to promise the world [4/4]
P A R I S , F R A N C E
✈︎
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Kyungsoo wakes up with his face planted into a pillow.
He’s hit with the sudden urge to puke, so he gets up on his feet and instantly runs for the bathroom. His hands and knees collapse on the tiled floor as he vomits on the toilet bowl, spilling his guts while his unruly hair sticks on the top of his forehead. He groans from the smell and how it reeks, a feeling of nausea flowing easily through his system.
He leans his head on the clean side of the bowl, trying to fully take in his surroundings.
And then he remembers.
Kyungsoo rises, taking slow steps back to the bedroom. Goosebumps run along his arms and sends chills to his bare skin, then notices how he’s only dressed in his underwear. He picks up a discarded sweater off the floor and wears the loose cotton fabric over his head, taking a seat on the chair in front of a small table and burying his face in his hands, head spinning.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
He wasn’t supposed to wake up on this part of the room, particularly on top of the bed. He wasn’t supposed to be sleeping there. He wasn’t even supposed to kiss him.
But all these things have already happened, with one thing leading to another, and Kyungsoo doesn’t quite know how to deal with it.
He finally notices Jongin not being there, but finds a note perched on the table next to a bottle of water.
Went out for a bit. I should be back by the time you wake up, it reads.
Kyungsoo shakes his head and tries to wipe out everything from his mind, thinking this must all just be a dream, but it only makes his head even more dizzy.
Coffee. Maybe coffee is what Kyungsoo needs.
But just as he hurries out of the bedroom, the door of the main room opens.
Jongin’s eyes quickly find Kyungsoo’s as soon as he steps inside. His footsteps are slow and deliberate. Cautious.
“Hi,” Jongin simply greets.
Kyungsoo’s chest tightens. He remains rigid in his place, and all his body parts can’t seem to function.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo mutters, eyes focused on the suddenly interesting ground, on his feet, and on his wobbly knees up to his-
To his naked legs.
When Kyungsoo looks up, Jongin’s looking at him with an unreadable face, specifically at the sweater that drapes just inches above his knees, the piece of clothing which he realizes doesn’t belong to him.
“Uh,” Kyungsoo starts to say, but Jongin promptly waves him off with a small smile.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jongin tells him, lifting another hand that carries a paper bag and places it on the kitchen counter. “I bought some aspirin for the headache. And some fruits.”
Jongin is suddenly making his way towards Kyungsoo, stopping just inches away from his face.
Kyungsoo’s head reels, his blood running hot in his veins. He thinks he’s about to puke again. The air is thick, heavy with a tension he can’t explain.
And Kyungsoo waits, although he doesn’t exactly know what it is that he’s waiting for. Maybe it was to establish things, to confirm just what exactly it is they are doing.
But Jongin is looking at him differently, different from how he’d looked at him last night. It’s a look that’s friendly, the thrill and the desire no longer there but replaced with a hint of nervousness and hesitation. Maybe even confusion.
“I, uhm,” Jongin says, “I’m going to get ready.”
Jongin walks away to retreat into the bedroom. The door closes, leaving Kyungsoo with so many questions and so much want, wondering if he’d already ruined things before they even begun.
Attention passengers, Train 0504 to Paris is now approaching. Please make your way to Platform Two. Do not leave your luggage unattended.
A three note-chime sounds on the loudspeaker as the huge train approaches the station. They are already there, saying their goodbyes with Junmyeon and Jongdae about to send them off. Jongdae brings Kyungsoo into a tight hug and squeezes Kyungsoo in his arms, while Junmyeon gives Jongin a pat on the back, asking him to take care.
“It was so lovely to meet you, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae says with a sweet smile on his face. “I hope you come back soon.”
“It was great to meet you too,” Kyungsoo says, glancing at Junmyeon who is looking back at him thoughtfully with unspoken words.
They climb on the train and stow their bags. Kyungsoo looks out the glass window to see Jongdae and Junmyeon waving at them, smiling at them one more time before the train departs.
He leans back against the seat, recalling the memories they’ve created in Amsterdam as the question Junmyeon had asked him stays with him.
Jongin is also staring out the window, his eyes expressionless but tranquil. Kyungsoo wonders about the things running through his head right now-if he was thinking about the same things in his own head like when his lips actually tasted like beer and a little bit like an antidote, or how he had traced the tiny moles on his back, those moles he wished he was the only person who saw them.
On their way to Paris, Kyungsoo starts to silently question his existence in Jongin’s life. He starts to think about his own purpose being in front of him on this train, because right now he is looking at him, and he realizes there are things that didn’t feel as important and uncertain as what he feels when he is with him.
When Kyungsoo thinks about Junmyeon’s question, it makes him terrified, because how is it possible to be friends with Jongin wanting to kiss him all the time?
And now, he had given him parts of him without knowing if he wanted it.
Kyungsoo speaks over the quiet.
“I think I owe you an apology, Jongin. About…what happened last night.”
Jongin’s head turns slowly to look at him.
“We were having a really good time and I was really drunk, but you looked so goddamn good, and I remember every single thing. I remember kissing you and it leading to other things. I think about it, how crazy and stupid I was, and now I think I’m really messing things up.”
Jongin pauses for a while.
Kyungsoo stares apprehensively at him, pondering about more things he wanted to apologize for but is interrupted by the sound of the pilot’s calm voice.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Saying sorry for things you shouldn’t apologize for.”
Kyungsoo suddenly can’t breathe.
“Jongin,” He tries to say, “I-“
“Can I ask you something?” Jongin asks, eyes brooding. “Have you ever done something in your life because you just felt like it? Just because you wanted to?”
He is beyond unprepared. He doesn’t know how to answer him without scaring him, without scaring himself.
“What if…” murmurs Kyungsoo, “What if I said in that moment, you were all that I wanted?”
There’s a frantic stirring in his gut and a flicker of something in the pilot’s eyes, his heart beating quick.
And then Jongin smiles all of a sudden, he smiles so bright that Kyungsoo might have seen more than just the sun, but even stars.
“Then maybe we need to spend more time living, wanting each moment without any regrets.” Jongin tells him. “Kyungsoo, as soon as we make it to Paris, I want us to stop controlling things and feel as unapologetic about our feelings as possible. I need you to promise me that.”
Kyungsoo remembers what Baekhyun had told him in his balcony days before he left for Glasgow, before all of this ever happened. And this morning, he remembers getting a text message from his neighbour, hearing about how they’d made it to Amsterdam and was now leaving with Jongin for Paris.
Please tell me you’re keeping your word, Baekhyun had sent.
He still hasn’t replied to it, maybe because he was already too late.
“I’m not sure if I can keep any more promises,” Kyungsoo mutters lowly. “I might have already broken some of them.”
Jongin looks at him with a face full of wonder.
“What other promises have you broken?”
Moments quickly flash in Kyungsoo’s eyes: Jongin’s laugh that was like a drug he couldn’t quit. The warmth of his hand on the shared bed, and the way his feelings are starting to resemble autumn leaves, inevitably descending from the trees.
“Only the most important,” Kyungsoo says quietly. Promising not to fall.
Kyungsoo wakes with a strain on his neck. He opens his eyes, fully aware that he’d fallen asleep leaning his head on the glass window. He doesn’t know what time it is or how many hours they have left inside the train, but out of all these things, he first notices how Jongin’s seat is empty.
Kyungsoo is about to panic when he realizes that a heavy weight is pressing down on his lap.
He looks to find that the pilot had transferred close to him, sleeping with his backpack as a makeshift pillow resting on top of him.
Jongin is so gentle, so peaceful in his sleep of escape. His skin is golden again as it shines against the natural sunlight. Kyungsoo notices his open palm and fingers curled, as if he was holding something invisible.
His hand is warm when he reaches for him, connecting his hand to the tiny gaps of his own fingers.
Kyungsoo stares out the window, Jongin’s hand interlaced with his own, watching as the world goes by. He can already see the eiffel tower from afar-an indication that they were close. The idea of seeing Paris had always been exciting to him, except now there’s a sad smile dawning on his face and a fear rising in in his heart.
As soon as they approach Paris, Kyungsoo wonders if the things that were happening between them are the things that happened too soon or too late, whether this could be the start of a new beginning or the beginning of the ending.
Kyungsoo looks at their hands, and thinks about how they are unbelievably beautiful-how they quickly hold on to things and how sometimes they slowly let go. He wonders if one of them would be a choice he would soon have to make.
People are shuffling and pushing inside the train station, the wheels of suitcases crashing into their ankles as they find their way out of Gare Du Nord and towards the taxi queue. When they finally reach the front of the queue, Kyungsoo watches Jongin greet the taxi driver in French, staring at him in amazement.
“Montmartre, s’il vous plait,” Jongin says, the words drawling out from his mouth so fluently that Kyungsoo can’t help but smile at him in adoration as they sit back in the seat and the driver pulls into the traffic.
