[Fanfic] We'll Always Have Paris - Chapter Four: Love at First Sight
I'm fast in updating this time! :D Prepare your tissues, guys. :p Coz this chapter made me cry. lol. :))))
By the way, does anyone ever noticed that Sophie is so much younger than Sho? I thought it's gonna create a buzz on you guys. Haha! :))
As always, this is unbeta-ed so do tell if there are errors and mistakes. Comments, suggestions, reactions and criticisms are gladly welcomed. Happy reading!! :)
Chapter Four: Love at First Sight
“Just what exactly are you doing?” Ai-chan finally speaks for the first time in almost thirty minutes since they entered Sophie’s apartment.
She seems to have lost her voice after an awkward introduction followed by an exchange of goodnight with Sakurai Sho.
“It’s just a kiss.” Sophie uttered silently and Ai-chan dropped her jaw in shock.
“Did I hear it right? It’s just a kiss?” Ai-chan mockingly repeated Sophie’s outrageous words. “Coming from the girl who slaps the campus heartthrob after an attempt to kiss her at a party!”
“He caught me off guard that’s why I slapped him!” Sophie reasoned out.
“So Sakurai Sho didn’t catch you off guard in that kiss earlier?!” Ai-chan retorts and Sophie couldn’t find an excuse this time. He caught her off guard too but she didn’t mind. “Sophie, you’re not that person. You value those kinds of things, kissing, getting into a relationship, you think about it carefully. You weight things first before involving yourself with a man, you’re the wisest person I know when it comes dealing with relationships. What happened all of a sudden? Why did you just let someone kiss you? And what’s worse is that you barely know him!”
Sophie puts her hands up and pleads guilty. “I just feel something… something different with him.” She admitted.
“How did you meet him again in the first place?!” Ai-chan is getting irritated at how she doesn’t know a thing about her best friend getting intimate with someone.
“I met him this morning while grabbing a coffee on the way to school and we decided to meet up again for lunch where I met the rest of his friends.”
Ai-chan sighed and closed her eyes momentarily as if absorbing everything that’s happening right now.
“Do you know him?” Ai-chan spoke again. “He’s in Arashi, dubbed as the ‘National Idols’. They perform sold-out concerts on the five major domes in Japan and they fill every seat on the National Olympic Stadium. Have you ever been there? That’s freaking huge, Sophie! Their faces are plastered on every billboards and magazines, they appear on every commercials on TV not to mention their own regular shows and dramas.”
“What are you trying to say?” Sophie felt a lump on her throat as she said that.
“I’m just saying that you’re in two different worlds. His path is different than yours. His life is in Japan and yours is here in Paris. Whatever you’re feeling towards him, Sophie… You have to stop before it’s too late.” Ai-chan stood up from her seat and grabs her bag. “I’ll study on my own at home. Looks like you need some alone time to think. See you tomorrow at school.”
----------
When Sakurai Sho arrived back to their hotel room, his roommates, Aiba and Jun are comfortably lounging on the bed, flipping through the French channels on the television.
“Sho-chan!” Aiba exclaims excitedly. “What happened?” His eyes are full of anticipation.
“What do you mean?” Sho can’t help but grin to himself as he jumps to the empty bed.
“Oh come on! Don’t act innocent! You like Sophie-chan! We can see it all over your face!” Aiba pokes him in the chest.
“Why do you even need to walk her home in a city that you’re not familiar with if you don’t like her.” Jun calmly said, turning off the television and shifting his attention to the man of the hour.
Sho smiled sheepishly. “I do like her. I think she’s interesting. Pretty, smart, independent and charming, I was impressed. Someone actually possessed those ideal qualities.”
“Are you falling in love, Sho-chan?!” Aiba blatantly asked, receiving a smack from Jun for asking that question.
Sho looked at the two face to face. He bit his lower lip before admitting, “We kissed…” A smile grew from ear to ear as Aiba and Jun looked at him in utter surprised.
“You kissed her?!” Jun’s voice was a bit louder than usual. “I kissed my girlfriend five months after we first met and people say we’re both the carnivore type…”
“You and Yana live in the same country, in the same city even and you both work in the same field. Sophie lives a thousand miles away from me and she’s still in college. I need to act fast. I need to let her know how I feel because time is not our side. We only have thirteen days left here in Paris.”
The mood of the room suddenly dropped down. Sho didn’t forget that fact but that doesn't stop him from letting her know what he feels. Call it a big risk but he learned that the biggest regret someone can ever make in his life is to not do anything and ask ‘what if’ later on, when it’s already too late.
