My Japanese Childhood Friend Is Too Flirty - Chapter 142



141, Wedding, Honeymoon, and Just the Two of Us…. (3)

A day and a half, plus an hour more, and we arrived in France.

The in-flight announcement mentioned potential delays due to poor weather conditions at the local airport, but fortunately, the situation must have improved, as nothing of the sort happened.

As scheduled, Aki and I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport a little before midnight, and after a swift immigration process that didn’t even require visas, we set foot in Paris, France.

“Wow… it’s really vast here. This airport is practically the size of a city, no?”

I hadn’t realized it while talking to the airport staff inside, but it’s clear now. So this is why they say this is the largest airport in Europe. With a slight exaggeration, it’s practically the size of a small city.

That’s probably why all those travel blogs say, “If it’s your first time here, be careful, you might get lost!” I gazed around as I moved out of the airport and was instantly captivated. The nightscape was something else.

“Uh-huh, it’s so huge here. You’ll get lost in a blink if you’re separated from Atashi, you know?”

“I guess so. Should we hold hands then?”

“Heeh…. Now, we can’t get lost, can we, my lord?”

Aki giggled, offering her hand. I took it with my free hand, the one not holding the suitcase. Knowing Aki is fluent in French, thanks to her French mother, does give me a sense of comfort. Not that I speak any French myself.

Well, how many people would know French if they haven’t specifically learned it? Anyway, I held Aki’s hand and we moved towards a taxi. Our destination was our hotel in downtown Paris, a journey of roughly thirty minutes.

“Aki, what does that sign say?”

I asked, pointing to a building outside the taxi window. A large poster written in French was plastered on the exterior wall of what looked like a five-story building, a depiction of a semi-nude man and woman embracing in a way that felt rather… bold.

“That? Let’s see… Ah, it’s a movie poster. The story is… um….”

“What? Is there something weird written on it?”

“No, it’s nothing like that… Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah, I’m curious. What does it say?”

“It’s about a famous, married photographer and his assistant who tries to seduce him…apparently a love story.”

“…….”

Did I hear that right?

A love story about a famous, married photographer and his assistant trying to seduce him, isn’t that just blatant adultery…?

For a moment I wondered if I’d misunderstood and glanced at Aki. She seemed to understand what I was implying and nodded slowly.

“…Is that kind of thing allowed to be screened here?”

I asked, genuinely curious.

We have a ton of movies with adulterous themes back home, but most of them are rated R and you definitely wouldn’t see posters like that plastered in public where children can see them. But here, there it is, right in front of everyone.

“Well, it’s possible, I guess…? France *is* the country of adultery, after all…”

“France is the country of adultery…?!”

“Uh-huh. You didn’t know? It’s a pretty famous saying…”

Aki glanced at the driver in the front and gestured for me to come closer. I leaned in towards Aki.

“Among French politicians, it’s rarer to find someone *not* caught in an affair. It’s to the point where major news outlets treat politician gossip as trash and refuse to report it. They consider covering it shameful, or something…?”

“…….”

Back home, a politician’s affair would be headline news. But in France, they treat it like tabloid fodder and don’t even bother reporting it?

Aki has no reason to lie to me… so I can assume this is all true. Which is even more shocking. How can a country exist where adultery is so commonplace? As someone whose personal motto is ‘never even hold hands with another woman’, I just can’t comprehend it, and I don’t even want to. Really.

“Because that’s the atmosphere here, a hundred out of a hundred French romance movies are about affairs. Even movies that aren’t primarily romance often have adultery woven into the plot. So, I guess seeing posters like that isn’t so strange after all…?”

“Umm… I understand what you’re saying.”

I understood it literally. Only understood. I probably can’t accept French culture in my lifetime.

“Heuh…darling, are you shocked?”

“Not exactly shocked, just a little surprised. Well…”

“Really, you aren’t? Really?”

“Truthfully, I was a little…”

“Heuheu, I can see why. In Korea, if you’re caught cheating, it’s instant severance, right…?”

“If it ends with severance, that’s a relief. What if you mess with a married woman? It’s just… burial. Outright burial.”

“Ah, speaking of married women, one of the French presidents actually died from overexertion during s*x with a married woman. Was his name Félix Faure, maybe?”

“…Wow.”

Not just a regular person, but a president dying from overexertion while cheating with a married woman. France really is an astonishing country…

I looked at Aki in admiration without realizing it, and Aki, energized by my reaction, began explaining all sorts of things.

Starting with what kind of person Félix Faure, the president, was, she also told me stories about a different president’s wife having an affair with her bodyguard, and about a president being caught having secret rendezvous with an actress, and about yet another president openly living a double life, beyond just having an affair.

Frankly speaking. These are things unimaginable in Korea, so the more I heard, the more my head filled with the thought, ‘Just what kind of country is France…?’ Seriously, really.

