"The whole campus knows. Figure skater Aria, a wonderful prodigy. Better than other skaters her age. Broke countless international records. Made it to nationals at just twenty-one. Yet she dropped out during the semi-finals, finally faced with skat...
*A/N: the following chapter includes themes and content that may be seriously triggering for some readers. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Spring, 2020
"THEN JUST SAY you want to kill my daughter! That's what you're trying to do, isn't it?" He growled. His chest heaved up and down, nostrils flared with rage.
A woman sat on the luxurious red couch. She chuckled. Her red lips sipped on the red wine.
Everything was red.
"What I'm trying to do, is raise our daughter into a successful woman," she said.
"No," the man protested, "if success means losing Aria, then I don't want it. I don't want it for her, or for me. I will throw everything away if it means Aria can be happy, and you know I will, Isa."
"Who says she isn't happy?" the woman, Isa, asked.
All sense of humour had long left her pretty face. She stared up at her husband with a blank expression. The lack of emotions angered him. She knew it and she loved it. For Isa, this was a game. A challenge. A fight for power. It was all about power at the end of the day, right?
"You dare call yourself her mother if you haven't even noticed that much?" he scoffed. "She looks like the ghost of the person she used to be. I can't look her in the eyes without seeing how much she's suffering—"
"She's a prodigy! She needs to live up to her name. I worked too hard to give up on her—"
"It's not your life, it's Aria's!" he shouted.
There was a pause. Silence had fallen in the office room.
Then, Isa snickered. A maniacal laughter left those red lips of hers.
"That's where you're wrong, Hyuk," she said, "her life has been mine, is mine, since the day she was born. I gave birth to her and she belongs to me and there is nothing you or anyone can—"
A slap.
The sound of skin brutally lashing against skin. It was quick, but loud. So loud. It nearly crumbled down that house with unstable pillars. Nearly. However, what it did reveal, were the skeletons in their closets. The ones they never spoke about. The same skeletons they'd sleep and wake up with, but never mention. A slap was all it took.
"You're crazy," Hyuk said.
His hand shook at his side. It trembled and hurt. Oddly resembling the ache in his chest. But he didn't apologise. They never apologised. Instead, a single stray tear trailed down his face.