Paris, Kyungsoo thinks as he winds down the window, is finally here.
Kyungsoo starts his journey taking in the sound of the busy streets inside the taxi. He quickly catches a whiff of fresh bread and heavy smoke from outside as the wind swiftly blows in his hair. The taxi drives further into the city, coffee shops situated at every corner and people dressed stylishly, greeting each other and exchanging kisses on both sides of their cheeks. He continues to gaze out the window in awe, sometimes even trying to read the french road signs when they repeatedly come across them.
Jongin provides an address to the taxi driver, and soon after they are suddenly ascending uphill and pulling over along a street situating a cafe’. The driver takes the money and quickly drives away, leaving them on the pavement in front of La Maison Rose, a lone coffee shop with pastel pink walls that stood out in the middle of other parisian cream colored houses.
Kyungsoo follows Jongin inside one of them-a house with half of its walls covered in ivy. The house shows nothing of luxury and looks like any other house, with clean white interior and comfortable furniture. He watches Jongin move briskly around the house, and he wonders how he walks around like he’d been here before, as if this was his own-
Suddenly, clarity hits him like a bucket of cool water that had splashed on his face.
Kyungsoo leaves his suitcase next to the couch and walks towards the fireplace, a set of photo frames standing atop and instantly catching his eyes. One of the frames contain a photo where Jongin is dressed in his pilot’s uniform and sitting inside a plane’s cockpit. His hair had been longer, and he was giving the camera a thumbs up. Another photo is Jongin on top of a mountain nearing the edge. He thinks the view looks exactly like the one they saw at Sunrise Peak.
Between those photos is a photo of a girl in front of the Botanical Gardens in Scotland, head turned away from the camera as her long chocolate hair flows down her back. Her hand is reaching for the hand that belonged to the person behind the camera, as if she were leading him towards their destination.
The hairs on the back of Kyungsoo’s neck stand along with his heartbeat speeding up.
He turns around and sees Jongin already next to him, gently folding the photo frame down with that particular photo.
Kyungsoo is about to speak when Jongin beats him to it.
“The guest room is upstairs on the left,” Jongin says. “Do you need help with your bag?”
He talks to him so formally, as if he’d forgotten that they weren’t on the same train together for three hours and Kyungsoo just hadn’t revealed that he was falling for him.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” Kyungsoo tells him, avoiding his eyes and walking away to pick up his luggage. He carries it with him as he walks up the stairs, but stops when he hears Jongin call for him.
“Hey,” Jongin says, offering a soft smile. “This probably isn’t what you expected, but I’d really like it if you would… feel at home. Okay?”
Kyungsoo can only return another smile before hurriedly ascending up the stairs and closing the door to the room, not knowing why he feels less like a guest and more like a trespasser that had stepped inside Jongin’s history and had stolen a little piece of someone else’s life.
Kyungsoo uses the next ten minutes to change into new clothes and to freshen up, while another twenty minutes is spent lying on the bed with a heavy feeling in his chest. It was a feeling he can’t put his finger on, and it makes him wonder if he had even made the right decision to be here.
But he had travelled with Jongin all the way to Paris, and even if he couldn’t make sense of things right now, it doesn’t mean that he needed it to.
He leaves the room and walks down the stairs to meet Jongin below in his set of changed clothes-a black turtleneck hugs his slender body and is topped with a brown paneled aviator jacket, faded denim skinny jeans and black leather dress shoes to match.
Jongin was a stunning host, and Kyungsoo feels all the more like a guest in his household and so out of his league.
“Ready?” Jongin asks, smiling and offering his hand.
Kyungsoo’s heart accelerates in such a ridiculous speed, because he’s never seen someone so pleased to see him. He takes it as a soft laugh escapes him. Kyungsoo was never ready-for Jongin or for Paris-yet something inside of him tells him maybe he had always been a little ready for his heart to get lost in the thrill of uncertainty.
“Take me to Paris,” Kyungsoo says with a smile.
Kyungsoo’s arm tightens around Jongin’s waist, his excited screams muffled through his helmet as the pilot’s vespa whizzes hurriedly off into the afternoon and along the parisian streets. Jongin takes Kyungsoo to different Paris sights all at once: from Sacré-Cœur, they ride nonstop through pathways and backstreets heading toward the Louvre. Kyungsoo’s heart beats quick over the loud engine as they pass along Pont de la Concorde and take a left on Quai des Tuileries, weaving through cars and driving around Paris. They speed over another bridge and pass the cathedral of Notre Dame, then slow down into a path and finally pull over near a motorcycle sign.
Kyungsoo pulls off his helmet, hair unruly and out of breath as he recovers from the bike ride. He thinks he’s starting to feel lightheaded from all the adrenaline rush.
But the Eiffel Tower stands a few meters above them, soaring with a great finesse and truly reminiscent of Kyungsoo’s first visit. Paris is indeed beautiful, Kyungsoo thinks, loosening his hold on Jongin’s waist and slumping against his back with a deep sigh of astonishment.
Jongin laughs as he pulls off his own helmet and turns back to look at Kyungsoo, resting a hand on his trembling knee.
“I don’t think we can go up right now,” Jongin tells him, “The queue is probably still long by this time. Should we go back some other time?”
Kyungsoo hums excitedly as he quickly sits in position, already wearing the helmet over his face.
“Again!” Kyungsoo squeals.
Jongin chuckles and starts the engine again as Kyungsoo wraps his arms around him, screeching in delight as soon as they drive back to Montmartre.
They park somewhere close to the Abbesses metro station, and from there they start to walk, with Jongin leading him around the corner of the station and into a tiny garden. In the center of the garden is a flat surface, covered with a wall of tiles with broken heart pieces scattered and words written on each space. Kyungsoo looks closer, reading as much as he can but not quite understanding most of them.
“They call this Le mur des je t’aime,” Jongin informs him, ”They all mean the same thing.”
Kyungsoo thinks there must be around two hundred different languages written, only recognizing the three words in their own language, in english and even in french when he sees them.
I love you.
Those three words, Kyungsoo asks himself. What do they really mean?
He’s witnessed love so many times, like how Junmyeon and Jongdae sit next to each other on the canal boat in Amsterdam, arms linking together and sharing looks with warm affection in their eyes. Like Chanyeol whispering into Baekhyun’s ear over loud laughter at the bonfire in Jeju.
It’s quite ironic how Kyungsoo, standing before the Wall of Love inside the City of Romance, has seen many different loves except his own, not knowing what it felt like or what it meant to him.
But standing next to him is also Jongin, slowly bringing meaning into the word and into his life. And then he realizes that maybe love meant being comfortable in their silence, being comfortable in saying things he can never tell anyone else. Maybe love was between two isolated souls, brought together in a strange city like this. Maybe love was crossing rivers and flying skies to get here.
And maybe, Kyungsoo thinks as Jongin takes closer steps-inches away from the offbeat of his heart-he thinks that maybe love was being horribly straightforward.
“I think I love you,” Kyungsoo says all in one breath, the words racing out of his lips like the thought of loving and losing him and both altogether terrified him. As if he had been longing to say them from the first time they met, from the moment the pilot smiled at him at the airport.
Jongin brushes a few of strands of hair away from Kyungsoo’s face and tucks them in his ear, then right after that slowly brings his hand to his cheek, swiping the surface of his soft skin with his thumb.
He’s glowing, and Kyungsoo starts to notice that he can see his reflection through his brown irises.
“I think,” Jongin says in almost a whisper, his face leaning close until Kyungsoo can stare at his lips, speaking just before they seal the gap left between them in a yearning kiss. “That maybe some promises are made to be broken.”
And so on the next day they go wherever Paris takes them-they take on the museums, parks, and the monuments, driving freely through the parisian roads in Jongin’s green vespa and stealing kisses in every beautiful place. In the span of two days, they collect memories along the Champs-Elysees and beneath Arc de Triomphe, taste every flavor of the macarons at Laduree, try ice skating at Hotel de Ville. They sit in a corner of a bookstore, reading poems and stories together before they’re kissing again, hands wandering around their bodies, discovering parts of them and unraveling their mysteries.
By the late afternoon, they are in the ninth arrondissement finding their way up a large department store called Printemps. As soon as they reach the terrace, they are rewarded with the most exquisite of views: a golden view of the sun setting by the horizon and illuminating the parisian rooftops, with Sacre-Coeur sitting atop Montmartre on one side and the Eiffel tower standing beautifully on the other.
Kyungsoo thinks that some days are about falling in love with cities like Paris, and the way it glows above the sunset. Some days are about falling in love with things like art, like paintings on the wall or fairy lights dancing in the night sky.
These days are about falling in love with people, falling in love with Jongin who is casually leaning his arms over the ledge, smiling and holding the universe together.
