No animal stopped me from getting home this time. But eomma was there.
When I had comeback earlier, before the ravens warned me, eomma was still out, probably going after those deceiving leads on my missing younger twin sister, who disappeared as soon as eomma gave birth to us, here in Sofia. She's been looking for her like crazy ever since, using her hacking skills to try finding something, anything, given how she can't even remember appa's name, after she suffered an accident that cause her to lose her memories and to give birth to me and my sister two months earlier.
It was also because of her obsession that she made me jump years and attend to MIT for Computer Science at 13, to make me help her find Ari. Choi Ari is the Korean name eomma gave her, though her international name is Euphemia Arianne Nosht-Choi, but eomma calls her Ari. While she calls me by my full first name Mischief, instead of Ye-ji, Kalina, or Missy, my Korean name and nicknames. She's called me Mischief ever since I can remember.
I graduated from MIT almost six months ago and I came back to Sofia to take care of Kit, since eomma doesn't give a shit, and to be with harabeoji and halmeoni, the ones who may treat me a bit bad and as if I was mentally ill and a disappointment, but were the parents I had growing up. Before I had aunt Harmony and uncle Julien, but everything got worse with eomma and my grandparents after they died and we got Kit's guard.
"Where were you, Mischief?" Eomma yelled at me as soon as I took my first step inside the villa, making me instantly regret having come back home at all instead of anywhere else but here. "What happened to your face? You look absolutely ugly when you cry, haven't I told you that? What the hell were you crying about this time? Manipulating that low-class boy you insisted on dating this time? It's 9 pm, Mischief, I need you home by this hour. Wasn't it enough to run from me yesterday? You're not a child, you know that? Your sister could be needing us, needing me, and you're fooling around? Didn't I set your priorities straight? We have a trip to make in the morning, and you should be packing, we'll all go!" A what now?
"Enough!" I screamed back and her dark brown eyes widened.
It's something that used to make me hate myself when I was younger, the fact that eomma and I don't look alike, she's Korean through and through, she looks like an older version of Sangah from Lightsum, a Kpop girl group that Kit adores, with her angelic face, light brown hair, pale skin, and skinny body. I have tanned skin, I'm shorter than her by 6cm, my breasts are wider and so are my hips, I have quite the ass, bow thighs, my waist is tiny, black hair, siren blue eyes that are so blue they are almost white, I'm freckled, with deep cheek dimples, toned, and I look mixed.
You can't guess I'm partially Korean by looking, even less that I'm Bulgarian, because I also don't look Bulgarian. Whatever that means. I'm probably more alike to appa, though I'm not sure, since I have no idea who he is, and eomma claims to not remember shit. Maybe he's Italian, or maybe he's Spanish, or British, I don't know, there's no way to know. I'm not the least interested in knowing either, I'm past the age of needing an appa.
"I'm tired of this, eomma," I yelled, "can't you see? Can't you see me? Can't you give me a night in peace? Why today of all days? Can't you see the hurt im my face or are you only able to see your own? Do you even remember that I'm a human too? I just broke up with my boyfriend after catching him cheating on me, and learning that he was using me this whole time, and I'll probably be charged with arson, and-"
"Well, that's what you get for not listening to me!" She snapped.
"What do you mean arson?" Halmeoni asked, grinning like a fox.
"I set some of his things on fire," I hissed. "Is that really all you can say to me, eomma?" I clenched my jaw, feeling my heart breaking further but for an even worse reason. "I'm having one of the worse days of my life, and you can only think of your pride? Of how I ignored how you tried to control my love life and chose to live for myself for a moment? Why are you so blinded with finding your lost daughter, that you can't even look or recognize the one you already have?" I fought against my tears. "I am here, eomma, I've always been. I'm the one whose here, not Euphemia. Look at me for a moment and-"
I felt my left cheek burning before I could register that she slapped my face hard, with her ring on, which might explain the burning of a cut that I'm feeling prickling my skin uncomfortably.
"How dare you?" She yelled, her voice higher than before. "Have you lost your mind, Mischief? Have you forgotten how to treat your elders? How dare you raise you're voice at me? How dare you talk about your little sister like that? I gave you the world and you are an ungrateful brat who can't even recognize it. You really haven't changed, have you? You're still a selfish little attention seeker, mean-spirited and who has a toxic obsession with me. I've always been there, but where are you when I need you? Being an arsonist and setting fire on your boyfriend's place. You sister could be laying on a street, cold, in an orphanage, crying alone, needing me!"
