The Last Day in Hawaii

"Is there somewhere you'd like to go?"

The woman simply stared at him without a word of assent or refusal. From her clear face and quiet eyes, he could detect no particular shift.

Still, Kang-hyun paid it no mind and finished what he had to say.

"Let's go together."

At that, Baek Yeo-eun let out a faint, powerless scoff.

"Nothing special going on with you today, I take it?"

Facing the woman who sniped so readily with lips that had only just begun to regain their color, he nodded without protest.

"It's the last day we can spend fully in Hawaii."

"How very gracious of you."

Baek Yeo-eun shot back without missing a beat. Yet contrary to her words, she did not seem entirely displeased.

When he showed no particular reaction to the provocation, she muttered in a voice that had softened, almost a whisper.

"Well… there is one place I've been wanting to go."

The last place they visited in Hawaii turned out, unexpectedly, to be an arboretum on Oahu.

True to its purpose of preserving Hawaii's great nature exactly as it was, the arboretum radiated a primitive vitality, as if an entire tropical rainforest had been transplanted whole. Ancient trees so massive that even several grown men could not have encircled their trunks stood in majestic display everywhere, while flowers of dazzling colors he had never seen before painted the monochrome green landscape in rich variety. The life force that stretched out tirelessly and without restraint was almost enough to overwhelm.

Still, it was good to draw in lungfuls of clean air for once, rather than the salt-laced sea breeze. As the moist scent of earth and the crisp fragrance of grass seeped deep into his chest, he felt as though body and mind were being rinsed clean.

For all its grandeur, however, the arboretum had virtually no visitors. Aside from the song of some unknown bird drifting from afar, nothing interrupted their walk.

Well, there would not be many eccentrics who came all the way to Hawaii only to seek out a primeval forest like this.

"……."

Kang-hyun walked slowly with his hands in his pockets. His gaze was fixed not on the dense forest but on the eccentric drifting through the waves of greenery as if swimming.

How intently Baek Yeo-eun was concentrating could be told simply from how often she stopped. Because of that, Kang-hyun, following a step behind, also had to halt again and again.

Of course he had not the slightest interest in plants that all looked the same to him, and so he ended up, quite unintentionally, watching the woman who was watching the flowers.

Each time she took a step, the hem of her linen dress fluttered lightly. Whenever she discovered a curious wildflower, her eyes sparkled like stars as she studied it with care.

"Ah."

Just then, as Baek Yeo-eun tried to look all the way up a tree dozens of times taller than herself, the hat she was wearing slipped off and fell behind her.

Kang-hyun bent and picked up the hat that had landed at his feet.

"Thanks."

Receiving it, she brushed the sand from the wide brim with a few light taps.

Through the densely layered leaves, finely shattered sunlight poured down like gold dust. Silently watching the fragments of light ripple across the white nape of her neck that the fallen hat had revealed, Kang-hyun spoke.

"You seem to like it here."

"Yeah. There are so many plants I've never seen before—it's fun just looking at them."

For once Baek Yeo-eun was honest. Thanks to that, Kang-hyun's lips began to move of their own accord.

"When did you start liking plants?"

Recalling the woman who had carefully tended the garden at Cheongbaekwon, he asked. It was a question tossed out casually; he had never particularly gotten that impression of her before.

"Like them? Me?"

Baek Yeo-eun asked back as if she had never once considered the idea.

Unable to hide his incredulity, he answered.

"You're going out of your way to hunt down botanical gardens even after coming all the way here. If that isn't liking them, then what is it?"

"Well, that's true, but…"

She seemed to concede, yet her words trailed off strangely. He pressed on in a tone of pure disbelief.

"You even have a garden of your own at home."

"Well… I do, don't I?"

She nodded as if acknowledging it, yet the end of her voice rose as though she were not quite certain.

Her reaction was thoroughly unsatisfying, but instead of digging deeper Kang-hyun casually changed the question.

"When did you start tending that garden?"

"Well… when was it…"

Her voice grew fainter toward the end and somehow sounded distant—whether she was being deliberately vague or simply could not pinpoint the moment herself was impossible to tell.

Her eyes settled quietly somewhere in empty air. He could not know where that gaze was directed, yet he felt certain it was not the reality beneath her feet.