Kyungsoo couldn’t understand the way he loved him, as if it was the most natural thing to do. It was so, so easy to love Jongin when he’s touched parts of him other than his body. More importantly, he’s touched his soul, something he didn’t think anyone would know how to love.
And yet, Kyungsoo still thinks this is a dream, almost something that’s too good to be true. Their connection is extraordinary and everything is happening so fast that his heart is still trying to catch up to his feelings. Once in a while he would still see Jongin with that look in his eyes, like he was locked up in this little world of his.
Kyungsoo was still uncertain about most things-when they would leave Paris and where they would go from there. But right now, as Jongin looks back at him with the loveliest of smiles, Kyungsoo thinks it’s enough to live in a dream like this.
It’s a little after eight in the evening when they travel to the heart of Pigalle. They step inside Le Carmen, a cocktail bar set inside a mansion with high painted ceilings and cozy furniture, its unparalleled structure decorated with neo classical columns and statues as glittered chandeliers create a dimly lit setting inside the room. They take a seat in one of the red velvet sofas and observe couples inside their apartment-like rooms. Jongin would whisper in Kyungsoo’s ear and make up potential conversations the couples are having, and he would laugh so hard without other people hearing.
Jongin greets one of the bartenders from afar, waving at him as if they’ve known each other a long time and he hasn’t seen him in a while. He doesn’t mention who it is, but they continue to enjoy their glasses of wine, with Jongin’s hand over his knee and Kyungsoo feeling slightly woozy from both the wine and the pilot. Jazz music had been playing since they entered the room, but suddenly fades out when a small group of three make their way to the center. Two of them are holding a guitar and a saxophone while another sits behind the piano that was already there. A woman arrives to the stage, smiling politely at the crowd as her dark brown hair falls past her shoulders and her blue sequinned dress sparkles in the dim light.
They enjoy a twenty-minute set of live jazz songs, filtering the air with sounds of the saxophone and piano along with the guitar and the singer’s bluesy voice. No words have been exchanged since then, just brief smiles and present touches as they listen to the music.
The singer starts to speak in french, with waiters passing small baskets around.
“They’re asking for song requests,” Jongin tells Kyungsoo.
As soon as a basket is passed at their direction, Kyungsoo picks up a piece of tissue and takes a pen from the basket, quickly thinking of a song from the top of his head, then writing it down on the tissue before he hands it back to the waiter.
Jongin leans back against the sofa and wraps an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder as he asks, “What song did you request?”
“You’ll see,” Kyungsoo smiles. “It’s the first song that came to mind.”
Just then, a familiar tune starts to play. It was one that Kyungsoo had always associated to his travels, one that he’d listened to on his ipod more often than his other songs, and hearing the singer’s voice makes him sing along to the words.
Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Kyungsoo feels Jongin’s arm tense up. When he turns to see his face, his eyes look suddenly detached.
“Jongin?” Kyungsoo asks over the music, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Jongin answers briefly, then meets his eyes. “Can we go now? I don’t want to hear this anymore.”
Kyungsoo blinks. “But Jongin-”
“Stay here, then,” Jongin tells him, pulling away and standing up to leave. “Just follow right after.”
And as the song continues, Jongin makes his way out of the bar, and Kyungsoo is left with no choice but to trail after him.
Kyungsoo doesn’t remember the night outside being this cold. His hands find their way into the pockets of his winter coat as he walks along the street while cars pass them by. He blows air out of his breath and rubs his hands over both of his arms to create friction. It’s cold, and he wonders if he was the only one who felt it. Jongin walks sternly a few feet ahead of him, his hands curled tight into a fist.
Kyungsoo didn’t know what happened to Jongin at the bar and how it lead to a quick and unexpected turn of events. His outburst was something he didn’t see coming, but then he realizes that Jongin had always been unpredictable. It bothers him how until this point there were things he still didn’t know about him the same way he knew most things about himself. He was like a book sometimes, and his back was like a spine that carried more stories than he told. And just like a book, there was a chapter he didn’t read out loud, one that Kyungsoo needed to know.
He catches up to Jongin, slowing down his pace as soon as he matches the pilot’s steps.
“Please talk to me,” Kyungsoo says, “What happened back there, Jongin?”
“Nothing.” He replies in a curt voice, eyes staring ahead into the path.
“It didn’t seem that way at the bar. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be running away.”
Jongin doesn’t answer Kyungsoo. He tries to avoid him and speeds up, but the other suddenly blocks his way and brings his hands to his arms, halting him.
“Just talk to me. Please. I want to help you as much as you helped me.” He pleads.
“You don’t need to return the favor,” Jongin says bitterly. “I can handle myself just fine.”
“Jongin-“
“That song,” He says, staring at him with eyes that start to glisten. “Was it you? Did you choose that song?”
Kyungsoo’s hands slip from his arms, returning to the inside of his pockets. He doesn’t know what else he could say other than the truth.
“Yes,” Kyungsoo answers softly, so soft but enough for him to hear.
And then Jongin is laughing. His laugh is so empty and so sad, and his eyes brim with sudden tears.
“What a coincidence,” He says, shakily. “What a fucking coincidence.”
The air is cold and Kyungsoo is freezing.
This wasn't Jongin, Kyungsoo thinks. This wasn't the way he talked, or the way he looked at him like he was made of stone. But maybe this is who Jongin really is, his outer layers slowly coming off and his history revealing itself before him.
“Tell me about her, Jongin,” Kyungsoo says quietly, “Tell me.”
He pauses for a moment, silent, except for the cars that still pass them by.
“I thought I saw her,” Jongin tells him, “At the bar. Kyungsoo, I thought she was singing that same song she sang when I first met her.”
Kyungsoo’s stomach flips, and he thinks he’s going to be sick. The look on Jongin’s face is distant, and he tries to pull him back to this world afraid that he would lose him.
“But it wasn’t, Jongin. It wasn’t her. How long has it been since she left? Months? Years? You have to realize that she might not come back.”
Shock comes to Jongin’s face because of Kyungsoo’s words. He looks at him now, eyes instantly wide with anger.
“Does it even matter?” Jongin asks with his voice raised, “You can’t… God, Kyungsoo. There are some parts of history you can’t throw away no matter how long it’s been…You don’t understand. You weren’t there when she walked away. You weren’t there when I loved her.”
“But I’m here now!” He snaps, ”She left you, Jongin! And I’m right fucking here. Don’t think that I can’t see the way you look at me sometimes-how your eyes are looking at me but are lost thinking of someone else. Someplace else. It drives me crazy how much I think you’re so close and so far away at the same time, but here I am right in front of you, loving you just the same. Maybe even more.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t realize he’s crying, tears suddenly falling from his eyes.
“Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore, Jongin,” His voice starts to shake, “What exactly am I to you? An escape route? A backup plan? Her fucking replacement?”
The air is so cold, but the anger in their veins and in their words are burning the world they created together.
Jongin’s face darkens, jaw clenching.
“One thing you should know,” Jongin says in finality, “is that you can never replace her. You’ll never be her.”
Kyungsoo is struck with a hard blow, eyes showing both surprise and desolate realization. There is nothing else left for him to say. Jongin turns away, walking solemnly to a taxi cab parked in the side of the street with Kyungsoo only watching him, wishing he’d offer to still share a ride with him.
But as Jongin drives away and the taxi light turns red, he wishes he’d taken it as a warning sign, from when he first hopped inside his cab.
Kyungsoo is thankful that Jongin still kept the door unlocked for him to enter the house. His eyes are dry from his tears and his body tires from the long cab ride. He doesn’t bother switching on the lights but silently makes his way up the flight of stairs instead, steps heavy like the weight of his chest. As soon as he makes it to the top, he sneaks a glance at Jongin’s bedroom door and notices how it’s left slightly open.
He takes tentative steps in front of it, thinking twice if he should go in to check on Jongin. He gently pushes the door forward so it doesn’t make a sound. The room is dark, but he can see Jongin’s silhouette on top of the bed, already asleep. He walks further inside until he’s standing next to the bed, then sits on the edge. He finds his hand easily, slowly taking it in his own and bringing it to his lips with a soft kiss before placing it back down.
Jongin continues to dream soundly, but his face shows uneasiness, eyes closed shut and seemingly restless. Kyungsoo has never seen him sleep like this.
And then a hand reaches for him along with a voice, strained and painfully broken.
Soo.
Kyungsoo pauses. The syllable of his name has never sounded so different in his ears, and it is only when Jongin’s grasp on his wrist turns tighter and his voice breaks into another cry of plead does Kyungsoo realize why.
Soojung…Please don’t leave me.
And all so suddenly, Kyungsoo is just a stranger in another’s home, surrounded in all his secrets.
He’s already gone when Kyungsoo wakes up half past one.
