I

The war breaks out when Yongsun is seven, she hears it raging outside her doorstep. She covers her ears at night, shuts her eyes tightly and does not bother to turn off the light. She rocks back and forth while the house shakes, as the bombs fall from the sky like raindrops, splitting the ground like an earthquake.

When she wakes, Yongsun looks out the window seeing half the neighbourhood destroyed. She does not give it much thought because she is young and does not understand the world yet. She eats breakfast with her mother, father and older sister, Yonghee, in the kitchen. Yongsun feeds their small dog, Jjing Jjing, as usual.

Yongsun goes to school because education is important, as her parents say. On her way she avoids stepping on the fresh patches of newly turned soil, she has heard about those, about the explosives that lie hidden beneath the ground. One wrong step could summon a sound as strong as thunder.

At school she learns about history and the terrors of the past, mostly about war because war is a pattern that knits history together with a single red thread. She understands the world better now, and when she looks out of the window the next morning she realises history is repeating itself.