Title: He Took Me To Paris

Pairing: Onkey

Characters: Jinki, Kibum

Genre: romance

Words: 657

Summary: How Jinki was an in-between once.

Rainy morning

rainy quest

How much do we rely on our friends

really?

Jinki had no knack for poetry. But he did like to scribble oddities on random pieces of paper whenever questions were tearing his mind apart.

Why is that again that he was meeting his best friend's ex-lover instead of sleeping in his bed? Was Jonghyun a coward? Would he be able to recognize Kibum after all this time? He had last met him at a Christmas party where everyone had been dead drunk.

Kibum came, looking like a patch of the night sky in his big black hat, black raincoat, black shorts and black shiny shoes. Jinki had been naive to think he would be hard to recognize. His eyes travelled to Kibum's bare knees and he wondered if the guy was feeling cold in that weather.

"So tell me how you've been, Jinki," Kibum said when the coffee was brought.

"I... well..." Jinki hadn't expected to be asked stuff. "I'm still working at the publishing house, so..."

"The publishing sphere is troubled now, I hear." Kibum's silver earrings fluttered as he leaned his head to the side.

"Um, yeah... You could say that..." Jinki laughed awkwardly. "But we're struggling. I'm sure there are still talents to uncover."

Kibum blew on his coffee a little.

"How is your book about aliens, Jinki?"

Someone was rattling away one winter night, huh? It was awfully nice of Kibum to remember that, though.

"It's fine. It is. I mean, I gave it up in the middle. But it's okay... How- how are you?"

"Spectacular." Jinki watched as Kibum the cream off his mouth, slowly.

One thing Jonghyun had said about his former half was that he always smelled nice. And Jinki could feel it now. Kibum smelled like a Paris morning in early May, when you walk along a boulevard and hop into a little flower market before going to your favorite book shop. He'd never been to Paris. His mind was full of clichés today.

"Jinki. When is the wedding?"

Kibum leaned his head to the other side now.

"August 8th."

"He is happy with her?"

"Yes."

"Does she love dogs?"

"She does."

Very nicely and very quickly, Jinki spilled everything he wasn't supposed to tell. But he couldn't lie to that panther face, and he couldn't hide anything from those dark eyes.

"You have brought my things, have you, Jinki?"

"Oh, yes." He remembered the big paper shopping bag standing by his feet and passed it over.

"Are my cookie cutters there?" Kibum thought aloud, peeking inside. "Ah, here they are. I needed them."

It stopped raining, and they rose to their feet to leave.

"May ask you a question?" Jinki wondered as they were standing on the street, Kibum waiting for his cab. (Jinki needed no cab. He lived nearby.)

"Yes?"

"Do the raindrops fall upon on your legs as you walk?"

Kibum smiled, dimples showing on his cheeks.

"Sometimes they do."

"Do you mind it?"

"Not at all."

The car arrived, and Kibum reached out his hand to brush Jinki's cheek.

"You're a sweet guy, Jinki," he said as a goodbye.

"You... too..."

He closed the car door for Kibum, the sweet guy he was.

At home, he sat upon his couch, his shirt still buttoned up. "Maybe I should've finished that alien book," he muttered to himself. Something felt incomplete. Maybe it wasn't the book.

He noticed something white lying on the floor. A tee shirt. Too expensive to be his own. It must have fallen out of the bag when I was leaving. Jinki picked it up and brought it to his face. The smell. He was in Paris, and he was running down the Rivoli, because someone was waiting for him at the Tuileries garden under a black umbrella. He smiled.

Rainy promise

of a dream

Should I keep it to myself

or find a way

to give it back?