“But Sho-kun…” Jun started. “You’ve only known her for a day, why are you getting serious about this all of sudden?”
Sho smiled faintly. “It’s what they call love at first sight but technically it’s at second sight.” He laughed. “When I saw her this morning, crossing that street, I have no idea that she’s the girl from last night. I was mesmerized, I can’t take my eyes off her and if only my heart can talk he’ll say that ‘Hey, you’re falling in love with this stranger’. When she started talking to me, there’s this certain happiness inside me that I never felt before, when our hand touched for the first time, instant electricity surged throughout my body. She swept me off my feet… Paris is indeed the city of love.”
They never heard Sho talk that earnestly about love in almost thirteen years of their friendship, he almost never shares about the matters of the heart, and when he suddenly turned to be this lovesick about a girl, they knew that its way more serious than what they thought.
----------
On Arashi’s third day in Paris, they finally had the time to roam around the city. With Sophie acting their tour guide, she brought them to Champ de Mars, a well-known park where the Eiffel Tower is located, they toured the Les Invalides, a compound that houses museums and monuments relating to the military history of France. They also visited the many museums such as d’Orsay, Du Quai Brandly and the Rodin Museum that displays the work of the renowned French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
Sophie remained casual and chatty but she hardly let herself be alone with Sho and it concerns him. Is it the kiss? Is he too aggressive? Doesn’t she feel the same? Questions are piling his mind.
Just before sunset, she took them to Pont Neuf, the oldest and most famous bridge by the River Seine. As the guys have fun taking pictures and appreciating the sunset by the river, Sophie choose to be alone in the other side of the bridge.
As she let her mind wanders around blankly, she felt someone joining her and saw Sho just a few inches away from her.
“Let’s go?” She asked, not bothering to look straight to his eyes as she turns around to join the others.
Sho stopped her by clutching her arm. “They are still enjoying.” They look at the four guys from across the street, taking pictures and laughing amongst themselves. “Sophie, talk to me.” He mumbled almost pleadingly.
“Don’t be so serious.” She forces a laugh as she lets go of her arm but there’s not a hint of smile on his face.
Sophie erased the false smile on her face as she look straight into his pleading eyes. “Why me?” Her voice breaks. “You’ve probably met a lot of girls, some would even throw their self at you. You have female friends whom you have known for so long… Why me? A stranger you’ve only met two days ago.”
“No one has ever made me feel the same way as you do, Sophie.” Sho puts his palm on her cheek and she quickly brushed it away but he stops her by putting both palms on her face.
“This is ridiculous!” Sophie cried. “Two people can’t possibly be in love with each other that easily! There’s no such thing!” She fights the tears from her eyes. She's trying the deny what she really feels but the tears wouldn't lie.
“And yet we still manage to do so.” Sho, unlike her, remained calm. “We are in love.” He smiled as he lifts up her face and saw the tears falling from her eyes.
He gently wiped the tears under her eyes. “I love you, Sophie. Believe it or not, I do.”
Sophie felt the urge to say the same thing, that she loves him too, because that’s what she really feels. After Ai-chan left last night to give her time to think, she realized only one thing. No matter how ridiculous it may seem, she fell in love with this person.
“It’s not fair.” That’s what she replied instead. “You’ll leave me in twelve days.”
Sho felt his heart crumble into pieces as he looks at her sobbing over those words. He pulled tightly for an embrace as she cried endlessly in his chest.
“I love you too, Sho but my life is here and your life is in Japan. We can’t possibly make this work with that distance.” Sophie mumbled and Sho can feel his eyes trembling with tears.
With the sun finally setting and the nightfall approached enveloping the vast Parisian sky, Sho and Sophie confessed their love with the River Seine as their witness, finding their selves in the arms of each other, hearts tangled together but they can’t ignore the heavy burden of an eventual separation in twelve dreadful days.
----------
“I wish I met you when I was younger.” Sophie mutter silently as they sat in a park bench in Champ de Mars, adjacent to the light filled Eiffel Tower. “In Tokyo. I’m five years old and you’re… fourteen?” She smiled as she squeezed his hand as Sho laughed faintly. “I’m playing by myself in the park and some boys came and bullies me, I cried and you saw it, so you scare them away and warn them to leave me alone or else you’ll haunt them.” Sophie began crying again. “And since then you became my hero. You’ll play with me even though I’m so much younger than you are and I play with dolls and girly stuff.”
