent made her feel sick to her stomach.

The newest message from him was a selfie. Who the hell would want to see a picture of their boss in their inbox? He must have been out of his mind from the moment he woke up that morning—his head was probably spinning like a top. Chakyung cursed him under her breath with enough venom to startle the puppy.

“Sorry,” she said.

The selfie didn’t paint the picture Chakyung had imagined. There was a golf cart parked in front of a lush green course. Beside the cart, Director Kim was in sunglasses, posing next to a brand-new golf bag, his stomach and face puffed out triumphantly.

—good work manager yoon guess I could have cut you some slack yesterday you were more than capable all along

The selfie was too much, and he was missing punctuation in several places. Chakyung didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She had no idea how this had happened—then, a moment later, a single face appeared in her head. There was only one other person who knew where the golf bag had ended up. Chakyung bolted from the bed and rushed downstairs to the café.

There were no customers except for a couple sitting lovingly side by side at one of the tables. It looked like all the people who had come for the neighborhood meeting had left as well, and now the place was quiet. Ayoung turned around from where she was washing dishes and regarded Chakyung with a strange look.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Breathlessly, Chakyung asked, “Have you seen Soo-eon at all today?”

Ayoung’s eyes widened. “He left really early this morning, I think. He usually goes surfing in the morning. Maybe he went to the beach?”

“Do you happen to have his cell phone number?”

“I do, but if he’s surfing right now, I doubt he’ll pick up.”

Chakyung didn’t think he’d gone surfing, but like Ayoung said, he wasn’t answering his phone. Ayoung mentioned he would probably be back around lunchtime, but Chakyung couldn’t sit still and kept pacing around in front of the café.

Clouds were spreading throughout the sky like streams of ink in water. Chakyung’s skirt, hair, and heart fluttered in the blowing wind that was tinged the color of the rain.

A familiar truck was coming through that wind and pulling up in front of the café.

The truck door opened, and out leaped Soo-eon. Chakyung’s heart pounded with every step he took—as if they were in sync.

“Oh, hey.” Soo-eon smiled, eyes crinkling when he spotted Chakyung. Once he was close enough, she could see that the white T-shirt stretched over his square shoulders was soaked with sweat. As was his hair. It was an overcast day, to be fair, but he looked like he’d come back from a solo trek through the tropics.

Looking up at him where he stood about three feet away, Chakyung was made aware once more that he was a real, living person. When countless people passed you by, most of them didn’t even register, transparent as the air. But every now and then, there was one who left a vivid impression, one who felt like a real, flesh-and-blood human being. To Chakyung, Soo-eon was that kind of person.

“Were you waiting for me?” Soo-eon asked far too casually, not seeming to pick up on Chakyung’s mood. She didn’t answer him right away. She couldn’t tell him she’d been waiting for a while.

“I got a message from my boss. You ... Why didn’t you ask me to go with you?”

“There was no need for two people to go. I figured I’d be fine on my own. And besides, I was the one who had the contact information.”

“Was it easy to track down?”

“Oh man, not at all. I found out the lady who took the bag had already left for the golf course, so I had to go all the way there and find her, then head all the way to an entirely different golf course to deliver the bag to your boss. I just barely got it to him in time. I’ve been running around like crazy since early this morning.”

His hair fell into his smiling eyes again. The hair that was now drenched in sweat. Chakyung caught herself wanting to reach up and brush it out of his face, but she knew she shouldn’t and instead balled her hands into fists and let them fall to her sides. Soo-eon didn’t seem to notice as he swept his own hand through his hair.

“I guess now I’m just showing off, huh?” he said, eyes shining like a puppy hoping to be praised.

Chakyung matched his eagerness with intensity.

“It was my business to handle. My responsibility, not something for me to dump on someone else.”

Soo-eon gave a light shrug. “I know,” he said. “And I know I was rude yet again with my meddling. It was presumptuous of me.”

She didn’t want to hear his answer, but at the same time, she couldn’t help wanting to know. “Why did you do it?”

Scratching his temple, Soo-eon thought hard. “Hmm. Well, I wanted to help you. It seemed like you were having a hard time yesterday.”

Chakyung was struck by a blend of disappointment and shame. Of course, good people were hard to come by, but they were everywhere. People who would see a struggling, exhausted woman betrayed by her boyfriend and feel sympathy for her.

