Chapter Fifty-Five
Maddie
Seoul feels like stepping into every single one of my Pinterest boards and getting attacked by each pin I’ve saved.
Neon signs glow above us in soft hues of blue and pink while music drifts through the crowded streets lined with tiny shops and food stalls I’m already growing attached to.
The city is alive in a way that feels impossible to capture with my camera no matter how many photos I take.
Which is pretty damned unfortunate for everyone around me, because I’m certainly trying my best anyway.
“Blue,” Caiden calls from somewhere behind me, sounding like I’ve just run over his puppy. “You’ve taken, like, a billion photos today already.”
“And every single one of them is vital to my existence,” I call back, snapping another photo.
There’s a pause from Caid before he sighs. “You took a photo of a pigeon yesterday.”
“It had personality, Caid,” I call over my shoulder. “So much so that I named him Craig.”
“Well, Craig stole somebody’s food and you captured it all on that camera of yours,” he volleys. What he’s actually doing is proving my point.
“Exactly,” I sass back.
Rayne snorts quietly from beside Caid while Ryan shakes his head in the universal body language for this woman exhausts me spiritually, physically, and mentally.
Bax is simply content watching me with a warm grin I don’t think he’s wiped from his face since we landed in Korea and I screamed like a girl who had just received a pink Barbie bike for Christmas.
I grin with no small amount of pride, because this has been the most fun I’ve had in so long.
We’re already on day three in Korea, and I’m already considering citizenship.
I haven’t worked out how that would work with my four very gorgeous, caring, and lovable boyfriends all living across the world, but that’s a problem for another day.
The guys are all currently leaning against a low stone wall as I crouch slightly in front of one of the prettiest couples I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing with my own two eyes. I’ve photographed plenty of beautiful people during my life, but these two? Breathtaking.
Wearing a pretty pale-pink hanbok that sways softly in the breeze, the woman smiles up at her boyfriend as he adjusts her sleeve carefully, his own pale-blue hanbok complementing hers to perfection.
They’re both laughing quietly as they stand beneath a cherry blossom tree, faces full of love that I capture with rapid-fire snaps.
I’ve never been more obsessed as I peer down at my camera, standing upright as I flick through the images. “Perfect. You guys are disgustingly beautiful.”
The girl, Ha-eun, laughs vibrantly, and I can’t help but take another photo just as her boyfriend, Min-ho, bows slightly with gratitude.
I grin over at the couple, lucky to have met them after I took a photo and spotted them in the background.
Thankfully, they spoke English and were more than happy to humor me when I asked to take their pictures.
In fact, Ha-eun looked positively ecstatic, and so I’ve spent the past thirty minutes simply snapping different shots of the pair with a growing obsession for everything Korea offers.
When I hurry over to the two, giddy to show off the pretty photos, Min-ho asks, “You’re a photographer?”
I nod just as Caiden interjects, “Pretty sure she’s spiritually possessed by cameras.”
Rolling my eyes, I explain to the couple, “I own a studio called Static. I mostly photograph celebrities for magazines, movie promotions, and anything in between. Photographing people is quite literally my life.”
“What was it you said yesterday?” Bax wonders, frowning as he wracks his brain. He snaps his fingers when it comes to him, quoting me word for word. “Art can’t be understood by the weak.”
I nod. “I stand by it. What’s your point?”
“You took forty photos of ramen the day we landed,” Rayne points out, the betraying little shit siding with his male compadres.
I shoot him a look that makes his lips twitch with a smile he won’t give me, and I grumble, “It was gorgeous ramen. I only work with the best subjects.”
The couple laughs and I shake my head before showing them the rest of their photos, loving each one I click through. Ha-eun gasps at almost every photo, and I nod in understanding, smugly stating, “I know. You’re hot.”
My words only make her laugh harder, while her boyfriend smiles fondly at her. Then he looks over my shoulder at the group of men who’ve followed me around like adorable puppies for the past three days, and gestures toward them. “I take photos, too. Which is your boyfriend? I’ll take photos.”
