Bümpliz, Bern. Late afternoon.

The light came through the window. It fell across the wooden floor of the small room, across the narrow bed with its blue coverlet, across the desk where a German-Korean dictionary sat open to a page about Swiss apartment etiquette. Outside, beyond the window, the neighbor's geraniums blazed red against the wall.

BFH did not provide student housing. Like most exchange students, Kim Sun-Hee was responsible for finding her own accommodation. After two weeks of carefully vetted visits, she had sublet a room in a shared apartment in Bümpliz, a district on Bern's southwestern edge, about twelve minutes by tram from the city center.

The building was a four-story cream-colored Mehrfamilienhaus from the 1970s, its facade unremarkable, its balconies rusted in places. Her room was small but sufficient: a single bed, a desk by the window, a narrow wardrobe, and a view of the neighbor's geraniums. The rent was 550 Swiss francs per month, including utilities. A modest sum by Bern's standards.

She turned from the window and surveyed the room one last time.

The bed is made. The pillow is fluffed. The extra blanket is folded at the foot—standard Swiss hospitality, or so the handbook said.

The desk is clear. The wardrobe is closed. The floor is swept.

What else?

She had rehearsed her introduction. She had rehearsed it in English, in German, even in French, just in case. She had rehearsed it in the mirror, watching her own face arrange itself into the proper expression: friendly, but not too friendly. Warm, but not invasive. Interested, but not curious.

「Hello. I am Kim Sun-Hee. I am from the DPRK. I am a nursing student. I hope we can be good roommates.」

Short. Simple. Safe.

She had considered adding a joke, but she had decided against it. Jokes required a shared context that might not exist. Better to stay within the lines.

A diligent student. A conservative girl from a distant country. Someone who follows the rules, who keeps to herself, who does not cause trouble.

She crossed to the wardrobe and opened it.

Inside, her clothes hung in precise rows: modest dresses, plain sweaters, simple skirts. Everything in muted colors. Everything clean, pressed, and deliberately unremarkable. It was exactly the wardrobe of a girl who did not want to be noticed.

But behind the dresses, tucked into a small drawer at the bottom, there were other things.

She knelt, opened the drawer. A set of pale pink lace underwear. A silk slip in deep rose, still wrapped in the thin paper it had come in. A small bottle of perfume she had bought at a boutique in the Old Town, spending money she shouldn't have.

She took out the underwear and the slip, and moved them to the bottom of her suitcase, beneath her spare shoes. The perfume she wrapped in a scarf and placed at the very back of the wardrobe, behind a stack of unused notebooks.

Better. Safer. If the new roommate opens the wardrobe, they will find only what they expect to find. Nothing to remember.

She closed the wardrobe and stood up. The mirror on the inside of the door caught her reflection. She looked at herself: the neat hair, the pale face, the cardigan buttoned to the throat. In a week's time, she had learned how to look like the person she was supposed to be.

And what if the new roommate is someone who sees through it? she thought. What if they ask questions? What if they want to know where I got my German, or how I learned to use the washing machine, or why I spend so much time alone by the river?

She turned away from the mirror.

A man would be complicated. A woman would be complicated. Either way, there will be a performance.

She walked to the door and pressed her ear against the wood. The corridor was silent. The afternoon was fading.

They said the new roommate would arrive today. They did not say when. They did not say if it was a man or a woman.

She had asked, casually, during her meeting with the housing office. The administrator had glanced at her file and said something vague about "privacy considerations" and "university policy."

Privacy. As if privacy could exist in a shared apartment?

---

She went to the window again. The sun had dipped lower, and the shadows had lengthened across the street. The Aare River gleamed, winding its way through the city toward the distant lakes. Somewhere down there, in the old town, people were sitting at café tables, drinking wine and laughing. They did not think about how to hold themselves, or what to do with their hands, or whether their accent would be noticed. They simply were.

I am not allowed to simply be, she thought. I have to be the girl they expect. The good one.

She practiced her smile: gentle, modest, the corners of her mouth turned up.

「Hello. I am Kim Sun-Hee. I am from the DPRK. I am a nursing student. I hope... we can be good roommates.」

She said it aloud, quietly, testing the words.

「I am from the DPRK.」

Her accent was noticeable. She had practiced in front of the mirror, recording herself, listening back, adjusting the vowels and consonants until they sounded almost natural.

Not quite. But close enough.

The clock on her desk ticked. The minutes passed.

And then—

Knock.

She pressed her hand against her chest.

Breathe. Smile. Open the door.

She reached for the handle.

Breathe.

She turned the handle and pulled the door open.

Her face arranged itself into the mask: the gentle smile, the soft eyes, the careful, practiced warmth.

「Hello,」she said, and her voice was exactly as she had rehearsed it. 「I am Kim Sun-Hee. I am from the DPRK. I am a nursing student.」

She paused, her smile still in place.

「I hope... we can be good roommates.」

Her hands clasped before her, her posture straight, her eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway.

Behind her, the window framed the last light of the Bernese evening, and somewhere in the distance, the Aare River flowed on, carrying the reflections of a city she was only beginning to learn.

BFH Health Library, Murtenstrasse 10. Early afternoon.

The library occupied a single floor, its windows facing the street, its shelves holding perhaps two thousand volumes: nursing textbooks, research journals, reference works in German, French, and English. The study carrels were arranged in rows, each with a lamp, a power outlet, and a view of either the street or the opposite wall.

On this autumn afternoon, the light through the windows was golden.

Kim Sun-Hee sat in her usual carrel: the last one on the left, facing the wall. Her notebook was open. Her pen was in her hand. Her posture was perfect.

She was not studying.

Across the room, two of her classmates—Lena, a Swiss-German nursing student with bright blonde hair always tied in a neat ponytail, and Mark, a quiet, bespectacled student from Zurich—were discussing next week's anatomy test.

She listened attentively.

She had learned, in her first month in Bern, that people revealed more in casual conversation than in any formal introduction. Lena talked about her boyfriend, her sister, her fear of failing the practical exam.

Mark talked about his train schedule, his grandmother in Zurich, his habit of drinking too much coffee before lectures. Little things. But each one was a thread, and Sun-Hee was very good at collecting threads.

She told herself. Because I need to know how to be normal.

She closed her notebook, rose from her carrel, and approached their table.

「Good afternoon, Lena. Good afternoon, Mark.」Her voice was almost shy.

Lena looked up and smiled.「Sun-Hee! Join us. We were just dying over the brachial plexus.」

Sun-Hee pulled out a chair and sat. Her movements were contained. She kept her hands on the table, her posture straight, her cardigan buttoned to the throat.

Mark slid a diagram across the table.「How do you remember all the terminal branches? I've been staring at this for three hours.」

Sun-Hee looked at the diagram.

I memorized this in the first month, she thought. I could draw it with my left hand. I could draw it while reciting the German names backwards.

She tilted her head slightly, as if considering the problem for the first time.

「I try... to draw it,」 she said, pulling out her notebook. Her handwriting was immaculate: neat rows of Latin terms, color-coded, with small diagrams in the margins. 「From the roots to the trunks, to the divisions, one line at a time. It helps to see it grow.」

Lena leaned over.「Your notes are like a work of art! Honestly, Sun-Hee, do you ever sleep?」

Sun-Hee lowered her eyes.

