Warning: Mild violence, nothing graphic.

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Ahn Minsu found herself sitting on a park bench, ten in the evening, wearing a red dress overbearing with lace that she most probably should have taken off before venturing outside.

She liked to think her daily life had routine so it came as a surprise to her when she spontaneously made the decision to go on an evening stroll in the local park. Admittedly she had never even visited the park before despite passing by the entrance every day in her car. There had always been better things to do but today was different.

“I just want to see how quiet Seoul can be at night.”

That had been the excuse she’d blurted out to her father on the phone, and she had been partially honest. The full truth was the events of her day had been exhausting and she felt she deserved some time to reflect. In fiction they always described late night outings as a magical and daring adventure that ceases to exist past sunrise. Minsu expected peaceful walkways after locals had long gone home and perhaps nocturnal animals would come out of their burrows. Maybe she would even cross paths with a lone soul like her, someone she could connect with like no other.

She could not have been more disappointed.

Looking around, the park was populated even at night. Couples were holding hands, adults were walking back from work and talking noisily on the phone and there was even a woman with a crying baby who was beginning to sound like a broken fire alarm. If she squinted hard enough towards the trees a squirrel could be seen hiding in the leaves. Animals were not going to be coming out anytime soon. It was a short-lived fantasy. The hustle and bustle of crowds was normal when living in the capital city.

Night time is overrated anyway. Or at least, that’s what Minsu told herself disgruntledly.

Her gaze travelled down to the foreign sweet balancing on her lap.

Before ending up at the park, she had popped into a corner shop close to her house. Originally she had intended to buy ice cream (coconut flavoured, a culinary masterpiece to her tongue) but someone had interrupted her when she was waiting in line to order.

“Hey,” The stranger had said, scratching behind their neck nervously. “I bought this earlier but I don’t really want it anymore and… you’re really pretty.”

A sweet was held out to her and the stranger bowed their head to hide their embarrassment behind tufts of hair. It was a gutsy confession on their part because Minsu had absolutely no recollection of ever meeting this person before. They looked roughly the same age and she wondered if perhaps they attended the same school. It wouldn’t be the first time she hadn’t noticed a face at school. God, she really needed to pay more attention.

Not really knowing how to react and feeling slightly confused, to say the least, Minsu took the sweet carefully and the person in question immediately recoiled.  There was an awkward pause.  

“Right…I should go then. Bye!”

Before she could have opened to respond the person had escaped through the shop door leaving her very confused. It took her a few seconds to realise she was at the front of the ice cream queue when the worker facing her had his eyebrows raised, waiting. Minsu had looked down at the sweet before shrugging and walking out the shop. Ice cream could wait for another day.

That was how she ended up about an hour later almost crossing her eyes trying to translate ingredients after having realised, shock horror, that the packaging was in English. Her knowledge of foreign languages had always been maintained at a passable level but she was easily thrown off when she had to use them outside of her classes. Her parents always enforced the importance of learning languages on her. As she grew up they inevitably enrolled her in a tonne of extra tuition language classes, but she progressed through them so slowly it only frustrated her. She knew it wasn’t about the effort she put in anymore; all strings lead back to her lack of skill. She managed to handle other subjects with ease, but languages were slowly becoming her nemesis.

Trying to focus on the issue at hand, she attempted to read out the words.

“Glu…cose syrup?”

Opting to give up, she opened the packet and popped the sweet into . A sigh of content escaped when she felt the sweet flavour of apple on her tongue. It had been a while since she had eaten sugary foods. It was practically bursting with flavour, each bite awaking one of her s