before & after ‣ 엔하이픈

035 ; past

flashback to their childhood (4)
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AERI

Aeri was 13 years old when she completely grasped the full extent of her mother's mistreatment.

One day, she saw her brother sitting at the dining table, papers at hand as he looked at it with a distressed face. Just as when she was about to approach him and ask him if he was alright, she was surprised when he suddenly stood up and quickly walked to the living room where her mother was smoking as she watched a movie from the television. Three bottles of booze sat at the coffee table and the cigarette pack that Aeri remembered seeing full just this morning was now nearing its end with about four sticks remaining. The smell of smoke hugged the air of their living room that it was almost impossible to breathe.

Yoongi stood in between their mother and the television, eliciting their mother to bear an unpleasant look on her unusual youthful face. "What the hell are you doing? Get out of my sight." Their mother says.

"What did you do with my and Aeri's inheritance?! Why is there barely anything left in the account dad left us?!" Yoongi yelled. "And don't you dare make any excuses. I know you are the only one who has access to those accounts!"

Their mother was unfazed by the accusations being threw at her. "I took it. What is there to wonder about? Do you know how expensive it is to raise the two of you?"

"Raise us? You barely did anything! I have to pay for everything because you won't do it yourself!" He argued. "Dad didn't leave you those money. He left it for us! You have to pay us back right now!"

The woman who was initially now stood up, throwing the finished stick sitting in between her fingers at the ashtray on top of the coffee table. She looked at Yoongi with an unhappy expression, one she was not entitled to. "Look here, you ungrateful brat. Most of those money went to you and your stupid education. And even now, I have to pay for that ingrate sister of yours. You think that since you paid for your college by yourself you're entitled to my money? Your father was my husband. Whatever that was his is now mine, including the money."

"We both know it doesn't work that way. If you want to have more money, you can keep mine but give back Aeri's inheritance! That money is hers!" Yoongi tried to compromise, hoping to find a common ground but they just won't seem to meet.

She sneered. "No way. You have your trust fund and she has hers. Think of this money as payment for me letting you live in this house. As your mother, I'm teaching you a very valuable lesson of saving money. With your father gone and the two of you being so talentless, we're never going to live in grandeur. Might as well train the two of you for it."

"While you live expensively with the money you stole from us?!"

She smirked and sat back at the couch. "I don't care."

For a very quick second, Aeri saw how her brother burned with anger as he stared down at their mother. She saw how he stopped himself from doing anything he'll regret soon, but when he locks eyes with his younger sister, it seemed the regret dawned even more. But the regret was more pointed at the fact he was unable to retrieve   the inheritance that was rightfully theirs.

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"You have a trust fund!? Your father must have been very rich. Even I don't have one." Sunghoon exclaims, hearing from Aeri that she had a trust fund set up for her. They were currently outside of his house, playing toy trucks at the sideline but mostly it was just him and she was only watching.

Aeri scoffed. "You're probably set to inherit a lot anyway. Don't worry about it. My dad was smart for setting up a trust fund. He must've known my own mother was going to rob me."

"What's the deal with her anyway? She's the only mother I know who treats her child like this." He frowned, dropping his toy so he would be able to look at her with all his attention.

"She's a gold digger. I don't have to sugarcoat it because that's exactly the truth. She just proved to me today how right people were." She sighed, holding unto the fire truck and moving it forward and backward. "I'm going to make sure I never turn out like her. Maybe I'll start with not marrying a rich guy."

"That's a bit of a stretch." He quickly comments.

"You're right. Who says I'll get a rich man in the first place anyway?" Aeri says, which did not improve the expression Sunghoon had on his face. "What?"

"You're absurd and insane."

"Those are almost the same words."

"Okay, so for more emphasis then."

Aeri scowled at his response, but he didn't seem to care about how unhappy he was with her answers. She was dead-set on her choice to not turn out like her mother.

She was going to live a simple and normal life.

Fame and wealth weren't for her, not if it meant facing the fate she was trying to avoid.

You're going to live a simple life, Aeri.

She repeated it like a mantra, so much so that even when it was slowly becoming an impossibility, the words were still etched on her heart like a wish.

You're going to live a simple life, Aeri.

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