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I had already emptied my pack of gummy bears within the first half hour and I only sipped from time to time on the green bottle, which stood dangerously with the edge on one of the blankets and was about to topple over.
However, my sleepy me hardly noticed. The little bit of alcohol made my eyes so incredibly heavy Even if I tried everything to stay awake, my head kept falling to the side of Heeseung's arm, which made me wince over and over again.
He shifted carefully below me and adjusted us into a bit more lying position. With a satisfied hum, he pulled the blanket further and made sure we were both completely wrapped in it.
âI'm sorry...I got so tired.", My voice escaped my mouth only partially and barely audible.
âDon't push yourself to stay awake.", he answered lowly and his hand carefully wrapped around my waist from behind.
âShould I turn off the movie?".
âYou can...you can keep watching...", I was babbling to myself, not even noticing he had already removed the laptop from my legs.
His finger gently stroked my cheek. âI prefer watching you fall asleep.". A smile flitted across my face as my body warmed up to his words.
***
âWhy are you leaving now? You're not here five minutes! I've cooked, cleaned the whole house and waited all day for you to finally come home.", mom was clearly upset. â...If you ever show up! what about the kids? They miss their father and all you think about is...this stupid gamble!".
âDONT FUCKING YELL AT ME, JUNSEO! How do you even dare?! I'm working the whole day to finance your life to buy your goddamn food and that's how you deal with me?"
âDon't curse in front of the kids!", she worriedly glared over at me, sitting on the floor in the living room, playing with my dolls.
âIf you weren't so damn lazy, you'd go to work, too. You can burn your fake sick note".
She was speechless, couldn't believe the words her husband found.
"Anyway...I'm going to the casino now. I'm not coming home today. Not for the next week. So don't wait for me to show up again and feed you through the winter! What did you study for? Go to the hospital and do your fucking job, you lazy piece of shit!".
She slapped him.
She slapped him so hard that he staggered backward, holding his glowing red cheek.
I didn't understand what was happening. So I just sat it the corner and observed the whole thing.
âDid you just...?!", dad growled and mom took a step back, shocked about the fact she just slapped her husband.
âYOU FUCKING BITCH DOESN'T KNOW WHEN IT'S ENOUGH!",
He began to attack her. Hit her several times until she was about to go down to the floor.
âMommy noo!!", I whined. Grabbing my stuffed teddy and stumbled forward to stop him. But Sunghoon walked over from the side. "Hyeona, don't. Daddy has been drinking again.".
He wrapped his arm around me and my tiny tears dropped onto his shirt. "But he is hurting mommy.". I cried. But he led me out of the living room, without a word.
"He is a bad person. That's not our dad anymore.".
***
I exhaustedly reeled myself out of sleep. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead as I freed myself from the vast quantities of woolen blankets. I sat up and grabbed the water bottle next to me, before exhaling deeply.
"Are you okay?" Heeseung groaned behind me and propped himself up on his forearms when he recognized my sitting shadow.
"Yes". I nodded calmly. "Just a nightmare.".
In itself something that everyone had experienced as a small child. However, this dream moved something in me. It had been years since I had dreamed about my dad. And sometimes I forgot what he had done to our family...especially to Mom. I mainly remember the good and happy moments and suppressed the bad things. My father wasn't a good person, even though I always tried to convince myself that I simply hadn't understood the situation properly when I was a child.
"I'm just...going to get some air.", I said, and climbed out of the trunk. Immediately the cold air hit me hard and made me clasp my arms around my thin sweater.
At the end of the boardwalk, I sat down and dangled my feet over the frozen water. In fact, it was freezing cold and my pants were completely soaked after seconds, because of the snow beneath me.
"Come on, Hyeo! You will catch a cold when you sit there.", Heeseung sighed and walked up to me.
"I dreamed about dad.", I told him. "Some kind of...memorie. But not a good one.". My gaze was directed to the floor. I think I've never spoken to someone about him before. "Mom had such a hard time and I was still so young. I had no idea what did to our family. I feel so bad, because I barely remember anything. Except when he left like 12 years ago.".
"You don't need to talk about him, if you don't want to.", he said.
"Sunghoon kept telling me that he had a drinking problem and a bad gambling addiction. Whenever he came home, we would hide under the bed in his room," I laughed briefly. "I always assumed it was a fun game, but never that he intended to hurt us. I mean, he never actually hurt us...but still. He hurt mom, that's enough to hurt me as well.".
I sneezed loudly all of a sudden.
"We can keep on talking in the car, but please get up from the snow.".
"Can we drive home?", I asked him with a low voice. "I don't know...I'm not feeling that well.".
***
"You really think it's a good idea?". Heeseung asked, when we got our pillows out of the trunk after I parked my mom's car in the parking lot. "Don't worry. She works early shift at the hospital today. She has been gone for 1 hour. No one's at home.".
It was already 4 o'clock in the morning, but still pitch dark. Since Sunghoon had finally moved out of home, it was so much more relaxed. I didn't feel like I had to hide Heeseung 24/7, and since mom was almost always at work anyway, we could spend undisturbed time at my place and his as well.
We walked up the steps to the front door and I pressed my mound of pillows into his hands. Searching, I rummaged in my pants pocket "Crap. I forgot my key inside.".
"Spare key?"
Immediately I headed over to our bush in the backyard where we usually hid it. "It's not there.". I shook my head in confusion.".
"Strange...Let me put this...back in the van first.". He threw all the pillows back in the trunk and was about to help me look for it. However, I was already shrugging my shoulders and walking in his direction. "I have searched everything. Even with a flashlight. It's not there. Maybe mom took it".
"Shit".
We slouched back in the car. I got on the driver's side and sullenly tightened my legs. "Why do all our dates always have to be ruined by something?".
He suddenly started laughing. "It's not ruined. Our dates are always perfect. Spending time with you makes it perfect.".
Cringing at his words, I kicked his tigh with my foot. "I can't take you seriously like this.".
"You seriously can't stand my sweet and nice side...", he complained.
"I prefer your rizzy big dick energy.", I tried to suppress a grin.
"My what?".
"Big dick energy." I repeated. "That's basically when you're acting like the bossy bad boy boyfriend.".
"What the heck! I didn't know there's even a word for this... . Besides, I never act like a this badboy boyfriend stuff..." he clarified indignantly. "I'm always being nice when I'm with you.".
"I know. I also love my bubu baby boyfriend.". I imitated a cute face and poked his cheek but he grabbed my finger in the air before I was able to pull away. "And I don't like it when you're acting sassy like this.".
I squinted my eyes, and pulled my index finger out of his fist. "Lie, I know you like it.".
"You acting sassy? Nahh.".
"Wanna bet?" I tilted my head
"How's that gonna work?".
"Wanna bet?", I just repeated, and the grin on my face grew bigger.
He sighed and finally gave in "Fine"
Without wasting another second, I got up from my seat and climbed over the center console. In the process, I bumped my legs on the shift knob and the handbrake what knows how many times.
"What...the fuck?" he uttered. "What do you think you're doing?".
"Ouch!", I banged my head on the ceiling as well, before I finally reached the passenger seat and lowered myself on his lap.
His eyes radiated pure confusion as I smirked contentedly. "Excited to see how little you like it."
"That's not sassy. That's nasty!", Heeseung anwered, as I brushed both my thumbs along his jawlines to hold his face up.
"Let's see who loses first.". I whispered as close as possible against his lips, but pulled away as he was about to lean in.
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