“Don’t cry, please.” Sho pleads, she’s been crying since that moment in the bridge.
“That story is real except that no one came to be my hero and those boys would bully me every day until I stopped coming to the park because I’m scared of them, because they always make me cry.”
“Then I’m no different from those bullies because I’m making you cry right now.” Sho lifts up her chin. “Please don’t cry anymore, Sophie. You’re making it hard for me to see you like this.”
Sophie wiped her tears away and tried her best to smile, putting Sho’s hands into hers as they stare into each other.
“A study shows that there’s a 60 percent chance that people will fall in love at first sight and I said that it won’t ever happen to me because I’m so cautious when it comes to that... But I did.” She smiled sweetly, his favorite smile. “Even though I am so drunk that night, you still manage to catch my attention. You’re so dazzling in my eyes.”
Sho suddenly felt embarrassed as he lifts their intertwined hands to his face.
“Why do we have to meet here in Paris? We could have met in Japan, in a place where we don’t need to separate.” Sophie turned serious again but she tries to stop the tears.
“If we met elsewhere, do you think we will ever be this in love?” Sho asked and Sophie creased her eyebrows. “If we met in Tokyo, do you think we can even notice each other?”
“You’re saying that Paris brought us together?” She smiled and he nodded, brushing the hair off her face. “Paris is mystical, huh?” They laughed as they both lifted up their head to look at the lights in the tower.
“Starting tonight, I won’t wear a watch.” Sho removes the watch on his wrist and shove it on his pocket. “And you won’t wear one either.” He then took her hand and removes hers.
“Why?” Sophie asked in confusion.
“Get rid of the calendars on your house and the date and time on your mobile phone. I’ll do the same on mine.” Sho firmly announces. “We’ll forget that I’ll leave twelve days from now and we’ll shove away anything that reminds us of that. Starting tonight, we’ll just have fun like a normal couple, we wouldn’t let that flight back to Tokyo burden us. Okay?”
Sophie slowly smiled happily and she can feel tears of joy building inside her eyes.
“Okay.” She nodded and Sho smiled contently at the sight of happiness on her face.
The greatest relationships are the ones you never expected to be in, the ones that swept you off your feet and challenged every view you've ever had and that exactly define Sho and Sophie's love story.
By the way, does anyone ever noticed that Sophie is so much younger than Sho? I thought it's gonna create a buzz on you guys. Haha! :))
As always, this is unbeta-ed so do tell if there are errors and mistakes. Comments, suggestions, reactions and criticisms are gladly welcomed. Happy reading!! :)
Chapter Four: Love at First Sight
“Just what exactly are you doing?” Ai-chan finally speaks for the first time in almost thirty minutes since they entered Sophie’s apartment.
She seems to have lost her voice after an awkward introduction followed by an exchange of goodnight with Sakurai Sho.
“It’s just a kiss.” Sophie uttered silently and Ai-chan dropped her jaw in shock.
“Did I hear it right? It’s just a kiss?” Ai-chan mockingly repeated Sophie’s outrageous words. “Coming from the girl who slaps the campus heartthrob after an attempt to kiss her at a party!”
“He caught me off guard that’s why I slapped him!” Sophie reasoned out.
“So Sakurai Sho didn’t catch you off guard in that kiss earlier?!” Ai-chan retorts and Sophie couldn’t find an excuse this time. He caught her off guard too but she didn’t mind. “Sophie, you’re not that person. You value those kinds of things, kissing, getting into a relationship, you think about it carefully. You weight things first before involving yourself with a man, you’re the wisest person I know when it comes dealing with relationships. What happened all of a sudden? Why did you just let someone kiss you? And what’s worse is that you barely know him!”
Sophie puts her hands up and pleads guilty. “I just feel something… something different with him.” She admitted.
“How did you meet him again in the first place?!” Ai-chan is getting irritated at how she doesn’t know a thing about her best friend getting intimate with someone.
“I met him this morning while grabbing a coffee on the way to school and we decided to meet up again for lunch where I met the rest of his friends.”
Ai-chan sighed and closed her eyes momentarily as if absorbing everything that’s happening right now.
“Do you know him?” Ai-chan spoke again. “He’s in Arashi, dubbed as the ‘National Idols’. They perform sold-out concerts on the five major domes in Japan and they fill every seat on the National Olympic Stadium. Have you ever been there? That’s freaking huge, Sophie! Their faces are plastered on every billboards and magazines, they appear on every commercials on TV not to mention their own regular shows and dramas.”
