min aeri remembers that one summer vividly as well as the fall and winter that came after it. she recalls the summer she fell in love with sim jake, the fall she reunited with park sunghoon, and the winter where both her before and after collides.
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BEFORE & AFTER, an enhypen au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aeri remembered that one summer vividly.
It was the scorching heat of June and even deep into the night, she felt the warmth of her skin as she desperately waited for a cold breeze to blow over her. She remembered sitting in the convenience store all alone, drinking a cold soda as she stared outside at the cars passing by as well as the people grinning widely during their night outs. She couldn't help but look down as she remembered the night outs she refused to go to because she could not find it in herself to be the Min Aeri her friends wanted her to be.
Summer for Aeri at the beginning of it was a depressing time where she wallowed in her own despair as she found herself in the middle of the sea of her own problems.
She remembered when suddenly a man sat next to her, wearing a white cap as he leaned over the table while drinking the same cold soda as hers. She knew immediately he was like her, beating the heat by going out at night to hydrate themselves with a fizzy sugary drink. On normal days, she'd rather not eat anything instead of finishing a whole can of soda but with this scorching heat paired with her summer blues, her weight was the least of her problems.
She remembered looking over at the man as a brief second decision, only to find that the man had done the same and now they were looking at each other in shock and recognition. Of course she knew who was sitting next to her and it was no brainer that he recognized her as well.
"Min Aeri?"
"Sim Jaeyun?"
The two of them said at the same time.
Aeri knew who Sim Jaeyun was obviously. Everyone in her school knew him the same way they all knew her. He was the stereotypical good looking jock who fell in love with a girl no one thought someone of his league would ever fall in love with. He was the main character in every teenage love story you'd find in the book store and for that, she has never shown interest in him. Never saw what there was to be liked about him aside from the fact he reminded every bookworm of the man they would screamed about in their rooms as they get lost in the book they read. She wasn't a fan of the clichés and everything about Sim Jaeyun was a cliché.
"Who would've thought that you'd find the queen bee sitting in a convenience store with regular coke at hand?" There was a cheekiness in his tone that Aeri found annoying.
"Piss off, Jaeyun. Where's your little girlfriend?" Aeri asked as she took a sip of her soda and stared back at the cars driving past the convenience store. There was a silence that came after that prompted her to look back at him and to her surprise, she found his jaw clenching. "Did I say something wrong?"
"Yep. You mentioned the girl who broke up with me a week ago." Jake says, not even sparing her a glance as he continued to look at the cars the same way she just did earlier. "So now here I am, single and drinking coke with the school's queen bee."
Aeri scoffs. "Stop calling me that."
"What? A queen bee?" He chuckled. "But you are the queen bee. You're the girl who everyone wants to be. Everyone basically worshipped you in school."
"Is that your way of saying that you too used to kiss the ground I walked in?" She teased, half a smirk now plastered in her lips. But really, she didn't find anything amusing about being told that she was everything everyone wanted to be when in truth, the girl they dreamt of being was a fraud who wanted nothing more but to disappear into the darkness.
"Nah, I was never one of your fans. Mainly because I got this weird sense that you didn't like me and even though we run in close circles, I never really speak with you because of that." He explained it to her so casually.
"That's because you're right." Aeri confesses the truth. "I've never been a fan of Sim Jaeyun."
"And why is that?"
"Because you're so stereotypical." What she didn't expect after that was him laughing all of a sudden as if what she said did not come off as an insult to her own ears. She didn't quite expect that the jock from her school would be this different from the one she sees in campus. "What's so funny about that?" She raised an eyebrow.
"You're nothing like the person you are in school, Min Aeri." Jake says exactly what she states about him and for that, she could not help but smile in amusement. "Bora used to tell me that I was stereotypical as well. It's funny because I never thought even the queen bee would say the same thing about me."
Bora was Sim Jaeyun's girlfriend, well ex-girlfriend now that she knows they broke up about a week ago. Aeri wasn't quite familiar with her aside from the fact she's a part of the school paper and is a daughter of a pretty well off family. Everything she knew about the girl all came from the rumors that sparked with the news of her dating one of the most popular boys in school. Of course she'd cause an uproar. Nobody knew her before dating Jake, and now all of a sudden, the man of every girl's dreams was now hers to claim.
"Glad to know someone thinks the same as me." She chuckles, finishing the last of her soda. "Well then, I should probably go now. I'm done succumbing to my despair for the night. I need to have some left for the remaining days of the summer." She says as she stands up from the stool she was sitting on and grabbing the can of soda on the table.
Jake smiled. "Right. See you around, queen bee."
"See you around, jock." Aeri smiles back, leaving the convenience store finally and throwing her garbage at the trash can outside.
She takes one final glance at the convenience store before finally starting walking.
Aeri remembered coming back to the convenience store the next day only to see Sim Jaeyun back to where he was sitting the first time they met each other there, and much to her surprise, she was taken aback to learn he had came back to talk with her and learn more about the girl everyone wanted to be in school.
She remembered that night to be the longest night of her life because in about an hour or so, she found herself inside his car as the two of them drove off to the unknown as they laughed about everything there was to laugh about.
Aeri will never forget that summer, because that was the summer she fell in love with Sim Jaeyun.
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• this story is not in any forms affiliated to sunghoon, jake, or anyone from enhypen.
• this is not how i see the enhypen members or sunghoon and jake in general. this is all fictional and was written like this for plot purposes.
• grammar error and typos are to be expected
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AUTHOR'S NOTE :
no this book is definitely NOT inspired by betty, james and augustine. and also jake being james is definitely NOT because his name is the closest to james
anyw !! i hope u enjoy this book sm :D and to all my swiftie readers, this is for u !!!
