It was about 10 PM when the six friends started to make their way to the Copacabana Beach. After a short ride with the train, they arrived at a metro-station near it. It was heavily crowded and Francis, who had stayed to take a few pictures of the station, had to scurry back to his friends quickly in fear of losing them in this huge area. When they finally managed to reach the stairs leading back outside, they were surprised to see how many people there were everywhere. They had already gone over the fact that there are a lot, a lot of people in Rio de Janeiro and the Copacabana was one of the most popular places during New Year's Eve, but there was still two hours until midnight. They decided to divide into groups of two and check out the beach and see what cool things there were to do that night during the celebration. After about an hour of scouting, they all got back to each other at a small outside-bar located near some palm-trees at the back of the gigantic beach. It was slowly growing darker, music, happy voices and different colored lights illuminating the experience they all felt. After having ordered some drinks, they went to sit under one of the trees to discuss what to do that night.
"I think the best thing we can do is just to go with the flow," Gilbert said, tapping salt onto his tongue, taking a shot of tequila and eating a slice of lemon. Antonio rolled his eyes for the Prussian starting heavily, but agreed with the idea. "Yeah, I think that's the best. That way we'll just get thrown right into the middle of all the action. Man," he traced his eyes at a luscious carnival dancer passing by them, "I feel like dancing." Everyone else agreed besides Kiku. "You mean... we have to volunteer to everything going around here? For example... if people are doing... whatever they do, I have to take part of it?" he asked, slightly blushing. Alfred patted him on his back and cheerfully laughed. "Of course, Kiku! How else should you get a cultural experience?" he smiled. Suddenly everyone started singing and cheering, counting the seconds until midnight. They decided to join the people on the beach and after a minute thousands of multicolored fireworks shot to the sky, highlighting Rio de Janeiro's skyline and the sea. "Well, Happy New Year, eejits!" Arthur laughed and they all toasted, their glasses clanking against each other's.
The next day Arthur woke up with a heavy headache on the couch on the first floor of the guesthouse. Groaning, he got up and tripped over Francis, who was laying on the floor. With a lot of French cursing, he also sat up and blinked his eyes, blinded from the sunlight. "Arthùr?" he asked, shaking the Brit who laid on the floor, unconscious. He had hit his head against the corner of a cupboard and was now out of it. Francis cursed some more, lifted his friend back to the couch and went to the kitchen in search of some water, ice, and towels for Arthur, and some wine for himself. After five minutes of roaming around the kitchen he finally noticed Antonio curled up next to the refrigerator, sleeping like an angel. Francis mercilessly poured some cold water on him, to which the Spaniard woke up with a yip. "What gives?!" he exclaimed and stood up, a little wobbly. "Go look for the others and then come to the living room," Francis sorely answered, surprised of his rough voice. "Haha, your voice is gone just like mine," Antonio said with a shrieky voice and stormed off. With a soft feeling throughout his body circulating, he returned to Arthur with a bag of ice, a canister of water and a towel. Almost on his friend, he sat down on the couch and lovingly put the ice wrapped inside the towel to his forehead. He continued to sit there, drinking liters of water until Kiku stepped in from outside. "Ah, I see you two are finally up. Oh, I mean, you are," he said, lowering his voice, thinking Arthur was asleep. "He hit his head, he'll wake up soon," Francis answered, nonchalantly, and took his camera from Kiku. "I hope you're right… Oh, umm… The pictures there are quite... explicit," Kiku said and sat down on a chair. Francis scratched his beard and yawned. "How drunk were we last night?" he asked and sprayed some water to Arthur's face, who had started to moan. "You mean you don't remember?" Kiku asked and laughed; apparently he had been the only one easy on the booze. Slowly but surely, Arthur sat up, rubbing the bump on his forehead, flinching in pain. "Shit, what is that?" he only mumbled and went back down, resting his head on the pillow. "Here," Francis gave him the canister which Arthur thankfully accepted. A scooting noise made them turn their head to the doorway, where Antonio arrived from, dragging Gilbert behind him. "I found him in front of the garage outside. He's completely out!" the Spaniard laughed and left Gilbert on the floor when he came to sit on the floor next to Kiku. "Where's Alfred?" Arthur asked from Antonio, but his question was answered by some yelling from the top of the stairs. Alfred ran down the stairs, laughing and roaring, to which the other four except Gilbert flinched and covered their ears. "I don't remember anything! This is so cool, it's just like that movie, "Hangover"!" the American laughed and joined his friends.
