Chapter Text
The decision dawns on you somewhere between the ball and when your father tells your godfather--the French ambassador to the Czech Republic--that you’re going to graduate next year. Maybe it was rash, maybe it was petty, maybe you shouldn’t have called your father a lying, double-crossing coward in front of one of his esteemed colleague, but you’d already talked to him about the possibility of doing an internship in art, taking a few semesters off the coming winter and postponing graduating a little bit--to which he’d said yes. And yet, there you both stood, in the ballroom of the Boscolo Hotel, your father prestigious in his navy suit and you playing the part of good daughter in a stunning, champagne-colored gown with a crenulated skirt so sweeping it looked like something out of a fairytale, holding a glass of champagne that quivered as your hands trembled with anger.
“Actually, Uncle,” you said, your voice quaking against your will. “You’ll have to forgive my father for being a lying, double-crossing coward. He’d promised me a gap year where I could give some art internships a try but I guess that’s not something that you tell the truth about because it’s looked down upon in the community of pretentious old men--”
“--that’s enough.”
Your father’s voice was stern, angry.
Your godfather cleared his throat, excused himself from the conversation. You looked into your father’s face, his cheeks red from embarrassment and rage.
“Young lady. You promised to behave--”
“--and you promised that the art thing would happen--”
“-- if you agreed to take Sungjin and Dowoon with you--”
“--I can’t have bodyguards with me all the time. It’s weird. Look, Dad. I understand not having a normal childhood. I understand being the ambassador’s daughter. I understand privilege and risk. But I’m not a child anymore. You said it yourself, I’m going to graduate soon--”
“--and sooner if you don’t do this art thing--”
“--hah! As if after I graduate you’ll let me do what I want--”
“--again, within--”
“--reasonable measure,” you spat, cutting him off. “You know what, Dad? For a diplomat, you sure as hell suck at negotiating.”
You spun on your heel and walked out, the beads of your clutch digging into your fingers as you walked down the hall found the nearest balcony, stepped out onto the terrace. You sighed, opened your bag and procured a pack of cigarettes--the only vice you’d picked up during college life because your bodyguard back in Boston liked the occasional ciggie too--before lighting up and letting the nicotine calm you down.
And now here you are, your mind made up to run away. By hook or by crook.
“Stressful night?”
You almost jump out of our skin. You grin as you realize that it’s Jae, your childhood friend who you went to highschool with and the Korean ambassador’s son, your ally in commiseration since you were both in middle school. He’s smoking too, his tie undone, one hand in his pocket.
“You know it.”
“Let me guess,” Jae says, taking a drag. “Something about college. Something about wanting to be alone. Something about your father promising you something that he won’t let you have in the end?”
You raise an eyebrow.
“How’d you know?”
“Personal experience.” Jae shrugs, grinning. He glances at you. “Can I tell you a secret?”
You nod. “Fire away.”
“I’m dropping out of school,” Jae says, putting a hand in his pocket, a thin stream of smoke slipping out from between his lips. “I hate Political Science.”
You let out a short laugh. “What’s the grand plan, then? World domination?”
“YouTube?”
You both laugh. For a moment, it sinks in that Jae is one of the things you’ll miss most about this life that you’re leaving behind.
“Fair enough--I think you’ll be good at that,” you say, thinking that it makes sense somehow that Jae would want to talk into a camera for a living.“I’m running away.”
Jae’s eyebrows lift in shock. “Are you, now? And how, exactly, do you plan to do that? Aren’t you a bit rusty at the whole escape artist thing?”
You shrug, know that Jae is already thinking about all of the escapades you two went on when you were teenagers--all those times you snuck out of boarding school, those times that you smoked up in Jae’s dorm room, those times during summer vacation that you took his dad’s Porsche out for a spin.
You grin, put your cigarette out on the balcony and toss it into the nearby trash bin.
“Once an escape artist, always an escape artist. I’ll see you around, Jae.”
“Hey--” Jae catches your wrist. He hands you something small and flat--you look down: a metro card. “--it’s a Europass. For the train. Stay safe, alright? Write my number down somewhere for if something happens. Get a burn phone.”
You grin, slip the card into your purse.
“Thanks, Jae.”
You don’t sleep, spend the night dying your hair bright pink, stinking your hotel room up with bleach. You only take one knapsack with you, fill it up with everything you think you’ll need: your wallet (containing Jae’s gifted europass), your passport, five shirts, a week’s worth of underwear, a small grooming kit, your journal, a few pens, and because you’re a sentimental idiot, your Instax camera and all the film that can fit. You leave your phone on your bedside table, only scribble down Jae’s number on a page in your notebook. You’re ready by 5:00 am which is when the hotel starts serving breakfast.
You slip out using an old trick that you and Jae learned as teenagers whenever your families would vacation together at hotels in the South of France or lodges up in Switzerland: you tell the guard on your floor that you’re going down to the dining hall for breakfast with your dad, head into the dining hall and order a continental breakfast, leave an article of clothing (you decide on a red pashmina scarf) behind on one of the tables along with a book (you decide on The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler for effect) to make as if you’re saving your place, and then head into the bathroom. Once there, make sure no one’s looking as you climb up onto the window sill, using your bag to keep the window open before slipping out and running off the hotel grounds as quickly as you can.