“Thank you. And sorry,” Chakyung said quietly, “for making you do something pointless you didn’t have to do.”

Soo-eon frowned. It was the first time Chakyung had ever seen him do so.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“What?”

“I didn’t want to hear that sort of thing. That’s why I went on my own.”

“What sort of—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry, or that you apologize.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I always hated saying those things. Constant sorrys, constant apologies. Did you know you’ve been apologizing like that to people nonstop ever since we met?”

Oh. Chakyung felt the heat spreading over her face. He was right. All she’d done was apologize—to Director Kim, to Chanmin’s mother, at the hotel, to Soo-eon. From Hawaii all the way to Jeju, she hadn’t been able to stop. Saying she was sorry had become routine, something she never gave much thought. It even seemed like part of her job. If she could avoid souring someone’s mood with one simple word, she would do it as often as she had to. But the person who was left unsatisfied, who had at some point started feeling more and more hurt by this, was Chakyung herself. And she hadn’t even realized it.

“I figured if you’d seen any of those people today, you would have bowed your head yet again and apologized,” Soo-eon said. “I didn’t want that to happen. Just this once, I thought it would be better to go in your place so you didn’t have to say you were sorry.”

Chakyung felt a tingling pain, not like sadness but heartache.

“And if I could keep you from apologizing,” he added, lowering his voice, “then it wasn’t something pointless I didn’t have to do.”

Chakyung looked up, holding in the words threatening to spill out. “Thank you.”

The smile returned to Soo-eon’s face. He put his hands in his pockets and said teasingly, “You don’t have to say that either.”

Chakyung’s heart was pounding. “What should I do then? When I feel grateful?”

Still smiling, Soo-eon gave the slightest quirk of his eyebrows. “Just don’t forget it,” he told her. “Don’t forget that feeling.”

They walked up the steep road and came to a vast plain surrounded by trees. Beyond where the land dipped again into a slope, the ocean was spread out wide. The weather that day was cloudy, and the dark sea and gray sky seemed to have been painted in a single stroke by a brush wet with black paint. Dozens of beehives throughout the area stood overlooking this colorless canvas.

“This is so cool,” Romi said admiringly.

Kyungwoon’s expression was a blend of pride and regret.

“It would be even cooler if the weather were nicer. Still, I’m confident this honey farm boasts the best views in the country.”

It was nice to see Kyungwoon so full of energy. Romi followed him into the gray container building behind the hives. It was unexpectedly modern for a place nestled in the mountains at the end of a winding road.

“Here, I conduct research on bees and develop products as well.”

The place was so huge that it was hard to believe he ran it alone. The first thing that caught Romi’s eye was the honey tree, reminiscent of a Christmas tree, decorated with bottles of honey. At one end of the container building was a room that looked quite a bit like a lab, with pieces of electrical equipment Romi didn’t recognize, as well as microscopes, beakers, and other tools. At the other end was what appeared to be a shop full of fancy, high-end goods. There were bars of soap and candles on the wooden shelves, as well as small wooden trinkets and little bottles lined up in rows.

“I’m developing my own products using honeybees,” Kyungwoon said, scratching his head. The tips of his ears went slightly red. Romi picked up the yellow and green papers on the desk in front of her. “What are these?” she asked. “Napkins?”

“Ah, that’s wrapping paper I’m trying to make out of beeswax. The idea is you’ll be able to use it to wrap sandwiches and store other foods. You’ll even be able to wash it and reuse it several times, so I’m trying to make it eco-friendly too.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Kyungwoon frowned a bit and picked up some of the paper. “I wanted to develop this into something that could be sold as well, but the more expensive the product, the nicer the design has to be. In other countries, they have all kinds of commercial designs, but they’re still hard to come by here in Korea.”

“Hand that to me for a second, please.”

Romi took the paper from him. She sat down on a chair and laid the yellow sheet on the table, then took out a pen from her bag. The paper was coated in beeswax, so the pen didn’t write well on it, but Romi managed to draw a smooth design nonetheless.

“Rather than basing the design only on bees or hives since it’s beeswax gift wrap, maybe if the personality of the product came from nature more broadly like this ... it’d feel cleaner. More refreshing.”

