YOU MIGHT VEER OFF COURSE
The “Conference on Eco-Friendly Bee Farming for the Advancement of the Global Sixth Industry” banner that was going to be hung across the front of the Jeju International Convention Center had been set aside due to the typhoon. People in the area had learned of the typhoon warning and swarmed the convention center to take cover. Not a single package of triangle kimbap nor anything else to snack on was left in the convenience store on the third floor. Most of the refrigerator shelves were empty. Boo Hwachul roamed around the store in search of a snack and ended up purchasing only a bottled coffee. He paid just as two men dressed in black came storming in. They looked like foreigners and gave off a strong, imposing energy. Hoping to avoid bumping into them, Hwachul quickly squirmed his way out of the store.
He ran into a familiar face at the entrance to the hall on the first floor.
“Oh, Jungmoon hyung. Are you taking part in the conference too?”
The man, lean-faced and in his forties, raised his hand in greeting. He was the owner of the Honeycomb Guesthouse who also served as the chair of the Jeju Society for Returnee Beekeepers. Hwachul found the term “society” overly grandiose and thought its meaning was unclear, but the chairman insisted, and there was nothing Hwachul could do about it.
“Department Head Boo. I am—there’s a section on returnee beekeepers, so of course I had to drop in. We’re busy with our bee farm, but the host extended such a sincere invitation that I couldn’t refuse. Have you already had lunch?”
“No, sir. I went to the convenience store, but all the food’s been snatched up. I think all the tourists in the area flocked here and cleaned the place out. The reports said the storm would miss us entirely, but I guess folks didn’t know how it would turn out, so they all came here.”
“This is why people should check the weather forecast when they travel. So many people these days just don’t think. Come have lunch with us. My wife packed us some food.”
“Sumi noona? Whew, she must have been hard at work this morning preparing that.”
The two of them walked toward the booths set up on one side of the lobby. The owners of the various returnee bee farms recognized Hwachul and greeted him. Most of them had attended the Honeybee School at Dolmiyong Jeju at some point, so they were acquaintances.
Sumi had just finished stacking lunch boxes on a white plastic table when she spotted her husband with Hwachul and waved. Hwachul marveled at the sandwiches and rice balls and beautifully peeled fruit inside, but even more surprising were the hexagonal lunch boxes. They were clearly Jungmoon’s design. Hwachul had wondered before whether the Honeycomb owner wasn’t overly obsessive. No matter how much consistency a person valued in their life, wasn’t it too much to have a house shaped like a hexagon and lunch boxes shaped like them too? Hwachul thought Sumi was remarkable for silently putting up with her husband’s intractable disposition.
Just then, someone spotted Sumi and greeted her awkwardly.
“Hello.”
Sumi didn’t recognize the person right away. Her eyes had a wary glint in them. “I’m sorry, but who ...”
Hwachul turned to where Sumi was looking. A man with a strong jawline looked up from bowing to Sumi and made eye contact with Hwachul, who could have sworn he’d seen this man’s face before. The man seemed to recognize Hwachul too.
“Hello,” he said again. Hearing his low voice, Hwachul remembered who he was.
“Oh, you’re the one who came by Nol that time. With that guest who knew Kyungwoon hyung ...”
A light bulb seemed to go off in Sumi’s head as well. “Ah, Hadam’s sunbae!”
That was where Hwachul had heard this man’s voice. He’d forgotten his name immediately because of all the commotion with the dog.
“I’m Ha Pilhyun. I wasn’t able to properly introduce myself last time,” Hadam’s sunbae said evenly, not seeming to address anyone in particular.
Sumi offered him a seat. “If you haven’t eaten yet, would you like to join us? I’m not sure how many people will visit our booth, so I packed plenty of food just in case.”
Jungmoon frowned. He didn’t seem too fond of his wife’s sociable tendencies. Hwachul thought Pilhyun might turn down the invitation, but he readily accepted, taking a seat on the plastic chair Hwachul brought over for him.
When Pilhyun accepted a sandwich, the Honeycomb owner asked him, “Are you in the beekeeping industry, Mr. Ha? We’ve never seen you at any of our returnee beekeeper gatherings.”
“Oh no, I’m not a beekeeper.” It took Pilhyun a few seconds to realize the intention behind the question. “I’m here because I’m supposed to be exhibiting my work at the global beekeeping conference. I was commissioned to create a piece with bee colonies as a motif, so I’m here as an installation director.”
“So you’re an installation and media artist,” Sumi clarified, but the Honeycomb owner and Hwachul were both out of their depth here. Hwachul remembered seeing a monitor and what looked like a pillar of beeswax being installed near the entrance.
“Well, well, hello, everyone.” Waving, the bookstore couple from Nol approached the crowd around Sumi. The small table was now packed with people.
