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The wind ruffles the mottled leaves on the trees. Hannah strides down the pathway with her hands in her pockets, staring blankly at the scenery. She aimlessly wanders around, absentmindedly dodging pedestrians. Hannah had gone out for a walk, thinking that it was a nice day to be outside, and she was regretting it. She had nothing to do in the early mornings in the summer. Her job at the Baratie, the restaurant she was working at part time, didn’t start until 5. The weather was nice, and she did like being outside, but just wandering around was boring and felt empty. Her daughter, Amy was going to be staying for a while, after school let out for the break, but Hannah had nothing to do until then. Hannah was contemplating her existence when her phone starting ringing.
“Hello, this is Hannah,” she answered, wondering who could be calling her in the middle of the morning.
“That idiot Rin is sick, so we need you to work the lunch shift,” a deep voice commanded gruffly. It was Sanji, the manager at the Baratie.
“Now I have something to do. I’ll be there in an hour.” Hannah sighed in mild relief that she wouldn’t be purposeless all day. She hung up the phone and started wandering back to her apartment. She changed into work clothes that were much nicer than the sweats she was wearing while taking a walk, and drove to the Baratie.
When Hannah walked in through the staff entrance, she was expecting Sanji to order her to the kitchen, but he wasn’t even in the kitchen. She put her stuff away then peeked out of the kitchen. Sanji was flirting with a gorgeous young brunette, who was smiling and making polite conversation, while waiting for him to ask her what her order was. Hannah smiled and made her way back into the kitchen. It was very quiet, much quieter than it usually was, probably because it was 11 am on a Tuesday, and Hannah was used to working nights, when people came for the famed delicious food, namely Sanji’s seafood dishes.
“Make a creme brulee with raspberries and bring it out to the gorgeous lady at table 3,” Sanji said, ripping off the paper where he wrote the order down and sticking it to the empty board where unfinished orders were supposed to be. He went back out to the restaurant and took the order of the only other person there, an elderly woman. Hannah started making the creme brulee, putting raspberries in a bowl with a bit of sugar to make them sweeter and more like sauce. She was making the dish on autopilot, not paying attention to the things around her, not that there was anything happening, except Sanji making some other dish.
While the creme brulee was baking, Hannah washed her hands off and went back out to the restaurant area. No one new had come in, but she would have known if they had because of the security cameras. She wandered around, trying to find a dirty table to wipe off or something, but Sanji made sure everything was impeccable, so there was nothing to clean up. Hannah decided to ask the customers if they wanted anything and chat for a bit, which was usually Sanji’s job, but he was busy for some reason.
“Would you like anything to drink while you’re waiting?” Hannah asked the young brunette.
“Do you have any wine you’d recommend?” The brunette asked back, smiling at Hannah.
“Uh… Yeah,” Hannah mumbled a bit before composing herself. “We have a 2009 Pinot Grigio from Milan, a 2007 Viognier from Paris, a 2010 Pinot Noir from Oregon, and a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon from a local vineyard.”
“Hmm.. How about the Viognier?” The brunette ordered, still smiling.
“Alright, I’ll get that ready for you,” Hannah said, smiling in return. She strode to the small bar and reached behind the counter for the bottle. She carefully poured the wine into a glass and brought it back out for the lady at the table.
“Thank you.” Hannah nodded and went back into the kitchen to see if the creme brulee was done cooking. She found Sanji humming while sauteeing some onions, dancing around slightly. She got the creme brulee out of the oven and started putting the finishing touches on it. When she had just finished plating it and was about to bring it out, Sanji stopped humming and handed Hannah a small platter of cheeses and meats.
“Bring this out to the old lady in the corner,” Sanji said.
Hannah scowled at him slightly-- he should do his own work-- but brought it out anyway. She set the platter down at the old woman’s table, smiling, and then set the creme brulee at the younger brunette woman’s table.
“Thank you,” the brunette woman said as she got her utensils ready. “Oh, by the way, I come here everyday, and I haven’t seen you before. Are you a new employee?”
“Nope,” Hannah chuckled. “I usually work night shifts, but one of the employees was sick so Sanji told me to come in early today. I’ve worked here for around eight years.”
