"Jacek?" Yuki called him softly. He did not respond to her and neither did he look at her. Yuki placed a hand on Jacek's which was reaching out to pick a book.
"I know you are upset because I went to meet someone like the duke without discussing it with you first. It was dangerous, I know. But it still turned out well didn't it. Was this not the outcome we both wanted?"
Jacek looked up from the books and into Yuki's anxious face. She tilted her head innocently when their eyes met.
"Do you think I am unhappy about the result?" Jacek asked with a discernible frown
"No! I am sure you are glad everything turned out how it did."
"Precisely! Everything turned out well, but Yuki, did you stop to think of a counter outcome? Did you stop for a second to think of how dangerous that venture was? Did you?" Jacek chided and redrew his hand from under Yuki's.
She had no words to refute her brother. She knew it was a risky gamble when she went to see the duke, but did she have a better option?
Yuki drew her hand to herself and fidgeted with her dress while avoiding Jacek's scolding gaze. "I promised the Duke I wouldn't be reckless anymore, rest assured, I plan to follow through with that promise," she tried to appease her brother with her new resolve.
"You had to promise a stranger that you wouldn't put yourself in any more danger before you actually refrain from periling yourself? Yuki, does that make sense to you? How little do you regard your own safety? How little do you regard your life?"
Yuki stiffened. Her heartbeat hastened as a memory she had buried deep in her mind resurfaced upon hearing Jacek's last sentence. "Who doesn't value their lives, Jacek?" Yuki feigned a laugh, turned away from Jacek and continued the book arrangements. It was an awful attempt to avoid Jacek's eyes.
"Is there something you are hiding from me?" Jacek approached Yuki and gently turned her around to look at him. "Tell me, Yuki. I want to know," he spoke tenderly as if to coax his sister.
Jacek always wanted to question Yuki about why it seemed so easy for her to make reckless decisions concerning her life. The thought had always been on his mind. And even though he never had the opportunity to ask her as he was unsure how to, he perceived that side of her as one of her many quirks.
That side of Yuki was the sole thing Jacek hated about his sister. She made decisions concerning her life as if she was born with several lives! It was as though she barely cared what could befall her or as though she had been promised some divine protection from heaven.
Yuki was perceptive and smart; Jacek knew she could grasp the full picture of what could potentially happen to her by the decisions she made. Yet, she went through with most of her unruly choices anyway. Sometimes, he wondered if she intentionally put herself in harm's way or if she did not mind getting hurt or even dying.
Yuki tried to avoid Jacek's eyes but he was adamant on having her look at him. "I will forgive your betrayal if you tell me what is on your mind now," Jacek promised.
"Can I tell you when I want to?" Yuki tried to compromise with a frown while averting her eyes from Jacek's.
"You don't look like you will ever tell me, Yuki. You gave me your word that you will hide nothing from me."
"And this is something even I try to hide from myself. I don't think about it. I do not comprehend it. I know not how to word it, Jacek."
Jacek placed his hand on her head and stroked it gently, "Say it in whatever way you want, I will decipher whatever you say. I want to know what it is that causes you to wear an expression like this. Or have we not reached the point where we share our burden?"
"It is always my burdens though. I am always the one whose burden you share," Yuki's face dropped.
Jacek lifted her chin, "does it matter? All that matters is the relief I feel knowing you do not face any distress on your own. I am your big brother, Yuki, that is my duty."
Yuki stared into Jacek's auburn eyes and saw nothing but sincerity. She stood from the floor and walked towards Jacek's opened window. Her eyes stared off into a distance.
"You know how I say I am not normal right?" Yuki questioned with a blank look.
"And I told you to stop saying that! Nothing is wrong with you." Jacek frowned, rose from the floor as well and joined Yuki in front of the window.
A faint smile crept onto Yuki's passive face when she heard Jacek's usual response. She wished that what he said was the truth. She wished she was normal like he assumed.
"Have you never wondered why I do not have any scars on my body?" Yuki glanced at her brother who returned her gaze with slightly parted lips and raised brows.
"But you never obtained any serious wound though," Jacek stated while trying to recall the few times Yuki got hurt, if there were any.
"Then, have you never wondered why I do not fall sick?"
"I rarely get sick myself, Yuki. Are these what make you think you are not normal?" Jacek's expression calmed by bits.
A sad smile formed on Yuki's lips before she turned to look out the window again.
"I have never fallen sick in my life, not once, for as long as I remember. And also, I have been hurt before; I have obtained injuries both small and serious before. But the wounds disappear the same day the appear. Ever since I was a child, my wounds healed at an unnatural pace, without any traces that could remain as scars."
A deafening silence permeated the air that sat between the siblings after Yuki's disclosure.
"I never knew that," Jacek stated. Thinking back, he realized he had indeed, never seen Yuki with wounds; not to talk of scars. He had never paid attention to that fact because Yuki was heedful by nature and also because she was not a very active person. Thus, to Jacek, it was normal that someone who almost never made mistakes, did not sustain injuries or scars.
"But still, having an uncanny healing ability is not reason enough to be so reckless. It isn't like you cannot be killed just because you heal quickly!" Jacek tried to remain composed despite how strange Yuki's ability were.
"When mother disappeared, I was not myself-
Yuki held her brother's eyes. her face was deprived of any major expressions, though there was a determined look lingering in her eyes as she stared at Jacek. It was the kind of determination one had when they finally mustered courage to make a grand confession.
"My mother's disappearance was the most difficult moment in my life. It was like my entire world had collapse and I hated it. I stopped thinking straight; I was not thinking at all." Yuki muttered more to herself than Jacek.
Her hands grasped the window frame, her fingers wrapping around the cold wood. Yuki's gaze was fixed on some distant point outside, her eyes unfocused as her mind drifted back to a memory she would rather forget. As the unpleasant recollection surfaced, her grip on the window frame tightened, her knuckles whitening with tension.
Yuki's eyes narrowed, her brows furrowing in distress, as if the mere act of remembering was a physical pain. For a moment, she stood there, frozen in time, her hands clenched on the window frame like a lifeline. The world outside receded, and all that existed was the painful memory and her own tense, rigid body.