Flowers and trees bloomed fully formed from the tip of Romi’s pen. Kyungwoon watched her hand move swiftly across the paper in awe.

“Wow. I should’ve known something designed by an expert would be on another level. This definitely has a luxury feeling to it. And the design even looks vaguely like a honeybee—not at all like something you just came up with on the fly.”

Still drawing, Romi said lightly, “You asked me for help with this before. I’ve had some time to think more about the design.”

Immediately, she wished she hadn’t said it, but Kyungwoon seemed to have already guessed as much based on his reply.

“So we have met before.”

Romi pressed her mouth shut and held out the finished illustration. She looked up at him. “Yes,” she said, “but you can’t remember.”

Kyungwoon accepted the illustrated wrapping paper and studied it for a long time. After a while, he slowly began to speak. “I don’t remember, but I had a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“How can I explain it? You look at me the way you’d look at somebody you knew. And seeing this design now, I’m sure I’ve seen your illustration style before.”

“I see . . .”

That feeling that had pooled inside her dispersed as if carried away on the wind. What had she expected? For him to say that seeing the drawing had made him think of her? Those were the words she least expected to hear from him.

While Kyungwoon neatly stacked the sheets of wax paper, Romi wandered around the container building, not looking for anything in particular when she found her way over to the window, craving some fresh air.

Outside was the row of beehives with the dark sky and sea and the grass field as a backdrop. Even from here, the views were gorgeous. Only then did Romi realize there was something slightly different about the beehive closest to the window. She squinted, leaning forward to get a better look.

Though it had been faded by wind and rain, she could clearly see a black ribbon dangling from the hive.

Kyungwoon came to stand beside her. He realized what she was looking at.

“I heard that in Europe and the United States in the old days, when some major event occurred in a household, it was the custom to tell the news to the bees,” he explained. “When there was a wedding, the bride and groom would pay the bees a visit. And when someone in the household passed away, the bees also had to be informed. People would cover the hive in a black cloth, since the bees were also in mourning.”

His voice made her listen closely. As Romi mulled over what he’d said, Kyungwoon pointed outside.

“I think that hive was the one my wife fussed over the most. She marked it with a drawing of a bee. So that was the one I put the ribbon on.” He lowered his finger. “I wanted to try to remember her death, even if only through that kind of gesture. Because otherwise, I have no memory of her.”

Romi’s heart sank. Kyungwoon turned to her.

“If we have met before, it would have been three years ago. I lost my memory right after the accident. It’s spotty in places.”

But it wasn’t what he said that made Romi so flustered. It was the fact that he bowed to her then, deeply, at the waist.

“Oh—what’s all this for?” Romi said.

“I’m sorry.”

Romi couldn’t make any sense whatsoever of his apology. “For what?”

“For not being able to remember you. But if we knew each other three years ago, that would mean—that would mean that I was married at the time.”

What he said stirred up complicated emotions. Romi began to doubt everything between them in the past. This person in front of her now seemed unlike the person she had known then. But could she say she had ever genuinely known him? The two of them had merely brushed by each other in passing, had always been strangers. She didn’t know him—didn’t know why he’d come to see her, why he hadn’t searched for her, or even how deep his feelings for her had been.

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” she said, bowing deeply as Kyungwoon had done. She was sorry for having sought him out. Sorry for not having been able to forget him. Sorry for still holding out hope.

For the rest of the day, Romi took her time filming and photographing Kyungwoon as he roamed the grounds of the apiary and worked. She had promised Hadam she would get a bit more footage in her stead. Kyungwoon was developing products using beeswax and even selling honey. But he said he had no plans for a big business like Dolmiyong Jeju.

“This is a small-scale place. Instead, I’m thinking of creating products that will draw in young people too.”

“What’s this model house for?” Romi pointed out a miniature model sitting in a corner. At a glance, it looked like a toy.

“Ah, that’s a beehive. It’s going to be featured at the beekeeping conference. I saw on YouTube that there’s a beehive in Sweden built to look like a tiny McDonald’s. I tried to make something similar. A model of a traditional Jeju stone house.”

“Wow. It’s gorgeous.” Romi photographed the hive from several angles. Kyungwoon continued his sort of guided tour of the bee farm. He spent a while explaining the ecology of bees and their assorted by-products, then revealed he was thinking of relaunching a breeding experiment that had been halted for a while now.