Just as the sudden strange silence was about to turn unfamiliar, she put her hat back on. The moment the wide brim covered her face, the atmosphere that had seemed to freeze for an instant evaporated completely.

"There's a greenhouse over there too. Shall we go look?"

As always, instead of waiting for his answer she simply took the lead. Kang-hyun watched her retreating back for a moment, then followed.

The glass greenhouse possessed an atmosphere entirely different from the outside. Palm trees soaring to the ceiling and densely tangled vines gave the sensation of having stepped inside a green glass bottle.

Before he knew it Baek Yeo-eun had become an explorer again, roaming the maze-like glasshouse to her heart's content. She marveled at rare orchids seldom seen in the wild and peered so closely at oddly shaped cacti that she seemed ready to put them into her eyes.

And Kang-hyun still trailed a step behind her.

That was all there was to it, yet ridiculously he found himself thinking it was peaceful—even though he was with the woman farthest from peace he knew.

Perhaps it was the overwhelming embrace of great nature. Everything felt trivial and insignificant, and so a strange lightness settled over the afternoon.

"Looks like they sell souvenirs over there."

They had nearly reached the passage that led to the greenhouse exit. Baek Yeo-eun stopped in front of a small souvenir shop set up beside the door.

On the display sat dried pressed flowers of blooms found only in Hawaii, packets of seeds, and tiny pots that had already sprouted, all neatly packaged and lined up side by side.

Her gaze was caught especially by a pot no larger than a palm. An unknown tropical plant with pale yellow buds bloomed modestly inside it.

"If you want one, just buy it."

Kang-hyun said it indifferently and was reaching into his pocket for his wallet when she turned her eyes to him, let out a soft snort of laughter, and shook her head.

"It's fine. I couldn't take it anyway."

"Why not?"

"It would get caught at quarantine. Plants are banned from import, I think."

While Kang-hyun let out a short sigh at the problem he had not even considered, she looked at the pot once more and turned away without lingering.

"I've seen enough. Let's go."

He quickly caught up to the woman walking out so readily and asked again.

"Pressed flowers would be all right, wouldn't they?"

There was no particular reason. It was simply that somehow his feet refused to leave if he walked out empty-handed.

But she declined the suggestion without ceremony.

"I have no interest in wilted flowers."

Stating her likes and dislikes with perfect clarity, she strolled out of the souvenir shop.

Watching her back, Kang-hyun glanced over his shoulder once more. The flower blooming alone in its pot looked somehow pitiful, like a dog that had lost its owner.

Even so, it was only a single flower.

As if shaking off useless sentiment, he turned his back and left the greenhouse as well, pretending not to notice the emptiness in his empty hands.

Korea was in the grip of unseasonable heat. It would probably be this summer's final thrashing.

After returning, the two of them headed first to Cheongbaekwon. It was the perfectly ordinary, formal procedure of greeting the family elders to say they had come back safely.

Kang-hyun drove smoothly with Baek Yeo-eun in the passenger seat. Trees that were no longer fresh cast orderly shade along the road leading into Cheongbaekwon.

"We're home."

"Yes, did you have a good trip?"

Song Min-jin, who had been notified in advance, greeted her daughter and son-in-law with a kind smile.

"Let's have lunch first. I thought your stomachs might feel queasy, so I had them make a refreshing pollack stew."

"It was better than I expected."

"Still, it's different from home cooking. A pine caterpillar has to live on pine needles, after all."

Following the mother and daughter who led the way while chatting, Kang-hyun walked slowly as well. In the dining room, Chairman Baek was waiting for them.

"You must have had a hard time coming such a long way. Come, sit."

"Thank you for the meal."

After a simple lunch of bibimbap mixed with well-ripened young radish kimchi and rich soybean paste, together with the spicy pollack stew, they moved to the drawing room. There they continued their conversation over cool coffee and cookies.

"Was the trip enjoyable?"

"Yes. Thanks to your consideration, we had a good time."

A ping-pong of Chairman Baek tossing trivial questions and Kang-hyun supplying model answers continued. It was mostly useless small talk, yet thanks to Baek Chae-young's absence the atmosphere remained relatively peaceful, unlike the family gathering.

"Oh, Yeo-eun. I have something to give you—come with me for a moment?"

Just then Song Min-jin, who had been quietly chiming in beside Chairman Baek, suddenly called her daughter out.