Your heart is pounding the whole time, but once you’re out on the main road and climbing into a cab, asking to head to the central station, you look back and for once, there’s no one following you.
At the station, you check the times and routes before buying a map and settling down on one of the nearby neches, starting to plan your route: Venice, Milan, Monaco, Marseille. You encircle them with a red Sharpie that you nicked from the hotel’s front desk.
“Nice.” The voice is deep, the tone more sarcastic than you’d like, only used to ever hearing that from Jae. You hear a backpack being dropped into the seat beside you. “Not touristy at all. Just tell everyone and their mother who wants to rob you exactly where you’re going.”
You look up to see the most gorgeous guy sitting on the bench across from you. He’s tall, has silver hair swept to one side, silver earrings glinting in his left ear. He’s wearing a black leather jacket over a Rolling Stones shirt tucked into ripped jeans, has a professional camera case strapped to his giant backpack. His eyes remind you of a fox’s--brown and warm but mischievous, sly. He smirks, runs a hand through his hair.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” you say. “I didn’t know that it was any of your fucking business what I did.”
“It is, actually,” he says, reaching for his phone.You tense up at the gesture, half-expecting him to pull out a comms device or a badge, wondering for a moment if you’re father had caught you--if he’d found you out.
You fold up your map.
“What the fuck are you talking about--”
“--well, as someone who’s a tourist too,” Brian says, carefully slipping his phone back in his pocket. “I feel like it’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t further contribute to our reputation as idiots throughout Europe by doing things like that . If you’re going to have a plan, at least be discreet about it.”
“Oh.” You sigh, stuff your map into your bag. “Right. Fine. I guess that was a little bit stupid.”
He smiles.
Your heart skips in your chest.
Right. Of course. A cute guy on my runaway plan. I’m such cliche.
“So,” he says. “Which train are you getting on?”
“The one leaving for Venice. I thought I’d start there because my father would never expect--I mean, it’s the most unexpected for someone like me because--well, I’ve been there before and--”
“--dude,” Brian says, shrugging. “No need to explain going back to Venice for the view. That’s where I’m headed too.”
“Oh.” You say. “Right. You’re a photographer?”
He grins. “Sort of. I--it’s a hobby I try to take with me on the job.”
“What’s your real job?”
“I’m a bodyguard,” he says.
You grin. Of course the universe would send me a bodyguard.
“It’s great they let you go on vacation.”
“I’m on an interim period.”
You nod slowly.
And when you look up, your blood runs cold--because past Brian’s shoulder, you see them: Dowoon and Sungjin running up through the main entrance, scanning the crowd for you. You pull your parka hood up over your head.
“You okay?” Brian asks, concerned. He makes to look over his shoulder but you reach out, grab his hand.
“Don’t look.”
“Okay…”
“There are people looking for me,” you say, hating how cliche you sound, how out of a spy movie. “And--I just need to get on that train.”
He flips his shades up onto his head, meeting your gaze.
“Okay. On three, grab your bags and get ready to run.”
Everything happens in a flurry: before you know it, the beautiful stranger’s grabbed your hand and is pulling you down a set of stairs. The last thing you see as you follow him is Dowoon catching sight of you, calling Sungjin over and pointing in your direction. You emerge on the platform for the train to Milan.
“This is the wrong platform.”
“They're called diversion tactics. Try to keep up.”
“Jeez. You’re so stuck up--”
“--you can thank me later.”
You try to match his speed, running until your thighs burn. Before you know it, he’s climbing down the emergency rails down onto the tracks. You feel panic course through you but you follow suit because the alternative is going back to the hotel and being forced into doing things you don’t want to do for the rest of your life.
“Come on.” He carefully leads you over the tracks onto the other side where the train to Venice is waiting. “Here--”
He finds one of the emergency doors, uses an old ID to jimmy the lock.
“Faster,” you whisper, seeing Dowoon and Sungjin’s forms running alongside the opposite side of the track. “They haven’t seen us yet but--”
“--done.” The door gives and the beautiful stranger pulls you in and shuts the door after you, both of you breathless as you find yourselves toward the back of the dining cart, still empty and waiting for passengers in the main cart to settle down.
You see his eyes dart to the window and a look of panic come over his face.
“Can I kiss you?”
“What!”
“Quick. It’s a matter of life or death. Can I kiss you?”
You blink, the light in the train making everything gold speckled with shadow.
“Yes.”
He presses you to the wall, keeping you out of sight of the window, and kisses you soft and slow, tongue licking softly into your mouth. You feel a sensation like falling in the pit of your stomach as your eyes flutter shut but not before catching Dowoon and Sungjin’s figures in your periphery as they run past the window.
By the time he pulls away, you can barely breathe.
“They’re gone,” he says. “Now. I guess we should go find a seat?”
You blink, your cheeks flushed.
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”
“Oh. Before anything else, Brian, by the way,” he says, grinning and sticking out his hand. “Sorry about the kiss. It’s what people do in movies.”
You grin, tell him your name and shake his hand.
“Right. Let’s go sit down.”