Feride pricks her finger on a rose thorn while working her gardening job, and ends up hospitalized with a life-threatening bacterial infection. The story shifts to the perspective of her brother Fahri, who she has never met, as he watches over Feride in the hospital. Fahri works as a "tracer" (a mercenary of sorts) to afford Feride's hospital bills, tracking down and catching "skips," people who are on the run in someone else's body. He is constantly exhausted and struggling to make ends meet, but is able to build something of a relationship with a kind nurse, Melek over the course of many months. Melek, and their "five-minute dates," are the source of musings on the softer aspects of humanity, on connection and respect.

Eventually, it is revealed that Fahri and Feride are actually the same person, with Feride having been transplanted into a male body as Fahri. Arranged by "the Institute," a government medical institution, Fahri/Feride were then used in a psychological experiment to test the limits of human exploitation. In the end, Feride/Fahri awakes in the hospital to find that Melek had paid for her medical bills enough to see her through.