He’d climbed out of bed with the hefty feeling in his chest still present and Jongin somewhere outside with his green vespa, an indication that tells him he’ll most likely be doing stuff alone today. Kyungsoo heaves a sigh as he shrugs on a coat and looks out from the window, listening to the unfamiliar street sounds of Paris below as people are passing by the neighbourhood. Kyungsoo thinks it’s better than the loud silence that creeps inside the guest room.
Kyungsoo walks the streets of what he thinks is most of Montmartre, with nothing else but Jongin’s yellow umbrella in his hand. He aimlessly strolls down the narrow streets, meandering through a series of colourful cafes and paintings, then sitting alone outside the pink house for both late breakfast and lunch. He continues discovering Montmartre, stumbling upon secret sidestreets that lead to lovely sights of windmills, of purple and teal apartments, and soon finds himself at the bottom of the hill where he meets the infamous Moulin Rouge. As Kyungsoo walks back up the hill and thinks back on the places he’d been to, he realizes that being lost in a city of strangers does not give him the same feeling like it used to. Something is missing, Kyungsoo thinks, like his right arm had been chopped off and he was just starting to learn how to write with his left hand. He’d spent so much time with Jongin that without his presence, he’d forgotten how to feel perfectly lonely.
Kyungsoo reaches a corner path with steps that lead to Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Just before he proceeds to head up, a familiar green vespa parked along the sidewalk catches his eye.
Jongin is sitting on a center bench on the crest of the hill. Kyungsoo takes the empty space next to him, silently gazing over the same Paris view. They stay that way for what feels like an eternity, watching the world move around them while they come at a standstill. Kyungsoo still does not understand how it came to this point, how the silence that was once so easy had turned into a silence that speaks volumes of harsh realities.
The midafternoon sun gleams in the sky above them, and Kyungsoo remembers how the sun used to be in Jongin’s smile.
But that smile seems so faraway now along with Jongin’s distant gaze, and what’s left of his light had already consumed so much of this world that it destroyed homes.
Kyungsoo takes the umbrella standing next to him, extending it open with his hands to raise it between them and over their heads. Jongin reacts slowly, contemplating the shade before meeting his eyes in confusion.
“There’s no rain,” Jongin says.
Kyungsoo tries to offer a smile, but his heart breaks with just the sound of his voice.
“It doesn’t have to rain to protect people from getting hurt,” Kyungsoo answers, “Even the sunniest days can burn you.”
The words that come out of his mouth surprise him, but his face tries to return just a little smile. Jongin brings a hand over his own, still holding the umbrella. He wants to say something, Kyungsoo knows it from the way his mouth struggles to form words, and Kyungsoo tries to help him.
“Last night was rough. We’ve said very painful things, and when someone says you hurt them, you don’t get to decide if you didn’t,” Kyungsoo tells him. “But someone had once told me to become unapologetic about how we feel. So, I’m going to be braver than usual today, okay?”
Jongin is quiet, eyes focused on the Paris view again, but he nods his head just to let him know he is listening. Kyungsoo pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before he pushes the words out of his mouth.
“You promised the world, Jongin. You offered it to me so willingly, but I’ve seen so little of this big earth that I wasn’t sure it was possible. I took your offer anyway. I took it, not really knowing what I was doing. It was on impulse, but I just needed to get away from my life and shuffle my surroundings a bit. My heart longed to be lost. But little did I know that I was waking up in strange cities with someone who had already found it.”
Kyungsoo sees Jongin tense up at his last sentence, but he to continues to speak as if there wasn’t much time and holds onto the umbrella.
“You were keeping your promise. I know that. You promised the world, Jongin. You showed me a world with you in it. And now I-” Kyungsoo chokes back tears, “I can’t imagine living in this place without you.”
“Kyungsoo,” Jongin calls him, pleading with glossy eyes lips quivering.
“But you won’t let me reach you. You’re so far in your head, and you look at the sky with so much of your own longing. Every time I try to knock on your door, you just stare back at me and go right back inside, leaving me behind. I’m not even mad. I’m sad that I can’t help but think about how I’m just a question you would never answer. The least you could give me is the truth.”
Tell me I’m not an honest mistake.
He looks so devastated now, and Kyungsoo watched him helplessly. Jongin’s hand remains on his own, pushing the umbrella towards him so it shields his whole body and before his hand slips away.
“I wanted it to be you,” Jongin replies quietly, “Kyungsoo, you don’t know how much I wanted it to be you.”
Kyungsoo’s heartbeat is loud in his ears as both of his hands grip tight onto the umbrella.
“I just woke up one morning, and she was gone, you know?” Jongin explains, “She disappeared without saying goodbye, and until now I still catch myself wondering what went wrong. People say others don’t know what they have until it’s gone, but I’ve always known, Kyungsoo. She was everything I ever wanted.”
Jongin’s looks so fragile. Kyungsoo continues to watch him as he takes a deep long breath, trying to control more tears from falling.
“Yet maybe it was my fault. One year of marriage with her was beautiful, but it reached a point where I was always leaving, flying off to different cities while she sang in bars and waited for me to come home. She never complained, maybe because she wanted me to be happy, and I was thankful. Things changed when we went out for dinner once. I couldn’t remember exactly what we were arguing about, but as soon as she stood up and turned her back on me, I saw it-the blood on her dress and on her legs.”
Kyungsoo’s eyes go wide.
“I don’t know how we made it so fast to the hospital, Kyungsoo,” Jongin breathes harshly, as if his lungs were shattering inside him and he was losing air, “But it was still too late.”
“Jongin, I-”
“The baby was seven weeks old,” Jongin says in a broken whisper, “But they couldn’t find the heartbeat.”
Don’t be late. Kyungsoo remembers the note. His tears are uncontrollable by then, and Jongin was crumbling in front of him. He drops the umbrella from his hands to take Jongin’s shaky ones.
“I could never forget the look in her eyes that night. They were so empty, like she was only made of my absences. I didn’t think I would lose her,” Jongin summons a smile then, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, “Until I did.”
Jongin was still on his own now, carrying the world around him along with a guilt in his heart. All his layers are gone, but he’d been wearing a mask for so long that as time had gone by, he’d torn off his own skin.
“Maybe this was my karma-no matter how much I fall in love with someone, I will never love someone as much as I loved her.”
Kyungsoo uses his hands to cradle Jongin’s face, lifting it to face him.
“You can’t blame yourself for everything,” Kyungsoo tells him. “This place could be beautiful again, Jongin. I can make this place beautiful again.”
It is when Jongin gazes into his eyes, mouth forming into another detached smile, does Kyungsoo realize just how unfair it was to look at a person and see their love slowly slip away from your grasp.
“I’d love to be with you,” Jongin says softly. “I just wish we had a chance.”
They take comfort in the silence above the city, standing on top of the Eiffel Tower at night.
As they look over the lighted skylines, Kyungsoo revisits his old feelings. It flashes through his head in moments again: Kyungsoo chasing the sun at Jeju Island, crossing paths at Shibuya station. Glasgow under the fairy lights, and Halloween at Amsterdam.
He remembers stargazing with Baekhyun on his apartment balcony.
He remembers Miyoung and Sungsoo, and the money his biological parents had kept under his name.
And then he remembers Paris, and Jongin inside the taxi cab.
The said man is looking over the city with a certain kind of calmness on his face, as if he’s finally gained his peace of mind. Kyungsoo realizes that they are no longer at the beginning, but have made it to the middle part which would be most of it.
It hits him all at once-pent-up emotions of happiness, melancholy, anger, and grief-weighing heavily over his soul that it could kill him.
At the same time he feels connected to the world somehow, alive in his own skin. He feels the wind in his hair and the ground beneath his feet. He’s breathing with the air in his lungs.
And then he screams.
Jongin watches Kyungsoo shout into the atmosphere. He screams but no one hears except him. He screams because he’s in Paris. Paris is so, so beautiful, and yet everything hurts. All the love left in him roars loud over the city, not knowing where else to place it.
Seconds pass before another voice joins him-Jongin’s broken cry spilling out into the void like a bolt of thunder.
They become two lost souls again-screaming for help, for love and loss-finding an empty space to fill with their loneliness.
Then Kyungsoo catches Jongin grinning. His laugh is soft while his eyes glisten in the night. He looks so lovely, like he belonged with the sky and his eyes mirror the oceans. Kyungsoo thinks for a moment that maybe they were destined to meet, but not destined to be together.
So he will let things go. The way Jongin kissed him, the way he held his hand. He will leave cities and homes, he will travel the world all over again-make deeper connections. He will leave because their feelings sunk deep into the heart, and loneliness is the only way they could find it again.
Kyungsoo will still keep Jongin’s postcard and his yellow umbrella. He thinks he will miss him most when he is high, or when he listens to that one song in his ipod.
And Jongin will continue to fly planes. He will walk away from him, leaving him with nothing but the memories they shared together. But Kyungsoo will continue to love him, until a place is just another place and he no longer tastes him without tasting blood in his mouth. Until love is just another word again and not the name of the storm in his heart.