“What’s a breeding experiment?” Romi asked.

Kyungwoon pointed to yet another container building behind the one they had come out from. “Experiments to develop new varieties of bees. There are breeds that can withstand environmental pollution and ones that are especially good at producing honey. It’s illegal now to privately import queen bees, but we can develop breeds using the sperm from drones ...”

When he talked about beekeeping, his voice got higher. His energy overflowed, racing like the buzz of bees’ wings. But as he spoke now, he seemed to be losing strength.

“My wife was really smart and passionate about research. She was the one who ... The breeding was the area I was most passionate about, but ... Now, I can’t really remember. How much work we’d done ... And after the accident, the first thing I did was quit the research.”

There were shadows of the past all throughout the bee farm. Romi was suddenly reminded of that. But at the same time, that was what made the place strangely fascinating. Romi liked when other people spoke passionately about their own work. She always loved the feeling of warmth she got as someone else’s excitement spread to her. It was a similar feeling to the one she had gotten from this man before, the thing that had drawn her to him.

There was a history behind a person’s passion, and it was inevitable that other people might have played roles in that history. Still, it was hard for her to decide what to think about what had happened three years ago. Even if his past had been severed by the amnesia, that history didn’t completely disappear. Try as you might, it was impossible to meet someone who truly had no history.

“You can start over,” Romi said.

At her serious remark, Kyungwoon’s eyes widened slightly.

“No matter what’s happened, you can always start over. You still have a chance.” Romi felt her chest swell with emotion as she spoke. She had always tended to deeply feel even her own words.

Kyungwoon studied her in silence. She looked at him straight on. Then she felt something moist on her face. What is this? Are these tears? Have I moved myself to tears? Am I crying?

Kyungwoon held out his palm. Without thinking, Romi reached out to place her hand in his.

That was when he said calmly, “It looks like it’s starting to rain. I’d better break out the tarp.”

Romi, who had already lifted her hand by two inches, quietly lowered it again.

Hadam clicked the rewind button. The scene on the screen quickly wound back and stopped, a green field rolling forward and dropping off sharply into a cliff.

“I think there should be an overhead shot here. I’ll check the Ready to Fly app to see if this area is cleared for filming with drones and try to get some aerial footage. If I can, I should be able to showcase more of Jeju’s views and give some context to the scenes.”

There was a huge table in the room Hadam and Romi were sharing at Nol. A laptop and camera had been set up on it, which was where Hadam and Jaewoong now sat, going through her footage. Pilhyun had offered to review the footage with them for up to an hour, but he had to leave early to see about something with his exhibit. Jaewoong had stayed behind and was working with Hadam to meticulously comb through the scenes.

“Sounds good. But on Jeju, even if you get permission to film with drones from the land ministry, you could still be restricted from filming near Hallasan National Park, so you’d need to double-check.”

“Really?”

“I’ll find out for you. There’s a department in charge of that.”

Jaewoong’s hand moved naturally to the mouse. He played through the footage again, lost in thought.

“I think showing this footage of the ocean when people are talking about their reasons for moving to Jeju is a bit too similar to shots in other works. It could come across as derivative.”

“Yeah, I was worried about that. It would be great if I had another clip that gave off a bit of a brighter, cleaner feeling. I looked into all sorts of locations ...”

She took out her phone and opened her photo album. She had searched online and saved several pictures of different places.

“These sorts of ocean views or shots of wind power plants are really common, I guess. If I put in something like the pink muhly grass so many people love these days, I could film some shots like the ones I’ve seen in a lot of European commercial films, but I think that could also come off looking too much like an Instagram picture.”

Jaewoong nodded. “And it’s not the right season, so you’d have to film that separately later on.”

The thought crossed both of their minds that it would be hard to conjure new scenes here that looked completely unlike the landscapes they could see in any of the travel vlogs from Jeju, the most popular tourist destination in the country over the last several years. They continued to scroll through photos, but none really stood out.

“Wait,” said Hadam, her finger stopped on one particular photo. “Why did I save this?” At a glance, the photo appeared to be of a pitch-dark forest. Between the trees floated several tiny green spots as if the photo had been overexposed.

“Let me see that for a second.” Jaewoong took the phone from her and studied the photo. At last, he said, “These look like fireflies.”

