No F.U.N | Choi Seungcheol

17.

::

What are you doing here?

One look at her face and Yuri was back to the early 2000s. Vague memories of sitting at a happy table, giggling over spoonfuls of fruit loops and her mother's warm gaze flashed over her eyes. They had been happy then. Once upon a time, things had been perfect. Like a bubble full of rainbows, her parents had showered her with happiness and love with an unseeing end.

And then the bubble popped.

The next memories ran into her like a train off its rails. The screaming, the fights, and the inner walls of the cupboard made her want to forget about it all. Yuri remembered the divorce like it was yesterday. Because one moment they were asking her who she liked more-mama or papa and next, she was on a plane to Korea with her favourite doll in tatters.

"What are you doing here?" Yuri's voice, barely a whisper, trembled out of her body for real this time. The tremor in her question was as if an earthquake had hit her, her shock evident from her frozen eyes and for a moment it stole away the attention from the intruder.

"What?" Yeo Jeong glanced at the shivering state Yuri had found herself in, "Do you know her?"

"She knows me." The woman in pink chose to introduce herself to the band of strangers. For a brief second, she seemed to judge the poor sods her daughter had chosen to acquaint herself with. "I'm the one that give birth to her. She takes after me, after all," She bent forward, stroking Yuri's hair softly, a lock slipping from her fingers, "Won't you introduce me to your friends, Yuri? Your mother is here."

"You're not my mother," Yuri spoke through gritted teeth, voice undeniably vulnerable. Mother? Mother?? Yuri couldn't believe her ears. Her eyes had gotten wide in realisation. Blood boiling at the sound of the word, Yuri bit her tongue, "You stopped being my mother the day you left me on the porch and asked me to wait."

Everyone could sense what was wrong by then. Yuri was shivering, violently so, a mix of fear and rage taking hold of her body. Her eyes unfocused, it was like she was lost in a trance. Yeo Jung panicked, grabbing her friend by the shoulders, "Yuri-yah, calm down." She could tell something was awfully wrong, "Gather yourself, Yuri. You'll go into an attack at this rate," She tried to break Yuri's line of vision in a desperate attempt to help her friend, "Look at me, Yuri. You need to breathe first, Yuri-yah. YURI!"

Yuri went limp in her arms. Eyes rolling backwards, Yuri felt faint, blacking out almost immediately, the last of her energy expended in hate of another.

"I don't remember raising my daughter to be so weak," Sighing, the woman in Valentino only turned to her side, beckoning the man standing behind her. It was someone the other three in the room recognised at a glance. He was the manager of the company that had approached them in order to poach the group before they could sign with Hybe.

The woman ordered, shifting her weight to her right foot, "Arrange a bed in the VIP ward of the hospital nearest to here. Be discreet."

Clicking her tongue in disappointment, the woman who called herself Yuri's mother walked away, leaving her assistant to deal with the rest. Mirin and Arin had stared in horror. It made them wonder, could a mother be anything like this?

::

Yuri woke up to face a familiar ceiling. She blinked once. Then twice. But the scenery of the hospital did not go away. Face contorting in frustration, she shifted in her position, croaking out, "I really hate this place."

"Keep still." Yuri was startled by the strange voice. It took her a couple of minutes to figure out who it belonged to. Pushing down her palms to stand up, Yuri realised the IV drip attached to her arm, the needle in her skin stinging, "I told you to keep still Yuri-yah."