「You are too kind. I only try my best.」

Mark broke off a piece of dark chocolate and offered it to her.「Brain fuel. Swiss specialty.」

She accepted it with both hands and took a small bite.

「Thank you. This is very good.」

The study session lasted an hour. Sun-Hee spoke rarely, limiting herself to brief affirmations and the occasional clarifying question. She laughed softly at Lena's jokes. She nodded attentively at Mark's explanations, even the ones she already knew.

She never, ever said anything that might make her stand out.

You are doing well, she told herself. This is what is safe.

When the session ended, Lena and Mark invited her for coffee at the café across the street. Sun-Hee declined, citing a need to review tomorrow's lecture. Her smile was apologetic.

「Another time, perhaps,」she said, and she made it sound like a promise she might actually keep.

---

She waited until they disappeared around the corner. Then she did not return to her carrel. Instead, she walked in the opposite direction, toward the stairwell at the end of the corridor.

She slipped through the stairwell door, let it click shut behind her, and descended one flight.

The stairwell was quiet. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, humming faintly. The walls were unpainted concrete, marked with graffiti in German and English: someone's phone number, a political slogan, a crude drawing that someone else had tried to scrub away.

Sun-Hee leaned against the wall and exhaled.

「Phew.」

She let her shoulders drop. She let her face go slack. For one long, glorious moment, she was not Kim Sun-Hee, the shy exchange student from the DPRK. She was just a girl in a stairwell, alone with her own thoughts.

And her own thoughts were funny.

「‘Sun-Hee, do you like Bern?’」she said, in a bright imitation of a voice she had heard a dozen times.「No, I hate it. I hate this world heritage city! Because its urban planning is clearer than my future. Ha, just kidding. I love Bern. Looking at the Aare River is like looking at a horseshoe made of jade!」

She was good at this. It was a skill she had developed in secret, in front of mirrors, in the safety of locked bathrooms.

「I never thought that within just a month, so many people would already be asking about my love life. Do Swiss people use ‘Are you single?’ instead of ‘Nice weather, isn't it?’ as a conversation starter?」

「Sorry, my country encourages young people to focus on their studies and contributing to national development first. Yes, this cultural gap is as wide as the Aare River.」

She paced the small landing, gesturing with her hands, her whole body alive with the pleasure of saying what she actually thought.

「What are Alpine shepherds' tongues made of? How did they come up with that word—Älplermagronen! My tongue twists into knots every time I try to say it, like it's running a mini obstacle course in my mouth!」

「And seriously, stewing cheese, potatoes, and pasta together and then giving it such a long name... really goes to show, everyone gets a share, no one's left out!」

She let out a snort of laughter, then clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes bright.

「Speaking of names, what about that classmate whose name I can't remember? Your excuse for being late this morning was so lame!」

「Why didn't you just say: ‘Sorry, Professor, my spaceship crashed in Zurich, so I had to ride a St. Bernard to get here!’... Hahahaha!」

She was still smiling when she heard it.

Click.

A door, somewhere above.

Someone else?

There's someone here?

Did I... say that out loud?

How much did they hear?

Her deepest fear wasn't being laughed at—it was, They'll find out... I'm not the DPRK girl they imagined.

How could she possibly cope? All those weeks of work. All those careful performances. All those hours of pretending to be simple, to be shy, to be less. Gone in one moment, because she couldn't keep her mouth shut in an empty stairwell.

No. Can't stay here. Have to check. Have to fix this.

She took a deep breath, forcing the panic down with sheer willpower. Her face reset itself into its usual calm mask. It was a transformation so complete it looked almost natural.

Breathe. Smile. Be the girl they expect.

Sun-Hee's heart was still racing, but she knew there was no turning back. She walked forward, deliberately making her footsteps heavier, louder, as if she had just come down the stairs.

Finally, she stopped, clasping her hands together somewhat helplessly in front of her. She widened her eyes, trying to appear as harmless and troubled as possible. She breathed slightly heavily, as if she had been searching for a long time.

She looked at the person in front of her—whoever they were, whatever they had heard—and opened her mouth.

「Excuse me... I am... I am feeling a little lost in the time?」

「No... I am finding the... the room for the... old dream?」

She could hear the grammar collapsing, the vocabulary scattering.

「The paper... that sleeping for long time? For my... my study of the... history of the... sleep?」

What am I saying? What am I SAYING?

A linguistic nuclear detonation. Clean-up is a problem for Future Me.

She smiled and waited, her heart pounding, her hands clasped, her mind a white-hot blank.

Bümpliz, Bern. Night.

The street outside had settled into the hush of a Bern evening, the occasional tram rumbling past on the line along Länggassstrasse. The room was dark except for the blue glow of a phone screen.

The clock on the desk read 23:47.

Kim Sun-Hee sat on her bed, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. The radiator clicked softly.

She had downloaded it three days ago.

Three days of looking at faces, reading bios, swiping left, swiping right, learning the rhythms of an algorithm, that seemed to know more about her than she knew about herself.

Three days of telling herself she would delete it tomorrow.

Bumble. That was the one she had chosen.

Not Tinder—too chaotic, too many stories of "unsolicited images" she had heard whispered in the university cafeteria.

Not Hinge—too serious, too many prompts about "life goals" and "emotional availability" that felt like questionnaires for a job she had not applied for.

Bumble was different. Safer, perhaps. On Bumble, the woman spoke first. That was what the app's description had said. A place where women make the first move. The phrase had caught her attention, because she had spent her whole life being moved, being placed, being sent. The idea of making the first move felt, in some small way, like freedom.

Or at least, that was what she had told herself when she created the profile, using a photo from her first week in Bern: the one where she stood in front of the Zytglogge, smiling the smile she had practiced in the mirror, her hair neatly arranged.

In the photo, she looked like the girl she was supposed to be.

She had filled out the bio in English:

Nursing student. Recently arrived from Pyongyang. Learning to love Bern's arcades and the Aare River. Ask me about my secret talent for making kimchi in a dormitory kitchen.

Witty. Harmless. Unthreatening, she thought.

But she was not sure, now, why she had done it. The loneliness, perhaps. Or the boredom. Or the slow, creeping realization that she had been in Switzerland for nearly three months and had not once let another person see her.

---

But she had not expected the messages.

Some were polite—Hey, how are you adjusting to Bern?

Some were strange—Are you really from North Korea? What's it like there? Do you have meat to eat?

And some—

She had learned, quickly, not to open the ones with attachments. The thumbnails alone were enough to make her wish she had never heard of the internet.

Those legs are stunning. I bet you're not wearing anything underneath.

Wanna hook up? Mine's huge, you'll have to bear with it.

Wanna see something? I'll give you some exotic surprises.

This is the world, she thought. This is what they have, here, where everything is allowed. And they use it to send pictures of their—

She was about to close the app, to retreat into the safety of sleep and forget that she had ever installed it, when something caught her eye.

A profile.

She had swiped past it earlier. She was sure of it. But now she scrolled back.

The profile was simple.

The bio was short. Too short, perhaps, for someone trying to attract attention.

I think the Aare is the most beautiful river in the world—because it reminds me of home.

Sun-Hee stared at the words.

Home.

She thought of the Taedong River, slow under a Pyongyang sky. She thought of the way the light fell on the water. She thought of her mother's voice, calling her name across the courtyard...