“Ah!” Hadam snapped her fingers. “I think I saved this because I thought filming the fireflies would give me that clean, pure vibe I’m going for.”

“I think that’s a good idea. There are tons of them on Jeju in the early summer.”

“Really? There are fall fireflies too. I’m pretty sure that time we saw them way back when was in the early fall, no?”

Her words had outrun her thoughts. Luckily, Jaewoong took her comment in stride.

“You’re right. I remember that day. The fall semester had just started. You were so adamant about needing to get a shot of the fireflies that the two of us went all the way out to Muju to film it. We rode the train and lugged around our bags.”

“Only to get there and not see more than a couple of fireflies!” Hadam said, playfully hitting his arm.

“Hey, how was that my fault? It was because of the weather or something. Even then, you were so upset about not getting that shot. You basically threw a fit.”

Jaewoong laughed, grabbing the hand Hadam had swatted at him. The moment his hand caught hers, it was like he had pushed a play button on her fingers that made the scenes from that day come to mind. Hadam’s face flushed red.

Jaewoong had laughed just like that back then, even though they had been crouching for ages in the early-autumn woods as Hadam rattled off complaints. And then ... though the darkness of the forest was unfamiliar, that day it was like a dewy flower petal. The fireflies began to appear between the trees, one or two, then three or four at a time. Among all the faintly glowing pulses of light in the air, the two of them shared their first kiss. It was hard to tell whether the softness of that moment was from the forest air or each other’s lips.

Until that day, they had been friends, and from then on, they were lovers.

Now, they held hands, looking into each other’s eyes. The places where their hands touched and where their eyes met felt hot.

Had Hadam merely imagined that Jaewoong’s face had grown similarly red? The more time they spent together, the more the memories tied to him came rising up like bread in an oven. Hadam couldn’t say for sure whether she enjoyed this or not. Continuously locking eyes with her old flame, sharing laughs while immersed in past memories, this intense surprise at the mere brush of a hand. Was it always this awkward for lovers who crossed paths again? What was there at the end of that awkwardness? Hadam couldn’t stand to be in this state of limbo for too long. It would be best for them both if she addressed and dealt with these feelings in the moment. She decided to tell him now.

“Jaewoong, we—”

“We can see fall fireflies in the village of Yerae here,” Jaewoong said, quickly letting go of her hand and taking control of the mouse again.

Hadam’s hand dropped onto her lap, and she looked over at his. She was familiar with each one of the fingers on that hand. His long pointer finger. The square nail of his thumb. The familiar burn marks on the back. He’d gotten them from pulling Hadam out of the flames when that fire broke out nine years ago. Just holding that hand she knew so well was enough for a stream of memories to spill out like a reel of film, but at the same time, she knew she shouldn’t have held that hand in the first place.

“If the weather were nicer, we could have even seen some today,” Jaewoong murmured.

Hadam absently ran a hand through her hair and looked out the window. “It looks pretty overcast outside.”

“Yeah. It’ll be hard to see anything today.”

If it were a sunny day, could we go together? Hadam thought but couldn’t bring herself to say aloud.

They continued to look through footage for more than another hour, deliberating over the parts that would need editing. Once the conversation returned to the film, it was like peace and safety had been restored.

“I think here, like Pilhyun sunbae suggested earlier, you can add in some voice-over narration. Something that shows the present state of beekeeping on Jeju.”

Hadam squinted at the screen, trying to run a simulation in her head.

“It might be awkward if I add in the voice of a professional voice actor. It could make the whole thing feel like an ad.”

“What about having one of the local beekeepers do the voice-over directly? Is there no one who would be good at it out of the people you’ve met so far?”

“Hmm. There was the woman who serves as the director at Dolmiyong Jeju. She’s a really eloquent speaker, plus she’s an expert on the sixth industry. But I still think the film might seem like one of those commercials where a CEO appears for comment if she were to do that. It’d be like an ad saying, ‘Camellia seaweed, good for your skin!’ or something.”

“What, eating that seaweed is actually supposed to clear up your skin?”

“Listen—it’s just an example.”

Jaewoong’s smile shifted into a serious look. “Doesn’t the man who came by earlier work at Dolmiyong Jeju too?”