~end~
✈︎
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Kyungsoo wakes up with his face planted into a pillow.
He’s hit with the sudden urge to puke, so he gets up on his feet and instantly runs for the bathroom. His hands and knees collapse on the tiled floor as he vomits on the toilet bowl, spilling his guts while his unruly hair sticks on the top of his forehead. He groans from the smell and how it reeks, a feeling of nausea flowing easily through his system.
He leans his head on the clean side of the bowl, trying to fully take in his surroundings.
And then he remembers.
Kyungsoo rises, taking slow steps back to the bedroom. Goosebumps run along his arms and sends chills to his bare skin, then notices how he’s only dressed in his underwear. He picks up a discarded sweater off the floor and wears the loose cotton fabric over his head, taking a seat on the chair in front of a small table and burying his face in his hands, head spinning.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
He wasn’t supposed to wake up on this part of the room, particularly on top of the bed. He wasn’t supposed to be sleeping there. He wasn’t even supposed to kiss him.
But all these things have already happened, with one thing leading to another, and Kyungsoo doesn’t quite know how to deal with it.
He finally notices Jongin not being there, but finds a note perched on the table next to a bottle of water.
Went out for a bit. I should be back by the time you wake up, it reads.
Kyungsoo shakes his head and tries to wipe out everything from his mind, thinking this must all just be a dream, but it only makes his head even more dizzy.
Coffee. Maybe coffee is what Kyungsoo needs.
But just as he hurries out of the bedroom, the door of the main room opens.
Jongin’s eyes quickly find Kyungsoo’s as soon as he steps inside. His footsteps are slow and deliberate. Cautious.
“Hi,” Jongin simply greets.
Kyungsoo’s chest tightens. He remains rigid in his place, and all his body parts can’t seem to function.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo mutters, eyes focused on the suddenly interesting ground, on his feet, and on his wobbly knees up to his-
To his naked legs.
When Kyungsoo looks up, Jongin’s looking at him with an unreadable face, specifically at the sweater that drapes just inches above his knees, the piece of clothing which he realizes doesn’t belong to him.
“Uh,” Kyungsoo starts to say, but Jongin promptly waves him off with a small smile.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jongin tells him, lifting another hand that carries a paper bag and places it on the kitchen counter. “I bought some aspirin for the headache. And some fruits.”
Jongin is suddenly making his way towards Kyungsoo, stopping just inches away from his face.
Kyungsoo’s head reels, his blood running hot in his veins. He thinks he’s about to puke again. The air is thick, heavy with a tension he can’t explain.
And Kyungsoo waits, although he doesn’t exactly know what it is that he’s waiting for. Maybe it was to establish things, to confirm just what exactly it is they are doing.
But Jongin is looking at him differently, different from how he’d looked at him last night. It’s a look that’s friendly, the thrill and the desire no longer there but replaced with a hint of nervousness and hesitation. Maybe even confusion.
“I, uhm,” Jongin says, “I’m going to get ready.”
Jongin walks away to retreat into the bedroom. The door closes, leaving Kyungsoo with so many questions and so much want, wondering if he’d already ruined things before they even begun.
Attention passengers, Train 0504 to Paris is now approaching. Please make your way to Platform Two. Do not leave your luggage unattended.
A three note-chime sounds on the loudspeaker as the huge train approaches the station. They are already there, saying their goodbyes with Junmyeon and Jongdae about to send them off. Jongdae brings Kyungsoo into a tight hug and squeezes Kyungsoo in his arms, while Junmyeon gives Jongin a pat on the back, asking him to take care.
“It was so lovely to meet you, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae says with a sweet smile on his face. “I hope you come back soon.”
“It was great to meet you too,” Kyungsoo says, glancing at Junmyeon who is looking back at him thoughtfully with unspoken words.
They climb on the train and stow their bags. Kyungsoo looks out the glass window to see Jongdae and Junmyeon waving at them, smiling at them one more time before the train departs.
He leans back against the seat, recalling the memories they’ve created in Amsterdam as the question Junmyeon had asked him stays with him.
Jongin is also staring out the window, his eyes expressionless but tranquil. Kyungsoo wonders about the things running through his head right now-if he was thinking about the same things in his own head like when his lips actually tasted like beer and a little bit like an antidote, or how he had traced the tiny moles on his back, those moles he wished he was the only person who saw them.
On their way to Paris, Kyungsoo starts to silently question his existence in Jongin’s life. He starts to think about his own purpose being in front of him on this train, because right now he is looking at him, and he realizes there are things that didn’t feel as important and uncertain as what he feels when he is with him.
When Kyungsoo thinks about Junmyeon’s question, it makes him terrified, because how is it possible to be friends with Jongin wanting to kiss him all the time?
And now, he had given him parts of him without knowing if he wanted it.
Kyungsoo speaks over the quiet.
“I think I owe you an apology, Jongin. About…what happened last night.”
Jongin’s head turns slowly to look at him.
“We were having a really good time and I was really drunk, but you looked so goddamn good, and I remember every single thing. I remember kissing you and it leading to other things. I think about it, how crazy and stupid I was, and now I think I’m really messing things up.”
Jongin pauses for a while.
Kyungsoo stares apprehensively at him, pondering about more things he wanted to apologize for but is interrupted by the sound of the pilot’s calm voice.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Saying sorry for things you shouldn’t apologize for.”
Kyungsoo suddenly can’t breathe.
“Jongin,” He tries to say, “I-“
“Can I ask you something?” Jongin asks, eyes brooding. “Have you ever done something in your life because you just felt like it? Just because you wanted to?”
He is beyond unprepared. He doesn’t know how to answer him without scaring him, without scaring himself.
“What if…” murmurs Kyungsoo, “What if I said in that moment, you were all that I wanted?”
There’s a frantic stirring in his gut and a flicker of something in the pilot’s eyes, his heart beating quick.
And then Jongin smiles all of a sudden, he smiles so bright that Kyungsoo might have seen more than just the sun, but even stars.
“Then maybe we need to spend more time living, wanting each moment without any regrets.” Jongin tells him. “Kyungsoo, as soon as we make it to Paris, I want us to stop controlling things and feel as unapologetic about our feelings as possible. I need you to promise me that.”
Kyungsoo remembers what Baekhyun had told him in his balcony days before he left for Glasgow, before all of this ever happened. And this morning, he remembers getting a text message from his neighbour, hearing about how they’d made it to Amsterdam and was now leaving with Jongin for Paris.
Please tell me you’re keeping your word, Baekhyun had sent.
He still hasn’t replied to it, maybe because he was already too late.
“I’m not sure if I can keep any more promises,” Kyungsoo mutters lowly. “I might have already broken some of them.”
Jongin looks at him with a face full of wonder.
“What other promises have you broken?”
Moments quickly flash in Kyungsoo’s eyes: Jongin’s laugh that was like a drug he couldn’t quit. The warmth of his hand on the shared bed, and the way his feelings are starting to resemble autumn leaves, inevitably descending from the trees.
“Only the most important,” Kyungsoo says quietly. Promising not to fall.
Kyungsoo wakes with a strain on his neck. He opens his eyes, fully aware that he’d fallen asleep leaning his head on the glass window. He doesn’t know what time it is or how many hours they have left inside the train, but out of all these things, he first notices how Jongin’s seat is empty.
Kyungsoo is about to panic when he realizes that a heavy weight is pressing down on his lap.
He looks to find that the pilot had transferred close to him, sleeping with his backpack as a makeshift pillow resting on top of him.
Jongin is so gentle, so peaceful in his sleep of escape. His skin is golden again as it shines against the natural sunlight. Kyungsoo notices his open palm and fingers curled, as if he was holding something invisible.
His hand is warm when he reaches for him, connecting his hand to the tiny gaps of his own fingers.
Kyungsoo stares out the window, Jongin’s hand interlaced with his own, watching as the world goes by. He can already see the eiffel tower from afar-an indication that they were close. The idea of seeing Paris had always been exciting to him, except now there’s a sad smile dawning on his face and a fear rising in in his heart.
As soon as they approach Paris, Kyungsoo wonders if the things that were happening between them are the things that happened too soon or too late, whether this could be the start of a new beginning or the beginning of the ending.
Kyungsoo looks at their hands, and thinks about how they are unbelievably beautiful-how they quickly hold on to things and how sometimes they slowly let go. He wonders if one of them would be a choice he would soon have to make.
People are shuffling and pushing inside the train station, the wheels of suitcases crashing into their ankles as they find their way out of Gare Du Nord and towards the taxi queue. When they finally reach the front of the queue, Kyungsoo watches Jongin greet the taxi driver in French, staring at him in amazement.
“Montmartre, s’il vous plait,” Jongin says, the words drawling out from his mouth so fluently that Kyungsoo can’t help but smile at him in adoration as they sit back in the seat and the driver pulls into the traffic.