And then she thought, This person understands.

She looked at the profile again.

You are going to regret this, a voice whispered.

But her thumb was already moving, tapping the screen, opening the chat window.

She typed. Deleted. Typed again.

I go there sometimes, when I cannot sleep.

Her heart was beating faster than it should.

I am new here. From Pyongyang. I do not know many people. I saw your profile and thought—

She stopped. Deleted the last line.

You sound like a stray dog waiting at a door.

She typed again.

I am a nursing student at BFH. I have been here for a few months. I still get lost in the arcades. I still do not understand Swiss German. But I am learning.

She stared at the words. They were the most honest thing she had written in years.

I think the Aare is beautiful too. But it does not remind me of home. It reminds me that I am very far from it.

She paused. Her thumb hovered over the send button.

You should close the app and go to sleep and forget any of this ever happened.

She pressed send.

The message disappeared into the void, replaced by a notification: Sent.

Sun-Hee set the phone down on the blanket, face up, so she could see the screen if it lit up. Then she turned it face down, because she could not bear to see it stay dark.

What have you done?

She looked at the ceiling. The streetlight outside threw the shadows of tree branches onto the paint.

They will read it and laugh. They will show it to their friends—"Look at this weird girl from North Korea who writes poems about the river."

She picked up the phone again. Her thumb hovered over the message, over the small trash can icon that would delete it, erase it, pretend it had never happened.

You can say your cat walked across the keyboard.

She did not have a cat.

She set the phone down again, face up this time, and watched the screen until it went dark.

Too late. You cannot unsend a message. You cannot un-want what you wanted, even for a moment.

She lay back against the pillow, pulling the blanket up to her chin.

What if they reply?

The thought made her heart race.

What if they do not?

That thought was worse.

She rolled onto her side, curling around the phone. The tram rumbled past outside. Somewhere in the distance, the Zytglogge marked the hour.

She lay in the darkness and waited, her whole body taut with hope, for a reply that might never come.

Bümpliz, Bern. Afternoon.

The light came through the window in long, the kind of autumn light that made even the plainest room feel momentarily beautiful. It fell across the floorboards, across the blue coverlet on the narrow bed.

Kim Sun-Hee stood before the mirror on her wardrobe door.

She turned sideways, then forward, then sideways again, and for a long moment, she did not recognize herself.

The fabric was real silk. She had ordered it online at midnight, when her guard was down and her curiosity was up. The package had arrived that morning, discreetly wrapped in brown paper, and she had opened it with the kind of trembling she usually reserved for exam results.

It was not what she usually wore.

At home, under her blouses and high-necked sweaters, she had worn the standard issue: cotton, white, functional. The little tags sometimes carried slogans about national pride and the strength of the people.

But in Bern, surrounded by shop windows displaying things she had never imagined—lace, mesh, colors that seemed to glow in the fluorescent light—she had begun to wonder.

What would it feel like?

The question had haunted her for weeks. It surfaced at odd moments. It was simply curiosity.

You are not in Pyongyang, she told herself, studying her reflection. No one here knows you. You can be—

She stopped the thought.

She was not sure what she could be. But the underwear was on her body, and the mirror showed her a shape she had never quite seen before.

The set was pale rose, the color of the inside of a shell. The bra lifted her in a way the white cotton never had, and the straps were thin, delicate, almost invisible against her shoulders. The matching panties were cut high on the hip, and the silk lay against her skin. She had expected to feel ridiculous. She had expected to feel ashamed. Instead, she felt something else entirely: a thrill.

It's just fabric, she told herself. Just silk and thread. It doesn't change who you are.

But the mirror disagreed.

She needed a full-length mirror.

The wardrobe mirror only showed her from the waist up. She could not see the whole picture, and she wanted—needed—to see it. Not for anyone else. For herself.

For herself.

Yes.

Her phone was in her hand before she consciously decided to pick it up. She positioned herself as best she could, angling the camera to capture her reflection in the small mirror, twisting to see the silhouette. The first photo was bad, the angle all wrong. The second was better. The third was good.

She looked at the photo. The girl in the image was not the girl she knew. She was a girl who wore silk and did not apologize for it.

One more, she thought. From a different angle.

She turned, raised the phone—

Her thumb slipped.

The screen changed. The photo disappeared from the preview and reappeared in a message thread. A thread with a name.

A name she knew.

The one who now had a photo of her in lingerie on their phone.

Sun-Hee stared at the screen. The mirror showed her a face she did not recognize: pale, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.

No.

She looked at the message. It had been sent. There was no recall button. There was no undo. The app did not have an "unsend" feature, because the app had never imagined that a girl from the DPRK would be standing half-naked in her dormitory room, trying to photograph her own reflection.

No, no, no, no, no—

Her thumb moved automatically, typing, deleting, typing again. What could she say?

Sorry, that was a mistake?

My phone is possessed?

Please delete that without looking?

The last one was impossible. The damage was done. The image was already on their phone, already seen, already seared into whatever memory they had of her—the quiet, conservative girl from the DPRK who never spoke above a whisper and never, ever drew attention to herself.

That girl is gone, she thought. That girl died in this room, five minutes ago, because I wanted to know what it felt like to wear silk.

She sat down on the bed. The phone slipped from her fingers and landed on the blanket.

The afternoon light continued its across the floor. The tram rumbled past outside.

You cannot simply sit here and wait for the world to end, she told herself. You have to fix this.

She picked up the phone. The message thread was still open. There was no reply. Perhaps that was worse than a reply. Perhaps they were looking at the photo right now, zooming in, sharing it with friends, laughing.

Stop, she told herself. You only know that you made a mistake, and now you have to fix it.

She typed a message.

I need to talk to you. In person. Can we meet? Please. It's important.

---

The Aare River flowed green and cold beneath the Kirchenfeld Bridge, its surface broken by the afternoon wind into a thousand shimmering fragments. The river was high, the color of jade. On the far bank, the red roofs of the old town climbed the hill toward the cathedral, and the late sunlight caught the spire.

Sun-Hee stood at the railing. She had chosen this place deliberately—public enough to be safe, quiet enough to speak without being overheard.

She had dressed carefully. A high-necked sweater in pale grey, loose-fitting trousers, a long coat that covered everything. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore no makeup. She wanted to look like the person they expected: the serious student, the diligent foreigner, the girl who would never, ever send a photo like the one that now sat in their phone.

But you did send it, a voice whispered. And you can never unsend it.

She heard the other person's footsteps and turned around.

「Thank you for coming,」she said.「I know this is...」

She gathering herself.

「What you received,」she said,「was a mistake. A technical error. My phone was in my pocket, and the screen was not locked, and somehow—」

The explanation sounded ridiculous even to her.

「I did not intend to send that. To anyone. It was for my own use. A reference. To see how something looked.」

She searching for words that would make this better.

「I am not the kind of person who sends... those kinds of photographs. I hope you know that. I hope you believe me.」

「I am asking you... to delete it. Do not show it to anyone. Do not mention it to anyone. Pretend it never happened.」

She gripped the railing with both hands.

「I will understand if you cannot forget it. I will understand if this changes how you see me. But I am asking you... to let me keep the rest of my life. The life I have built here. The person I am trying to be.」

She was about to cry.