Hadam had her head bowed over the script and was intently scribbling something on it in pen, so she missed the look on Jaewoong’s face and didn’t seem to pick up on the sharp edge to his words.

“You mean Department Head Boo Hwachul? That’s right. And he runs a class at the Honeybee School too. Oh, man, he was so embarrassed after the puppy’s little accident.”

“What brought him here anyway?”

Hadam set down her pen and suddenly looked up. “What do you mean?”

Jaewoong seemed taken aback by her abrupt reaction. “I just mean—well, are the two of you friendly enough that he’d come all the way here to see you so early in the morning? That’s all.”

“So you thought so too!”

Hadam clapped her hands, and Jaewoong frowned at her sheer delight.

“What, is there really something going on?”

“I picked up on the same thing earlier,” Hadam said proudly. “Department Head Boo is interested in Romi!”

Jaewoong felt the tension leave his neck and shoulders. One corner of his mouth quirked up. “So that’s what you think.”

Hadam twirled her pen. “It’s so obvious. Otherwise, why would he have come? Plus, when he looked at Romi, his gaze was so gentle. And he spoke so warmly too.”

A single line once again creased Jaewoong’s forehead down the middle, but Hadam went on, seeming to think he was simply considering what she was saying.

“To be honest, I think Hwachul would make a better beekeeper guy for Romi than Kyungwoon, but ...”

“A beekeeper guy for Romi?”

Hearing Jaewoong’s surprise, Hadam regretted saying that aloud. She hadn’t wanted to mention the stuff about the beekeeper guy to other people just yet. She’d been taking great pains to figure out how she would naturally work the storyline about searching for him into the script, but now she’d just unwittingly blurted it out. Quickly, she went for a change of topic.

“Anyway, it looked like Pilhyun sunbae was also interested in Romi—do we have ourselves a love square?”

Jaewoong looked completely stunned, as if the thought had truly never crossed his mind. “What? Pilhyun sunbae?”

“Didn’t it seem that way to you?”

“I think your hunch is way off the mark there,” said Jaewoong, unnecessarily stern.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Pilhyun sunbae’s interested in Chakyung.”

Once again, the conversation had landed on a fact Hadam had never once considered. She tried to recall the expression on Pilhyun’s face when he had been looking at Chakyung, but she couldn’t imagine his interest being aimed in her direction at all.

“What makes you think that?”

“It seemed like he was paying close attention to her earlier this morning. And he asked me about her, random stuff. Like whether she has a boyfriend.”

“Sunbae asked you all that? Pilhyun sunbae?”

Hadam had her doubts, but she realized she didn’t know enough about Pilhyun’s personality to be able to speak on this or that aspect of it. It had been nine years since they had consistently moved in the same circles and spaces. Since then, she hadn’t heard much from him aside from news she learned through other people. Nine years was enough time for his personality to have changed from the one she used to know. The same was true for Jaewoong. No matter how well she had known him when they were together, she couldn’t say he was the same person now. Hadam suddenly felt Jaewoong becoming a bit more unfamiliar to her. He didn’t notice this shift and went on with what he was saying.

“He didn’t ask a single thing about Romi, so I got the feeling his main focus was Chakyung. Besides ... doesn’t Chakyung look a little bit like Hwayoung?”

“Which Hwayoung? You mean Jeon Hwayoung, our hoobae from college? The film editor?”

Jaewoong looked taken aback. If Hadam had been looking in a mirror when she had inadvertently brought up the beekeeper guy earlier, she would have seen this same expression on her own face. Like Jaewoong had also let slip something he hadn’t meant to reveal.

“Pilhyun sunbae liked Hwayoung? I had no idea.”

“No, I mean—it’s not that he definitely liked her, but more that he likes that type ...”

His vague attempt to dodge the question only confirmed the truth. Hadam rummaged through her memory. Once she recalled Hwayoung’s face, which she had seen recently, the first thing that came to mind afterward was the small white ribbon tying up her black hair.

“Even when I ran into her at Hyunsuk sunbae’s memorial film screening, I didn’t get that impression. Maybe it was because she and Hyunsuk dated before?”

“What? The two of them dated? That’s ridiculous!”

