La Seine

Three.

“THIS SEAT TAKEN?”

Surprised, Taehyung looked up. Perhaps it was his often stony expression or the way he held himself that made him look so obviously aristocratic, but no one had spoken to him outside of shops.

It was a woman, and goodness, was she stunning. For a brief moment, all he could do was stare back at her, mouth slightly agape as he took in her flushed cheeks, the hair poking out from underneath her winter hat, and the way she was smiling brilliantly at him.

Regaining his composure, he merely shook his head and gestured to the seat beside him. She too brushed off the snow before she sat down, though he noted she was not wearing gloves. “Sorry,” she said, “I don’t speak French.”

“It’s okay, I don’t speak French either,” he muttered, half afraid to make eye contact with her. Shops and stores were straightforward. You wanted something, you paid for it, you left. Simple, no complicated conversation involved.

Conversation was centered around this service, and that had become easy for him once he got used to it. It had gotten to the point where he could actually see himself living here in the future. It could be an amazing future, to be frank.

Kim Taehyung knew business transactions. He didn’t know this—this casual conversation with someone living in a whole other world compared to his. Despite living among filthy rich and snobby people, he had learned to mold himself into a shell, barely engaging with them.

Talking to other people outside his circle was something else, something different. He shifted uncomfortably on the bench, feeling suddenly tense, almost painfully so.

“You’re from Korea,” she said, sounding delighted. He chanced a glance at her and almost swore out loud at the way her smile rendered him momentarily speechless.

He just nodded, but she pressed on. “I was there not too long ago. Terrible service at shops but lovely people, beautiful weather. What are you doing in Paris?”

He shrugged, his eyes flicking out over the Seine. “Just traveling.”

“Me too.” Glancing over, he saw that she was still smiling at him. “What’s your name?”

“Taehyung.”

“Taehyung,” she repeated, and he hated the way it sounded so beautiful rolling off her tongue. “That’s an interesting name. Been a while since I’ve talked to a Korean guy. I’m Ella.”

She held out her hand and he reached out to shake it tentatively. “You don’t have gloves,” was all he could think to say, but she just laughed.

“I know. I was just in South America for a while, actually. I flew into Paris a few days ago and haven’t been able to get all the proper winter clothes yet.”

Taehyung had to remind himself to breathe and not say anything that would make zero sense. Regardless of his discomfort, he didn’t really want to stand up and go somewhere else, to spend his New Year alone.

Now he was curious despite himself about this strange and bold woman who had decided to sit beside him and talked about the world like she had seen all of it. “Why Paris?”

It was her turn to shrug. “Why not?”

He just stared. “What, you just wander around?”

“Pretty much. Mind you, I usually have to stay somewhere cheaper. And warmer. Paris was a bit of a treat for New Year’s.” Her eyes flicked across the Seine now, flickering with the light of a nearby sparkler and a group of laughing teenagers.

He was grateful she wasn’t looking; her words had still confused him, and it was beginning to dawn on him just how different her world was from his.

She could do anything she wanted, go anywhere she wanted, but Taehyung had to calculate each of his moves in fear of unwanted rumors—courtesy of his father’s reputation and heritage—and only make friends with the kids of his father’s business partners.

“Why did you come over to me?” he finally asked bluntly.

“You were alone, and so was I,” she answered, looking back at him. Then she gave him a coy smile. “And besides, I thought you were cute.”

Was it so vain of him to smile automatically at the compliment? Perhaps. But he couldn’t help it.

She saw his reaction and grinned wider in response, seemingly pleased he was starting to loosen up. He hoisted his backpack up into his lap and unzipped it. “Want some wine?”

“Now you’re talking,” she said, laughing and rubbing her hands together.

He pulled out the cork and thought about how different this was from the dinner with his soon-to-be wife, that night.

How his parents and hers had always been present at the beginning. How she looked prim and forever coy—like a prize her family was selling. But also gloomy and uncomfortable. She could never have walked up and made the first move like this. It wouldn’t have been proper.

“So,” he said casually after he had uncorked the bottle, taken a swig, and passed it to her, “How long have you been on the go?”

She took a long drink from the bottle. “Couple of years.”

He looked over at her incredulously. “Don’t you miss your family?”

A visible and brief ripple of discomfort went over her face, and she took another long drink from the bottle before slowly passing it back. “I visit them when I can. But I like not being stationary, you know? I like the freedom.”

This exile to the trip around the world—while also his very last one—had also become his last bout of real freedom. He now knew the value of freedom; after the marriage deal along with the business deal was set, Taehyung hadn’t comprehended the upcoming lack of freedom looming over him.

And after this, after Paris and the Seine, it was back: back to prim dates and color schemes and dress shopping and producing an heir that he knew he was in no way ready for with a woman he didn’t love.

It seemed like a story out of a ’60s movie.

“How about you? How long have you been traveling?” she asked, watching him carefully now.

“Almost a month. It’s my last day before I head back.”

“Where did you go?”

“I started in Rome. Then I went up to Milan, and then Zurich. Paris is the last stop.”

“Oh my god, I loved Rome!” she breathed, and she was off, chatting animatedly about gelato and Vespas and asking if he saw this or that with an expression of pure ecstasy on her face as she spoke.

Cold air puffed out around her face as she talked, her cheeks glowing red with the cold. And she was beautiful, much too beautiful. He talked back and laughed with her and before he knew it, half an hour had passed, and they were both chuckling at a funny travel story involving a goat and two monks and emptying the rest of the wine.

He understood roughly only seventy percent of what she said and other things she talked about were far too foreign for him to understand, things from another country and another culture—it was clear that she had seen the world more than him—but he didn’t even care so much.

He found himself fascinated more than anything, increasingly more interested in this world, in her world, for the first time.

This was no longer toleration or mere coexistence. This was real interest in her. In someone outside of his father’s business partners.

The world was definitely strange.