before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

022 ; present

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AERI

Days have passed since her breakup with Jake, and since then, the queen bee felt herself hit rock bottom as she tried to navigate how to balance her life now that she no longer could stand straight on her own.

Emotions have always held so much power over Aeri. It always possessed the ability to alter everything in her life, and now, with sadness looming over her like a plague, her routine was now reduced to sleeping, waking up, and spending the day with so little passion. Even her appetite had taken a great hit in this whole issue, which is why since then, she's been having one meal a day. Sometimes her meal didn't even constitute as a meal.

This was the longest she has stayed in her own home. Even her mother's never-ending ramble about her apparent laziness lacked the power to induce any change in her behavior.

What did have the power was Sunghoon incessantly dialing her phone one weekend. She was barely up when the sound filled the negative spaces in her room. Since laziness had now taken full control of her, she had merely turned it off without so much as looking at who's calling. She thought she had escaped already from whoever was calling but it continued to ring for another three times.

With a groan, Aeri grabbed the phone finally and pressed answer. As she did, she saw at once who have been calling her. "What the hell do you want!?"

"Good morning, litte Aeri. Get out of your bed, you're going out with me today." Sunghoon's voice filled with glee, so much so that she wanted to smack him in the head for it.

"No." Aeri said, firmly, even when she knew he wasn't going to take that as an answer.

"I'm already outside. You don't have a choice." He says as if that was much of a reason considering he lives next to her house. "If you continue this, I'll release your phone number to my teammates."

That had prompted her to stand up. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I have five teammates who are giving me hell just to give them your number." He said, his tone gradually getting playful. "So what's your decision?"

"Screw you, Park Sunghoon." That was the last thing Aeri said before dropping the phone and getting ready.

It had taken her over an hour just to get out of her house and when she did, she is met with Park Sunghoon, who, yet again, had another cigarette in between his lips as if that was all he did whenever he was outside. She hated the smell of cigarette and better yet, the smoke it produced so he attempted to swat the fumes coming for her and as she did that, he looked over to her and a grin immediately appears on his mouth when they lock eyes.

Before Sunghoon approached Aeri, he threw the cigarette first and ate a handful of tic tacs. "Do you do anything but smoke these days?" Aeri asked, still swatting the smell of smoke as the distance between them was no more but arm length. 

"You took so long so I decided to light some." She glared when he used her tardiness as a reason to smoke. 

"Whatever, just don't smoke when you're near me. I hate the smell of it, you smell like my mother without the booze." Aeri says. "So why did you blackmail me into going out today?" 

The two of them head over to his car and only when they were both settled did he answer her question. "I have tons of errands to run and since I know you were going to be stuck in your room, staring at your ceiling, I thought it would be a good idea if I brought you along with me." 

With a groan, Aeri leans towards the window as she watched the car head to the direction of the nearest mall. She wondered what kind of errands he could've possibly had that he thought bringing a gloomy version of her would be a good idea. She doubt whatever the day had in store would lift her spirits since shopping never really was her favorite.