before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

008 ; present

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

AERI

"Little Aeri. You just never learn how to sneak out without being caught, do you?" Sunghoon's voice catches Aeri by surprise and she swore she almost took out her phone and threw it on his face.

"What the hell are you doing outside at this hour?!" Aeri asked, looking over to her watch only to see that it was deep into the middle of the night. But when she saw the cigarette sitting in between his right index and middle finger paired with the scent of smoke filling her nose, she knew by then the answer to her question. "Never mind."

Just as when she was going to walk away from him, he called out his unusual nickname for her once more. When she turns around, she's met with a hoodie flying to her direction and with her reflex, she catches it in an instant. She takes a better look at it and realized it was the same one he was wearing moments ago, and she rather thought the smell of smoke would reek of it however while there were hints of it remaining, his perfume overpowered still.

"It's cold. Can't have you freezing on me." Sunghoon smirks, standing up as he threw the cigarette he was holding earlier at the ground and stepping on it. "If you can't stand the smell of it, here's my perfume." He said, handing over a glass bottle to her.

"No need. I can handle a bit of third hand smoke." Aeri rejects the perfume but accepts the hoodie by wearing it. The black hoodie fell to the middle of her thigh, it was large on her but remained comfortable. For a bit, she wondered why she didn't bother wearing a piece of clothing to battle with the cold air building up in the night.

"Now go back to your filthy habit." She adds about to walk away from him, not until she notices that he was tailing behind her. "Do you have anything to say?"

"Just that I'm going with you." Sunghoon says too proudly, as though he wasn't at all aware that his presence joining her was the last thing she wanted that night.

Ever since her fight with Jake, Aeri felt every energy in her slowly flow out until what was left to her was remnants that she had wholeheartedly used to get out of the comfort of her bed then out into the relief of the night- the only solace in her life that never seem to change. But since this is the first time she will sneak out since Sunghoon's return, she has completely forgotten that he has the weirdest talent of always being in the lookout whenever she decides that her bed was no longer enough to alleviate the blues.

Aeri looked at him as if she was trying to tell him to change his decision. "Nope, get away from me." She said when she realized he wasn't going to get the message of her stare anytime soon. "If you think a girl like me wouldn't survive in the night, let me remind you I have been doing this since I was ten years old."

"Oh you don't have to remind me. I was there the first time you decided to sneak out. Not to mention, I was also there to join you, remember?" He stops walking to look at her as he pretentiously bat his eyes in hopes of showing false innocence.

She groaned. "I forgot about that part. Well, whatever, do what you want to do. I barely have the energy for anything, arguing with you is not an exception."

Rather than finding offense, Sunghoon merely took that as an agreement from Aeri and continued on with his endeavors of joining her for a night that was only supposedly hers. If she had more energy, they would've been fighting until they eventually reach the convenience store but seeing as she could barely walk with everything weighing her down, she believed, with every drama coursing through her blood, that she would've fainted of exhaustion. By the time they do arrive at the store, she grabbed a cup of ramen from the shelves and gave it to the person tailing behind her.