As soon as uncle handed me the keys of my family's villa, I hurriedly burst the door open and stormed inside, up the stairs, and to the attic, not halting for even a second, not letting the pain and nostalgia attack me, leaving them behind me, trying to catch up with my burst of adrenaline and stamina.
My bedroom was locked, and as I didn't have the key with me and neither the patience to wait, I kicked it. God, I kicked it hard until it gave up and broke under my wrath, and I confess it was satisfying to let go of a bit of my anger aggressively like that. Then, I ran inside, trying to find my where I had left my phone charging.
["It's under your make up desk,"] Raibh pointed, getting off me.
"Thanks," I muttered, getting on my knees to get my phone, which I now could see, the anxiety not as blurry as second ago. Taking it off of the charger, because it was still in it, I stumbled back in my bed with it in my hands, turning it on again, right when uncle Daniel and aunt Sofija arrived.
"This place is… a… maze," aunt panted, struggling.
"Did you… get your phone?" Uncle struggled just like her.
A nod, "Yes," I swallowed. "It was still in the damn charger."
They both came closer, each of the avoiding Raibh and sitting on the bed with me, on my right and left, hawk eyes on my stupid iPhone that was finally coming to life again. It took more than a minute, because the second it got connected to the internet, so many notifications, calls, texts, and social media mentions came up that the iPhone bugged. And again, because I'm not patient enough, I smacked it twice.
This is a moment where I hate to be popular on social media. They are all probably going insane because I haven't posted in months, and I used to post every day, be it on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or TikTok. I go by Choi Yeji online, my Korean name, though I speak in Korean, Bulgarian, and English in it, and sometimes in other languages too. My life was very private, but I had some posts with my family on holidays and special dates, and countless posts with Kit and halmeoni, since she loved the spotlight.
I used to like it, being an influencer and some shit.
But right now I absolutely loath it. I don't want to be online, I don't want the attention, I don't want people trying to butt into my life, I don't want to answer questions, to see people asking me to post again, saying they miss me when they don't even know who I really fucking am. They will ask about Kit, they always do, they love Kit, how could they not? And I'm going to fold and break just by remembering me.
"Come on," I smacked my phone again, feeling the tears burning my skin again. "Stop coming," I yelled at the notifications that were still buzzing my damn phone. "Stop it!" One more smack.
With a side look at where Raibh was, I noticed they were gone.
"Calm down, Missy," uncle whispered carefully.
"I don't want to calm down," I yelled, crying. "I want eomma," that made him freeze, both of them, "I want Kit. I want halmeoni and harabeoji. I want my family back. I want them… alive," I shooed my tears away, by force, pressing the back of my hands on my eyes. "Fuck."
But then my phone finally stopped buzzing and we all turned to it.
"Oh my God," I whispered when I saw a notification from eomma glowing at the top of the notification bar, "oh my God," my lips trembled and I swallowed, quickly putting the [10070430] password, that correspond to my and Kit's birthday, on October 7th and April 30th, respectively.
Ignoring everything else, I jumped from my bed and to the ground, making a hand sign for them to stay in the bed, silently asking to see it alone first, then I passed through all the notifications and to eomma's, finding not one, not two, but three audios from her, and by the time marked on them, I could tell she sent them to me 2 hours before the accident.
"What… what is it?" Uncle asked.
"Three… three audios from 2 hours before… they died," I gulped, feeling the tears threatening to fall down again. "Fuck," with shaky hands, I pressed on the first audio, and the sound of her voice that I've desperately wanted to listen to again, broke what was left of my beaten up heart.
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"I don't even know how to start telling you this after everything that happened between us yesterday, Yeji," eomma spoke in Korean. "I guess I should start by telling you to ignore the heavy rain in the background. We just stopped in Serbia and I just woke up, eomma and appa are sleeping, and so is Seojun. I know it may not be what you wanted, to talk to me now after all the shit I blurted to you yesterday, and I totally get if your angry with me, Yeji, it would be understandable. Eomma and appa are angry at me too, I guess I was really a bitch."
"You see," her voice trembled in a way I've never heard before, "An hour after we left Sofia, I went to the bathroom and end up hitting my head in the sink and fainting. Don't ask me how, I have no idea either, and I'm ashamed to even admit such a thing. However… it… it was a good things. All of my memories, the ones I lost, came hushing into my mind with it."
"I… I'm sorry for being a horrible person to you all of those years, Yeji. I don't know what will happen, but I have a dreadful feeling flooding my gut, and you know how I'm scared of storms. I guess I just needed to be honest for once and not take my chances without telling you how I feel and all I just remembered. You've always been one to wake up early, so you might be awake when you get this message, though you could also avoid it, since you avoid everything when you're angry. You definitely took that from me," she laughed anxiously and ended the first audio.
"Silas. That's your appa's name," she began the second one, now in English, with that adorable Bulgarian accent she was never able to get rid off. "We fell in love in a winter, in January, in St. Moritz, Switzerland. As we both had stuff to do in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, we went there together, and we stayed there for some months, it was where you were made," I couldn't help cringing at it. "He was the most gorgeous men I've ever seen in my entire life, and he loved me for as long as we were together. I only told him that my name was Felicity Nosht, maybe that's why he was never able to find me, since I go by Hana Choi in all of my social medias and work."
