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“Oh.” Brigitte closed her eyes, biting into the fish-shaped pastry. The sounds of the Busan night market fell away behind her, the burble of conversations and calls of hawkers dwindling into a meaningless murmur in favor of the warm treat in her hand. “Oh, this is good. This is really, really good. It’s like Mama’s apple pie for the crust, but it’s not, it’s flakier and it’s… whatever it is inside is good, sweet but not too sweet…” She bit off another piece of the piping hot pastry, and then started puffing like an overheated kettle, blowing out steam. She was torn between savoring the filling and the croissant-like dough and devouring it all in one go. “Mmmm.” The ajumeoni, the grandmas working the waffle irons, grinned broadly at the tall Swede’s response.
“Bungeo-ppang,” Hana explained with a broad smile. The MEKA pilot tilted the brim of her baseball cap a little, giving her a better view of her visitor. She tried not to bounce, excited that Brigitte had finally managed to make it out here after chatting online so much. She grinned broadly before biting into her own fish-shaped treat. “Yours has red bean paste inside. This one has cream.”
“Wait? Cream? Like semla?” Brigitte’s eyes widened further.
“Semla?”
“Semla, they’re these amazing cream puffs that you can get everywhere in spring, for Lent, and they’re so good…” Her eyes fluttered closed. Hana snorted, and Brigitte opened her eyes. “What?”
“Your face looked -“ A faint blush tinged her cheeks, and Brigitte blushed too. “Do you want to try it?”
“Your bungie-pan?”
“Bungeoppang,” she corrected. “If you like cream things, then you’ll like this.” She paused, and proffered it to Brigitte.
“No, I don’t want to eat yours, too. Only if you let me buy you another one, because if it’s as good as semlor I’m not going to want to stop.”
“I can get bungeoppang whenever I want,” Hana said dismissively, “but if it’s something you’ll like, I want you to try it.” She wanted Brigitte to love it as much as she did - more. She was almost sure no one in Sweden could make bungeoppang like the ajumeoni in Busan. These ladies knew what they were doing.
Brigitte bent her head down and took a bite from the pastry Hana proffered. Her eyes closed again in bliss, and Hana couldn’t keep from watching her as she chewed and swallowed and savored it. She took another bite of it, eyes still on Brigitte, and felt the cool touch of some cream on the side of her face as she did.
“Survey says?”
“I want all of them, forever. You can’t ever tell my mother they’re better than her semlor.” Brigitte’s eyes opened almost reluctantly. Hana laughed, tongue darting out to catch some of the missed cream, and she was almost sure - almost - Brigitte’s eyes followed as it did. “I need to learn how to make these. And you missed a spot.” She reached out and wiped a last bit of cream off Hana’s face. Hana couldn’t look away as the taller woman licked it off her fingertip.
“There’s a waffle iron kind of thing, and the pastry dough, but maybe you could just keep coming back when you wanted one?” Hana kicked herself the minute the words left her mouth. She sounded needy and desperate, like a whining noob when given the chance to get support from a better player.
“So far there are a few things I could see coming back to Busan for,” Brigitte said cautiously, looking at Hana. “Come on - you said there’s more to see, right? We can come back for more of these bunny-pangs later.”
“Bunny?” Hana blinked, and Brigitte grinned at her broadly. “Bungeo-ppang. If you like it so much, you should learn how to say it! Bung-eo-pp-ang.” She exaggerated the pronunciation, and the grandmas at the fish-shaped waffle irons chuckled. Brigitte tried valiantly, stumbling over the doubled p’s and the eo-sound that Swedish apparently lacked.
“I give up,” she said as they began walking again. “I’ll just point and show with fingers how many I want. Unless you can tell me how to say ‘all of them’.”
“I could try, but I think just pointing is safest. You’re…” Hana trailed off.
“Hopeless when it comes to Korean?”
“You said it, not me!”
“Right.” Brigitte grinned and laughed. “It’s okay. You just want me for my fingers. You need another mechanic for Tokki, right?”