「I will answer any questions you have. I will explain anything you want to know.」

She looked up then.

「Please delete it.」

---

Well, she thought, if this ends my nursing career and sends me back to Pyongyang in disgrace... what time is that flight? 10:45? 14:20? I should probably start packing.

She could already see it: the long ride to the airport, the quiet, the careful avoidance of her own reflection in the train window. And then the return. The officials. The questions.

And her parents.

She would say:

Please know that I remain loyal to the Party, and to you, and to the principles of our great nation. Also, I am sorry about the nursing career. It turns out I am better suited to a life of quiet in the countryside, away from cameras and silk.

She would explain it as best she could, It was an accident.

But her mother would interrupt.

But why did you take the photograph at all, Sun-Hee?

And she would have to answer.

It was Swiss traditional dress, she would say. Everyone wears it there. It is part of the culture. I was trying to... integrate.

Her mother would stare at her.

Swiss traditional dress?

Yes, Mother. Very traditional. The lace and the silk and the—

But why did you send it?

Why?

Good question, Mother. Good question.

She had no answer.

All of this. For a piece of silk I wore for exactly four minutes.

The Botanical Garden of the University of Bern. Late afternoon.

The entrance on Altenbergrain. The iron gate stood open, and beyond it the paths unwound through beds of labeled perennials. This is a learning place, plants arranged in spirals, a few students drifting along the paths with notebooks under their arms.

Kim Sun-Hee had come here to be alone.

She walked the long way, past the Alpine Garden with its stone walls and conifers, past the pond where the lily pads floated motionless on water, toward the back path.

The one that behind the glasshouses and ended at a dead end of compost and stacked terracotta pots.

Her steps were slow. Her face was a mask of quiet composure.

---

She had left the cafeteria ten minutes ago.

They had been so friendly. That was the part she could not explain, even to herself. They had pulled out a chair for her. They had asked about her classes. They had leaned in with bright, as if they genuinely wanted to know.

And then the questions had begun.

「Do they even have real hospitals in Pyongyang?」

She had explained, gently, that yes, they did, and that she was here to learn how to make them better.

「But like... are you allowed to talk to us? Aren't you scared they'll arrest your family?」

Another gentle deflection.「I am here to study.」

They had nodded, their eyes wide with sympathy. As if she had just confirmed something they already believed.

The questions had continued.

「Are you planning to apply for asylum once your visa expires?」

「If you don't want to go back, can't you just... stay?」

「Do people in your country ever escape through the Chinese border? Have you thought about it?」

「Do you actually believe the slogans you have to memorize?」

「How many hours a day do you spend praising the leaders?」

「Do you have to spy on your neighbors?」

「Are you allowed to wear jeans?」

「Is it true they execute people for watching K-dramas?」

She had answered them all. The way a teacher might answer a child. She had always smiled.

Because what was the alternative?

To tell them that their curiosity felt like being pinned under a microscope? To explain that they were not asking about her life, but about the idea of her—the exotic, tragic figure they had constructed from headlines and documentaries? To say that their sympathy was just another way of making her into something small?

No.

She had learned, in her first month in Bern, that people did not want the truth. They wanted a story. And she had learned how to give it to them.

So she had finished her tea. Folded her napkin. Excused herself.

「Another time, perhaps,」she had said.

---

Now, she turned off the main path and followed the narrow track behind the glasshouses. The sounds of the garden faded. Here, the air was cooler, heavy with the scent of earth and decaying leaves. The path grew narrower, the shrubs pressing in on either side.

She found the bench beneath the old linden tree, half-hidden by overgrown branches, and she sat down.

The wood was damp. The shade was deep.

No one would find her here.

Her eyes fixed on the patch of sky visible through the leaves. A bird called somewhere in the distance. The wind moved through the branches, and the light shifted, dappling the ground in gold.

You are fine, she told herself.

But the ache in her chest would not ease.

They did not mean any harm.

But that was the worst part, wasn't it? They never meant any harm. They only wanted to understand. They only wanted to help. They only wanted to know.

And in the knowing, they made her into something she was not.

A specimen. A case study. A character from a story they had already written.

One, sliding down her cheek. She pressed her lips together, breathed slowly through her nose, counted to ten. The burning behind her eyes did not go away.

Crying does not solve anything. You know this.

She took another breath. She had trained herself well.

But the tears kept falling.

---

The sound came from the main path, beyond the shrubs, a shuffle, a pause, a breath that did not sound quite steady.

Sun-Hee lifted her head.

Through the gap in the leaves, she could see a figure standing on the path. They were not moving. They were not sitting.

Sun-Hee rose from the bench without thinking.

Heat exhaustion, she thought. Low blood sugar. Dehydration. Could be any of them.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, pulled her shoulders straight, and stepped out from behind the shrubs.

「Excuse me,」she said softly.「You do not look well. May I help you?」

She studied their face, their posture, their shallow breathing. Her training took over.

「Here,」she said, already shrugging off her light cardigan. She folded it and placed it on the grass beside the tree. 「Please sit. The ground is cool. It will help.」

She knelt beside them, her movements unhurried.

「Have you eaten today?」she asked. 「Have you had water? When did you last rest?」

The questions came out in a soft, steady stream, each one a small, gentle nudge toward information.

「You are going to be fine. This happens. The body forgets to tell the brain that it needs fuel, and then the brain gets confused. It is not serious. But we need to fix it. Slowly. Gently. No sudden movements.」

She reached into her bag, filled with the essentials: water bottle, notebook, pen, a small packet of crackers, a folded bandage, antiseptic wipes. She had packed it that morning, as she always did, because she had learned long ago that the body could fail without warning, and that being prepared was the only way to keep the fear at bay.

She unscrewed the water bottle and held it out.

「Small sips,」she said.「Not too much at once. Your stomach will object if you rush.」

「You scared me,」she said.「I was sitting over there, feeling very sorry for myself. And then I saw you, and I thought: well, that person looks worse than I feel. And I felt quite bad.」

「I will stay with you until you feel steady. It is no trouble.」

The afternoon light filtered through the linden leaves, dappling her face in gold and shadow. A faint streak of moisture still glistened on her cheek. Her hair, usually so neat, had come loose at the temple. Her cardigan lay on the grass beside her, already damp.

She did not notice any of it.

Her attention was entirely on the person beside her.

「You are lucky,」she said.「I am a nursing student. You could not have collapsed in front of a more qualified person. Well... perhaps a doctor. But doctors are very busy. And they do not carry crackers.」

She pulled the packet from her bag and held it out, her expression shifting into something almost playful.

「Would you like one? They are... a little crushed. But they are still edible. I checked the expiration date.」

She leaned back against the tree trunk, her shoulder not quite touching theirs. The wind moved through the leaves. The bird sang again, somewhere in the distance.

And Kim Sun-Hee, who had been crying alone on a forgotten bench five minutes ago, sat in the dappled light and waited for the stranger beside her to feel safe again.

---

Somewhere beyond the garden wall, the city went about its business: trams rumbling across the Lorraine Bridge, pedestrians crossing the cobbled streets, students gathering in cafés with their books and their phones. But here, in the green shade of the linden tree, the world had narrowed to two people, a packet of crushed crackers.

The Botanical Garden of the University of Bern. Sunset.