"We didn't share social media, we were too busy living reality to bother with any of that, but that was a mistake, as we can tell. He did tell me his full name, Silas Sutherland Salvatore Solomon III," she chuckled in a lovely manner I never saw her doing. "Quite obnoxious, no? Italian and American, he's mixed, and you take after him a lot. Your Asian traces are mine, of course, but everything else is his. Not your height though, he was absolutely tall, like, 198cm. I have no idea where you took your shortness from," another laugh, this time mockingly. Sounding more like me.
"He lives in the United States. At least he used to. Chicago, Illinois, is what he once told me, though I never really told him I was from Sofia. Another mistake from my part," she swallowed. "He was filthy rich like our family, and weird, I guess that's why you came out all freaky like that," she chuckled again. "He was a widow, and had a son who took his name, and I bet that obnoxious men added the IV at the end of it. Your appa was the loveliest men I've met, and he knew I was pregnant, but I had gotten a call from eomma, needing me in Sofia, and I ran to her, back to Bulgaria, seven months pregnant of you and your sister, when he was out working."
A long silence came from her and I could only hear her sobbing a bit, "The phone number I shared with him was one of my untraceable ones, he had no way to find me, and… it's all my fault. The accident I had was in the airport, I felt down the roller stairs, hit my head, lost all my memories of the last year, and got into early labor… he… he was supposed to be with me, but because of my stupidity… he…" eomma struggled. "You appa must have gone insane trying to find me, find you. Fuck, who knows? He might be as crazy as I have been all these years."
"After you were born, I received countless calls for an unknown number in my untraceable number, but I thought it was someone I had pissed off hacking and I threw away the chip," her voice broke again. "Fuck, he probably thinks I ran from him, I abandoned him, that I was playing with him, because I disappeared pregnant of his twin daughters without a trace and he was never able to find his way back to me. So, Missy, I need you. I need you to look into him, to contact him, while I go after this clue on your sister's whereabouts."
"We need to work together, Missy, you're the only one who can help me, you're the only hacker skilled enough to help me, because I taught you myself, and I'm sorry if I forced this on you, and the whole jumping years in schools, not making friends, and going to MIT early. But I need you, Yeji. With your help, we'll be able to be a family like we were supposed to be. Me, you, your appa, Ari, Kit, eomma, appa, and your older brother. You go after your appa, I'll go after your sister, we meet half-way. Can you put our fight aside and help your eomma? Please?" She ended the 2nd audio.
The 3rd one was sent more than two hours after the second one, and when it began, eomma had switched from English to Bulgarian.
"I'm sorry, seems like I'm a human too, I have tears, and my heart is broken. I… I'm sorry, Yeji, for all I did to you, for how I treated you, for how I neglected you, for all the mean shit I threw at you, for how I wasn't there for you, for how I didn't help you when you most needed me. Sorry for yesterday, sorry for not hugging you when you broke, for not cheering you for burning your ex's place for cheating on you. I would have done the same. And I'm sorry… I'm sorry for lying."
"I didn't mean what I said. I didn't mean it. I… I would never throw you away, I don't hate you, I don't regret having you as my daughter, I don't blame you for not disappearing with your sister. I was… I was a bitch, and I'm sorry for slapping your face, for ever harming you physically, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done that, and I know apologizing won't heal the wounds I caused on your soul, the cracks in your heart. It's all my fault, I was the one who was throwing my anger with myself on you."
"And,"
"Auntie," Kit spoke, his voice shaky. "The storm is getting worse, I'm scared, halmeoni and harabeoji are asleep. I miss noona."
Eomma swallowed, "Come here, Kit," came a sound of her picking him up, "if you stay with auntie, you will stay safe, okay? I'm talking with Missy right now, do you want to talk to her?"
"Are you sending an audio to Missy?" She hummed in agreement, and his voice came closer. "Noona, I miss you, I wish you were here with me, why did you fight with auntie yesterday? You should be here with us, what if I see your twin before you do? Won't you be bitter? I would. Aunt said we'll be home in a week, it'll be sad to spend another week away from you, it was already painful to stay away from you when you left for MIT, and…. Auntie? Are you crying? Noona, auntie is crying, she's not a reptile without emotions like you theorized," eomma gasped to that.
"Mischief!" Eomma growled embarrassed. "Okay, maybe I deserve that. Don't worry, Kit, those are good tears. We'll be together in a week and you will be able to hug your sister again, yeah? If everything works out, we'll be an even bigger family by then, right, Mischief?"
"We will?" Kit beamed and my heart shattered to dust.
"Yes, yes," she giggled softly through the tears and the sound of lightning came even closer to them, making them squeak. "Better wrap it up before the signal dies. Find them, Yeji, I'm counting on you. I love you, daughter, I'm sorry for not saying it before."
"We love you, Missy," Kit added.
"Yes, we do. She's our," she stopped as a painfully loud sound of metal and screams came from all directions. "Find them, Mischief, you have to find-" mom cried, her voice growing desperate, scared, and the audio ended abruptly with a scream from Kit, getting mixed with everyone else's.
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"No… no… eomma… Kit…" I cried, shaking my phone, but there was nothing more. "No… no… Noooooooo!" I screamed, crying.
The last thing I remember before passing out was uncle Daniel and aunt Sofija hugging me tight, kneeling on the ground at my side as I broke again, and again, and again.