Hana blinked several times in quick succession, biting down hard on the response she’d almost made. “Yeah. You and Dae-hyun, under my direction? It’s already the best mech on the squad, that would make it the best mech anywhere.”
“I do have some thoughts,” Brigitte allowed, turning her attention back to the red bean pastry, “but you yanked me out of the MEKA base so fast I couldn’t even see if they were going to work!”
“I might not have gotten all your clearances in order,” Hana admitted, taking another bite of her own pastry, and turning to guide Brigitte deeper into the vaulted market building. “I didn’t want to get into trouble… I just wanted to show it to you first thing.”
“See? You know my priorities. Mechanics, and treats, and hanging out with you.”
Brigitte followed behind as they entered the tall vaulted building. It was like stepping back in time, long alleys with dozens of shops. There were electronics and housewares - replacement faucets, handheld fans, lightbulbs and programmable display signs. It smelled like incense and things she couldn’t name, with a faint hint of roasting meat and pickled things and something spicy, and a faint scent of the sea underlying it all.
Hana guided her along, pointing out traditional embroidery and the everyday soap and mop-heads, overstocked clothes and knock-offs, ground tea and spices, and guided her slowly but steadily down to the food aisles. There was the burble of Korean everywhere around her, and Brigitte was used to not speaking the language - Europe seemed to change dialects every five kilometers - but this was so different, she couldn’t even begin to guess, and she definitely couldn’t read anything.
She trailed along in Hana’s wake, stopping to look at things and making a handful of small purchases to bring back as gifts. There was a small booth with hair clips, and Brigitte stopped there, Hana raising an eyebrow.
“Really?”
“I like a little variety. Doesn’t always have to be utilitarian.” She touched the metal clips in her hair. Her fingers brushed over the bright beaded barrettes and clips and pins: little animals, enameled designs, flowers and pearls and an incredible variety Gothenburg never had. Her eyes lit up and her fingers closed on a pair, and she blocked Hana’s view as she purchased them.
“What did you get? Show me!”
“Demanding, aren’t you?” Brigitte held up the little brown bag out of Hana’s reach, and twisted away from her. “No, this is my treat, for me!”
“Oh, come on, just share!”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Patience is overrated,” Hana grumbled, looking sidelong at Brigitte. “Please?”
“Emails must have been impossible for you, waiting for a response.”
“Best way to know is instant feedback.” She nudged Brigitte with an elbow as the other woman jammed the little bag into a pocket, and grinned. Hana sighed with exasperation and hooked her arm around Brigitte’s. “Fine. Just for that, no more desserts for you.”
“Wait, wait. That’s kind of a big jump, don’t you think?”
“No,” Hana said sweetly with a wicked grin on her face. Her eyes narrowed playfully. “You have your treat, and I’ll have mine and I won’t share. You shoot me down, I’ll go after you! Fair’s fair. Come on, Brigitte.” She tugged her along again. There a surprising amount of strength in Hana’s smaller form. Brigitte couldn’t help but grin - Hana really was a force to be reckoned with, her athletic figure packed with twice as much determination as someone would expect.
The ladies making bungeoppang had been just outside, and the two young women wound their way in deeper past the everyday trinket vendors to a long hall. The smell of fried things and spice and cooking suddenly curled up into Brigitte’s nose. Night had come outside, but the long alley was brightly lit and lined with shops and even stalls down the middle, with dozens of different types of food.
“Oh.” She sucked in a breath and looked down at Hana, grinning unrepentantly. “Now I see why you said we’d have whatever we wanted for dinner. I have no idea what most of this is, but I bet it’s better than those pot noodles your apartment is full of, at least.”
“Hey, I need those when I’m doing repairs! I don’t always have time to go find a kitchen somewhere and cook!” The smaller woman looked indignant, a frown creasing her face until Brigitte smiled again.
