[harsh language and violence ahead] :
It was almost two in the morning, jennie had fallen asleep with the storybook remained opened on top of her chest.
"open up!" The mumbled yells could be heard when the loud banging on the front door was happening.
Jennie was awake by it, she hurriedly ran down to open the door eventhough she knew exactly what was going to happen. She just didn't want her kids to be scared by the loudness.
"why so damn late?! Useless." That man half yelled, standing unstable even with jennie's support.
Jennie was repeating saying sorry as she tried to walk the man, but when she accidentally stepped on his left foot, he pushed her away that caused her head to collide with the wall.
"fucking useless!" He spat before kicking jennie in the stomach. All that actions made him fall onto the floor with a loud thump but his screams afterward was what that woke up aria and taehyung.
That man continued to abuse jennie, but no matter how painful it was, jennie didn't scream out. She bid her lips to mumble her screams until it started to bleed but she didn't care, she just wanted to be as quiet as she could.
"m-mommy." Taehyung called out, the colour drained out from his face.
They froze still in their room with their hearts beating so fast because that man's voice was clearly heard but there wasn't any from their mother.
"mommy wants us to hide." It was something that aria could never forgot. "she doesn't want us to go out now." She pulled taehyung to crawl under her bed. "it will be safe here. Close your ears and your eyes, everything will be alright soon."
And that was what she had been going through before, the only difference was that she wasn't alone anymore. Taehyung was right there by her side and she knew, she would never be alone anymore.
ヾ
<time skipped, 10 years>
"aria, let's hang out after school." Her friend, daeun was pleading and trying her best to be cute. "it's been so long since we last did that which was exactly three months ago. You are keeping things from me, don't you?"
Aria shook her head, smiling as she said, "of course not, i'm just busy. You know, family problems."
That was it. She could only said that much. With the time passing by, she had learned to say the least about her family. It was like a protection towards them and herself.
Because that man was still living with them, her mother was still suffering from him and taehyung was still homeschooling.
After all these years, everything remained the same. They grew up and their mother grew old, just that.
Aria was told to never mentioned anything about having a brother and she never asked the reasons. She just needed to understand that- obey it, will protect taehyung, disobey it, you will lose taehyung.
Aria would go straight back to home after school, there were a few times she chose to hang out and nothing happened but the last time she did, which was three months ago, taehyung was starved because of that man's cruelty and jennie's helplessness.
And that was why she had made up her mind to never go home late anymore.
"sorry, i really can't today." Aria hugged her friend and walked away immediately so that she wouldn't get to see her face after being rejected for the countless times.
