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AERI
Something felt amiss in the air.
Aeri has been unsettled since she first rode Sunghoon's car for the third time now this week, apparently making it his everyday endeavor to annoy her by annoying her to get into his car every morning. She always gave in, even when she promises to herself every night she wouldn't. This morning was particularly different from the last two.
There was a mysterious gut feeling telling her that something was wrong. She initially thought she had forgotten something important back at home but it wasn't that. Even Sunghoon and her's never ending bantering wasn't enough to ease the wariness of her system. So since she first arrived, she was vigilant of her surrounding, seeing if anything would be any different today that she'd feel it deep within her.
But the only weirdest thing about the day was Bora not giving her the same nonchalant looks. The girl only ever looked away whenever Aeri would do so much as glance at her.
While Seeun and Haesu made their way to the cafeteria, Aeri asked to be left behind so she could go to the restroom all while she hoped that one vomit would be enough to get the anxiety of everything out of her gut and head. But as she pushed the door open, she was met with Bora, who seemed surprise to see the queen bee barge into the restroom alone, along with her friend who was more angry than she was surprised.
As much as Aeri wanted to ignore them, she couldn't seem to ignore the way Bora's friend was looking at her.
"Do you have something to say to me?" Aeri, with all her courage, tells Bora's friend.
"Inah, stop." Bora was quick to react as she tried to halt her friend who merely steps forward towards Aeri.
"Yes, I have something to say to you. I can't believe you would get together with someone who just broke up with his girlfriend a week ago. Were you waiting for Jake to be single? Is that it?" Inah said, eyes blazing with anger all while Bora held the girl's left arm as she tried to pull her away from Aeri. "Or is he just one of your many pawns to further your cause of being queen bee?"
Aeri's fist clenched, her best attempt yet in keeping herself calm. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't deny it! I saw you and Jake every single night! You guys were always together! You even kissed one another!" Inah defends what she saw and the validity of it.
Aeri knew it was all true but for the sake of protecting what she had with Jake, she was bound to play a fool in the next following seconds.
"Don't you dare accuse me of anything." Aeri said, asserting dominance even when every cell within her hated the response she resorted to.
"You don't scare me for a bit, queen bee. You can act all high and almighty with the captain of the soccer team now yours to claim, but you'll never replace Bora in his life—"
"Inah!" Bora cuts her friend off, but Inah didn't seem to care and instead decided to walk out, leaving Bora there with Aeri who had nothing to say after the outburst Inah had just said to her. "I'm sorry abour Inah, Aeri. I know she didn't mean what she said. S-She was just trying to protect me in her own way."
"Do you believe her?" Aeri's question seemed to have thrown Bora out.
Bora forced a smile on her face. "She has no reason to lie and although I don't want to believe it, it doesn't seem so impossible." Aeri had watched Bora also make her way towards the doorstep, however, she stopped midway. "I know you and Jake will continue to play a fool as to what you two really have but I wish you all the best still." That was the last thing she says before disappearing from Aeri's sight.
The girl stood there, the ominous feeling of earlier nowhere to be felt anymore. Like the last two people whom she used to stand there in the restroom with moments ago, she had chosen to walk away as well, only this time her destination had not been the cafeteria where Haesu and Seeun where but rather elsewhere, anywhere that doesn't seem to possess eyes that follows and whispers as she passes by. She reached the back of her school where only a few people ever seem to occupy and most who were there, were the ones who struggled to find a place in the sea of strangers possessing a weird selective attitude when it comes to friends.
By the mere sight of Aeri there, the surrounding place immediately emptied as staying within proximity of the queen bee would do more harm to their already doomed social life. For once, she was thankful of the effect she had on the people of her school, otherwise she wouldn't have the opportunity to bask in the sound of the trees rustling.
Aeri had the curse of feeling everything at once. She was the vessel of all emotions, locked into a safe to stop it from ever bursting out. As though her only ever purpose in life was to be a punching bag of this said emotions and lose sight of what happiness truly felt like.
"You okay there?" Aeri quickly looks over to her side and to nobody else's surprise, Park Sunghoon was there looking as annoyingly beautiful as always. She wondered why she couldn't have chosen to mess with a less handsome person, if she had done that then she wouldn't have to be in awe before she could be angry. "Your friends are a crowd."
"They're not my friends." She confessed, looking at the buildings towering far from them that casted their own shadow as the sun slowly descends to its position of slumber.
"Figured. You didn't seem like someone who would be friends with personality like theirs." She heard him say. The second time she glanced at him was due to the smell of cigarette filling her nose, it was a scent that brought her back to her own house. The only indication that her mother was nowhere near her was the lack of booze in the aroma.
"Since when did you pick up that filthy habit?" Aeri swatted the smoke away from her nose.
"When I was taken into a whole different country and forced to adjust there. It takes a toll on you when you're a young child attached to your original home." Sunghoon explained, inhaling afterwards before exhaling it back to the air. "I come here every now and then but this is the first I'm seeing you here or the lack of people thereof."
She chuckled. "They all left once they saw me. It's a talent of mine, you know? To empty places." She crossed her arms as she leaned over the wall the same way he was. "What's Haesu and Seeun doing anyway?"
"What they all do. The same thing guys do just to catch your attention. Apparently being subtle stopped being a thing now." He scoffed as once again puffed at the cigarette. "They only toned it down when Jake went elsewhere, claiming he had to look for someone."
Her heartbeat escalated in speed at the mention that Jake was looking for someone, and a spark of hope lit inside her that the person in question was no other than Aeri. "Is that so? How about you then? Why did you leave?" She asks, maneuvering the topic over to Sunghoon in the most subtlest way she could.
"Because I was also looking for someone. If anyone was going to annoy me, then it's going to be you." He said, flicking her on the forehead. By then, the cigarette was long gone from his mouth anymore however the residual smell of it lingered across the air. "I'm kidding. I was only planning to smoke, never planned to bump into the one and only."
"Next time, keep the smoke from your filthy habit away from me. It's... discomforting." She rolled her eyes as she finally made the decision of going back to school. But if she really knew Park Sunghoon, then she should've guessed she wasn't by any means going to walk away alone. "Do you never get tired of tailing me?"
"Yes, but annoying you? No." He laughed at the end.
Aeri shook her head in disappointment, but she couldn't deny that this man tailing behind her managed to get her mind off Bora, Inah, or the conversation they all shared. Or that's what she thought before she stopped on her tracks when the corner of her eyes caught a supposed empty hallway occupied by two individuals, one of which she knew by heart. Her heartbeat had escalated to a speed faster than she has ever encountered.
"Aeri?" Sunghoon called out to her, but her eyes remained on the two figures who didn't seem to notice that she was looking at them. "You alright?"
Inah's words suddenly played like a broken disk in her head.
You can act all high and almighty with the captain of the soccer team now yours to claim, but you'll never replace Bora in his life.
The ever sinking realization reached the pit of her stomach, and it churned in pain and grief.
"He was looking for her." She abruptly says.
He was looking for Bora.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE :
only 20 minutes to sleep but you dream of some epiphany. just one single glimpse of relief to make some sense of what you've seen.