Meanwhile Gilbert had also woken and they were all nervously waiting - except for Kiku, who had a smug smile on his face - for the pictures from the camera to be uploaded to Francis' laptop. They all felt like shit and couldn't remember anything. Except Kiku. And that was starting to piss Arthur off a little. "If you were the only one sensible enough," he demanded, "why didn't you try to stop us from completely trashing ourselves?" "I tried, Arthur, really," his friend answered, a little hurt. "None of you listened to me." Laughing, Gilbert emptied his bottle of beer and exclaimed in excitement when a little message jumped onto the computer's screen. "Transfer complete! Come on, guys, let's check it out!" he laughed maniacally and opened the folder with dozens of photos inside. The six friends gathered around the laptop, hearts beating fast in fear of what they might find there.
The first pictures were just normal photos of them drinking, laughing, having fun, etc. Then suddenly every picture was blurry, until about ten photos later there were pictures of different people who they've never seen before. They figured they must have spent time with them and were trying to remember any of their names, when suddenly they came across a photo which made them laugh hard. On it was a half-naked Antonio, dancing with a bunch of fiesta dancers. To it followed a series of pictures of Antonio doing different moves, all the while grinning like an idiot, almost getting crushed between the massive hips of the dancers. Even though they laughed looking at these pictures, they were terrified of what might come next. Arthur died of shame when a few picture came up where Alfred tried to put a colorful dress on him and having finally managed to do it, came a photo-session of Arthur doing different poses, some of them pretty sensual, in knee-deep water. A few blurry pictures later they saw a photo of Gilbert sleeping under a table, spooning a midget in an unknown room, completely surrounded by empty bottles of different heavy alcohols. "Aw man, I can't believe I was the first one out cold," Gilbert only grunted, not noticing the others laughing at his content face in the picture. They continued through the pictures and they noticed that sometimes they have lost clothes and gained others, switching them with different by-passers. Last night they had made their way into a small bar, where all of the pictures were about everyone else except Kiku - he was the one who shot all the photos. Francis was ashamed to see himself so drunk on every photo, but to his luck he wasn't the only one who felt like that about themselves. Dozens of different women passed by all these pictures and Antonio remarked that it seemed only logical that they must had gotten lucky. They all let out a shout of laughter and surprise, to which Arthur and Francis both died inside a little. They were looking at a photo of them kissing each other and it wasn't just a little peck on the cheek either - it was quite passionate, to be honest. "Tell me we didn't!" Francis grabbed Kiku by the shirt, morbidly thinking whether he had sex with his friend or not and shook him violently to the others' laughing. Arthur had just buried his face to his hands in shame. "Don't worry, nothing happened!" Kiku yelled, trying to free himself from the Frenchman's grip. "You were both so drunk you didn't even realize who you were kissing. Truth be told, you actually tried to kiss the woman sitting next to Arthur, but you just missed, Francis, so please! Let me go!" Francis let Kiku go and they continued to look at the photos, worried what might come next. Luckily enough there weren't many controversial photos, it seemed as though the energy seemed to had died out. There were only a few pictures of Arthur and Alfred in a bar fight left until the photos became so blurry no one could understand what was going on anymore. "Antonio took the camera from me," Kiku said apologetically and then the photos started to repeat themselves. After a few minutes of discussion everyone agreed that the pictures must be deleted, except for the first few normal ones and the one where Antonio was piss-drunk dancing with the colorful carnivalists.
Later into the day Arthur was on the grass in the garden, trying to get rid of his headache by breathing fresh air and lying down. He had had tea, taken pills, but nothing seemed to work, so there he was now. When he heard someone come and lie next to him, he opened his eyes and turned his head to see that Francis was lying next to him, looking at him with his cobalt eyes, seeming a little flushed or embarrassed. "How's the headache?" he asked to which the Brit softly shook his head. "Still hurts." Francis sighed and stared at the clouds lazily swimming by the light blue sky. "Listen... I'm sorry about last night," he said quietly after a while. Arthur grunted. "No need to be, stupid frog," he answered and furrowed his brows. "Neither of us knew what we were doing and since we don't remember it happening and the photo has been deleted... It's safe to say that there's no proof such a thing ever happened. So there's no need to worry about your reputation or dignity or whatever," he said a little hastily and stood up. "I'll go make some tea, you want some?" he asked and looked at Francis with a serious look. Francis sighed and nodded. It wasn't like how Arthur had just told. He was actually a little bitter for not remembering it. In reality Arthur felt the same way. He wished he had remembered how it had felt or that it had happened in the first place, so he could be sure of his feelings and to adjust his behavior according to them. He knew Francis would never look at him in any other positive way than just his friend and he didn't want to change that. He didn't want to lose a friend like Francis. On his way back inside the house, he decided it best just to forget any nagging „what if" and „maybe" circling around his head. Sighing heavily, the Brit put the kettle on the stove and sat behind the counter where Alfred was enjoying his fifth burger he had ordered from the McDonald's delivery service.