Chapitre Vingt-trois

>Stay close, don't go<

4 months later

Pulling his luggage, with his sunglasses all set and a smug smile on his face, SungJong walked out of Charles de Gaulle Airport with a pose that suggested, ‘Make way, peasants, make way. You and I cannot walk on the same ground’. With a hand on his hip, he tilted his head and breathed in Paris air, as he said to himself, “Oh, Paris, the city of love, fashion, and elegance, just right where I should be.”

He looked around and took in the beautiful sight of the foreign country, enjoying his moments before the three males behind him interrupted. “Yah, stop that, you’re embarrassing us.” SungGyu said, looking around to see if anyone was looking at them weirdly.

They had only just got down the plane, four Koreans, in a foreign country, so they couldn’t afford to be embarrassing in front of the locals.

“We don’t need SungJong to do anything to be embarrassing.” MyungSoo muttered. “Just being in Paris with four dudes is already embarrassing and weird enough.” Almost instantly, three pairs of eyes were glaring at him, and MyungSoo scoffed as he looked at them incredulously. “I am being serious!” He said.

“Out of all places on earth, out of all countries, you guys decided to come to Paris as a trip for us guys. Paris, guys, Paris.” MyungSoo continued, laughing at the end as he felt that this whole situation was extremely hilarious.

Just imagine it, people.

Paris, known as the city of love to almost everyone, and there he was, with his three male friends. He had no idea why they all wanted to come here, but he knew for a fact that he couldn’t say no when they forced him to come. They bought a ticket for him behind his back, and lo and behold, they told him that he was coming with them to Paris.

He strongly refused at first, but everyone basically coerced him to follow the trio, including his family and other friends. Besides, when he thought of it, probably it would’ve been nice to go out of the country once in a while. He’d been so immersed with work that he barely had the time to himself.

Well, now that he was in Paris, he wondered what were the things he could do with the other three boys, which would not seem weird in other people’s eyes. Perhaps he should have the words ‘we are not gays’ stamped on each of their foreheads, just in case.

And, as if on cue, SungJong tilted his head up, and began singing with his arms widely spread, letting his luggage fall. “LA VIE … JAMAIS ON NE ME DIRA. QUE LA COURSE AUX ÉTOILES; ÇA N’EST PAS POUR MOI. LAISSEZ MOI VOUS ÉMERVEILLER ET PRENDRE MON EN VOL. NOUS ALLONS EN FIN NOUS RÉGALER.”

Everyone’s eyes were on them now, and some even whispered and others merely smiled. SungGyu’s eyes widened and tried his best to apologize, thinking that that was the only thing he could think of doing while MyungSoo looked like he wanted nothing to do with his friends whatsoever. He wished he could melt into a puddle of liquid, or make himself invinsible but there he was, standing awkwardly surrounded by a friend who was bowing like crazy, another one singing his heart out, and the other one trying to shut the singing one up.

“SungJong, shut up!” HoYa hissed as he covered the younger’s mouth, causing the rest of the lyrics to be muffled. SungJong tried to glare at HoYa but obeyed his order when HoYa lifted his hand from SungJong’s mouth. His real intention was to annoy MyungSoo anyways, and when he looked at the latter, MyungSoo was looking extremely embarrassed, and SungGyu pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked at his shoes in shame.

It won’t surprise him if the four of them became famous anyway.

“Well, let’s check in our hotel first, freshen up, then we can go sight-seeing.” SungGyu suggested, and the others nodded in agreement. “I’ve done some research and there are so many things that we can look at here.”

MyungSoo simply nodded his head and followed as SungGyu hailed a cab and told the driver of their hotel name, and after loading in their luggage, including SungJong’s pillow, they got in the cab and the driver started driving them to their hotel.

Throughout the journey there, MyungSoo kept his eyes outside, taking in the breathtaking view of Paris, and how right everyone was. Paris was indeed beautiful, and he thought off going sightseeing by walking instead of taking cabs, as they could get to see so many things by walking.