"You have never been there for me!" I yelled. "Never. Not when I began talking, or walking, or eating food, or going to school, or in my school and college, in my graduations, in my birthdays, in important moments of my life, or ever. Never. Never. You always had an excuse to hide the fact that you hate me, because I don't look like you, and because I'm here and Euphemia isn't. You used my academic aptitude and forced me to jump years, to skip a healthy school life, to go to college when kids are still in their middle school. All to use me. Everything you did was sharpen me as a useful tool and weapon, eomma, because that's how you see me, that's the only way you see value in me. It's not my fault that Euphemia is lost, and you know what? I wish it was me. I wish I had been away from you!"
That gained me another slap, and only when I felt her hand hitting my skin wet, did I realize I was crying. I never cry in front of her, never, because I know she sees it as a weakness in the robot she wanted me to be.
"I hate you, eomma. I hate to be your daughter. I hate to have been the one left behind by whoever kidnapped your beloved daughter. And I hate Euphemia, because even not being here, she destroyed my life. Me being obsessed with you? Get over your ego, eomma, it's you whose beyond obsessed with her, so much that you cannot see me. I wonder if it had been me to disappear, would you mistreat Euphemia and throw her aside like you do me?"
That made her halt, frozen, her eyes wide with anger and dismay.
"I'm not a tool, not a weapon, and I'm not going to let you use me anymore, eomma. I'm done, and you only have yourself to blame for that. And this travel you're planning? You can go with your family, since you clearly do not consider me part of it. And you know what? Don't come back, go to your daughter and disappear from my life."
"You're not worthy," she spit at me. "Not worthy of me, not worthy of Ari, not worthy of any of us. You're not worthy of love, or anything good in the world. You're mean, and evil, and a disgrace. I am the one who hates to be your eomma, Mischief Kalina Nosht-Choi. Had I been given the option from God, I would have picked Ari over you, because she needs me, and you only care about yourself. You are a disappointment. No wonder your exes all cheated in you," she mocked viciously, "you are unlovable."
"Felicity!" Halmeoni yelled at her.
"Don't say that to your daughter!" Harabeoji gasped in dismay.
"Daughter? I don't need a daughter whose of no use to me. I'm done playing the good eomma to this unworthy brat!" She yelled at me.
I almost flinched, almost. "Euphemia is better off away from you!"
"Choi Ye-ji," harabeoji screamed at me, angry, "have you finally gone mad? Are you skipping your medication? How dare you say that to your eomma? You are giving her reason to slap your face."
"Since when did she need a reason to hit me, harabeoji?" I scoffed, but my voice was empty, empty of emotion, of warmth, of sarcasm. I felt empty, like a broken doll waiting to be discarded. Bowing numbly to my maternal grandparents, I ignored eomma and finally took off my shoes, then I began to climb the stairs.
But I froze when eomma spoke again.
"We'll be out of here in the first light, don't wake your cousin!"
I clenched my fists, angrier, "He's my brother, not my cousin."
"Georgi Kit Nosht-Kim is not my son," she snapped, annoyed.
"Aunt Harmony was more of an eomma to me than you could ever dream of being," I hissed over my shoulder, and just remembering my aunt hurts, because she was always there for me, until death took her away. When she died, I loved her so much that a piece of me died with her, and even now, years after the jet crashed with her and uncle Julien who was an appa to me for as long as he was around, I still feel lost without her. But at least I have little Kit, harabeoji, and halmeoni. "He's more my brother than your beloved Euphemia will ever be."
"She's your youngest twin!" She yelled.
"A curse I'll forever carry with me," I yelled back. Thankfully Kit's suite is soundproof or he would wake up, as he always sleeps at 8:30 pm. I put him to sleep normally, even if he's already 12, he's still a baby to me. God, he liked Drago, he'll be sad and angry when I tell him what happened.
"Don't turn your back on me, Mischief Kalina Nosht-Choi!" She yelled again, because that's all she does around me. Yell, yell, and yell.
"Have a good trip tomorrow, harabeoji, halmeoni," I said with my back to them, back to climbing the steps. "Tell Kit I love him, and I'll take him out to watch Spiderverse 2 when you get back." Kit's been talking non-stop about wanting to watch this movie, since he loves Miles Morales, and I confess I want it too, it'll be good to take my mind off of… everything.
"Ugh, they have the same temper," harabeoji growled frustrated.
As soon as I got to my room in the attic, the best place in the villa and the farthest away from eomma's room, and locked the door, I was so physically tired and emotionally wracked, heartbroken and depressed, that I just threw my bag away and jumped in my bed, giving myself to the deep sleep that was calling for me enchantingly like in a siren's song, after being haunted by insomnia for three nights on a roll.
No insomnia will win against how dead my body feels.
I'll think about the consequences of my actions later.
For now I'll sleep in peace, knowing that tomorrow I won't need to deal with eomma's shit because she'll be out of here.
Thank God for that.