pt.twelve/
Twenty-three years ago/
Seoul/
"You can do it." Aura whispered Annie's motivations from before to herself, "If you die like this, it'll be a death of honor."
She didn't exactly know what that meant but she did recall how hard he tried to hold in his laughs as he said it.
A
side from that, this was serious. She had been practicing for the past two weeks just to show Annie what she could do. In fact, that was what she'd been doing for the past few months.
As her and Annie became more closer and spent almost every second together, she'd been practicing all types of different skills. She wanted to impress him, excite him. She knew with him being the genius that he was it had to be boring at times to just watch her, at least that's what she thought. Honestly, surprisingly enough for him, he'd grown completely attached to her.
So per her request he leaned against the door pane with a perfect view of the little girl that was anxiously preparing herself to reach for the first of the many monkey bars.
"Don't blink," she ordered.
"Don't stall."
"I'm not stalling,"
"You sure?"
"Yes!"
"Well this kinda looks like stalling to me—"
Aura yelled and jumped from the ledge before gripping onto the first bar. He watched her face of fear. It was amusing as she wasn't that far from the ground but she looked terrified.
"Want me to carry you down?"
"Don't distract me..." she quickly spilled out. "Just watch."
He faked a look of boredom but as she moved to the next bar he was almost impressed by her progress. Although she was being dramatic and slow, he could tell how much practice went into her achievement.
"Oh god! Appa! Do you see? I'm doing it! I'm doing it." She moved the next bar more easily this time. The fear in her eyes began to be replaced with excitement and joy. "Look at me."
"I see you Aura."
She starting giggling, she was almost there.
"I'm doing it Appa—"
And then she was smacking the floor head and arm first but it wasn't by her own design, as it was Kotoko, his sister, that was standing over Aura body with a victorious expression.
"He is not you're Appa."
"Aura!" He rushed the little girls aid and quickly swept her off the ground and carried her protectively. She was yelling and crying, her arm was burning and her head ached so badly.
"Are you missing your brain cells? You could've killed her."
"I don't care! She comes in our house. She takes your room, she takes mom, she takes you! It's not fair—"
"Shut up you brat! She's not a burden, she's a person. Her mom is sick, and Mom loves her! Dad loves her! I..."
"What about me?!"
Aura was screeching. Hot tears were soaking her cheeks.
"I can't listen to you right now you stupid piece of shit—"
"Hey what's going on... Aura?!"
Sakura ran out and slowly understood what had happened.
"Kotoko, are you mad? How dare you hurt our little Aura?"
