Safeway Pyongyang // Reader x Countryhumans

Military Parade

      The day was a wild swirl of colour, sound, and taste.

        Hae kept showing up to shove different kinds of food into Y/N's mouth. Rolls of meat stuffed with rice that SH called injo-gogi-bap (which to Y/N's concern translated to 'rice with artificial meat'), but tasted slightly spicy and surprisingly good, some weird smooth sausage on a stick, and spicy kimchi.

       She was also gifted a clam in its shell, which- after she commented on the strange taste, as well as the chemical smell- SH informed her had been cooked in petrol.

      "Is that... safe?" she asked, as Hae took the empty shell back from her.

      "Sure," SH said cheerfully, eating her own petrol-clam.

      Y/N mostly stuck with the two other female provinces (South Pyongan had vanished into the crowd), splitting all of the street food that she received with them. She hadn't been in a crowd this big since the airport terminal in Beijing. In fact, this was probably the second biggest crowd she had ever been in in her life.

      Most of the men were dressed in dark formal clothes, but the women were a riot of colour, moving around them in solid and multi-coloured choson-ot and other traditional garments, all in shades from sapphire to ruby, making Y/N feel like she was in a kaleidoscope.

     At Moran Park, where Y/N had been with Kangwon the other day, she had been observing SH and Hae dancing with their people, while SH tried to cajole Y/N to join them. Eventually, Hae just grabbed her, and swept her into a lively traditional dance.

      "I can't dance," Y/N protested, as Hae spun her around, skirt flaring. The only dances that she had had before had been her eighth grade graduation dance, and with him.

      "That doesn't matter," Hae chirped, before passing her off to SH.

        The province ended up being right- the dance was more energetic, and didn't depend on any set-in-stone steps. It was a partner's dance, and in the end, Y/N had danced with half of the crowd, tourists and civilians.

       North Pyongan found them laying on the grass, laughing, around noon. "Do you want to see one of our national treasures, before the military parade?" he offered.

       "What is it?" Y/N asked, sitting up and brushing the grass from her choson-ot.

      "It's a surprise."

       So he took them down the road, and across the river, to where a grey battleship, emblazoned with 'GER-2' on the hull, was floating on the water. It looked old, with several spots of rust on the handrails, but was in surprisingly good shape.

       There weren't many people in this part of the city, though there were a group of tourists at the monument behind them, which allowed Y/N to walk up to the ship and examine it. The shape of it looked familiar. And the writing on it...

       She gasped in disbelief, turning to North Pyongan. "Is this an American ship?"

       North Pyongan smiled. "It's the USS Pueblo. We're the only nation to have captured and held on to one of America's ships." Pride was radiating off him in waves.

       "Wow." Y/N was impressed- she didn't think that the capitalist Countryhuman would have tolerated anyone holding on to one of his ships, let alone North Korea.

      "Do you want to go inside?" the sailor province asked, and Y/N eagerly agreed.

       She got a tour of the inside of the old spyship, which was filled with dials and pipes, as well as got the backstory on it. The ship had apparently been on a surveillance mission in North Korean waters when it had been captured.