“I’m just teasing. Trust me, if you say it’s good, I’m going to believe you. I mean, your face is on everything here - I have to trust you, right?”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Hana reached up and tugged her baseball cap down a little further over her face. “It’s home, and mostly people respect that, but it’s kind of difficult to show someone around without it being a big photo op. And I want to show you the fun things. Come on, down here - I want you to try the mandu, the dumplings, stuffed with kimchi.”
“Can you just slow down for thirty seconds?” Brigitte slowed her own pace, eyes trying to take in the big metal woks full of oil and frying things, the trays and trays of snacks and seaweed and rice and things she couldn’t begin to identify. “Hana, I just - this is home, and you’re excited and I understand that, but I couldn’t even tell you what shops were on the last three streets, let alone what any of this is. I want to see it. It’s not a race.”
“They don’t matter, the good stuff is in here. There’s kimchi, and tteokbokki, and the fried chicken, and-“
“Hana.” Brigitte stopped, and pulled her aside, out of the current of hungry visitors. She put her hands on her friend’s shoulders and looked at her. “You’re stressing me out already. We’ve got a week and I just landed last night. You dragged me to the MEKA base first thing, and then up Busan Tower and across the bay to that park, and don’t get me wrong, I liked seeing it all, but - I’d like a little time that isn’t a kilometer a second, okay?”
“But there’s so much, and I want to share it all with you.” Hana frowned, and Brigitte felt a little guilt creep inside and twist her stomach. Brigitte didn’t want to let Hana down or disappoint her, but she also wanted to remember the vacation - not just the whirlwind of black hair and blazing dark eyes leading the way.
“Look, you have me totally to yourself, right? And we’ve been talking online for what seems like forever. And I know you can’t travel as much, but I can always come back. I just need to make sure Reinhardt’s occupied while I do.”
“You have your responsibilities, and I have mine.” Her voice sounded wounded and Brigitte frowned, her jaw tightening. “I can’t leave Busan unprotected, I-“
“Hey, Hana. Come on.” Brigitte sighed heavily, her shoulders falling and her fingers curling around the smaller woman’s shoulders. “We’ve both got a week off, a week to actually hang out in person, and I want to enjoy it with you. I came here to see you, and I’d be happy if we spent the entire time in the workshop doing repairs and tweaks to your mech. Eating rehydrated noodles or base mess hall food - anything that isn’t a currywurst. I’m not saying we can’t go do as much as we can, but if I’m so busy being dragged everywhere I can’t enjoy spending it with you.” She hoped she didn’t sound as stupid as she thought she did the minute the words came out of her mouth, and looked away.
“I get it,” Hana said after a few moments, biting on her lip and looking up. “Even if I’m technically still on call. I’m excited you’re here and I want to make sure you have fun. You’re here, finally, and it’s…”
“I know.” Brigitte’s lips kicked up in a smile. “So let’s do it. Just maybe not zooming around? We’re not rushing to cap a point in one of your games.”
Hana smiled up at her, a different kind of smile, and Brigitte found it hard to breathe for a moment. She forced a deep inhalation and carefully tucked flyaway lock of Hana’s hair behind her ear, and her hand froze over her shoulder again. Hana reached up, and laced her fingers with Brigitte’s once more. “Come on, then. Let’s go. At a snail’s pace. Just for you, clunky armor girl.”
“It’s not clunky,” Brigitte said defensively, and caught that smile again from Hana that made her want to grin stupidly. The lock of hair dropped back down, and Brigitte pulled out the little brown bag from her pocket. “I got these for me, but I almost feel like you need them instead.”
“Show me!” Hana’s fingers made grabby gestures, flickering quickly. Brigitte upended the bag, and two hair clips dropped out into her palm - little rabbits, like on Hana’s MEKA suit and on Tokki itself. “You bought -“
“Hey, figured you’re the reason I came,” she said with a grin, “I might as well grab a souvenir that would remind me of today, and you, all in one go.” She clipped the cheap bunny icon hair clips into her hair, pulling the long strands away from her face, and looked down at Hana. She looked almost dumbstruck, and then flashed another bright grin.
“You make a cute fangirl.”