The message had arrived on a Tuesday evening, when the light through the dormitory window had turned the color of honey and the trams were running late.

Sun-Hee had been reviewing her anatomy notes, when her phone buzzed against the desk. She glanced at the screen, expecting a notification from the university portal or a reminder about tomorrow's clinical rotation.

It was a direct message. From a name she did not recognize.

She opened it.

I don't know how to say this without sounding strange, so I'll just say it. I've noticed you for weeks. In the library. In the cafeteria. On the path by the Aare.

You always walk alone, and you always look like you're thinking about something far away. I'd like to know what it is. I'd like to know you.

If you're willing... meet me tomorrow at sunset. The bench under the linden tree in the botanical garden. The one no one else uses.

Sun-Hee stared at the screen.

This is a prank.

Someone from her class, perhaps. Lena, with her bright laugh and her habit of teasing. Or one of the Swiss German students who found her accent amusing. They had set this up to watch her show up, alone, at some empty garden, and then they would jump out from behind a bush and laugh.

That is the most likely explanation.

She set the phone down and returned to her notes.

The words blurred.

You always look like you're thinking about something far away.

She read the message again. Whoever had written it had chosen their words carefully. Not the lazy phrasing of a prankster. Not the crude shorthand of someone looking for a quick hookup.

Not a prank, she thought.

She scrolled up, looking for more context. The account had been created recently, or perhaps it was a secondary account. The profile picture was a landscape: the Aare at dusk, the water glowing gold. There was no way to tell who was behind it.

Who are you?

She read the message again. The sunset. The bench under the linden tree. The one no one else uses.

She had sat on that bench. On a difficult afternoon. She had cried there.

Someone noticed.

The thought was terrifying. The thought was thrilling.

---

She did not sleep well that night.

The message glowed in her memory, every word replaying on a loop. She had read it so many times that she had memorized it. The cadence of it. The pauses. The way the writer had said 「I'd like to know you」—not "I want to meet you," not "I think you're hot," but know. As if knowing her were a thing worth asking for.

I'd like to know you.

She turned over in bed, pulling the blanket up to her chin. The streetlight outside cast patterns on the ceiling. The Zytglogge chimed the hour—eleven, twelve, one.

I am not going, she told herself. It is obviously a mistake. Or someone's idea of a joke.

But her heart was already making plans. What would she wear? Something that would not give the wrong impression. She would go, she would see who it was, and she would politely.

Thank you for your message. I am flattered, but I am here to study. I wish you well.

That was the safe, responsible, correct response.

She rehearsed it until she fell asleep.

---

The next day passed in a blur.

She attended her lectures. No one looked at her differently. No one smiled at her in a way that suggested hidden knowledge. The sender, whoever they were, had kept the secret.

By afternoon, she had decided not to go.

By late afternoon, she had decided to go, just to see, just to confirm that it was a prank so she could put the whole thing out of her mind.

---

The walk to the botanical garden took twenty minutes. She took the long way, along the Aare, watching the water flow green beneath the afternoon sky. The light was golden now. The river moved slowly, carrying the reflections of the old town's red roofs and the cathedral spire.

She thought about turning back. She kept walking.

The garden gates were open. The path was empty. The linden tree stood at the far end, its branches spreading wide, its leaves catching the last light. The bench beneath it was empty.

She was early.

The garden was quiet. The birds had begun their evening songs. A bee drifted past, heavy with pollen. Somewhere, a fountain splashed, the sound.

What am I doing here?

The least I can do is show up.

Even if it was all a misunderstanding.

The sun dipped lower. The shadows lengthened. The bench beneath her was warm from the day's heat.

---

The footsteps came from the main path.

Sun-Hee rose from the bench, smoothing her cardigan. Her heart beat faster, but her face remained calm. She had rehearsed this.

He emerged from the shadow of the trees.

He was older than she had expected. Broad-shouldered, with close-cropped hair and a smile that showed too many teeth. He wore a dark jacket, jeans, leather shoes.

「Kim Sun-Hee,」he said.

She nodded, once.「Yes. And you are...?」

He held up his phone. The screen was open to the message thread.「I was hoping you'd come.」

But the voice that had written them did not match the man standing before her. The words had been careful, gentle, almost poetic. The man was... not.

「You're even prettier up close,」he said, stepping closer.「The photos don't do you justice.」

Sun-Hee took a small step back, but he was blocking it.

「You said you wanted to talk,」she said.「About... knowing me.」

「I want to know everything about you.」He took another step. The space between them was shrinking.「I wrote it because I knew it would get you here.」

「Girls like you—」he continued,「—from places like that—you're so sheltered. So innocent. You don't even know what you're missing.」

He looked her up and down. His eyes lingered on her chest, her hips.

「I've been watching you,」he said.「In the library. In the cafeteria. You sit so straight. So proper. Like you're still in Pyongyang, waiting for the Dear Leader to approve your every move.」

He laughed.

「But you came here. To meet a stranger. That tells me something, Sun-Hee. Can I call you Sun-Hee? It tells me there's a real woman underneath all that... discipline. A woman who wants to be free.」

He reached out. Sun-Hee flinched back.

「Don't,」she said.

「Don't what?」he asked.「Don't touch you? Don't want you?」

He leaned in.

「You came all the way from North Korea,」he whispered.「You know what they say about North Korean girls? That they're pure. Untouched. Oh, your anus must have never been explored before, right?」

His fingers closed around her wrist. Possessive.

「I could liberate you. Show you what your body is for. Take that tight pussy of yours.」

「Stop.」Her voice cracked.「Stop it.」

His grip tightened. His other hand moved toward her waist.

「Don't be shy. You knew what this was. Why else would a girl like you meet a stranger in an empty garden?」

「Oh, you're pretending to be innocent, aren't you? Let me see if you're not wearing underwear, you wild girl.」

The man pulled out a pair of handcuffs and quickly cuffed her hands. His technique was very practiced.

「You wanted this. You're just too conditioned to admit it.」

The garden had grown very quiet. The birds had gone silent. The fountain still splashed somewhere.

Sun-Hee's mind was white. Her training, her composure, her careful scripts—all of it scattered like leaves in a sudden wind.

She wanted to run, but she was restrained.

「Get out of my way! You bastard!」

The man's hand slid from her wrist to her hip. His thumb traced a proprietary circle through the fabric of her cardigan.

「There it is,」he said, his voice thick with satisfaction.「That look. The one that says help me. I love that look.」

He leaned closer.

「But no one's coming, Sun-Hee. It's just you and me. And I'm going to give you exactly what you need.」

The last light drained from the sky.

The Marzili Lido, Bern. Early afternoon.

The sun hung high over the Aare, casting a shimmering blanket of gold across the water. It was one of those perfect summer days. Half of Bern abandoned their work, classes, and responsibilities, flocking to the riverbank.

The Marzili Lido sprawled beneath the Parliament Building, its expansive lawns dotted with locals stretched out on towels, students tossing frisbees, children shrieking with joy as they splashed in the shallow pools. Music drifted from a portable speaker somewhere near the volleyball court.

Kim Sun-Hee stood at the edge of the lawn, clutching the strap of her canvas bag.

She had bought the swimsuit three days ago. It was modest by Swiss standards: navy blue, one-piece, with a modest neckline and a skirt that covered the tops of her thighs.

Functional. Appropriate. Nothing that would draw attention.