“Ahh, that makes sense. I’m Ingrid, by the way. I work around the corner at Usopp’s Fashion Design.” Ingrid introduced while starting to eat. “Usopp wanted me to check this place out and keep an eye on Sanji because he’s too afraid to meet Sanji alone at his restaurant.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” Hannah responded, nodding. “Sanji can be a bit strange, can’t he?”
“Mmhmm.” Ingrid nodded through a bite of raspberries. “This is really good. Did you make it?”
“Yeah.” Hannah nodded, blushing a bit from the compliment. There was a moment of awkward silence that Hannah took as her cue to leave.
The rest of the day went smoothly, if uneventful, and Hannah went home at around eleven and fell fast asleep.
The next morning Hannah was woken by her alarm at eight. She groaned; the only reason she was up so early was that she had to pick up her daughter from the airport at ten, and the airport was an hour long drive. Hannah quickly got ready and headed out to the airport. Her daughter was flying in from New Jersey, where she went to school, so Hannah checked the monitors for where her plane would be. She walked to gate three and waited. When the plane finally arrived, Hannah continued waiting. Eventually, people started to file out with their luggage, and Hannah searched the crowd for Amy. Hannah hadn’t seen her in about six months, so a lot could have changed.
“Mom!” A voice called from behind Hannah. Hannah turned around to find a familiar head of blonde hair rushing toward her.
“Amy! It’s been a while!” Hannah exclaimed while wrapping her hands around her daughter. They stepped away from each other and did a once-over. Amy had the same bright blonde shoulder length hair, although she had grown a bit taller and had a completely different sense of fashion. She was wearing floral overall shorts with a plain white shirt underneath and had those gladiator sandals that seemed to be in fashion right now. She had grown up beautifully. She had a small navy suitcase with her and a leather handbag, but nothing else.
“You have any other stuff?” Hannah asked, leading Amy away from the large crowd.
“Yeah, I have a bag with my clothes at terminal four, I think,” Amy responded, a bright smile on her face. They walked together to where Amy's bags were and collected them so they could put it in Hannah's car.
“So I heard that you wanted to see that Korean band while you’re in town,” Hannah said as they walked back to the car with Amy’s bags.
“Yeah, BTS is playing on Saturday at the Shrine Auditorium,” Amy nodded, slipping into the passenger seat. “Wait, does that mean I can go?!” Amy turned to Hannah with a huge grin on her face, hands waving wildly.
Hannah laughed as she buckled in. “Yeah, I got tickets to the concert.” Amy squealed and started jumping around in her seat. They drove all the way back to Hannah’s apartment, with Amy talking about the Korean band the entire time. Through listening, Hannah had learned a lot of what she thought was unnecessary information about the “Kpop” band, BTS. They had seven members, the leader was named Rap Monster, the youngest (“My bias,” Amy said) was named Cookie or something like that, and the other five had names like V, J-Hope, Jin, Sugar, and Jimin. Hannah didn’t really care about them, but it was nice to see Amy so enthusiastic.
“This is my favorite song of theirs, ‘I Need U’,” Amy was saying as she played a song on her phone and Hannah turned onto the street where she lived. It started softly, then went into rap, surprising Hannah. She didn’t know boybands had rappers, although she should have expected that from ‘Rap Monster’. Amy was enthusiastically singing along to it with her eyes closed and arms flailing. After the song ended, Amy started playing another, just as they were pulling into the apartment parking lot.
“This one is called War of Hormone. It’s one of their older songs, like from 2014.”
“2014 isn’t that old,” Hannah said, giving her daughter a side-eye. The song started playing, only this time it started with a bunch of rapping. Hannah parked the car and got out, going around the back to get Amy’s stuff. Amy kept playing her music and dancing while grabbing her stuff. They brought everything up to Hannah’s apartment, gathering a couple looks from other people for Amy’s dancing.
“You haven’t changed anything really, have you?” Amy asked, looking around Hannah’s apartment. The walls were white, the floor was wood, there was memorabilia on the shelves, and food in the kitchen. Nothing had changed.
“Is there something wrong with that?” Hannah asked back, pretending to be offended.
“Nope! I like it!” Amy twirled around, smiling, and plopped down on the leather couch. Hannah set down the bags she was carrying and sat down next to her.