Paris, Kyungsoo thinks as he winds down the window, is finally here.
Kyungsoo starts his journey taking in the sound of the busy streets inside the taxi. He quickly catches a whiff of fresh bread and heavy smoke from outside as the wind swiftly blows in his hair. The taxi drives further into the city, coffee shops situated at every corner and people dressed stylishly, greeting each other and exchanging kisses on both sides of their cheeks. He continues to gaze out the window in awe, sometimes even trying to read the french road signs when they repeatedly come across them.
Jongin provides an address to the taxi driver, and soon after they are suddenly ascending uphill and pulling over along a street situating a cafe’. The driver takes the money and quickly drives away, leaving them on the pavement in front of La Maison Rose, a lone coffee shop with pastel pink walls that stood out in the middle of other parisian cream colored houses.
Kyungsoo follows Jongin inside one of them-a house with half of its walls covered in ivy. The house shows nothing of luxury and looks like any other house, with clean white interior and comfortable furniture. He watches Jongin move briskly around the house, and he wonders how he walks around like he’d been here before, as if this was his own-
Suddenly, clarity hits him like a bucket of cool water that had splashed on his face.
Kyungsoo leaves his suitcase next to the couch and walks towards the fireplace, a set of photo frames standing atop and instantly catching his eyes. One of the frames contain a photo where Jongin is dressed in his pilot’s uniform and sitting inside a plane’s cockpit. His hair had been longer, and he was giving the camera a thumbs up. Another photo is Jongin on top of a mountain nearing the edge. He thinks the view looks exactly like the one they saw at Sunrise Peak.
Between those photos is a photo of a girl in front of the Botanical Gardens in Scotland, head turned away from the camera as her long chocolate hair flows down her back. Her hand is reaching for the hand that belonged to the person behind the camera, as if she were leading him towards their destination.
The hairs on the back of Kyungsoo’s neck stand along with his heartbeat speeding up.
He turns around and sees Jongin already next to him, gently folding the photo frame down with that particular photo.
Kyungsoo is about to speak when Jongin beats him to it.
“The guest room is upstairs on the left,” Jongin says. “Do you need help with your bag?”
He talks to him so formally, as if he’d forgotten that they weren’t on the same train together for three hours and Kyungsoo just hadn’t revealed that he was falling for him.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” Kyungsoo tells him, avoiding his eyes and walking away to pick up his luggage. He carries it with him as he walks up the stairs, but stops when he hears Jongin call for him.
“Hey,” Jongin says, offering a soft smile. “This probably isn’t what you expected, but I’d really like it if you would… feel at home. Okay?”
Kyungsoo can only return another smile before hurriedly ascending up the stairs and closing the door to the room, not knowing why he feels less like a guest and more like a trespasser that had stepped inside Jongin’s history and had stolen a little piece of someone else’s life.
Kyungsoo uses the next ten minutes to change into new clothes and to freshen up, while another twenty minutes is spent lying on the bed with a heavy feeling in his chest. It was a feeling he can’t put his finger on, and it makes him wonder if he had even made the right decision to be here.
But he had travelled with Jongin all the way to Paris, and even if he couldn’t make sense of things right now, it doesn’t mean that he needed it to.
He leaves the room and walks down the stairs to meet Jongin below in his set of changed clothes-a black turtleneck hugs his slender body and is topped with a brown paneled aviator jacket, faded denim skinny jeans and black leather dress shoes to match.
Jongin was a stunning host, and Kyungsoo feels all the more like a guest in his household and so out of his league.
“Ready?” Jongin asks, smiling and offering his hand.
Kyungsoo’s heart accelerates in such a ridiculous speed, because he’s never seen someone so pleased to see him. He takes it as a soft laugh escapes him. Kyungsoo was never ready-for Jongin or for Paris-yet something inside of him tells him maybe he had always been a little ready for his heart to get lost in the thrill of uncertainty.
“Take me to Paris,” Kyungsoo says with a smile.
Kyungsoo’s arm tightens around Jongin’s waist, his excited screams muffled through his helmet as the pilot’s vespa whizzes hurriedly off into the afternoon and along the parisian streets. Jongin takes Kyungsoo to different Paris sights all at once: from Sacré-Cœur, they ride nonstop through pathways and backstreets heading toward the Louvre. Kyungsoo’s heart beats quick over the loud engine as they pass along Pont de la Concorde and take a left on Quai des Tuileries, weaving through cars and driving around Paris. They speed over another bridge and pass the cathedral of Notre Dame, then slow down into a path and finally pull over near a motorcycle sign.
Kyungsoo pulls off his helmet, hair unruly and out of breath as he recovers from the bike ride. He thinks he’s starting to feel lightheaded from all the adrenaline rush.
But the Eiffel Tower stands a few meters above them, soaring with a great finesse and truly reminiscent of Kyungsoo’s first visit. Paris is indeed beautiful, Kyungsoo thinks, loosening his hold on Jongin’s waist and slumping against his back with a deep sigh of astonishment.
Jongin laughs as he pulls off his own helmet and turns back to look at Kyungsoo, resting a hand on his trembling knee.
“I don’t think we can go up right now,” Jongin tells him, “The queue is probably still long by this time. Should we go back some other time?”
Kyungsoo hums excitedly as he quickly sits in position, already wearing the helmet over his face.
“Again!” Kyungsoo squeals.
Jongin chuckles and starts the engine again as Kyungsoo wraps his arms around him, screeching in delight as soon as they drive back to Montmartre.
They park somewhere close to the Abbesses metro station, and from there they start to walk, with Jongin leading him around the corner of the station and into a tiny garden. In the center of the garden is a flat surface, covered with a wall of tiles with broken heart pieces scattered and words written on each space. Kyungsoo looks closer, reading as much as he can but not quite understanding most of them.
“They call this Le mur des je t’aime,” Jongin informs him, ”They all mean the same thing.”
Kyungsoo thinks there must be around two hundred different languages written, only recognizing the three words in their own language, in english and even in french when he sees them.
I love you.
Those three words, Kyungsoo asks himself. What do they really mean?
He’s witnessed love so many times, like how Junmyeon and Jongdae sit next to each other on the canal boat in Amsterdam, arms linking together and sharing looks with warm affection in their eyes. Like Chanyeol whispering into Baekhyun’s ear over loud laughter at the bonfire in Jeju.
It’s quite ironic how Kyungsoo, standing before the Wall of Love inside the City of Romance, has seen many different loves except his own, not knowing what it felt like or what it meant to him.
But standing next to him is also Jongin, slowly bringing meaning into the word and into his life. And then he realizes that maybe love meant being comfortable in their silence, being comfortable in saying things he can never tell anyone else. Maybe love was between two isolated souls, brought together in a strange city like this. Maybe love was crossing rivers and flying skies to get here.
And maybe, Kyungsoo thinks as Jongin takes closer steps-inches away from the offbeat of his heart-he thinks that maybe love was being horribly straightforward.
“I think I love you,” Kyungsoo says all in one breath, the words racing out of his lips like the thought of loving and losing him and both altogether terrified him. As if he had been longing to say them from the first time they met, from the moment the pilot smiled at him at the airport.
Jongin brushes a few of strands of hair away from Kyungsoo’s face and tucks them in his ear, then right after that slowly brings his hand to his cheek, swiping the surface of his soft skin with his thumb.
He’s glowing, and Kyungsoo starts to notice that he can see his reflection through his brown irises.
“I think,” Jongin says in almost a whisper, his face leaning close until Kyungsoo can stare at his lips, speaking just before they seal the gap left between them in a yearning kiss. “That maybe some promises are made to be broken.”
And so on the next day they go wherever Paris takes them-they take on the museums, parks, and the monuments, driving freely through the parisian roads in Jongin’s green vespa and stealing kisses in every beautiful place. In the span of two days, they collect memories along the Champs-Elysees and beneath Arc de Triomphe, taste every flavor of the macarons at Laduree, try ice skating at Hotel de Ville. They sit in a corner of a bookstore, reading poems and stories together before they’re kissing again, hands wandering around their bodies, discovering parts of them and unraveling their mysteries.
By the late afternoon, they are in the ninth arrondissement finding their way up a large department store called Printemps. As soon as they reach the terrace, they are rewarded with the most exquisite of views: a golden view of the sun setting by the horizon and illuminating the parisian rooftops, with Sacre-Coeur sitting atop Montmartre on one side and the Eiffel tower standing beautifully on the other.
Kyungsoo thinks that some days are about falling in love with cities like Paris, and the way it glows above the sunset. Some days are about falling in love with things like art, like paintings on the wall or fairy lights dancing in the night sky.
These days are about falling in love with people, falling in love with Jongin who is casually leaning his arms over the ledge, smiling and holding the universe together.