“Ah, but, not all presidents were like that. There was Charles de Gaulle, who was famous for being a remarkably devoted husband?”

“Charles de Gaulle, isn’t that the name of the airport we landed at?”

“Yeah, that’s right. The airport named after him is Charles de Gaulle Airport. In France, Charles de Gaulle is almost a national hero. Of course, there are criticisms from some quarters that he was just a dictator intoxicated with power… But even those who criticize him wouldn’t disagree that Charles de Gaulle left the biggest mark on 20th-century France, right? Because Charles de Gaulle purged all the Nazi collaborators who were swarming France.”

“……”

I knew she was smart, but I didn’t know she was also so knowledgeable about history.

Lately, I’d only seen her cute side so often, I’d just been thinking of her as adorable. But seeing her explain things I didn’t know so fluently, as if she’d prepared for it in advance, made her seem different.

Is this what they commonly call *gap-moe*? I murmured in pure admiration.

“Aki, you were really smart…?”

“…Darling. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Screech-.

Coincidentally, the taxi arrived at our destination. I paid the fare, and Aki and I got out across from the hotel’s main entrance.

“It’s a little chilly. Isn’t it?”

“Eung…. A little?”

I’d packed appropriate clothes, thinking the French weather in October was similar to Korea’s, but… I’d sensed it at the airport, but experiencing it firsthand, France seems a bit colder than Korea.

At this rate, I won’t even be able to go to the beach without catching a cold. I said to Aki as we crossed the crosswalk.

“Let’s stick together. Come here.”

I extended my arm to the side and embraced Aki. I couldn’t do this in Korea since almost nobody walks around like that. But since France is supposedly the city of romance, couples often walk around like this, so I could hug her without feeling self-conscious.

“Doesn’t that feel a little better?”

“Heuh. Warm… Ah, darling. When we wake up later, should we head straight to the pool?”

“Hmm. With weather like this, wouldn’t the pool be chilly?”

“Nope. The hotel we’re staying at has a heated pool. It’s free to use when we check in, so we can go right away!”

“Oh, really? Then should we go immediately?”

“Mhm. Let’s. It’s almost lunchtime, so there probably won’t be many people there.”

I nodded, acknowledging her words. Playing in a pool without crowds was always a good thing.

We crossed the street and arrived at the hotel. Seeing as I didn’t speak French, I left the check-in to Aki. She exchanged a few brief words with the employee and received a large card key.

“Darling, you know how to use card keys, right? You have to take this with you when we go out. Or else we can’t get back in…!”

“I know. Give it here. I’ll keep it safe.”

I took the card key from Aki and stowed it away. We headed straight up to our room on the fourth floor.

Since we’d be relying on this room during our stay in France, I’d deliberately paid a little extra for a slightly larger one. It looked spacious in the photos, but seeing it in person, it wasn’t that big. Even with two rooms and a living area, the hotel bedroom was only about the size of our studio apartment bedroom.

“It’s smaller than I expected…?”

“Mhm. But we’ll only be coming in here to sleep anyway, so isn’t it okay?”

“Well… I guess so. Should we change our clothes first?”

The front desk staff said that the heated pool opened at 11 a.m. Which meant, after waking up and passing the time a bit, we could head to the pool immediately.

We had packed our swimsuits in advance. No need to bother changing in the locker room, we could just change here, slip on some outerwear, and head out.

When I grabbed the hem of my shirt, full of eagerness, Aki giggled.

“Should we change while showing each other?”

“Ah. Should I turn around?”

“Heuh. It’s fine. I’ve already shown you everything inside here, haven’t I….”

Aki muttered, stroking her lower stomach.

She wasn’t wrong. A pang of guilt shot through me, and I cleared my throat with a loud “ahem.”

Well, like Aki said, we’ve shown each other everything. No need to rush around nervously. Still, I quickly grabbed some clothes and changed. Then I sat on the edge of the bed, glancing at Aki as she moved with leisurely grace.

“Oof….”

Aki lifted her tight-fitting wool sweater upwards.

Aki exposed her fair armpits with her upper body bare, she pulled down the zipper of her skirt.

“…….”

“…….”

And then our eyes met.

Aki, who had been about to unhook her bra, stared at me, and then… a corner of her mouth lifted in a smile.

“Darling.”

“…Huh?”

“Come here and undo this for me, would you?”

“Ah… sure.”

I approached her, a little awkward.

“Hehe… that tickles…”

As I touched her back to undo the hook, Aki shivered, turning her back more fully to me as if that tickled her.

“All done?”

“Yeah. All done.”

“Then, just slide your hand down and take this off too.”

“…You can do that yourself, can’t you?”

Tap. Tap.

Aki tapped her slightly swollen lower belly with a finger.

“……”

Using the cheat code, are you?

So underhanded…

“Won’t you?”

“…No. Come here.”