before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

029 ; present

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AERI

The next day, Aeri went back home as soon as her brother texted her.

During the mornings before school, her mother tends to be asleep so sneaking in to shower and change clothes did not pose any problem. Before leaving for school, she wanted to talk to her brother about what she and Sunghoon's mother talked about the past night, but she couldn't deliver the message out of fear and the fact that she knew he wouldn't be happy with her decision. She didn't want to upset him, not when he just worked for the whole night.

Still, how was Aeri supposed to tell her brother that she doesn't plan on going to college the next year?

Making such a big decision without consulting her brother weighed on Aeri for the rest of the day. She couldn't think straight as she tried to figure out how she was going to tell him that the big plans he made for her was going to crumble before he even knew it because she wanted to choose a path that seemed more quicker than having to enslave her brother just to pay for her tuition. She couldn't do that, especially since she didn't even know who she wanted to be in the future. At the very least in modeling, she could make use of the current strongest tool in her shed: her beauty.

When Sunghoon had given her a ride the same morning, he sensed that something was wrong with her but she couldn't voice yet anything. She didn't have the heart to make the decision official because she was deathly afraid of it.

As she made her way home alone, she wished that her mother would be asleep or out of the house to buy a bag of booze and Yoongi was sitting there alone in the living room as he takes a rest before he has to work again the next day. Not having her mother there would make the talking easier, especially since part of her plans was to officially get away from her clutches. For every step she took closer and closer to her gate, she felt her heart constrict within her until she could barely breathe. And by the time she had opened the gate and got near the entrance to her house, the nervousness from earlier quickly dissipates by the sound of yelling inside.

Even when she hesitated to twist the doorknob, Aeri still opened the door. She was welcomed by the sight her mother and brother arguing at the living room, and from the look on her mother's face when she entered the premise, she knew quickly that none of them were happy she was home for two very different reasons.

"You! Where have you been last night?! Have you finally started whoring yourself around? Have you finally made use of that pretty face of yours for money?!" Her mother lunges at Aeri, digging her index finger to her forehead until the younger could not help but step back by the force. "When did the two of you become so ungrateful as to leave your mother here alone?! No food, no money, no anything!"

"Don't you dare touch Aeri!" Yoongi immediately came in between the two girls, hiding Aeri behind him. "Don't you talk to her that way! I told you I'm not giving you any more money because you're vices are not my responsibility! Why don't you do what you've always been good at? Leave us alone!"

Aeri saw her mother lift her hand and was just about to slap her brother, but before the hand could land on his face, she pushed him away making her mother miss his brother by a hairline.

"How dare you raise your hand at my brother?" Aeri's anger boiled when the older woman resorted to violence. "What do you mean we're ungrateful? You should be grateful to Yoongi, instead! What do we have to be grateful for, anyway? Should we be grateful that you used our inheritance for your own? Or should we be grateful that you never did anything to be a mother to us? Of course, you would accuse me of doing such a thing. Isn't that what you did? You used your pretty face to control dad for money—"