“So… What do ya wanna do?” Hannah asked.
“Hmm… I’m hungry.”
“Alright, let’s go to the Baratie,” Hannah suggested. They changed clothes, as it was around five now and the Baratie was a semi-formal restaurant. They got back in the car and drove to the Baratie, which was never very busy on Wednesday nights. They walked in and were greeted by Sanji.
“I thought you weren’t coming in today,” Sanji said with a flirtatious smile. “And who is this lovely lady?” He lifted Amy’s hand to his lips and kissed it softly.
“This is my daughter, Amy. She is too good and too young for you.” Hannah stated, putting emphasis on the word “daughter”.
Sanji smiled still and led them to a table, giving them both menus. He left, giving the two of them time to chat and decide.
After some silence while they decided, Hannah tried to start a conversation.
“So… How’ve you been?” Hannah asked awkwardly.
“Oh my god, mom. You are really awkward,” Amy said, giggling.
“You hadn’t realized that already?” Hannah asked sarcastically.
“I’m doing fine,” Amy responded, still giggling. “Oh yeah!” She seemed to realize something. “Since you got us tickets to see BTS, I figured I should show you some pictures.” Amy pulled out her phone and started searching something up.
“This is Jeon Jungkook, my bias,” Amy said, showing her mother a picture of an attractive young Asian boy. “He’s the maknae, which means he is the youngest. He can sing, rap and dance, so people call him the Golden Maknae.”
“This is Rap Monster, the leader.” She showed a picture of a tall asian boy with cute dimples and white hair in a quiff. “This is also Rapmon.” He had pink hair that wasn’t gelled up this time. “His real name is Kim Namjoon.”
“This is Kim Seokjin, the oldest. He’s also the mom of the group.” She showed a picture of another cute Asian boy. “He’s the visual and one of the vocalists.” She kept going on, showing more pictures of more members. “This is Suga, but his real name is Min Yoongi. This is Park Jimin. This is J-Hope. His real name is Jung Hoseok. This is V, or Kim Taehyung.” There were so many pictures that even though Amy was trying to get Hannah to recognize each of them, it was just getting more confusing.
Finally, Sanji came back to take their orders. “What can I get for you ladies?”
“I’ll have the shrimp paella with the Sangria that we got yesterday,” Hannah ordered.
“Uh… I’m gonna have a Caesar salad and the cheese board,” Amy said.
“What kind of dressing would you like?” Sanji asked politely.
“Uhhmmm…. Just ranch.”
“Any drinks?”
“Just water.”
Sanji left the table with their orders and Amy resumed talking about Kpop. They got their dinner fairly quickly and ate it fairly quickly as well. Amy seemed to be getting more excited about the concert as time went by and it was rubbing off a bit on Hannah, so much as she started actually remembering what each member of BTS looked like.
“Ahh, there are so many.” Hannah commented offhandedly.
“Wait until you see Seventeen,” Amy replied with a smirk.
“Oh no, are you going to show me that one too?”
“Maybe.” an evil smile was still on her face as Hannah paid the bill. They left and went back to the apartment at around seven. Amy showed Hannah some videos of the group on Youtube, and she found herself liking them a bit. For the next two days, they went out shopping and eating, until the day of the concert. Amy gave her mom a test on who was who in the group before they went out for dinner before the concert. This time, they went to a pizza place near the auditorium. When they walking in through the doors, Hannah saw someone she hadn’t seen in a very long time. Grace, Hannah’s former girlfriend. Grace had the same light brown layered wavy hair, the same round face and dark eyebrows. Hannah stopped walking when she saw her.
“Grace,” She mumbled. Grace looked up from her pizza and met Hannah’s eyes.
“Hannah,” Grace said, although her voice didn’t carry over the noise of the shop, Hannah could read her lips.
“Hm? What’s wrong?” Amy said, realizing that Hannah wasn’t moving.
“It’s nothing,” Hannah muttered, shaking her head and continuing to the counter to order. Amy looked at her skeptically, but decided to let it go. They ordered their pizza more quietly as usual, although Hannah was trying to take her mind off of the woman in the corner. Amy kept talking excitedly about BTS, checking Hannah’s reaction while she wasn’t looking.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Amy rested her hand on Hannah’s arm, concerned.