I open my mouth, and then close it, pausing as a funny little joy fills me from head to toe. I love the shock on both of their faces when I mutter, “Boyfriends. Plural.”
Min-ho blinks only once before he nods like that answers every question he’s asked the universe, moving on without so much as a hiccup. And that’s on being a total king. Ha-eun picked a good one, I can just tell.
“You want pictures together?” she asks excitedly, gesturing my guys over while Min-ho holds his hand out for the camera.
It’s with great reluctance and a whole lot of trust in the man that I hand my camera over, heart dropping the moment it’s out of my hands.
Thankfully, I’m distracted five minutes later, standing between all four of my guys beneath the blooming cherry blossom trees while Min-ho works the camera like he’s been waiting his whole life for this very moment.
I respect it.
For the next twenty minutes, Min-ho directs us into different positions, the sound of the camera shutter with every snap taken making me more and more amused with every passing second.
“Closer!”
Caiden immediately wraps both arms around me dramatically, hugging me so tight my face smushes against his chest. Laughing lightly, Bax shoves his hand in Caiden’s face before pushing him away, muttering, “Not that close.”
When Caid releases me, I turn to face the camera, and I hear Min-ho take several snaps as Rayne kisses my temple while Ryan’s hand settles on my waist with a warm and steady touch.
Click.
Click.
Click.
I lose count of how many photos he takes and how many poses we end up in, Min-ho having the time of his life snapping photos as though he isn’t on a date with his girlfriend while wearing stunning hanboks meant to be captured by my camera.
When Min-ho finally lowers the camera, his face is split with visible satisfaction, the smile on his face popping two dimples in his cheeks that I managed to snap several photos of.
Clapping my hands, I jog over to look at the photos, and I almost damn near collapse into an emotional puddle right at his feet when I peer at the small screen. “Oh my God.”
The photos are actually beautiful, not that I was expecting anything less. It’s just a very nice surprise, and I’m grinning wildly as I flick through them.
One of me laughing while Caiden whispers something about me needing to respectfully crop him out of the photos if he passes out from how pretty I look.
Another of Baxter peering down at me like I personally invented happiness, his beautiful burly body overshadowing mine with his gorgeous tattoos displayed beneath a tight white shirt.
There’s one of Ryan kissing my cheek as I grin like I can no longer control my own facial expressions.
And then there’s a photo of Rayne resting his forehead lightly against mine while blossom petals drift around us as though we’ve stepped directly into a romantic K-drama.
“Well,” I whisper pathetically, voice weak with emotion. “It looks like I’m never recovering from these. They’re perfect, thank you.”
Min-ho laughs before he offers me another bow and, just like that, I find myself exchanging numbers with them both with the promise to send their photos and to get in touch when we return home.
Somehow, we end up spending nearly twenty minutes talking about photography, food, and my relationship with four beautiful men.
All the while, Caiden has made it his mission to sample approximately every single snack we find in a five-mile radius.
“That can’t be good for you. You’re going to get fat,” Ryan teases him as soon as we part ways with the pretty couple.
“I’m on vacation. I’m exploring culture. Get off my ass about it,” Caid argues, shoving Ryan in the shoulder before he wanders over to another vendor and pays for a skewer of something I can’t even pronounce.
“Culture?” Bax laughs. “Wasn’t it just yesterday that you ate mystery squid from a man named Bob?”
Caiden nods as though he has no issues with that, propping one hand on his delectably trimmed waist as he bites into his skewer, moaning around the food before he says, “Bob was cool. He understood me.”
I laugh at the pair, my thumb rubbing against Rayne’s hand as he keeps our fingers linked loosely as we all wander farther through the city, taking in the most gorgeous sights, smelling mouthwatering aromas from food vendors that have stolen my heart, and listening to the hustle and bustle only the nightlife in Seoul can bring.
Somewhere between Ryan teasing Caid for buying socks with cartoon raccoons on them and Bax carrying my shopping bags all on his lonesome because apparently he is genetically incapable of allowing anyone else to hold my things, my thoughts drift back briefly to the first day we arrived in Korea.
To the day I finally got to meet Rayne’s mom.