“I thought you were at the bookstore—what brings you here?” Jungmoon asked, just as the husband turned to Hwachul.
“Department Head Boo asked us what we thought about opening a pop-up store for books on beekeeping, so we came by to drop off some books before the typhoon got worse, and now we’re stuck here. The storm is apparently coming over the ocean toward us now, so there’s no way for us to get back.”
Jungmoon shrugged. “The storm was really sudden this time. It grew so strong without any warning. We’re always prepared for them ahead of time, so it won’t be a big issue for us. What about at Dolmiyong Jeju?”
“Oh, we have people there today since I can’t be, and they should be working on storm preparations now.” But Hwachul was worried about something other than the bees. “How’s everyone at Nol holding up?”
The bookstore couple wife took out her phone. “I don’t think anyone’s cell phones are working over there. We tried the landline in the café, though, and apparently the community house is holding up all right.”
That wasn’t quite what Hwachul had wanted to know, but he couldn’t ask for any more detail than that.
The husband turned to look at something in the distance. “I’m worried about Kyungwoon. Whether his bee farm is all right. And the newcomers to Nol, the ladies who went to help him.”
Everyone’s chopsticks stopped except the Honeycomb owner’s.
Sumi asked, “Oh, you mean Hadam and her friends? All three of them?”
The wife said, “No, just two of them went. Who were they again?” She turned to her husband. He was busy checking whether the lunch boxes contained his favorite side dishes as he answered absently, “I think the pretty one was the one who stayed behind ...”
His wife frowned and elbowed him. The Honeycomb owner chewed a bite of a dried squid rice ball and murmured, “Then if Chakyung stayed behind, Romi and Hadam were the ones who went out.”
Sumi’s voice rose sharply. “You shouldn’t judge people’s appearances like that.”
Even Hwachul could feel the mood shifting with rising tension. “They’re all beautiful women,” he said. “They just each have a different personal style.”
He felt all their eyes shift to him. Pilhyun’s gaze was especially sharp. Hwachul guessed he had somehow misspoken. As Sumi had said, it wasn’t right to cast judgment on people’s appearances. And if he wasn’t careful, the others might uncover his inner feelings.
“Hey, isn’t that guy over there the one who came to Nol the other day?” said the bookstore couple wife.
Everyone turned in unison again, this time in the direction she was pointing. A tall, strapping man in glasses was standing by a booth for a honey cosmetics business. His face was radiant with the glow of success.
“Hmm, who’s that? A guest?” the Honeycomb owner asked, seeming uninterested.
“Who are you talking about?” The bookstore couple husband adjusted his glasses and squinted to get a better look. “Ah, him. Isn’t he the pretty one’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah, that’s how it looked,” said the wife. “Though I’m not sure he’s her boyfriend anymore.” The way she lowered her voice, it sounded like she was divulging a major bit of news.
“I mean, the atmosphere that day said as much. After all, he showed up with another woman at the place where his girlfriend was staying.”
The husband enjoyed gossip a surprising amount, as did most people. The crowd gathered here was no exception. In an instant, the group was humming with excitement.
“That was a bit strange. He came with another woman in his car but had no idea his girlfriend was there—does that make any sense? Plus, the next day, he came by again.” The wife was addressing the rest of the group with urgency. The other four, besides the bookstore couple, appeared indifferent, but all their ears were pricked up and listening.
“Did they fight?” asked the husband, to which his wife nodded.
“They had to have fought. But honestly, it seemed like Chakyung’s heart was elsewhere anyway ...”
Hwachul didn’t know the bookstore couple that well. He felt uncomfortable engaging in this level of gossip with strangers. It wasn’t that he was uninterested. But his sense that he shouldn’t be listening to this conversation only continued to grow. Still, there were bound to be people who were impervious to such concerns. People like that thought other people’s failed relationships made for fun public-conversation fodder.
“So were Chakyung and her boyfriend cheating on each other? And her boyfriend is that guy over there? Is he a beekeeper too?” the Honeycomb owner asked loudly.
The bookstore couple frowned and brought their fingers to their lips in unison.
It seemed the man in front of the cosmetics booth had heard, or else he had felt their gazes on him, because he looked around before his eyes landed on the group. Everyone averted their eyes, feigning innocence. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, the sound of something clattering to the floor drew everyone’s attention. Sumi had been tidying up the table and accidentally hit a lunch box while she was trying to keep her hands busy.
The Honeycomb owner completely blew up. “Is it so much to ask for a person to be careful? Is the lunch box broken? Do you know how hard those were to find?”
For someone so concerned about the lunch boxes, the Honeycomb owner merely sat still and watched the scene unfold from a distance. Chakyung’s boyfriend had been looking in the direction of their little crowd for a moment but had, out of boredom, turned away.