This time, it was Hadam’s turn to be shocked by Jaewoong’s reaction. It was her first time seeing such a vehement response from him. The fact that two people had dated shouldn’t have warranted that much surprise, and Jaewoong had never shown an interest in other people’s love lives like he seemed to be today. In the past, he’d been the type to mostly respond woodenly to whatever was happening around him. But then again, nine years was a long time.

“Is it really so ridiculous?” said Hadam seriously.

The question mark still hadn’t vanished from Jaewoong’s face. “Hwayoung and Hyunsuk sunbae? No. No matter how long it’s been—”

“What does that mean? Hyunsuk sunbae was a good person. And besides—”

“A good person, my foot. You can only say that because you have no idea. You trust people so easily.”

“What are you saying? What don’t I have any idea about?”

Jaewoong swallowed hard, as if trying to swallow the words welling up in his mouth. “Forget it. He’s dead now. It’s in the past.”

“But why did you bring it up in the first place? And since he’s already dead as you mentioned, why would you say something like that about him?”

Talking about someone who was no longer in this world in this context made Hadam seriously uneasy. But not talking about him felt just as bad. Still, Jaewoong seemed lost in his thoughts again and didn’t say another word. Even with Hadam staring at him, wide-eyed, he seemed to hesitate. In the end, he shook his head and raised his hand to say, “Let’s stop this. I’m tired just talking about it. And it has nothing to do with us anyway ...”

The words Hadam had been holding inside for so long burst out all of a sudden. “You said something like this before too.”

“What?”

“After what happened nine years ago. When I was going around dealing with things related to that fire, you never once asked me what was going on. You were busy, too, so you were never there for me. When I asked you what was wrong, you said you were tired, said we shouldn’t talk about it, since it had nothing to do with us.”

Jaewoong clenched his raised hand into a fist. “No, that’s not ...” He seemed to be trying to say something, but at the last moment, he changed his mind.

“You’re right,” he said, conceding to her. “Everything you’re saying is right. That’s how I was then. That’s how I still am now. There’s nothing I can say about it. But that’s not all there is to it. The truth is ...”

Hadam slammed her laptop shut. She worried briefly about having damaged it, but it was more important now for her to maintain some of her dignity. She composed herself, ironed out the expression on her face. “You’re right. Let’s stop this,” she said.

“Hadam ...” Jaewoong reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. She lightly shrugged him off.

“I’m tired. Especially today.” Hadam tried to mask the trembling in her voice. She slid her laptop into her bag, not meeting his eyes.

“Hadam,” he tried again, “even if we couldn’t talk about things before, we can at least try now—”

Just then, a notification pinged on his cell phone, which was resting on the table. It looked like he’d gotten a text. Jaewoong quickly snatched up the phone and tucked it into his pocket before Hadam caught even a glimpse of the screen. He lowered his head.

“All right, let’s stop here for today. I’ll get going.”

“Bye.”

Even as Jaewoong stood up and headed out, Hadam stayed where she was. He paused at the door and said, “I’ll call you.”

Until the door closed behind him, Hadam didn’t say a word. Once the sound of his footsteps had gotten far enough away, she finally looked up and out of the window. She could see Jaewoong retreating across the yard. He stopped once and looked up at the second floor where Hadam’s room was. The wind was blowing hard, and his hair fell over his eyes. Hadam couldn’t tell whether or not he knew she was watching him.

On the ride back down the mountain road, the black clouds had crowded together again in the sky and were swarming without a sound. It was silent inside the car too. Neither Kyungwoon nor Romi said much. It was comfortable with Kyungwoon whether they were talking or not, but that wasn’t the only reason Romi wasn’t speaking. Like the insatiable itch of a sneeze tickling her nose, certain thoughts would poke their heads into her mind and then hide away again.

Romi felt the gears in her head slowly turning in time with the wipers that moved only now and then to clear the raindrops falling on the windshield.

“What was it that you said earlier?” she asked. “About the bees?”

“Hmm?”

“You said something earlier. About the black ribbon, the bees.”

“Ah, you mean that custom? Telling the bees when something important happens?”

This had been constantly weighing on Romi’s mind since earlier. It nagged at her like a wisdom tooth that badly needed pulling.

“What did you say more specifically? Tell me again.”