Kyungsoo couldn’t understand the way he loved him, as if it was the most natural thing to do. It was so, so easy to love Jongin when he’s touched parts of him other than his body. More importantly, he’s touched his soul, something he didn’t think anyone would know how to love.
And yet, Kyungsoo still thinks this is a dream, almost something that’s too good to be true. Their connection is extraordinary and everything is happening so fast that his heart is still trying to catch up to his feelings. Once in a while he would still see Jongin with that look in his eyes, like he was locked up in this little world of his.
Kyungsoo was still uncertain about most things-when they would leave Paris and where they would go from there. But right now, as Jongin looks back at him with the loveliest of smiles, Kyungsoo thinks it’s enough to live in a dream like this.
It’s a little after eight in the evening when they travel to the heart of Pigalle. They step inside Le Carmen, a cocktail bar set inside a mansion with high painted ceilings and cozy furniture, its unparalleled structure decorated with neo classical columns and statues as glittered chandeliers create a dimly lit setting inside the room. They take a seat in one of the red velvet sofas and observe couples inside their apartment-like rooms. Jongin would whisper in Kyungsoo’s ear and make up potential conversations the couples are having, and he would laugh so hard without other people hearing.
Jongin greets one of the bartenders from afar, waving at him as if they’ve known each other a long time and he hasn’t seen him in a while. He doesn’t mention who it is, but they continue to enjoy their glasses of wine, with Jongin’s hand over his knee and Kyungsoo feeling slightly woozy from both the wine and the pilot. Jazz music had been playing since they entered the room, but suddenly fades out when a small group of three make their way to the center. Two of them are holding a guitar and a saxophone while another sits behind the piano that was already there. A woman arrives to the stage, smiling politely at the crowd as her dark brown hair falls past her shoulders and her blue sequinned dress sparkles in the dim light.
They enjoy a twenty-minute set of live jazz songs, filtering the air with sounds of the saxophone and piano along with the guitar and the singer’s bluesy voice. No words have been exchanged since then, just brief smiles and present touches as they listen to the music.
The singer starts to speak in french, with waiters passing small baskets around.
“They’re asking for song requests,” Jongin tells Kyungsoo.
As soon as a basket is passed at their direction, Kyungsoo picks up a piece of tissue and takes a pen from the basket, quickly thinking of a song from the top of his head, then writing it down on the tissue before he hands it back to the waiter.
Jongin leans back against the sofa and wraps an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder as he asks, “What song did you request?”
“You’ll see,” Kyungsoo smiles. “It’s the first song that came to mind.”
Just then, a familiar tune starts to play. It was one that Kyungsoo had always associated to his travels, one that he’d listened to on his ipod more often than his other songs, and hearing the singer’s voice makes him sing along to the words.
Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Kyungsoo feels Jongin’s arm tense up. When he turns to see his face, his eyes look suddenly detached.
“Jongin?” Kyungsoo asks over the music, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Jongin answers briefly, then meets his eyes. “Can we go now? I don’t want to hear this anymore.”
Kyungsoo blinks. “But Jongin-”
“Stay here, then,” Jongin tells him, pulling away and standing up to leave. “Just follow right after.”
And as the song continues, Jongin makes his way out of the bar, and Kyungsoo is left with no choice but to trail after him.
Kyungsoo doesn’t remember the night outside being this cold. His hands find their way into the pockets of his winter coat as he walks along the street while cars pass them by. He blows air out of his breath and rubs his hands over both of his arms to create friction. It’s cold, and he wonders if he was the only one who felt it. Jongin walks sternly a few feet ahead of him, his hands curled tight into a fist.
Kyungsoo didn’t know what happened to Jongin at the bar and how it lead to a quick and unexpected turn of events. His outburst was something he didn’t see coming, but then he realizes that Jongin had always been unpredictable. It bothers him how until this point there were things he still didn’t know about him the same way he knew most things about himself. He was like a book sometimes, and his back was like a spine that carried more stories than he told. And just like a book, there was a chapter he didn’t read out loud, one that Kyungsoo needed to know.
He catches up to Jongin, slowing down his pace as soon as he matches the pilot’s steps.
“Please talk to me,” Kyungsoo says, “What happened back there, Jongin?”
“Nothing.” He replies in a curt voice, eyes staring ahead into the path.
“It didn’t seem that way at the bar. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be running away.”
Jongin doesn’t answer Kyungsoo. He tries to avoid him and speeds up, but the other suddenly blocks his way and brings his hands to his arms, halting him.
“Just talk to me. Please. I want to help you as much as you helped me.” He pleads.
“You don’t need to return the favor,” Jongin says bitterly. “I can handle myself just fine.”
“Jongin-“
“That song,” He says, staring at him with eyes that start to glisten. “Was it you? Did you choose that song?”
Kyungsoo’s hands slip from his arms, returning to the inside of his pockets. He doesn’t know what else he could say other than the truth.
“Yes,” Kyungsoo answers softly, so soft but enough for him to hear.
And then Jongin is laughing. His laugh is so empty and so sad, and his eyes brim with sudden tears.
“What a coincidence,” He says, shakily. “What a fucking coincidence.”
The air is cold and Kyungsoo is freezing.
This wasn't Jongin, Kyungsoo thinks. This wasn't the way he talked, or the way he looked at him like he was made of stone. But maybe this is who Jongin really is, his outer layers slowly coming off and his history revealing itself before him.
“Tell me about her, Jongin,” Kyungsoo says quietly, “Tell me.”
He pauses for a moment, silent, except for the cars that still pass them by.
“I thought I saw her,” Jongin tells him, “At the bar. Kyungsoo, I thought she was singing that same song she sang when I first met her.”
Kyungsoo’s stomach flips, and he thinks he’s going to be sick. The look on Jongin’s face is distant, and he tries to pull him back to this world afraid that he would lose him.
“But it wasn’t, Jongin. It wasn’t her. How long has it been since she left? Months? Years? You have to realize that she might not come back.”
Shock comes to Jongin’s face because of Kyungsoo’s words. He looks at him now, eyes instantly wide with anger.
“Does it even matter?” Jongin asks with his voice raised, “You can’t… God, Kyungsoo. There are some parts of history you can’t throw away no matter how long it’s been…You don’t understand. You weren’t there when she walked away. You weren’t there when I loved her.”
“But I’m here now!” He snaps, ”She left you, Jongin! And I’m right fucking here. Don’t think that I can’t see the way you look at me sometimes-how your eyes are looking at me but are lost thinking of someone else. Someplace else. It drives me crazy how much I think you’re so close and so far away at the same time, but here I am right in front of you, loving you just the same. Maybe even more.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t realize he’s crying, tears suddenly falling from his eyes.
“Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore, Jongin,” His voice starts to shake, “What exactly am I to you? An escape route? A backup plan? Her fucking replacement?”
The air is so cold, but the anger in their veins and in their words are burning the world they created together.
Jongin’s face darkens, jaw clenching.
“One thing you should know,” Jongin says in finality, “is that you can never replace her. You’ll never be her.”
Kyungsoo is struck with a hard blow, eyes showing both surprise and desolate realization. There is nothing else left for him to say. Jongin turns away, walking solemnly to a taxi cab parked in the side of the street with Kyungsoo only watching him, wishing he’d offer to still share a ride with him.
But as Jongin drives away and the taxi light turns red, he wishes he’d taken it as a warning sign, from when he first hopped inside his cab.
Kyungsoo is thankful that Jongin still kept the door unlocked for him to enter the house. His eyes are dry from his tears and his body tires from the long cab ride. He doesn’t bother switching on the lights but silently makes his way up the flight of stairs instead, steps heavy like the weight of his chest. As soon as he makes it to the top, he sneaks a glance at Jongin’s bedroom door and notices how it’s left slightly open.
He takes tentative steps in front of it, thinking twice if he should go in to check on Jongin. He gently pushes the door forward so it doesn’t make a sound. The room is dark, but he can see Jongin’s silhouette on top of the bed, already asleep. He walks further inside until he’s standing next to the bed, then sits on the edge. He finds his hand easily, slowly taking it in his own and bringing it to his lips with a soft kiss before placing it back down.
Jongin continues to dream soundly, but his face shows uneasiness, eyes closed shut and seemingly restless. Kyungsoo has never seen him sleep like this.
And then a hand reaches for him along with a voice, strained and painfully broken.
Soo.
Kyungsoo pauses. The syllable of his name has never sounded so different in his ears, and it is only when Jongin’s grasp on his wrist turns tighter and his voice breaks into another cry of plead does Kyungsoo realize why.
Soojung…Please don’t leave me.
And all so suddenly, Kyungsoo is just a stranger in another’s home, surrounded in all his secrets.
He’s already gone when Kyungsoo wakes up half past one.
He’d climbed out of bed with the hefty feeling in his chest still present and Jongin somewhere outside with his green vespa, an indication that tells him he’ll most likely be doing stuff alone today. Kyungsoo heaves a sigh as he shrugs on a coat and looks out from the window, listening to the unfamiliar street sounds of Paris below as people are passing by the neighbourhood. Kyungsoo thinks it’s better than the loud silence that creeps inside the guest room.
