Last Flight Home

008: Prague

"You're just making a phone call. Quit being a drama mama."

Alex took a deep breath and pressed the "call" button on his phone. He put the phone to his ear and held his breath as he listened to the dial tone ring.

"Hello?" Eunri's voice came from the other end of the line.

He was tongue-tied.

"Say something! You're going to sound like one of those creepy stalkers breathing heavily on the other end of the line if you keep this up."

"Hello? Eunri? This is Al— Daehyun," Alex squeaked, managing to correct himself just in time.

"Daehyun? Oh, hi! Did your meeting go well?"

There was no meeting. All he had been doing for the past few days was help Daehyun reply work emails and hunt the streets of Prague for good food. He would have called Eunri the day after they arrived, but Daehyun reminded him (shouted at him, actually) that being too eager was unbecoming.

"Yes! Everything went smoothly," he fibbed. "Have you been enjoying yourself around Prague? Umm you know I said I wanted to treat you to dinner sometime? To thank you for helping me out on the flight?" He had his fingers crossed behind his back, hoping that she meant what she said the other day and wouldn't come up with an excuse to reject him.

"Yes, but I was actually planning to leave Prague tomorrow so..."

"Already?"

It was too soon! He knew he had forgotten to ask her something when they parted ways the other day, and her departure date was it. He had assumed she would stay in Prague for at least a week, if not longer.

"You know what, how about we do dinner tonight? Would that be okay?" Eunri added.

When he heard what she had just said, Alex jumped onto his bed in the hotel room and did a fist pump and victory shimmy. "Yeah, dinner tonight sounds great! Where should I meet you?" he replied, trying to withhold the excitement in his voice. It wasn't quite working. He could hardly contain the butterflies that were flying around his stomach.

"Under the astronomical clock at the old town hall? 7pm?"

"Sure! I'll see you then."

He ended the call with a gentle tap on the button. Then he exploded.

"Yeah!" Alex shouted in excitement as he continued bouncing up and down on the bed and doing his crazy dance moves.

"Can you not dance around like that? I don't dance like that. If the chambermaid walked in right now and saw me doing that then my reputation would be ruined for good," Daehyun said in his usual deadpan tone. "For someone who's supposed to be musically trained, your dance moves are severely lacking."

"What should I wear, what should I wear? There's no time!" Alex jumped off the bed and ran towards the wardrobe, flipping through all of Daehyun's clothes.

"Hey be careful with that, that's made of imported silk," Daehyun snapped as he saw Alex manhandle one of his most expensive shirts.

Alex took out almost every shirt in the cupboard and threw them on the bed, putting one shirt after another in front of his chest as he looked in the mirror trying to decide which shirt to choose. Daehyun's clothes were totally not his style. They were all too stiff and formal. They were uptight banker clothes, not carefree musician clothes.

"Which one do you think you look best in?" he asked. Since he would be going as Lee Daehyun, then Daehyun would probably be the one who knew best.