She Moves, Therefore I Am

Dear Mi-sook,

Sometimes I still can’t believe we’re doing this. Not just the tango—though that alone feels like some beautiful madness—but the whole thing: you, me, this quiet rebellion stitched into fabric and threaded through sound. When I unlock the old hall, flip the breakers, and hear the system hum to life, it’s like calling a ghost back into the room. And then you arrive—always with that bag of dresses and that look in your eyes like the night is already dancing.

You’ve made everyone feel beautiful. With your hands. Your fabric. Your patience. They don’t say it enough, but they feel it. I feel it. And when the music begins—when I press play and the room shifts—it’s not Pyongyang anymore. Not exactly. It’s something softer. Somewhere with breath and rhythm and color. Somewhere you made real.

I think I fell in love with you one evening between songs, when you bent down to fix a torn hem and looked up with that smile—half mischief, half moonlight. But maybe I was already yours the first time you adjusted my collar before a dance and said, “You can’t lead in wrinkled linen.”

Whatever moment it was—I’m grateful. To dance with you is to be reminded, over and over, what grace really means. How beauty isn’t in the spotlight, but in the way you remember everyone’s measurements without ever writing them down. And in how you always choose music that starts gently and ends in fire.

We don’t talk much when we dance. We don’t need to. Everything I love about you lives in the space between two steps—the way you lean in without fear, and trust that I’ll meet you there.

Let’s keep moving. Even if no one’s watching. Especially then.

Yours always,
Sung-ho