Hannah sighed, realizing she had been caught. “That woman over there, the one with the shoulder length light brown hair, she’s my ex. She’s the one who I was having you with, but we had a fight and she backed out.”
“Oh…” Amy suddenly looked a lot less excited for the concert and a lot more understanding. “Well, it’s not like she’s a part of your life now, so let’s just have fun at the concert.”
Hannah smiled. Amy was like a very bright light in a slightly dim old bar. She always improved Hannah’s mood. They finished eating the pizza, the mood lighter than before, and left the pizza place.
“Oh that reminds me. Have you met anyone recently?” Amy asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
Hannah blushed and turned away. “Not really.”
“Ah, so you have!” Amy grinned.
“No! Just… someone who came to the Baratie and seemed nice.”
“What’s her name?”
“Why should I tell you that?”
“What is it?”
“Ingrid…” Hannah sighed, relenting. Amy continued chatting happily while they made their way to the auditorium. Amy seemed to want to set Hannah and Ingrid up, although by the time they arrived at the auditorium, Hannah had mostly stopped listening.
There were a whole bunch of ecstatic girls outside of the auditorium, many of them wearing what looked like sports jerseys. Amy had stopped talking about setting Hannah up with Ingrid and was now blabbering about how excited she was. They lined up by the door and waited for a while before they finally got inside. They were directed to their seats in the front of the already crowded auditorium.
“Oh my god! Oh my god!” Amy kept squealing as they made their way to their seats. They weren’t the front row, but they were pretty close. They waited for a while before the lights finally dimmed and music started playing. There was smoke around the stage and seven people appeared. One of them started rapping in Korean and the fans went wild. Hannah winced from all of the noise, but was grinning as she saw her daughter jumping up and down and singing certain parts. After a couple songs, the music died down and the pink haired guy started talking.
“Thank you so much to everyone for being here!” he said in perfect English. He said something in Korean, then the whole group chorused something else in Korean and bowed. “We are BTS.” He waved as everyone cheered. They all introduced themselves in English with varying degrees of accents, and the pink haired guy who Amy had pointed out as Rap Monster thanked the fans again. After they had talked for a bit, with a translater off to the side helping with the member’s English, the music started back up again and the members started up again jumping around.
The concert ended after another hour of singing and a bit of talking. The members seemed to be sweating buckets by the time they were done. Hannah and Amy left the concert in very high spirits, although they were a bit exhausted. They drove back to Hannah’s apartment and quickly crashed.
The next morning Hannah woke up to Amy shaking her.
“There’s someone at the door to see you.”
Hannah sat up and blearily looked around. She got out of bed and put on a coat over her pajamas. She looked through the peephole to find a familiar looking brunette at the door.
“Ingrid!” She exclaimed quietly. She quickly unlocked the door and cracked it open.
“Hey.” Hannah greeted. “What are you doing here?”
“Uhh…. well, Your boss got my boss to get me to give you these flowers and this letter from someone for some reason,” Ingrid explained awkwardly.
Hannah chuckled, taking the flowers and the letter, although she wondered who it was from. She opened the letter and read it quickly.
Hannah felt her throat grow thick, and her heart start racing. She knew that Grace wasn’t a part of her life anymore, but it still felt a bit strangely good to see that Grace was apologizing for at least something. She smiled and looked back up to see Ingrid staring at her.
“Should I leave?” Ingrid asked hesitantly.
“No, come in.” Hannah invited her in, despite knowing that she still wasn’t fully dressed. “This is my daughter, Amy. Amy, this is Ingrid.”
“Nice to meet you,” they both chorused.
Hannah brought out an extra chair to sit at the tiny table, and noticed a small letter tucked in with the flowers. She picked it out and laughed when she saw what it said. “DATE HER”. It was in Sanji’s handwriting. She picked up a pen and scribbled on the card, then handed it to Ingrid.
“Hm?” Ingrid looked at it curiously and Hannah motioned for her to read it. “Date…. Me?”
“Sure.” Hannah said, laughing still. Ingrid’s face turned bright red, but then she said, “I didn’t think I would have to ask.”