“What are you trying to say?” Sophie felt a lump on her throat as she said that.
“I’m just saying that you’re in two different worlds. His path is different than yours. His life is in Japan and yours is here in Paris. Whatever you’re feeling towards him, Sophie… You have to stop before it’s too late.” Ai-chan stood up from her seat and grabs her bag. “I’ll study on my own at home. Looks like you need some alone time to think. See you tomorrow at school.”
----------
When Sakurai Sho arrived back to their hotel room, his roommates, Aiba and Jun are comfortably lounging on the bed, flipping through the French channels on the television.
“Sho-chan!” Aiba exclaims excitedly. “What happened?” His eyes are full of anticipation.
“What do you mean?” Sho can’t help but grin to himself as he jumps to the empty bed.
“Oh come on! Don’t act innocent! You like Sophie-chan! We can see it all over your face!” Aiba pokes him in the chest.
“Why do you even need to walk her home in a city that you’re not familiar with if you don’t like her.” Jun calmly said, turning off the television and shifting his attention to the man of the hour.
Sho smiled sheepishly. “I do like her. I think she’s interesting. Pretty, smart, independent and charming, I was impressed. Someone actually possessed those ideal qualities.”
“Are you falling in love, Sho-chan?!” Aiba blatantly asked, receiving a smack from Jun for asking that question.
Sho looked at the two face to face. He bit his lower lip before admitting, “We kissed…” A smile grew from ear to ear as Aiba and Jun looked at him in utter surprised.
“You kissed her?!” Jun’s voice was a bit louder than usual. “I kissed my girlfriend five months after we first met and people say we’re both the carnivore type…”
“You and Yana live in the same country, in the same city even and you both work in the same field. Sophie lives a thousand miles away from me and she’s still in college. I need to act fast. I need to let her know how I feel because time is not our side. We only have thirteen days left here in Paris.”
The mood of the room suddenly dropped down. Sho didn’t forget that fact but that doesn't stop him from letting her know what he feels. Call it a big risk but he learned that the biggest regret someone can ever make in his life is to not do anything and ask ‘what if’ later on, when it’s already too late.
“But Sho-kun…” Jun started. “You’ve only known her for a day, why are you getting serious about this all of sudden?”
Sho smiled faintly. “It’s what they call love at first sight but technically it’s at second sight.” He laughed. “When I saw her this morning, crossing that street, I have no idea that she’s the girl from last night. I was mesmerized, I can’t take my eyes off her and if only my heart can talk he’ll say that ‘Hey, you’re falling in love with this stranger’. When she started talking to me, there’s this certain happiness inside me that I never felt before, when our hand touched for the first time, instant electricity surged throughout my body. She swept me off my feet… Paris is indeed the city of love.”
They never heard Sho talk that earnestly about love in almost thirteen years of their friendship, he almost never shares about the matters of the heart, and when he suddenly turned to be this lovesick about a girl, they knew that its way more serious than what they thought.
----------
On Arashi’s third day in Paris, they finally had the time to roam around the city. With Sophie acting their tour guide, she brought them to Champ de Mars, a well-known park where the Eiffel Tower is located, they toured the Les Invalides, a compound that houses museums and monuments relating to the military history of France. They also visited the many museums such as d’Orsay, Du Quai Brandly and the Rodin Museum that displays the work of the renowned French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
Sophie remained casual and chatty but she hardly let herself be alone with Sho and it concerns him. Is it the kiss? Is he too aggressive? Doesn’t she feel the same? Questions are piling his mind.
Just before sunset, she took them to Pont Neuf, the oldest and most famous bridge by the River Seine. As the guys have fun taking pictures and appreciating the sunset by the river, Sophie choose to be alone in the other side of the bridge.
As she let her mind wanders around blankly, she felt someone joining her and saw Sho just a few inches away from her.
“Let’s go?” She asked, not bothering to look straight to his eyes as she turns around to join the others.
Sho stopped her by clutching her arm. “They are still enjoying.” They look at the four guys from across the street, taking pictures and laughing amongst themselves. “Sophie, talk to me.” He mumbled almost pleadingly.
“Don’t be so serious.” She forces a laugh as she lets go of her arm but there’s not a hint of smile on his face.