When her husband lashed out at her in front of everyone, Sumi’s face went completely red all the way to the tips of her ears. It was bad enough that the other people around her grew embarrassed too. Hwachul tried to get a sense of what would be best for him to say in this situation.
In a turn of events, relief came from an unexpected source.
“Oh, this was made in Finland, it looks like. But a design shop I know sells this same brand, so even if it breaks, you should be able to find a replacement.” Pilhyun held up the lunch box, turning it this way and that to examine it before he handed it to Sumi. “This one isn’t broken, though, so you should be fine.”
The stiff expression on the Honeycomb owner’s face relaxed. Sumi’s complexion also returned to normal. The bookstore couple exchanged a look. Even Hwachul quietly sighed in relief.
The bookstore couple turned to Pilhyun.
“So have you known Sumi for a while?”
The mood, which had been warming up, went uncomfortably cold again at the bookstore wife’s out-of-left-field question.
“No,” said Pilhyun calmly. “I just met Sumi briefly the other day when I went to see Hadam at the Honeycomb.”
“But yesterday morning, you both came by Nol, and you’re here together now too—it seemed like you two must have known each other.”
This time, the husband elbowed his wife. The bookstore couple really seemed deserving of the title “a match made in heaven.” If one of them accidentally blurted out a comment that could be seen as rude, the other would give a warning. That was how they kept each other in check, but it was also how they created rumors together.
Sumi looked genuinely surprised.
“Yesterday? I went because of the neighborhood meeting, but Pilhyun, you were there too?”
“Yes, I stopped by briefly with Jaewoong. But I didn’t see you there either.”
Pilhyun’s voice was still the same as ever, so it was impossible to tell what he was feeling. But Hwachul could sense that the Honeycomb owner wasn’t pleased with this conversation. He wasn’t the sort of person who would enjoy hearing his wife’s name come out of someone else’s mouth. Even so, what Sumi and Pilhyun were saying must have been true. Sumi hadn’t even recognized him earlier.
A lively woman’s voice relieved the tense atmosphere among these relative strangers.
“Hello!”
The woman looked to be in her late twenties and was wearing a hotel concierge uniform. Her tanned face exuded a bright, healthy energy. The bookstore husband raised his hand.
“Hey!” the woman greeted him.
“Oh my goodness. What brings you here, Minsun?”
The woman in the concierge uniform pointed to a group of foreigners in black beekeeping gear on the other side of the convention center. “Our hotel also has guests participating in the beekeeping conference. But because of the typhoon, not all their interpreters could make it, so I came running.”
The bookstore wife whispered in a low voice, “I guess the beekeepers in that country are really buff types. Their physiques—they must work out.”
The hotel concierge’s nose, lightly dusted with freckles, crinkled a bit as she frowned. “Well, beekeepers come in all different shapes and sizes. But those guys are probably the bodyguards.”
The bookstore husband’s mouth formed an O before he murmured, “Why do they need bodyguards?”
The concierge replied cheerfully, “I’m not sure either. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you more than that. I’m just the hotel concierge. I can’t give out information about guests at our hotel.”
Hwachul got the impression that as lively as she was, the concierge took professionalism seriously and made sure to draw clear boundaries with others. It was surprising, then, when she turned to greet Pilhyun as well.
“Oh, how are you?” she said.
Pilhyun seemed not to recognize her at first, but he bowed. “Ah, yes. Hello.”
So it really was a small world, one where everyone could come to know one another by crossing a single bridge, Hwachul thought. And, of course, the island was even smaller than the world. Small world, small island. Even he happened to know all the people here.
At that moment, a message alert pinged. Everyone checked their own pockets and phones.
“It’s mine,” Pilhyun said. “My ... my hoobae messaged me. Hadam got caught out in the typhoon because of some issue with the battery in her electric car, so my hoobae went to get her.” As he relayed the message, Pilhyun sneaked a glance at Minsun, the concierge. She didn’t seem to notice, but Hwachul found himself bothered by all these looks, gestures, and emotions he had no way of understanding.
“I heard Hadam went out earlier with Romi and Kyungwoon hyung. But I guess she must have fallen behind. It’s a relief your hoobae is going to get her, but ...,” Hwachul trailed off.
Sumi picked up where he left off, sounding deep in thought. “If Hadam got caught up in the storm on her way there ...” Rather than a brief pause, there seemed to be a long silence between this thought and the one that followed. “That would mean right now Kyungwoon and Romi are at the bee farm alone.”
The typhoon that had inundated the island wasn’t merely raging outside. At that moment, the storm was brewing in several people’s hearts. And where that storm was headed was different for all of them.