Siwon and Yesung are living an ordinary life. Well, ordinary life in sense of life in North Korea. Yesung is a teacher in elementary school and Siwon is a sergeant in army. They live in a smaller city close to the capital city which means that the city isn’t completely poor. Yesung loves to teach kids and he deeply loves his husband. That’s why he is so sad today. Siwon had to leave for a few days because of some important military matters so now he is alone in their tiny flat. He came home and eats the rest of the rice they had. Tomorrow he will need to go in the only store in their city. Siwon is better in this, because there is always a huge crowd and Siwon is tall and strong while Yesung is easily pushed away and he hardly ever gets some food.

Yesung goes to get water from an old rusty pipe which is in the yard behind their house. The flow isn’t very strong, so it takes a long time before the bucket is full. Then he goes back with the heavy bucket and washed himself a bit. He is cold and the icy cold water is making his body numb so he washes only a bit before putting on two Siwon’s sweaters and the warmest pants he has. Yesung lay down in their bed and buried himself under the blankets. It is the middle of September and the nights are cold. The old windows don’t do a very good job in keeping the sharp wind outside and their one room flat feels even sadder because he is alone. He knows that Siwon is important for their country and their leader. He is protecting their nation so no bad people from outside can get here. Yesung was taught terrible stories and now he is teaching the kids the same stories about American soldiers who were and torturing innocent North Korean people during the war. He better stopped thinking about these horrors and tries to fall asleep. 

Suddenly he is abruptly woken up by a loud bang and the door of their flat are broken. Few men run inside and Yesung squeaked in fear when rough hands grabbed him. They dragged him out of the bed and outside the house. Yesung knows that people are watching them from the windows, but no one is going to help him. He knows this for sure because he also didn’t help to their neighbor who was dragged away in the middle of a night just like him right now. Back then when Yesung woke up because of the screaming man, Siwon only tightly hugged him and said that the man did something bad to harm their country and then he pressed his palms over Yesung’s ears so he didn’t hear the man screaming and begging for his life.

They threw him on the back seat of a jeep and quickly drove off. Yesung can’t breathe, his throat is choked by fear which is eating him alive and he stares at the soldiers who are sitting in the car with him. Their faces look like made of stone, cold and sharp features with no trace of mercy. Yesung feels sick just from the simple thoughts about his near future, but this must be a misunderstanding, this can’t be happening.