“Hmm, what did I say?” Kyungwoon mused, scratching the side of his head in confusion. “Well, when they planned to hold a wedding, the bride and groom had to pay the bees a visit, and when there was a funeral, people covered the hives in black cloth. There’s a poem titled ‘Telling the Bees’ by a nineteenth-century American poet that describes the practice well. For the young speaker of the poem ...”

She had to inform someone of something. But what was it? She’d thought there was something she definitely had to announce, but as Kyungwoon continued to talk, Romi felt whatever it was sinking deeper into her memory rather than rising to the surface. She shook her head, blinking her eyes. It wouldn’t be polite to fall asleep beside the person driving, but the one place in the world that made a person the sleepiest was the passenger’s seat. At some point, Kyungwoon’s voice had become like a lullaby.

“The young speaker of the poem only finds out in the end that the young woman he loves has died ...”

Romi’s head slowly began to lean to the side. Kyungwoon, so absorbed in the story he was telling, startled when Romi’s blond head fell near him with a thump, and he used one hand to prop her upright again. Carefully righting her head so that it lay back against the seat, he murmured, “You must be tired after waking up so early today.”

He sounded perplexed, but there was laughter hidden in his voice too. With that laugh, Romi fell deeply into a dream that may have been a real memory or merely something she’d imagined.

She had quickly crossed a stream. There were flowers she encountered as she walked through a green meadow: red poppies, yellow daisies, white lilies of the valley. She gathered them into a bouquet and walked along a stone fence. The sound of bees buzzing around her made her heart quicken, and she broke into a run. Where was she? Where was this place? But the only thing she could see was a long black ribbon, not tied around a young woman’s long, beautiful, braided hair, but instead fluttering in the wind.

Romi came to again and for a short while had no idea what had happened. Had there been an accident? Had the car suddenly flipped over? Her head swayed with a sound like roaring waves, and the moment she was about to hit the window, a large hand came around her head. Romi swung back to the left, bashing her nose into Kyungwoon’s shoulder. She thought she saw green grass pushing up against the passenger-side window when the car stopped.

“Romi, are you all right?”

Kyungwoon was still holding her head with one hand, looking concerned. Romi looked up slightly, head still heavy from having been half-asleep when the car lurched to a sudden stop.

“I’m sorry. I made a rough turn.” His eyes were fixed on the tail end of a black SUV disappearing up ahead, which he watched through the windshield. “Some car suddenly switched lanes. It looked like a rental car, too, so I’m not sure why the driver was being so reckless.”

Kyungwoon lowered his head to look at Romi’s face. “Are you really all right? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“I’m fine, really.”

Romi pushed herself to sit upright, and Kyungwoon let out a deep sigh.

“That’s a huge relief. It really is.”

Romi turned to him and was startled by the sight. His face had gone completely pale.

“Are you all right?” she asked. After all, she wasn’t the one who had been in a car accident before. Romi felt embarrassed now that she had been leaning on him insensitively.

“I’m fine. I’m fine too ...”

But contrary to what he was saying, sweat was beading on his temple.

“You don’t look so good.” Romi quickly fished out some tissues from her bag and began to dab them on his face. He flinched but relaxed as Romi continued to wipe his face dry. Still, maybe because she was in such a rush, white bits of tissue were sticking to his skin.

“Oh no.” As she reached up to peel away the sticky bits, he leaned forward, his upper body hovering above her hand. Then he quickly sat up straight, pressing his own hand to his forehead.

“Sorry. I suddenly thought of something. The car from before ... an accident, like this one ...”

As Kyungwoon murmured a series of disjointed words, Romi didn’t hesitate. She held the back of his head with one hand, then pressed the other against his back to pull him toward her own shoulder as if hugging him.

“You can lean on me,” she said. “It’s all right. This accident wasn’t so bad.”

Kyungwoon was surprised, but he didn’t lift his head from her shoulder. He murmured, “I’m sorry. For letting you see me like this—so weak.”

“It’s all right,” Romi replied lightly, as though she had this sort of encounter every day.

“Just a little—I’ll lean on you for just a little while.”

“You can lean on me until you feel better.”

She patted him lightly on his back. Kyungwoon pressed his forehead against her slender shoulder and briefly closed his eyes. In life, you only sometimes, on somewhat rare occasions, came across a shoulder you could rest your head of jumbled thoughts on. It was a small comfort in the aftermath of a minor accident.