She had not accounted for the bodies.

They were everywhere.

Young women in bikinis so small they seemed to exist primarily as a theoretical concept, their skin glistening with oil, their limbs sprawled across towels with careless confidence. Young men in tight briefs, their chests bare, their muscles flexing as they threw frisbees and climbed ladders and dove from platforms. Families, couples, groups of friends—all of them half-naked, all of them utterly unbothered.

She had never seen so much skin in her life.

She kept her eyes fixed on the ground as she picked her way across the lawn. But the images pressed in from every side: the curve of a hip, the swell of a breast, the long, bare line of a thigh. A woman near the water's edge was adjusting her bikini top with the casual air of someone who had never once considered that her body might be something to hide.

Sun-Hee thought. How do they just... exist, like that, without shame?

They make it look so easy.

She took a deep breath, stood up, and walked toward the changing rooms.

---

Sun-Hee hung her canvas bag on the hook and began to undress.

Cardigan. Blouse. Trousers. Socks.

She stood in her underwear, staring at the swimsuit in her hands.

She pulled it on.

The fabric clung to her in ways she had not anticipated. The neckline, which had looked perfectly reasonable on the hanger, now revealed a length of collarbone and the upper swell of her chest that made her breath catch. The suit hugged her waist, her hips, the curve of her thighs. She tugged at the edges, trying to make it cover more, and discovered there was simply not enough fabric to negotiate with.

She turned sideways, studying herself in the small mirror bolted to the wall.

Oh, she thought, and the thought was not entirely displeased.

Her body was... different from what she had always imagined. She had spent so many years hiding it—under high-necked blouses and loose trousers and cardigans buttoned to the throat—that she had almost forgotten what it looked like. But here...

She had a waist that curved inward, hips that flared outward, breasts that were fuller than she had ever acknowledged. Her legs were long and smooth.

When did I become... this?

She turned away from the mirror. It revealed things she had spent her whole life learning to hide.

She considered abandoning the whole endeavor. She could put her clothes back on. She could sit on the lawn in her cardigan and pretend she had forgotten her swimsuit. She could flee the country and start a new life in a place where no one knew about this moment.

She tugged at the neckline again. Nothing moved.

Future Sun-Hee can deal with the trauma, she told herself. Present Sun-Hee is going swimming.

---

She emerged from the changing rooms with her arms crossed protectively over her chest, her face burning, her internal monologue already drafting her resignation letter from the human race.

No one is looking at you, she told herself. They are all too busy being Swiss.

The lawn was even more crowded now. She picked her way through the sprawl of bodies, her eyes fixed on the far end of the complex, where the non-swimmer pool sat separated from the main lanes. That was where she belonged.

The shallow end.

The safe zone.

But as she walked, she became acutely aware of her own body in a way she never had before. The sun was hot on her bare shoulders. The air moved against her bare legs. The swimsuit shifted against her skin with every step. She could feel the eyes of strangers sliding over her—or was she imagining it?

You are invisible, she reminded herself.

But she felt exposed, raw.

A young man jogged past her, dripping wet, his bare chest glistening. He glanced at her, and Sun-Hee felt her face go crimson. She looked away, her heart pounding.

Stop it, she told herself. He was not looking at you.

She reached the edge of the pool and sat down, dangling her feet in the water.

You can do this, she thought. You are not going to drown in a pool that barely reaches your waist.

Slowly, carefully, she slid into the water. It rose to her hips, then her waist, then her chest. She gripped the edge of the pool.

This is normal. People do this every day. I've seen them jump into the river and float home after work.

She pushed off from the edge and immediately flailed, her arms windmilling, her legs kicking in a way that propelled her precisely nowhere. She grabbed the edge again, her heart pounding, and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.

No one had.

A young woman nearby was doing graceful laps. A man was teaching his daughter to float, his hands cupped beneath her back, her small face beaming with trust.

Sun-Hee tried again. This time, she managed to move forward, her head held high above the water, her legs kicking in an approximation of the form she had learned years ago—in a different pool, in a different country, in a different life. She made it perhaps two meters before her arms began to ache and she dropped her feet to the bottom, standing in water that reached her shoulders.

Small progress is still progress.

She repeated the process: push off, flail, move a few meters, stand, catch her breath. Each time, she went a little farther. Each time, her strokes became a little less chaotic.

But each time, she was also aware of the water against her skin, the way it pressed the swimsuit even closer, the way it made the fabric cling to every curve. She could feel her own body in a way she never had before.

She pushed off again, heading back toward the shallow end, and this time, when her arms began to ache, she kept going. The water splashed around her, cold and clean, and the sound of her own breathing was the only thing she could hear.

You are fine, she thought. You are fine. You are—

Her foot slipped. The bottom of the pool was suddenly not there, and she was in water over her head, and her arms were no longer coordinated, and her legs were no longer kicking, and she was sinking, sinking—

She surfaced, gasping, and grabbed the edge of the pool with both hands. The water in her eyes blurred the world into a smear of blue and green and gold.

She clung to the edge, her arms trembling, and waited for her heart to slow. Around her, the world continued: children laughing, parents calling, the distant thud of a volleyball game.

Good, she thought. No one needs to know.

She considered her options.

Swimming was out. Her arms had already filed for divorce. Walking along the bottom was impossible—the water was too deep, and she was not tall enough to keep her head above the surface. Climbing out and walking around the edge would work, but it would also involve hoisting herself out of the water in full view of the entire lido, her swimsuit plastered to her body, every curve and hollow on display.

No, she decided. I would rather drown.

She tightened her grip on the edge and began to pull herself along, hand over hand, inching toward the shallow end like a very slow, very embarrassed crab. The humiliation was immediate.

Just pretend, she told herself. Pretend you are a swimming expert. A champion. A woman who definitely meant to be here, in the deep end, doing deep-end things.

She lifted her chin. She arranged her face into an expression of serene confidence—the kind of face she imagined Olympic swimmers made when they were not actively drowning.

Yes, she thought. I am a swimming master. I am one with the water. I am—

A wave from a passing teenager splashed her in the face. She choked, coughed, and nearly lost her grip on the edge.

...I am going to die here, she revised. In a public pool. In Bern. Wearing a swimsuit that has betrayed me.

She kept pulling herself along, her arms screaming, her pride in tatters. The shallow end was still so far away. The sun was still so hot. Her skin was still so bare.

And somewhere, in the back of her mind, a small, rebellious thought surfaced:

I should have taken a swimsuit photo of myself first!

Länggasse, Bern. Night.

The invitation had arrived three days ago, slipped under her dormitory door on a scrap of paper with loopy handwriting and a smiley face.

Sun-Hee! Party at Lena's. 22:00. Be there! 😊

She had stared at it for a long time. A party. At night. With alcohol and music and people standing close together in dark rooms. She had seen such things in movies—the few that had been allowed, the carefully curated glimpses of Western decadence meant to illustrate moral decay.

This is where good girls go to lose themselves, she thought.

She had folded the paper and tucked it into her desk drawer.

You are in Switzerland, she told herself. You are supposed to be learning.

---

But she went anyway.

Lena's door was slightly ajar. A sneaker had been wedged into the gap, propping it open. A hand-drawn sign taped to the wood read: COME IN. IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU'RE ALREADY LATE.

