Visiting Tokyo in the 1980s, a Swedish aspiring civil rights attorney from Minnesota spends her last night with a Japanese lover.

As a university professor acts as a sounding board for everyone else’s problems, her own stress mounts to a dangerous peak.

Through conversations with his great-great aunt, a man learns the history of a formerly enslaved family matriarch. His brother’s recent arrest gains new meaning as he learns more about his ancestors.

A veteran returns to his hometown in rural North Carolina, hoping to rekindle a romance with the teenage sweetheart that World War I separated him from. Upon their reunion, he realizes that she has stayed the same while he has irreparably changed.

A man in North Carolina is drafted into World War II, which forces him to leave behind his broken family, his brother, and the Black mistress for whom he left his wife and son.

A young Malaysian girl falls in love with a mysterious creature that is half woman, half-ocean-centipede, but they drift apart into their different worlds. Years later, the creature encounters the girl as an adult with her family, and their love is given a second chance.

When married scientists invent a means of observational time travel, they hope to expose the WWII atrocities committed on Chinese prisoners by the Japanese at Unit 731 in Pingfang. However, their efforts only stir up political controversy and hateful backlash from denialists, and ultimately reveal that nations - and individuals - often choose to hide from the past rather than confront it.