Kyungsoo walks the streets of what he thinks is most of Montmartre, with nothing else but Jongin’s yellow umbrella in his hand. He aimlessly strolls down the narrow streets, meandering through a series of colourful cafes and paintings, then sitting alone outside the pink house for both late breakfast and lunch. He continues discovering Montmartre, stumbling upon secret sidestreets that lead to lovely sights of windmills, of purple and teal apartments, and soon finds himself at the bottom of the hill where he meets the infamous Moulin Rouge. As Kyungsoo walks back up the hill and thinks back on the places he’d been to, he realizes that being lost in a city of strangers does not give him the same feeling like it used to. Something is missing, Kyungsoo thinks, like his right arm had been chopped off and he was just starting to learn how to write with his left hand. He’d spent so much time with Jongin that without his presence, he’d forgotten how to feel perfectly lonely.
Kyungsoo reaches a corner path with steps that lead to Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Just before he proceeds to head up, a familiar green vespa parked along the sidewalk catches his eye.
Jongin is sitting on a center bench on the crest of the hill. Kyungsoo takes the empty space next to him, silently gazing over the same Paris view. They stay that way for what feels like an eternity, watching the world move around them while they come at a standstill. Kyungsoo still does not understand how it came to this point, how the silence that was once so easy had turned into a silence that speaks volumes of harsh realities.
The midafternoon sun gleams in the sky above them, and Kyungsoo remembers how the sun used to be in Jongin’s smile.
But that smile seems so faraway now along with Jongin’s distant gaze, and what’s left of his light had already consumed so much of this world that it destroyed homes.
Kyungsoo takes the umbrella standing next to him, extending it open with his hands to raise it between them and over their heads. Jongin reacts slowly, contemplating the shade before meeting his eyes in confusion.
“There’s no rain,” Jongin says.
Kyungsoo tries to offer a smile, but his heart breaks with just the sound of his voice.
“It doesn’t have to rain to protect people from getting hurt,” Kyungsoo answers, “Even the sunniest days can burn you.”
The words that come out of his mouth surprise him, but his face tries to return just a little smile. Jongin brings a hand over his own, still holding the umbrella. He wants to say something, Kyungsoo knows it from the way his mouth struggles to form words, and Kyungsoo tries to help him.
“Last night was rough. We’ve said very painful things, and when someone says you hurt them, you don’t get to decide if you didn’t,” Kyungsoo tells him. “But someone had once told me to become unapologetic about how we feel. So, I’m going to be braver than usual today, okay?”
Jongin is quiet, eyes focused on the Paris view again, but he nods his head just to let him know he is listening. Kyungsoo pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before he pushes the words out of his mouth.
“You promised the world, Jongin. You offered it to me so willingly, but I’ve seen so little of this big earth that I wasn’t sure it was possible. I took your offer anyway. I took it, not really knowing what I was doing. It was on impulse, but I just needed to get away from my life and shuffle my surroundings a bit. My heart longed to be lost. But little did I know that I was waking up in strange cities with someone who had already found it.”
Kyungsoo sees Jongin tense up at his last sentence, but he to continues to speak as if there wasn’t much time and holds onto the umbrella.
“You were keeping your promise. I know that. You promised the world, Jongin. You showed me a world with you in it. And now I-” Kyungsoo chokes back tears, “I can’t imagine living in this place without you.”
“Kyungsoo,” Jongin calls him, pleading with glossy eyes lips quivering.
“But you won’t let me reach you. You’re so far in your head, and you look at the sky with so much of your own longing. Every time I try to knock on your door, you just stare back at me and go right back inside, leaving me behind. I’m not even mad. I’m sad that I can’t help but think about how I’m just a question you would never answer. The least you could give me is the truth.”
Tell me I’m not an honest mistake.
He looks so devastated now, and Kyungsoo watched him helplessly. Jongin’s hand remains on his own, pushing the umbrella towards him so it shields his whole body and before his hand slips away.
“I wanted it to be you,” Jongin replies quietly, “Kyungsoo, you don’t know how much I wanted it to be you.”
Kyungsoo’s heartbeat is loud in his ears as both of his hands grip tight onto the umbrella.
“I just woke up one morning, and she was gone, you know?” Jongin explains, “She disappeared without saying goodbye, and until now I still catch myself wondering what went wrong. People say others don’t know what they have until it’s gone, but I’ve always known, Kyungsoo. She was everything I ever wanted.”
Jongin’s looks so fragile. Kyungsoo continues to watch him as he takes a deep long breath, trying to control more tears from falling.
“Yet maybe it was my fault. One year of marriage with her was beautiful, but it reached a point where I was always leaving, flying off to different cities while she sang in bars and waited for me to come home. She never complained, maybe because she wanted me to be happy, and I was thankful. Things changed when we went out for dinner once. I couldn’t remember exactly what we were arguing about, but as soon as she stood up and turned her back on me, I saw it-the blood on her dress and on her legs.”
Kyungsoo’s eyes go wide.
“I don’t know how we made it so fast to the hospital, Kyungsoo,” Jongin breathes harshly, as if his lungs were shattering inside him and he was losing air, “But it was still too late.”
“Jongin, I-”
“The baby was seven weeks old,” Jongin says in a broken whisper, “But they couldn’t find the heartbeat.”
Don’t be late. Kyungsoo remembers the note. His tears are uncontrollable by then, and Jongin was crumbling in front of him. He drops the umbrella from his hands to take Jongin’s shaky ones.
“I could never forget the look in her eyes that night. They were so empty, like she was only made of my absences. I didn’t think I would lose her,” Jongin summons a smile then, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, “Until I did.”
Jongin was still on his own now, carrying the world around him along with a guilt in his heart. All his layers are gone, but he’d been wearing a mask for so long that as time had gone by, he’d torn off his own skin.
“Maybe this was my karma-no matter how much I fall in love with someone, I will never love someone as much as I loved her.”
Kyungsoo uses his hands to cradle Jongin’s face, lifting it to face him.
“You can’t blame yourself for everything,” Kyungsoo tells him. “This place could be beautiful again, Jongin. I can make this place beautiful again.”
It is when Jongin gazes into his eyes, mouth forming into another detached smile, does Kyungsoo realize just how unfair it was to look at a person and see their love slowly slip away from your grasp.
“I’d love to be with you,” Jongin says softly. “I just wish we had a chance.”
They take comfort in the silence above the city, standing on top of the Eiffel Tower at night.
As they look over the lighted skylines, Kyungsoo revisits his old feelings. It flashes through his head in moments again: Kyungsoo chasing the sun at Jeju Island, crossing paths at Shibuya station. Glasgow under the fairy lights, and Halloween at Amsterdam.
He remembers stargazing with Baekhyun on his apartment balcony.
He remembers Miyoung and Sungsoo, and the money his biological parents had kept under his name.
And then he remembers Paris, and Jongin inside the taxi cab.
The said man is looking over the city with a certain kind of calmness on his face, as if he’s finally gained his peace of mind. Kyungsoo realizes that they are no longer at the beginning, but have made it to the middle part which would be most of it.
It hits him all at once-pent-up emotions of happiness, melancholy, anger, and grief-weighing heavily over his soul that it could kill him.
At the same time he feels connected to the world somehow, alive in his own skin. He feels the wind in his hair and the ground beneath his feet. He’s breathing with the air in his lungs.
And then he screams.
Jongin watches Kyungsoo shout into the atmosphere. He screams but no one hears except him. He screams because he’s in Paris. Paris is so, so beautiful, and yet everything hurts. All the love left in him roars loud over the city, not knowing where else to place it.
Seconds pass before another voice joins him-Jongin’s broken cry spilling out into the void like a bolt of thunder.
They become two lost souls again-screaming for help, for love and loss-finding an empty space to fill with their loneliness.
Then Kyungsoo catches Jongin grinning. His laugh is soft while his eyes glisten in the night. He looks so lovely, like he belonged with the sky and his eyes mirror the oceans. Kyungsoo thinks for a moment that maybe they were destined to meet, but not destined to be together.
So he will let things go. The way Jongin kissed him, the way he held his hand. He will leave cities and homes, he will travel the world all over again-make deeper connections. He will leave because their feelings sunk deep into the heart, and loneliness is the only way they could find it again.
Kyungsoo will still keep Jongin’s postcard and his yellow umbrella. He thinks he will miss him most when he is high, or when he listens to that one song in his ipod.
And Jongin will continue to fly planes. He will walk away from him, leaving him with nothing but the memories they shared together. But Kyungsoo will continue to love him, until a place is just another place and he no longer tastes him without tasting blood in his mouth. Until love is just another word again and not the name of the storm in his heart.
~end~