Pressing my lips together, I sighed, "I'm not stupid, and I'm no freshman to grief. I know killing myself won't take me to where they are, and won't be good. But the pain… the pain, I cannot handle it. It's too much. If losing aunt Harmony and uncle Julien when I was little took a piece of me away and hurt like hell, losing the rest of my family, all at once, killed the Mischief I was then."
I passed a hand over my cascading wavy black hair, but I couldn't even get my fingers through given how tangled it is. I'm such a ness. And if I have no way back to Sofia for now, I'll have to keep my shit together to hide how much of a mess I actually am, from them. They already saw me being disastrous last time, I can't let that happen again.
"The pain of a heartbreak doesn't even begins to compare, because then I could explode and blame them for my pain, blame their disloyalty. That helped me move on, it motivated me to get through the pain. When aunt and uncle died, it was because of the other driver who hit their car, who was on drugs and drunk, and died on the accident. I was able to blame him, that made it easy to get through the pain, to hate him and his family, and to find a way to fuck his family up, even if that was not very good."
I took a deep breath, calming myself as best I can, "But with this? Who can I blame for the train accident? For their deaths? Where do I focus my wrath and pain at? Who can I torment for it, but myself?" I caressed Kit's vase with his ashes, caressing him. "I know eomma wasn't the best mother to me, far from that, but she was still the one I had, with all of her flaws and mistakes, she was still my eomma. Sure, I regret all of our fights and conflicts and her actions towards me, but hurt people hurt others."
"I was not to blame, but eomma didn't know anyone else but me to put the blame on, because my living presence reminded her of my lost sister, of appa who she had no memory of. It was either blaming me or blaming herself, for losing her memories, for losing Ari, for not being put together, for not having control over her own emotions. Had she blamed herself, she wouldn't be able to stand up, to kept going, to focus on finding Ari even though she had no clue at all and had to begin from nothing."
"The key to everything was her lost memories, that's what hurts the most, because that one small event, caused everything to go wrong for her, for me. That menacing woman she acted like, was not her, that was not who she really was, it was just that she didn't know how to be herself anymore. She didn't feel like it was right to be lovely to me, when my sister could be on the streets, unconscious, being trafficked, on drugs, being abused, on an orphanage alone… she thought about all the worse possibilities, and that took a tool on her."
"Halmeoni and harabeoji were also lost. They had lost their lovely daughter and son-in-law, and then, they had also lost eomma in a certain way, she was there but always out of reach, and that broke them. Then there was me and Kit, their technically orphan grandchildren, I was the one who suffered the most because of everything, and I did my all to shield Kit from it all, so he wouldn't be as miserable as I was. I took him like an younger brother, and did my all to be an almost motherly figure to him, even when I was out of Sofia, I would call him every day in video."
"He was too young when his parents passed away, so his memories of it were hazy, thankfully, he didn't suffered too much. But he found his safe place in me, and he would always come to me, we would help each other, and I would do anything for him. I would always re-teach what his teachers taught him in school, because different from me, he had a hard time leaning it all, he would help me sneak out, I would eat his vegetables and teach him how to fight, so he could play the hero in school and fight against the bullies, because he wanted to win over the girl he had a fat crush on."
"Then, when eomma was giving me her hacking lessons, which she began projecting on me since I was old enough to read and write, which was early, he would always lay down on the couch of eomma's office with his tablet and make me company silently, because he knew how eomma was able to affect me badly like no one else could. He never talked about it, but I know he knew, because he heard eomma fighting me more than a handful times, even though halmeoni always tried to keep him away. Not to be sad for me, or to butt in, so eomma wouldn't yell at him."
"Eomma was… unstable," a ghost of a bitter smile curved my lips. "That's the best word to describe her. She let the pain of the loss consume her, and I can't even blame her," I passed both my hands over my face. "If I'm this mess after losing them, I can't phantom what I would do if I had been the one to lose my baby daughter. I would probably have set the entire world on fire," I chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I would be the world's most known arsonist," turning my eyes to them, I allowed myself to grin for a second, desperately trying to make the pain in their eyes disappear.
"I would have gone ballistic, on a killing spree, and I would have probably tried hitting my head as many times as possible to force my lost memories to come back," I bit the skin of my bottom lip. "I'm definitely more mentally unstable than eomma could possibly be," I do speak with animals, that shit ain't normal. "Not that you don't know… after I lost my shit that day," I avoided their eyes, turning to the vases again. "So, yes, ahjussi, I know that isn't the way, but I don't know another way. I don't know what to do with this… this…" I gestured to my chest, "pain."
"I don't want to feel. I don't want to feel what I'm feeling, the pain, because I don't know what to do with it. It wasn't a mistake from the train makers, or from the initiative that made the railroad, or from any of the passengers, or from the conductor," I clenched my jaw. "It was a fucking storm. Who am I supposed to blame? God?" I snapped.
I'm not foolish enough to blame God for that and-
"We don't know that!" Ari purred, popping up in the door of the closet with another girl who had her arms possessively around Ari's waist. Both in matching hoodies and sweatpants, Ari's in baby blue and the girl's in dark orange. She's slightly shorter than my sister, but also taller than me, with brown skin, waist-length straight black hair, curvy black eyebrows, a thin longer nose, full lips, and big doe light brown eyes.
It doesn't take a genius to know that she's of Indian heritage, and if I'm to connect the dots, I would bet on her being the American-Turkish-Indian I got info on, the 4th daughter of Sera Demirci and Naveen Khan, who turned 18 less than a month ago. I just had no idea she could be my sister's girlfriend, or that Ari also liked girls. Well, the girl is pretty, but I know better than anyone that physical appearance isn't that important.
