before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

033 ; present

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AERI

Sunghoon did, in fact, stay true to his words and picked her up the next day, but that hadn't meant she started the day with a better mood than the last two days. Her mother had decided to pile on to her already heavy shoulders, waking up earlier than usual to wreak havoc in the lives of the two children she gave birth to.

"Mom, why are you up so early?" Yoongi asked, eyes wide to see their mother emerge from the stairs.

"And dressed like that?" Aeri asked, staring down at the bright red skimpy dress hugging their mother's unfaltering body.

Her mother sneers. "I have to meet with a bunch of friends. And you," She stops to point at Aeri. "Don't act as if you won't be dressing like this as soon as you graduate. After all, isn't your body the only thing worth looking at about you?"

Aeri was about to stand and defend herself, but her brother was quick to grab her by the arm and stop her from doing anything that she would come to regret. Her mother, seeing how her son abruptly subdued her daughter's almost-act of aggression, chuckled entertainingly before she strides out of the house. As the door slammed, Yoongi had let go of Aeri's arm, prompting the girl to wear a betrayed look on her face.

"Why the hell did you hold me back?" Aeri asked with a betrayed look.

"Because it's not worth it picking a fight with her. You're better than her, Aeri. You don't have to defend yourself, especially when she's nowhere near correct." Yoongi reasoned, but the anger inside her barely subsided.

"Yoongi, let's leave her once I graduate." Aeri proposed, abruptly. "I'm tired of living like I'm never good enough for simply breathing. I'm tired of watching you tire yourself— no, slaving yourself to pay for the bills while she uses money as if we're still swimming in it."

"Aeri, we can't just leave her. She's still our mother and dad left me this responsibility. I can't turn my back on her." Her brother continues to show that he was a much better person than she was. "Where would we go anyway? My savings are nowhere enough to buy us somewhere nice to live."

"I can work! I've worked it out, Yoongi. I have a plan, it could be something big. The bottomline is, once I am done, I don't have to go to college right now. I can—"

"Wait a minute, what do you mean you are not going to college right now? Aeri, there's no discussion there. You're going to college. Help when you're graduated, but right now, you can't." He quickly rejected the idea. "I know you mean good, Aeri, really I do. But I did all of this for you. What I want more than anything else in the world is for you to grow up comfortable."

"But, we can't live like this, Yoongi! Mom is going to keep using you for her own comfort and she's going to destroy me until I'm nothing more than a shadow of her." She tells. "I can help you. I've thought about this deeply, okay? I've worked it out! I can make money enough to get us a nice place and, at the same time, save money for my college without using all of my trust fund."

Yoongi shook his head and looked at her even more sternly. "No, Aeri. This is not up for discussion. Leave it all to me, I'll handle all of this. Just please, be a normal teenager. Explore and play around. You don't have to be thinking about all of this."

Hopelessness dawned into Aeri when she realized her brother wasn't going to budge. Tired of arguing with her brother, she quickly grabs her bag and walks out of the house, only to see Sunghoon already outside the gate, waiting for her in his gray car. With a sigh, she closes the gate behind her and headed inside the car without so much of a hello.