before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

009 ; past

flashback to the summer (3)
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AERI

"Oh shoot, I think I forgot my wallet at home." Jake said as he rummaged all the pockets on his pants in order to look for his wallet to pay for the food they were about to buy.

While night dates are something Aeri and Jake enjoyed, this particular day was one of those few moments where they would rather prefer to bask themselves in the heat of the sun and scour the malls that were always closed whenever they were out in the city rather than test their lucks to see which establishments were open at the middle of the night. Currently, they were in front of a coffee stall and he was just about to pay for their drinks but he couldn't find his wallet.

"Don't worry, I think I have enough money to pay for the drinks." Aeri insisted, about to pull her own wallet out but Jake had stopped her. "You're going to have to let me pay at least once."

"I told you I was going to treat you." He frowned.

"You can treat me as soon as you have your wallet back." She chuckled before completely pulling her wallet out from her purse and paying for the coffee with some of the money she had kept aside in the rare case that Jake does actually let her pay. The last thing she ever wanted was to have a man pay for everything in her life, and as good as it all sound, having to hear from everyone about her mother relying on a man's income her whole life made it all seem so horrible to her.

"I owe you." Jake says as soon as he hands Aeri the coffee she just paid for the two of them.

She laughed. "You mean I owe you. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg of what you spend on me. If I calculated it all, people would call you a philanthropist."

He chuckles. "I love spending my money on you. You deserve to be spoiled." He says, wrapping his free arm around her shoulder as he took a sip of his coffee with the other. "Although, can we stop by my house first before going somewhere else? I have my driver's license there."

"Are your parents home?" She asked as a precautionary measure since the last thing she wanted was to meet the parents of the guy whom she has only been seeing for two weeks. He laughed at her question just before shaking his head. "Alright then. Let's go!"

The two of them heads over to the parking lot where his car was parked so they could leave just minutes after they arrived. And as they drove off to his house, she'd only realize that this actually the first time she's going to see his home even when he's seen hers for a number of times already because he keeps insisting on driving her home. She could quite imagine the kind of house where he could've grown up in; she expected nothing but a huge mansion that is appropriate for someone of his caliber.

"Are you imagining what my house would look like?" Jake had abruptly asked, pulling her away from her own thoughts. Aeri looked over to his direction but all she saw was his eyes fully focused on the road ahead. "You grew up from a pretty high-end neighborhood, surely mine won't surprise you all that much."

The way he worded his sentence made it sound as though Aeri was in the same standing as him when, in truth, she did grow up in a high-end neighborhood, only because her mother and brother thought the house was the only legacy her father left of them that remains in tact. The family company was no more but a part of a list of companies that have fallen into the fate of bankruptcy and the money their father had left were now scarce and being spent on things they actually needed to live day by day. The house was the only thing left unchanged by it all, so they made the decision of keeping it- probably the only ever decision her brother and mother agreed together.