flashback to the summer
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AERI
"What are you doing back here?" Aeri asked Jake as soon as she takes a seat next to him in the convenience store. "I don't recall ever seeing you go here two nights in a row."
Jake merely chuckled at the ever brazen queen bee. "I don't know. I just suddenly had the urge to go here in the middle of the night and hope to find the queen bee herself here."
Aeri snorts, hearing the incredulous nickname once more. Never has she been called that to her face, only behind her back and even that she didn't appreciate. She opens the bag of chips she bought prior to the conversation she was about to have with Jake.
"What are you doing here two nights in a row?" Jake segued the conversation to another topic where the limelight was no longer on him but on her.
"I'm always out in the night. When I'm too lazy to particularly go anywhere, I go here to just eat and watch. It quiets my head when I do this." Aeri smiles as she briefly glances at him then back to the glass wall that allowed her a view of the world in the night.
"What could your head be possibly noisy about?"
There was a lot of noise in Aeri's head. Many of which involved the dysfunctional family clawing her from behind.
Aeri was the youngest daughter of a beautiful mother and a rich father. If time had a little been kinder to the girl, she was sure she would've had the perfect life but when her father died due to a heart disease, the seemingly ideal image of a life dissipated. Her father's death wasn't really supposed to plummet them into a state of life where they were forced to live check by check, at least not instantly. A huge sum of money was left to both Aeri and her brother, and due to the fact that she was a baby back then and her brother was merely a toddler, their mother took control of most of it.
By the time they were both old enough to know about their inheritance, most of it had already been spent by their mother and while the sum left wasn't by all means small, it was still nowhere near half of what their father originally left them. Ever since then, her brother handled everything, to putting Aeri in school and paying for the utilities, all this he shouldered.
"The unfairness of it all." Aeri says, placing the weight of her head on her arm that was resting on the table. "How about you? Why are you so awake tonight?"
Like Aeri, Jake gazed away from the other to watch the people who passed by them, each having their own stories and reasons as to what could possibly keep them up this late in the night. "I guess you could say a broken heart is quite a tough one to deal with. If I'm going to stay up all night thinking about all the things I could've and should've done, better to do it somewhere else where I have access to food."
"Why did you break up with Bora anyway?" She asked, asking the question she dared not to ask the past day when she learned of their separation. "You didn't seem to be in bad terms the last time I saw you together."
All while they converse, both their eyes remained on the window in front of them, and Aeri wanted to keep it that way because she was afraid of showing more vulnerability than she already was. There were only so little of her darkness she was willing to show, especially to someone she wasn't even close with let alone liked back at school.
"She said she can't handle dating someone like me, someone whose life revolves around being in the limelight." Jake answered. "It's not like I wanted the school's attention, but it happened. Somehow it happened to us." This time he looks at her.
"Why are you suddenly getting me involved?" She scoffs.
He chuckled before turning his body so that he was now facing her direction. "Oh please, Aeri. Your situation is no different from mine. If I'm in the limelight, Aeri, then you are the limelight itself. I don't call you queen bee for nothing."
"Then I guess you're right. Our situation is no different. Being in the said spotlight brought me here in this convenience store to deal with my blues." Aeri found herself suddenly in agreement.
Her life was hard enough on its own and before all this, she wanted to keep it to herself. She wanted to hide the fact that behind her pretentious act was the unwillingness to wake up everyday. To make her situation hard enough as it is, everyone's eyes had to be at her. The spotlight made her the center of attention, making it harder for her than ever to hide behind the mask.
"Do you want to go somewhere else?" Jake asked abruptly, prompting her to give him a confused look as to what brought on for him to suddenly extend an invitation to her. "Surely you don't think just sitting here would completely clear your head."
"Then what do you have in mind?" She asked, interest piqued this time around.
"Well the night is young and full of surprises. Come on, I'm sure we can think of something while on the road." He says, standing up and extending a hand to her.
Gazing at his hand for a short minute, Aeri was rethinking if she should take it and accept his offer however he was right. Sitting alone in the convenience store wasn't enough to completely quiet her demons down and from the conversation she shared with him, she rather thought spending time with him isn't all that bad. Old her would absolutely be repulsed by spending some alone time with him but now that she knew he wasn't as bad as she had first shaped him, taking his hand wasn't by all means the most difficult choice.
His hands were warm and comfortable. He cradled her palm as they exit the convenience store in a manner that gave her the impression that he was well aware of how to hold someone without hurting them.
Aeri smiled as she basked in the feeling of being held without the fear of getting hurt.
Before the moon can reach its peak, Aeri and Jake gets in the car and drives off in hopes of reaching the place at the end of the horizon.
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"No I'm telling the truth! I really did have a classmate who tried so hard to be like you. He kept posting pictures of himself wearing the same clothes as you." Aeri laughed as she gorged on the chips she bought just before Jake extended an invitation to her. "Seeun and I kept laughing whenever he would so obviously copy you."
The two never managed to actually find somewhere to go so in hopes of finding a private place where they could freely talk about the people in the school without remorse, they found an empty parking lot. And to make their situation more comfortable, he opened up his trunk and that's where they both sat.
The two seemingly perfect individuals had a lot to say about those that surround them for every academic year. Aeri learned of Jake's tendency to grow uncomfortable when all eyes are on him and he also learned that she did not treat her school friends as actual genuine friends.
Whatever dirt they hid, the two revealed to each other.
Jake laughed just as hard as Aeri was. "I remember one time a girl heard what kind of perfume you were wearing and the next day, she smelled exactly the way you did."
"I guess we're both prone to being copied." Aeri chuckles, finishing the last of her chips. "I like the quietness of this place." She changes the topic.
"Given that it seems abandoned, I find the quietness to be more reliving." Jake snickered and quickly
she got what he meant, causing for her to mimic the sound he made. "You think we can be friends even when we're back in school?"
"I think I can be friends with you if it means not attracting as much attention as I already do." She smirks mischievously even if she meant every word of it and if he understood her well enough from their conversation, he would realize the same.
"Then I'm afraid the idea of us as friends should be quickly dismissed. Though I'm quite relieved to hear you admitting that you are the epitome of popularity." Jake said as he opens a can of soda. "I would find you less smart if you think yourself the opposite."
"Sometimes when I say it, I hope it becomes the truth. That's why I don't go around admitting I'm an attention grabber as you imply me to be." Aeri explained the truth behind her refusal to fully acknowledge the reputation she holds of the moment.
Jake looked at her with an unrecognizable expression. "You truly are unique, Min Aeri. You can go from being such a cheerful person to being the saddest person I know in a blink of an eye."
"A skill cultivated by popularity, I'm afraid." She admits. "Surely I can't be the only one like that between us."
"While it's true that we are the same in some ways, our sadness differs. Mine is a heartbreak that heals with time, as they say, but yours, it's like a deep wound that never stops bleeding." He says bluntly.
"How are you able to say that?"
"You're here right now with the person you used to dislike in an abandoned parking lot at the middle of the night. That speaks more than it should have." He replies.
Aeri remained quiet as she felt some part of herself get revealed. But even so, the way Jake spoke sounded as if he was leaning towards understanding rather than judging, which immediately calms her nerves.
"There is so much more to you, Aeri. I see it. And I'm sure whatever you're hiding can't be as beautiful as you are in the surface."
"If I told you it was as ugly as I am beautiful, would you be repulsed?"
Jake smiled. "I'd like you even more."
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AUTHOR'S NOTE :
past jake and aeri is so fun to write idk why
also sorry for the late update my friends made me watch the era's tour movie TWICE!!!