TIMING: Present day LOCATION: Daiyu's home SUMMARY: There are only three reasons for Inna to call: weddings, funerals and babies. CONTENT WARNING: Child death
In the decade since Daiyu had cut contact with her family, there had been few and far between moments where she had spoken to her siblings. A few texts, here and there, sparse moments of awkward contact. There were days where she longed for that kind of proximity, where she hoped that she’d either gather the courage to message her sister or brother, or either of them would. Phone calls were even more rare. She could count those on one hand.
So when her phone lit up, ringtone breaking through the silence of her home and her sister’s name blinked at her from the screen, Daiyu felt frozen. Contact that direct usually meant there was a death in the family. That, or someone had gotten married, or someone had gotten a kid. Weddings, funerals and babies, those were causes that demanded a call from time to time.
For a moment she stared at her phone. She had been half asleep, rubbing Nugget’s belly while sprawled on the couch. Her body was reeling from an intense hunt, her skin tired and her calves aching from how she had sprinted. But now that Inna was calling, she was wide awake. She sat up, Nugget pushed aside carefully, and took her phone. She would pick up, in just a second. She just needed to recalibrate for a moment.
Before the ringing could end, she answered the phone. “Inna?”
“Hey.”
Something was wrong. She heard it from the inflection of that hey. Almost a decade had passed, and she still was able to hear when Inna was cracking. Probably because it was so rare to her hear sister emote.
“Hey,” Inna said again. She was quiet for a moment. “You never came.”
Daiyu frowned, pushed herself up from the couch. Phone pressed between her shoulder and ear, she moved to pull her hair in a ponytail, walking to the fridge. “To what?”
“Any of it. A birthday or … Christmas, or any of it.”
She heard the slur in her sister’s voice. Inna drank, but not the way most of their family did. She drank for the social etiquette of it. For the taste — she was a self described wine connoisseur and a snooty one that that. She did not get drunk, at least not where people could witness it. She did not lose control. Not like that, and not in any other way either.
“You know —”
“Why? Yeah. Because you’re still afraid of dad. Because you’re a child in adult’s clothing who thinks moving hundreds of miles away even means anything. I don’t care. You should have come, just once.” There was the sound of liquid pouring. “When he turned ten, for example. Or any other time. The age doesn’t matter. Not like ten is any more important than nine or eight. There were so many fucking times you could have come. When Lena was born. When … we could have figured something out. Sasha …” She was taking a sip, now. “Why didn’t you?”
“Why are you being a bitch about this now?” Daiyu could feel dread curl in her stomach. Her sister called for three things, only. A wedding and another child seemed off the table.
Closing her eyes, she leaned against the fridge door. She remembered Sasha as a pink shrimp-like baby. Her first nephew. The child that made her an aunt, rather than just a waste of a sister. She had not known him long. She had held him, had been afraid of dropping him, of ruining his not-fully-formed head. She had looked at him and wondered how this child would grow into a hunter. She remembered her sister, round and angry in pregnancy but glowing with pride when she looked down at her son. She remembered that all the toys she’d bought were not yet age appropriate. She had not stuck around to see Sasha grow old enough to play with them. Just a few weeks after he’d turned one year old, she’d left.
Inna was drinking on the other side of the line. “You know why.”
Her sister sounded small. She did not remember many times where she had sounded small. Inna did not lose control, nor did she lose posture. Daiyu was quiet. That too, was rare. But they were no longer in their parental home, where making noise seemed to be the only power she had left. So she remained quiet.
“She killed him,” her sister admitted after a while. This was her tactic. Silence to draw out the truth. “We were out on a hunt. One of his first. A simple one. I’m … going out with him.” Unsaid went the reference to all the times their father had sent them out alone. All the ways in which he’d primed them for ruthless hunterdom. “I was. It was us, and Esha, and … and some others. He was hiding, was just gonna watch us, but this siren got him, she got him, and her fucking song …”
Daiyu was quiet now, but not in a way to draw out the truth. She did not know what to say. She felt struck. Inna was taking another sip. It crackled through the silence.
“She ripped out his heart.”
Daiyu turned around, back pressed against the fridge. She let herself slide down towards the ground. She opened her mouth. Why did you call me, she wanted to ask.
It wasn’t like Daiyu had ever been much of a comfort to her sister. At least not in recent years. But there were those fuzzy childhood memories, of Inna’s tears on her pillowcase. Of their fingers linked. Of Daiyu knocking at her bedroom door or vice versa. Of holding her after her first heartbreak. Of Inna coming to her, pregnant and worried about raising a child after all they had gone through as children. Of the text she had sent when pregnant with the second, even more worried. Of all the unsent texts that had disappeared from Daiyu’s own phone.
When Daiyu thought of her sister, she imagined a closed door, but maybe that wasn’t fair. The door had been opened plenty of times, by either party. She still remembered the way they held hands. Hers on top, Inna’s below. How they’d swing their arms in tandem. She remembered the fact that Inna had taught her to braid her hair, once, and that she still used those lessons weekly.
There was also something her uncle had said, once. About her having a bigger heart than most of them. About having to guard that, but not so closely that nothing would be let in.
She swallowed the comment. She knew it was cruel. She knew that even with all those miles between them, she could not be that evasive of this grief. “I’m sorry, Inna.” Her voice was small too now. Daiyu pulled her knees up to her chin, leaned her head on them. “Do you …”
“Don’t,” she muttered. “You don’t have to come.” Daiyu wondered how Inna still knew exactly what she was going to say. “I don’t want … no scene, nothing at the funeral.” There was a tick then, something moving in her sister’s throat. She recognized it as a choked down sob.
“Alright,” Daiyu said. “Okay.” A beat. “What about the siren?”
Inna sounded more clear than she had all evening when she answered that question. “That, I’ve got handled.” And despite herself, Daiyu felt a semblance of fondness for her sister’s ruthlessness.