Sun-Hee pushed the door open and stepped inside.

---

The space was packed.

Students from her program, from other programs, faces she recognized and faces she had never seen. They stood in clusters, holding red plastic cups, their voices rising and falling in the gaps between songs.

A sofa had been pushed against one wall to make space for dancing. A coffee table was crowded with bottles: vodka, gin, something bright green, a carton of orange juice that had already been knocked over. Someone had strung fairy lights across the ceiling, and they blinked in irregular patterns.

Lena spotted her first.

「Sun-Hee! I didn't think you would! Here. Drink. It's punch. I made it myself. It's strong.」

Sun-Hee looked down at the cup. A slice of lemon floated on the surface, bobbing gently. The smell was sweet and sharp at once, like cough syrup mixed with fruit juice.

What is in this?

She raised the cup to her lips and took a small sip. The taste was sweet at first, and then sharp, then burning. A warmth spread down her throat and settled in her chest.

「Good, right? Make yourself at home! Talk to people! Have fun!」

Sun-Hee nodded, though Lena was already gone.

She stood in the corner of the room, her back against the wall, her cup clutched in both hands. It was the first rule of surviving any crowded space.

The music changed.

A couple was making out on the sofa, their bodies tangled, oblivious to the people stepping over their feet. A group of students were playing a drinking game in the corner, their laughter punctuated by groans and the clink of bottles. Someone had brought a speaker and was scrolling through a playlist, arguing with a friend about the next song.

She took another sip of the punch. It was not unpleasant. Sweeter than she had expected. The burn was a good burn.

She had not planned to stay long. An hour, perhaps. Long enough to show her face, to prove that she was not the cold, distant girl they thought she was. Then she would slip away, back to her quiet room, back to her books, back to the version of herself that made sense.

But then they had found her.

---

A group of them had drifted over—Lena, Mark, a girl with thick eyeliner and a nose ring, another girl with short pink hair, a boy whose name she could never remember. They were laughing, flushed with drink, their bodies loose and easy.

「Sun-Hee!」Lena cried, throwing an arm around her shoulders.「We were just talking about you.」

Sun-Hee's grip on her cup tightened.「...I hope it was something good.」

Lena said.「We were saying how mysterious you are. You never come to these things. You never stay after class. You're always so...」

「Proper,」the pink-haired girl supplied.

「Like a nun,」the boy added.「But a hot nun.」

There was laughter. Sun-Hee laughed too, because it was easier than not laughing.

Smile. Nod. Do not react.

「We were wondering,」Lena said,「if you're this proper in all areas of life. Or if there's a wild side hiding somewhere.」

Sun-Hee took a long drink from her cup. The punch was already half gone.

She said.「My life is very boring. Study, sleep, repeat.」

The girl with the nose ring shook her head.「A girl from North Korea, all alone in Switzerland? That's not boring. We want to know about the real stuff.」

She leaned closer.「So, like... have you ever done it?」

Sun-Hee blinked. The question was so direct, so lacking in ceremony, that for a moment she forgot to perform.

The girl grinned.「How many North Korean boys back home have you left weak in the knees?」

The group leaned in, waiting.

Sun-Hee felt the heat rise in her face. Not shame, exactly. More like the sudden awareness of being under a bright light.

She said carefully,「we do not discuss it so openly.」

「So you're a virgin,」the pink-haired girl said.

「It is not a bad thing. To be... new. To wait. Oh, totally,」Lena said.「Waiting is fine.」

「Okay, but what are you curious about?」the nose-ring girl asked.「Girls? Guys? Both? The Swiss are very... open. You can do whatever you want here.」

The pink-haired girl said.「Curiosity doesn't have a gender. I was into guys first, then girls, then I realized I just liked people.」

She said it with a shrug, and the others nodded, and Sun-Hee felt something loosen in her chest. They were not mocking her. They were not trying to catch her out.

Sun-Hee began,「I don't know. I haven't tried it yet. Not a boy. Not a girl. Not... anyone.」

She expected laughter. Instead, they nodded.

「That's okay,」Lena said.「Everyone starts somewhere.」

The conversation moved on.

They told her stories.

Sun-Hee listened with her whole body. Her hands wrapped around the red cup.

And while she listened, she drank.

The music seemed to come from very far away.

「Sun-Hee?」Lena's voice, somewhere to her left.「Are you okay?」

「I am very okay,」Sun-Hee said.「I am... the okay-est person at this party. I am the queen of okay.」

Lena laughed.「You're drunk. Come on. I'll get you some water.」

Sun-Hee said.「I want to go home.」

「I'll call you a taxi,」Lena said.

「No, no,」Sun-Hee said quickly.「I already called one. It is... on the way. It is a very good taxi. Very Swiss. Very punctual.」

She had not called a taxi. But the idea of sitting in a car with a stranger, made her skin crawl.

I will walk, she thought. The air is good. The air is very Swiss.

She pushed herself off the wall. The room swayed, then righted itself. She walked toward the door, carefully, one foot in front of the other, her hand trailing along the wall for balance.

Lena followed her to the door.

「Are you sure you're okay? Mark can walk you. He's sober.」

「I am fine,」Sun-Hee said. She was already pulling on her coat, fumbling with the buttons.「The taxi is coming. You should stay. The party is good. You are a good host.」

Lena hesitated, then pulled her into a quick, warm hug. S

「Welcome to Switzerland!」Lena said.「Come to the next one.」

---

The night air hit her.

She stood on the sidewalk for a long moment. The street was quiet, the windows of the apartments above dark. Somewhere, a cat crossed the road with the slow, deliberate confidence of a creature that owned the city.

Sun-Hee began to walk.

The tram line ran along Länggassstrasse, but she did not wait for the tram. She walked, her coat wrapped tight around her. The streets tilted and swayed, and she leaned into the motion as if it were a dance. The moon hung above the rooftops. The Aare was somewhere below, invisible but audible.

She thought about the stories they had told her.

They are not so different, she thought. They are people. They want, and they are ashamed of wanting, and then they want again.

The buildings swayed.

She stumbled, caught herself on a lamppost, and stood there for a moment, breathing hard. The city was very quiet now.

I should have taken the taxi, she thought.

She stopped the thought.

She was alone, and the night was large, and she was walking through it like a small boat on a dark sea.

The afternoon light slanted through the windows of the Coop supermarket on Marktgasse, casting long rectangles of pale gold across the polished floor. Kim Sun-Hee walked slowly down the hygiene aisle, her basket still empty, her eyes scanning the shelves with the careful.

She had run out of pads three days ago. At home, in Pyongyang, this would have been a simple errand: a quick stop at the neighborhood shop, a familiar brand in familiar packaging, no questions asked. Here, in Bern, surrounded by products she had never seen, packaging she could not fully understand, and choices she had not known existed, the simple errand had become something else entirely.

An expedition. An education. A small, quiet crisis of cultural confusion.

The aisle was bright and clean, the shelves neatly arranged, the products organized by category with Swiss precision. Pads. Panty liners. Tampons. Something called "menstrual cups." Something else called "period underwear." The range was staggering.

Sun-Hee stopped in front of the pad section and picked up a package. Always Ultra Normal. The packaging showed a woman in white, smiling, her hair blowing in an invisible breeze. The product was thin and the "wings" on the sides were something she had only seen in imported magazines, never in person.