Sophie erased the false smile on her face as she look straight into his pleading eyes. “Why me?” Her voice breaks. “You’ve probably met a lot of girls, some would even throw their self at you. You have female friends whom you have known for so long… Why me? A stranger you’ve only met two days ago.”
“No one has ever made me feel the same way as you do, Sophie.” Sho puts his palm on her cheek and she quickly brushed it away but he stops her by putting both palms on her face.
“This is ridiculous!” Sophie cried. “Two people can’t possibly be in love with each other that easily! There’s no such thing!” She fights the tears from her eyes. She's trying the deny what she really feels but the tears wouldn't lie.
“And yet we still manage to do so.” Sho, unlike her, remained calm. “We are in love.” He smiled as he lifts up her face and saw the tears falling from her eyes.
He gently wiped the tears under her eyes. “I love you, Sophie. Believe it or not, I do.”
Sophie felt the urge to say the same thing, that she loves him too, because that’s what she really feels. After Ai-chan left last night to give her time to think, she realized only one thing. No matter how ridiculous it may seem, she fell in love with this person.
“It’s not fair.” That’s what she replied instead. “You’ll leave me in twelve days.”
Sho felt his heart crumble into pieces as he looks at her sobbing over those words. He pulled tightly for an embrace as she cried endlessly in his chest.
“I love you too, Sho but my life is here and your life is in Japan. We can’t possibly make this work with that distance.” Sophie mumbled and Sho can feel his eyes trembling with tears.
With the sun finally setting and the nightfall approached enveloping the vast Parisian sky, Sho and Sophie confessed their love with the River Seine as their witness, finding their selves in the arms of each other, hearts tangled together but they can’t ignore the heavy burden of an eventual separation in twelve dreadful days.
----------
“I wish I met you when I was younger.” Sophie mutter silently as they sat in a park bench in Champ de Mars, adjacent to the light filled Eiffel Tower. “In Tokyo. I’m five years old and you’re… fourteen?” She smiled as she squeezed his hand as Sho laughed faintly. “I’m playing by myself in the park and some boys came and bullies me, I cried and you saw it, so you scare them away and warn them to leave me alone or else you’ll haunt them.” Sophie began crying again. “And since then you became my hero. You’ll play with me even though I’m so much younger than you are and I play with dolls and girly stuff.”
“Don’t cry, please.” Sho pleads, she’s been crying since that moment in the bridge.
“That story is real except that no one came to be my hero and those boys would bully me every day until I stopped coming to the park because I’m scared of them, because they always make me cry.”
“Then I’m no different from those bullies because I’m making you cry right now.” Sho lifts up her chin. “Please don’t cry anymore, Sophie. You’re making it hard for me to see you like this.”
Sophie wiped her tears away and tried her best to smile, putting Sho’s hands into hers as they stare into each other.
“A study shows that there’s a 60 percent chance that people will fall in love at first sight and I said that it won’t ever happen to me because I’m so cautious when it comes to that... But I did.” She smiled sweetly, his favorite smile. “Even though I am so drunk that night, you still manage to catch my attention. You’re so dazzling in my eyes.”
Sho suddenly felt embarrassed as he lifts their intertwined hands to his face.
“Why do we have to meet here in Paris? We could have met in Japan, in a place where we don’t need to separate.” Sophie turned serious again but she tries to stop the tears.
“If we met elsewhere, do you think we will ever be this in love?” Sho asked and Sophie creased her eyebrows. “If we met in Tokyo, do you think we can even notice each other?”
“You’re saying that Paris brought us together?” She smiled and he nodded, brushing the hair off her face. “Paris is mystical, huh?” They laughed as they both lifted up their head to look at the lights in the tower.
“Starting tonight, I won’t wear a watch.” Sho removes the watch on his wrist and shove it on his pocket. “And you won’t wear one either.” He then took her hand and removes hers.
“Why?” Sophie asked in confusion.
“Get rid of the calendars on your house and the date and time on your mobile phone. I’ll do the same on mine.” Sho firmly announces. “We’ll forget that I’ll leave twelve days from now and we’ll shove away anything that reminds us of that. Starting tonight, we’ll just have fun like a normal couple, we wouldn’t let that flight back to Tokyo burden us. Okay?”
Sophie slowly smiled happily and she can feel tears of joy building inside her eyes.
“Okay.” She nodded and Sho smiled contently at the sight of happiness on her face.
The greatest relationships are the ones you never expected to be in, the ones that swept you off your feet and challenged every view you've ever had and that exactly define Sho and Sophie's love story.