“Is that Notre Dame Cathedral?” MyungSoo asked no one in particular, but Hoya who was sitting next to him, nodded his head and said, “Oui.” MyungSoo chuckled at that and continued looking at the museums, the gardens, all which he was eager to visit later.

Perhaps coming here wasn’t so bad after all. There were indeed places that most couples would go, so maybe they can avoid that in order not to run into PDAs. It would be awkward, especially since the four of them were all men.

MyungSoo shuddered at the thought.

Looking in front of him, he saw SungGyu staring at an open notebook on his lap, and when MyungSoo tried to see what it was that SungGyu was reading, he was actually looking at a blank page, and MyungSoo tipped his head to the side.

“Are you looking for some ideas for your song, hyung?” He asked, remembering that SungGyu had been writing a few songs lately during his free time, and all of them turned out to be good. Maybe that was one of the reasons why they came here.

SungGyu looked back at him and smiled. “Well, yeah, something like that. I have the words stuck in my head but I can’t seem to put it in a perfect melody.” He said, scratching his head.

“Maybe not yet, hyung. You always have this little problem with your songs, but in the end, they turned out to be amazing.” SungJong encouraged, and that was all SungGyu needed for him to grin widely.

Once they’d arrived at the hotel, checked in, and settled into their room, it turned out that all of them were too tired to go sightseeing. Besides, they arrived a bit late, and it would be night soon. HoYa suggested that they all rested for the rest of the evening and they’d do some adventure the next day.

No one protested, anyway. SungJong, in fact, fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, and MyungSoo secretly took a picture of him sleeping soundly with his camera.

It had been such a long time since the last he held it. He had to admit, it almost felt strange to be holding his big camera again, but after practicing again a few times, he finally felt that the feeling had come back to him, and he was one with his camera again.

“So, where are we going tomorrow, hyung?” MyungSoo asked, fidgeting with his camera while SungGyu sat at the table, tipping his head as he tried to remember the names of the places they were going to visit. “Well, there is the Eiffel Tower, of course. We cannot miss that. Then there is Luxembourg Gardens, Notre Dame Cathedral that you saw, Musee d'Orsay and Musee du Louvre, both museums, and ... more museums. We’ll also be trying their food, of course, so-”

By the time he looked back at MyungSoo, the boy was already sleeping soundly next to SungJong, and SungGyu could only laugh as he shook his head. It was hard to convince MyungSoo to come, for at first, he didn’t see the relevance of him going, but they did it in the end. He was there now, and that was all that mattered.

The next day, as it turned out, MyungSoo woke up much later than the rest, and he realized this only when he opened his eyes and there was a note on his pillow. He looked around the room quickly only to see that he was alone, and on the note SungGyu told him that they didn’t have the heart to wake him up, since they tried and he was still sleeping, so they decided to leave him first and went out to look for breakfast.

The p/s note told him to call SungGyu once he was awake.

MyungSoo tilted his head and looked at the clock. They must’ve finished their breakfast right now, and he reckoned that they were sauntering nearby while waiting for MyungSoo to be up.

Feeling well rested for the first time in God knows how long, MyungSoo got up and freshened up, before grabbing his phone to call SungGyu, wanting to know where the three of them were.

SungGyu told him that HoYa and SungJong decided to walk around on their own while he was at Luxembourg Gardens, which wasn’t that far from their hotel and MyungSoo raised his eyebrows. This hyung of his must’ve needed the feels for his song that he went to such place.

“Okay, I’ll be there.” MyungSoo said, keeping his phone in his pocket and grabbed his bag pack, together with his camera. Since it was a garden, he figured that there would be some beautiful shots he could take, all the while trying to get used to his camera again.

After making sure that he didn’t leave anything important behind, he walked out the room and locked the door.

“Park MinHyuk, for the life of me, I swear to God, I am going to pummel you the next time I see you. How can you ditch me like that? I got so worried when I woke up and not seeing you around. And why on Earth weren’t you answering your goddamn phone?!” Nagged MinNeul as she tried to balance the phone and at the same time adjusting the settings with her camera.

She was in a bad mood