Instinctively, I took two steps back, again, taken aback by how she is uncanny identical to eomma, except for the blue hair, of course. She does not allow room for anyone to think she likes any other color but blue, that is for sure, even if it's overwhelming. "Ari," I whispered under my breath.
She swallowed, unsure, "Is that how… mom called me? Ari?"
I blinked, confused, I didn't expect her to want anything to do with eomma after being raised by another women. "Choi Ari is your Korean name," I took another step back. "She named you Euphemia Arianne Nosht-Choi, but she only called you Ari."
A soft nod, "Aleena Seraphine Sutherland Salvatore Solomon, this is the name papa gave you. I've always called you Sera."
I froze, absolutely taken aback, "What… what do you mean?"
My sister blinked, "You didn't think mom was the one going crazy after her lost child, did you? Because we've all been looking for you. In a different way, since we are not hackers… not all of us, but still."
"What?" I whispered. "No… no… you didn't. You,"
"It's true," the girl holding my sister exclaimed.
"You… what's your name?" I swallowed.
"Pravya. Pravya Aylin Demirci-Khan," so I was right. "Everyone calls me Aylin," she side glared Dai-Jin, "except that condescending jerk." He just rolled his eyes at her. "Me and the girls' names are all with A. Aylin, Abby, Astrid, Anahit, Aaliyah, and Adèle." I have yet to meet Anahit and Aaliyah. Then she pointed to me softly, "And you, Aleena."
"That's… not my name."
"You call Abby by Ari, it's fair that we call you Sera or Aleena," she reasoned, and this time, I had nothing to say.
"You can do that, but I don't complain if I don't answer," I snapped.
"Can I call you Sera?" My sister asked. "I'll let you call me Ari."
I feel like an animal cornered, even if they aren't threatening me, it feels suffocating. "Okay," I closed my hands in fists, unsure of what to do. "What… what did you mean when you said that?"
"That? What?" She blinked.
"That we don't know if there's really no one to blame for the train accident that killed my family… our…" I swallowed, "our mom," I pointed to the vases and when her eyes went to it, she turned pale.
"Can… can I come closer?" She asked me and I just nodded.
"Just be careful," I warned. If she breaks it, I'll kill her.
"Are those their ashes?" Her voice broke when she asked, and only then did I noticed how she was shaking softly. If… if they really did look for me and eomma, she might have dreamed on meeting her… but now… now she can't, because eomma is gone, and so are eomma's entire family except for us. Maybe… maybe I'm not the only one hurting.
"Yes," I whispered.
"I…" her body shook and our brother hurried to her side, their two girlfriends now waiting for them together with the others, on the other side of the closet. "I don't want to sound selfish to you, Sera… at all… but I… I wish I had met her. I wish… I wish I had hugged her at least once… I wish I could hear her voice… breath in her perfume… I…"
Now I'm feeling shitty. Really shitty. I was a bitch to her.
Cursing, I pressed my back on the mirror I was in and slid down to the ground, hugging my legs, thankful for one of them having dressed me in a black set of an oversized hoodie with sweatpants. I just hope Dai-Jin wasn't the one who changed me, that would be embarrassing, though he definitely saw my body already, given how I was in a white dress when I tried to kill myself, the water definitely don't left much to imagination.
"Oranges, cinnamon, and a hit of mint smoke," I whispered and she turned to me, eyes cloudy, tears blooming in. "That was her scent. She used to smoke at least one mint cigarette a day, and halmeoni used to complain saying she would die from lung cancer if she kept that up… now I kind of wish that was the case. But yes, that was her scent. Her natural scent, since she washed her hair with an orange-scented shampoo, and her body cream was cinnamon-scented," closing my eyes, I felt like I could smell her.
"Though she always tried to covered it with her favorite perfume," I smiled softly at the memory, "The Mugler Alien Goddess which smells like the bergamot from Italy, the jasmines from India, and the vanilla from Madagascar. Did you want to hear her voice?" I opened my eyes again, "It was almost identical to yours, just slightly raspier from smoking. Dying your hair light brown would make you a mirrored version of her, younger."
"Do you… do you have any audio of her voice?" Ari asked.
I swallowed, feeling my strength shake, "You won't want to listen to the ones I have, Ari, I can assure you," I whispered haunted, eyes on the vases with eomma and Kit's ashes. "She was never one to send audios, she used to think voice recording of any kind could be used to use our voice to commit crimes, in the possibility of someone hacking our information. The only three audios I have of her were the ones she recorded in the train, little before she… they…" I swallowed. "Bulgarian, English, and Korean, each audio is in a different language, something I would understand."
"Sera," her voice broke and when my eyes met hers, she was crying and it felt weird, because it was like seeing eomma cry. "Did you… did you hear when she… when she passed? When the accident happened?"
I stared at her, trying to find the right words to say that, but there was only one, only one way, "Yes. Her and… her and Kit. My grandparents were sleeping when it happened according to what Kit said, and since their sleep used to be rock heavy, I have hope that they passed away asleep. I can't say the same for eomma and Kit," I stared at my hands again. "She told me to find you and appa, that's why I hacked you, to find out who he was, I had no idea I would find you here. Had you not been here, I would have tried to retrace eomma's traces to find what she found."
"What did she find?" She asked, an edge in her voice.
"Ari, our mom had gotten in contact with someone who claimed to know about you. I… I'm sorry for screaming at you and losing my mind that day… I don't blame you, I said that because I was angry. It's not your fault that… it's not your fault that they died. She was going to tell me what she found the night before," I swallowed, "but I was angry, I was said, I had just broken up with Drago, caught him cheating with that slut, and burned their cars and that witch's garden down to ashes. I… I fought with her, and,"
"Wait, ajumma," Dai-Jin came to me in a blink, his face puzzled, and I almost gasped when I saw how closer he came to me, "did someone tell your mom to go in that train to Vienna with your family?"