before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

021 ; past

flashback to their childhood (1)
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AERI

It was a cold morning, her favorite type of moments because it meant she didn't have to worry about the sweat forming at the side of her temple. 

Aeri remembered how she sat at the hard pavement in front of her house as she played with the toy her brother saved all his money for to buy. She didn't like staying inside because her mother have always been mean when it came to her, she always had something to say to the younger and never did it sound nice.

All of a sudden, her ever serene morning came to an end when a shadow towered over her and as she looked up, she locks eyes with her neighbor's annoying ones. 

"What are you doing outside when it's this cold?" Sunghoon was about nine that time and a jacket wraps around his thin frame. Aeri, on the other hand, was merely wearing a shirt, which probably explains why he was quick to ask her that question. "Here!" He hands her another jacket and quickly she got the message that he was trying to send.

She scoffs. "Thanks." She says, putting down her doll as she wear it. "Did you just come out to tell me that?" 

"Nope. It's boring inside." He said, sitting beside her with a frown on his face. 

"You're such a spoiled brat." She comments, hitting him in the head with her doll. "If it were this cold, I would choose to sleep in." 

"Then why aren't you sleeping in?" 

Aeri was young when she fully grasped her family situation and it messed her ability to find happiness in the littlest things. It made her quickly understand why people around them always seemed to stare at the mere sight of her outside the house. But she had learned to shrug it off over time, because whatever reputation her mother made for herself was not hers to worry anymore.

Of all the eyes she usually received, Sunghoon's family has always been an exception to the ever judging eyes. While their gaze never sized her up, his family does look at her with pity, which did not make her feel better but was completely different to the others around her. On the other hand, Sunghoon looks at her entirely different, and from that she was quick to realize that he did not know who her family was exactly. He didn't have a single clue on who her parents once was, what her so-called mother did to her two children, and what ever happened to the great Min family. 

Even as she thought about it, she could never help but pity herself. No wonder his parents looked at her that way.

"It doesn't matter. You're too young to understand." Aeri said as if they weren't the same age and weren't a mere month apart when it came to their birthdays. 

Sunghoon gazed at her, evidently offended by how she sized him up. "Try me, Min Aeri. I got the highest score in our test yesterday, you have no idea how smart I am."

"I heard you only got a high score because the one checking your paper misheard the answer to every question." She smirked as she spoke of the truth of his smug remark. She had heard it from a classmate of his who, weirdly enough, always approached her when she would do so much as go near Sunghoon's classroom. 

"Seho told you that, didn't he? You know, I seriously believe he has a crush on you. He's always talking bad about me to you." He pouts as she catches him in a lie. "Back to the topic, I told you I am pretty smart myself. Maybe not school smart, but I have my own brain!"

She chuckled at the sight of him be so offended for what she said. "Why would he even like me? We don't even know each other." She reasoned.

"What kind of question is that?" He scoffed as though he couldn't believe she didn't already know the answer to her question. 

Aeri was just about to say something when the gate of her home suddenly made a loud noise as if someone had open it with very little care. The two children could not help but stand up due to the surprise and when they turned around, they were met by a woman who could've been a mirror of what Aeri would look like in twenty years if she had chosen to fall in the habit of killing oneself through a deep dependence with tobacco and alcohol. Aeri's mother was comparable to a fallen statue, once so beautiful now shattered into pieces, unable to put it all back together to restore what it once was.

While Sunghoon gazed at her mother with a confused face, Aeri remembered wearing the face of a child who was so scared that she grew stiff. It hadn't taken Sunghoon to realize what the appearance of her mother did to Aeri as she evidently made the grip on her doll tighter as she took tiny steps back all while the older woman started to walk closer to her daughter. 

"You stupid child, what the hell are you doing outside here when I asked you to clean the bathrooms?! Who do you think will clean that place? Me?!" The older woman exasperates as she grabbed Aeri's arm tightly that she dropped her doll in the process. When her mother had began to pull her, the scent of booze quickly filled her nose, so much so that she felt herself get dizzier. "I told you repeatedly you can't disobey me when you owe me your life!"

"W-Wait, she wasn't even doing anything bad-" Sunghoon tried to defend Aeri. When he did such a thing, a huge amount of fear began to fill her chest as she began to feel afraid for what her mother may do to him for speaking up. 

"Why you-" The older woman grits her teeth but she managed to control her body that time, probably too afraid to offend whoever his parent may be. "Don't pity this stupid girl. You don't want to be involved with the likes of her, she's only pretty but she will do you nothing." 

Sunghoon wanted to say something else but Aeri had shook her head, convincing him to stay quiet. Doing exactly that, her mother finally left him alone and harshly pulled Aeri back to their house. 

The last thing Aeri remembered seeing before being fully dragged inside was Sunghoon picking up the doll and staring at her with the same set of eyes as his parents: pity.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE :

and so we begin with flashbacks of sunghoon and aeri's childhood !