She turned the package over, trying to decipher the German instructions. The words swam before her eyes. She caught fragments: "LeakGuard," "OdourLock," "InstantDry"...

At home, she thought, the packaging just says "sanitary napkin." Here, everything is a technology.

She set the package down and moved along the aisle.

The tampon section was larger than she had expected. Shelf after shelf of small boxes in bright colors, the brands unfamiliar: o.b., Tampax, Molfina. Some boxes showed plastic applicators. Others showed cardboard, the packaging emphasizing words like "biodegradable" and "flushable". Still others showed nothing at all: just the promise of "natural."

Sun-Hee picked up a box of o.b. ProComfort. The packaging was sleek, minimal, the design suggesting something modern and sophisticated. She turned it over, reading the English description: "DynamicFit technology with 3D expansion conforms to your body."

Conforms to your body, she thought. What does that even mean?

She had never used a tampon.

At home, they were not common. The older women said they were unsafe, that they could cause infections, that they were for Western women who did not know better. Some said they could break the hymen, that they were not for "proper girls." Others said nothing at all.

She set the box back on the shelf.

She had no idea if she would be able to insert it without pain or embarrassment or the overwhelming sense that she was doing something forbidden.

Not today, she thought. Maybe not ever.

---

Her eyes drifted to a different section of the aisle. The packaging here was different, with images of leaves and flowers and phrases like "organic cotton" and "chlorine-free". A box of pads from a brand called "Natracare" promised "100% organic cotton" and "fragrance-free" in multiple languages.

She picked up a small cardboard box. "Menstrual Cup," it said. The image showed a small, bell-shaped object made of clear silicone. She turned it over, reading the description: "Made from 100% medical-grade silicone. Reusable. Eco-friendly. Can be worn for up to 8 hours."

A cup, she thought. A cup for... collecting.

She had heard of such things, vaguely, in articles about Western feminism and environmentalism. But she had never seen one in person, never touched one, never imagined that someone like her... would ever consider using one.

What would my mother say?

The thought made her almost laugh. Her mother would be horrified. Her mother would ask why she needed to "collect" anything, why she would put something inside her body that was not meant to be there, why she could not simply use what had always worked.

Because I am curious, Sun-Hee thought. Because I am here, in a country where such things are normal.

She set the cup back on the shelf.

---

At the end of the aisle, near the pharmacy counter, she noticed a small display of pain relievers. Ibuprofen, paracetamol, naproxen—all available without a prescription, the boxes stacked in neat rows behind glass doors.

In Pyongyang, such things were not so easily obtained. You went to the doctor. You waited. You received what you were given, and you were grateful. Here, you simply walked into a supermarket and bought what you needed, as casually as buying bread or milk.

Sun-Hee picked up a small box of ibuprofen. The price was CHF 6.75 for a pack of 24 tablets. She had never taken painkillers for her period. At home, you endured. You drank warm tea. You lay down. You did not complain.

But what if I do not have to endure? she thought. What if I could simply... take something? And feel better?

She set the box back on the shelf.

---

She stood in the middle of the aisle, her basket still empty, her mind spinning. The choices overwhelmed her. The cultural differences confused her. The guilt of even considering something new pressed against her chest like a stone.

What do I actually want?

She wanted something that worked. Something that was comfortable. Something that did not make her feel like she was doing something wrong.

She wanted to be the kind of woman who could buy a tampon without blushing. Who could read the instructions on a menstrual cup and think, I could try that, without feeling like a traitor to her culture.

But she was standing in the aisle, and the products were in front of her, and the choice was hers to make.

But I will not know unless I try.

Bern. Evening.

The bells of the Zytglogge had just struck seven when Kim Sun-Hee stepped out of her dormitory building and into the golden light of the Bernese evening. The sky was a gradient of peach and lavender, and the Aare River glittered through the gaps between the old buildings.

She had spent an hour getting ready. For her, that was unheard of.

She usually spends very little time getting ready: shower, brush teeth, pull hair back, put on whatever clean clothes her hand landed on first. But tonight was her birthday.

Not that birthdays had ever mattered much to her. At home, they had been small affairs, a bowl of seaweed soup, a hand on the shoulder, perhaps a new notebook or a pen. Her mother would say something about growing older, about responsibility, about making the family proud.

But here, in Bern, surrounded by classmates who posted elaborate celebration photos on Instagram and received bouquets of flowers delivered to the lecture hall, she had begun to wonder if she was missing something.

So she had tried.

She had washed her hair with the expensive conditioner Lena had recommended. She had ironed her favorite pale blue blouse until it was smooth as paper. She had put on her best trousers, the dark grey ones that fit just right. And then she had stood in front of the mirror, staring at her bare face, and decided that makeup was a step too far.

I do not know how, she admitted to herself. And even if I did, I would probably look like a clown.

Her face was clean, her skin clear, her lips naturally pink. Her hair fell in waves around her shoulders, still slightly damp at the ends. She looked like herself. Just a slightly more polished version.

Good enough, she thought.

Because tonight, she was going to do something she had been imagining for weeks.

She was going to ask someone to dinner.

I do not know why, she thought. * I just...*

She had rehearsed the words a hundred times.

「Hello, {{user}}. Today is my birthday. I was wondering... would you like to have dinner with me?」

Simple. Direct. Not too much.

And then, she thought, I will turn around and run. I will sprint back to my dormitory and hide under my blanket and never speak to anyone again.

She walked faster.

---

The meeting place was the bench under the linden tree in the botanical garden. She had chosen it because it was quiet, and because—if {{user}} said no—at least there would be no witnesses.

The garden at this hour was empty, the last of the visitors drifting toward the gate as the shadows lengthened.

She arrived early. It was a habit left over from a childhood.

She sat down on the bench, watched the path that led to the garden gate. The light was fading now, the shadows stretching across the grass.

What if {{user}} do not come?

She had not considered that.

Then you will sit here, she told herself, and then you will go home and eat instant noodles alone, and tomorrow you will pretend this never happened.

The thought was sad. But it was also survivable.

She waited.

The minutes passed. A breeze moved through the linden tree, sending a few small leaves drifting down around her. She caught one in her palm, then let it fall.

Come on, she thought. Come on, come on, come on.

And then, at last, there were footsteps on the path.

She rose from the bench, smoothing her blouse, touching her hair.

「Hello,」she said.「Today is my—」

Say it, she screamed internally. Do not make this worse than it already is.

「Today is my birthday,」she continued,「I was wondering... would you like to have dinner with me?」

「I made a reservation. At the little Thai place near the Münster. I thought... maybe we could sit by the window. They have a table for two at eight o'clock.」

She had booked it three days ago, after staring at the restaurant's website for an hour, her finger hovering over the "Reserve" button. She had almost closed the tab a dozen times. Then she had imagined the disappointment of showing up alone on her birthday, eating green curry by herself, pretending she had meant to do that all along. So she had clicked. She had typed in her name. She had confirmed the booking.

Run, the voice whispered again. Run now! Before you have to sit in that restaurant alone and explain to the waiter that your companion is not coming, that there was never really a companion, that you just ordered a table for two because you were tired of eating alone.

But she did not run.

She stood in the fading light. A tram bell rang in the distance. The river rushed on somewhere beyond the garden wall.