“What? Shitty?! I know my aunt is spoiling you, but how dare you to keep calling me Sungyun. I’m way older than you, you know. Don’t you notice everyone else calls me Oppa?” He goes on forever spewing this kind of nonsense. As he listens to his own case he seems to get angrier. He trembles, his fist curled tight. It looks like he’s about to hit me. Eunyong pulls us apart, and the high school girl pretends not to watch us. You fucker, you’re some sort of pervert, aren’t you? I know you invite women here after we close. Are you a serial cheater? A rapist? What would happen if I started yelling all this? What would he say? What would he do? You can’t judge a book by its cover—I used to scoff at the saying, but I think in this case, it really might be true.

* * *

“Do you like working here? The owner said you’re majoring in German Literature, right? How many years in are you?” the toothbrush salesman asks.

“I just finished my first year. I started working here a few months ago. I plan to quit soon though.”

“Oh good! I need a German tutor. I was looking into getting a tutor or registering at the German learning institute.”

That would be a great gig for me. Today has been shitty, but maybe things are looking up. The toothbrush salesman laughs loudly for some reason. He clarified earlier that he is a dentist, not a toothbrush salesman. He opened his office near Gupo, but there haven’t been many patients. He thought it might be good for business if he had a few more certificates on the wall, so he is prepping for the German certification exam. He tells me he studied a little German in high school, so he’ll be able to catch up quickly with my help, and playfully begs me to say yes to his proposal.

I don’t really care about his back story. Tutoring is a good gig, much better than working at a café. And instead of tutoring some sniffling kids, I get to tutor a real man.

The shithead seems to be glaring at me—Sungyun, no, segyoon, a virus, a fungus. When I lift my head he makes a gun shape with his thumb and index finger. He pulls the trigger. He sends me the message through his body language: You’ll regret what you did. I will destroy you.

I feel my belly grip with an ache. No one knows how much pain I’m in. There are many people who are actually sick inside even if they look alright. My uterus feels like it’s been bombarded. It’s my period. I wish I wasn’t a woman …