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"Hey."
Mira is about to walk through the front entrance to her building when she hears his voice, clear and sharp and exactly the same as the last time she heard it, nearly eight years ago. She freezes in place and whips her head around to look at him.
Minho.
He's standing in the shadow of the building just outside the reach of the automatic door sensor. He's dressed in an understated fashion and in dark neutral colors, but the cut and quality of his clothing is a silent signal to his wealth. He's older and his shoulders are a little more broad than she remembers, but he's still whip thin with a narrow face that echoes their father.
Mira turns from the door but doesn't move closer to him. The automatic door closes and then opens again with a pneumatic hiss. "How did you fucking find me?"
Minho's deadpan expression and gesture toward the side of the building where Huntr/x is displayed prominently is his only response.
Mira sneers. "That's not what I mean and you know it."
"You're my little br-," he cuts himself off and chews on his lower lip for a second. "You're my little sister. I'd know you anywhere."
"Fuck you, man." Mira prepares to pivot right back around and walk into her building where he can't follow her but the slightly frantic edge to his voice slows her down.
"Wait, look, I'm not asking you for anything. I just wanted to give you this." He takes one quick step toward her but doesn’t come closer as he holds out a fancy envelope made of thick cardstock. "There's going to be a media announcement tomorrow, but I didn't want you to find out that way."
Mira eyes the envelope like it might bite her. She doesn't reach out to take it but Minho continues to leave it extended. "Did Father die or something?"
Minho snorts. "No, not yet." He wiggles the envelope at her. "It's a pregnancy announcement."
"You conned some poor woman into marrying you?" Mira knew he was married of course. It was announced two years ago and as much as she doesn't care to hear about her family, their prominence makes that almost impossible in some cases.
Instead of blowing up, Minho just rolls his eyes and almost smiles. "Damn, you're still an asshole."
"Takes one to know one." Mira snatches the envelope from him.
Minho takes another single step closer and in a conspiratorial tone that she hasn't heard since they were much younger says, "We haven't told mother and father yet, but it's a girl. We're naming her Bobae."
Mira arches a brow. "Cute. Father's going to be livid."
Minho shrugs. "If we have a boy some day we'll use the generational name. He'll get over it."
"Where did this backbone come from?" She can't quite keep the bitterness from her tone. He had never been so brave when they were children. Maybe the military had given him some balls.
Minho sighs and looks away. "That day, I really was worried about you. And I knew Father would be angry, but I thought he would help you. I know we didn't get along, but you were still my younger sibling. It was my job to help you and take care of you and I didn't do that. I let my jealousy get the best of me."
Mira scoffs. "Jealousy? What the hell are you talking about? You were the clear favorite." Of course, being the favorite hadn't saved him from the belt or the backhand.
"You were so much better than me at everything! Like with taekwondo. You didn't even try and you still just dog walked everyone. I know you lost on purpose. I could tell. You would make the most rookie mistake possible when you decided you were done. I couldn't ever make it past the semi finals and I tried so hard." He scratches at the back of his neck. "Father would tell me how much better you were, how you were more deserving of the company, and it would just make me so angry."
"Father really said those things? He always told me how you were the best and how I could never measure up to you. Everything you did was a priority and everything I was doing was a burden."
Mira wasn't sure she could believe anything he was saying but it also wouldn't exactly surprise her to hear they were true. Their parents had fostered an environment of competition between them and every infraction had been punished physically. They had also kept them from interacting with each other as much as possible once Mira had started school. It would track for their father to be playing them against one another.
Minho chuckles without humor. "Sounds like some shit he would pull." He tugs at his shirt collar. Mira watches his fidgeting with a critical eye. He seems nervous and uncomfortable, not exactly the ideal image of a Kang. He keeps glancing off to the side where a car with dark windows is idling. Suspicious.
While they've been talking, the door to the building continued to open and close at regular intervals, and though Mira hadn't paid it any attention, her security team had.
"Mira-nim?" Mira looks up to see the towering form of Bowtie, her personal security leader, standing in the doorway. "Do you need assistance?" He eyes Minho guardedly.
"No, it's okay," Mira steps out of range of the door sensor. "Sorry about the door."
Bowtie nods and points just to the inside of the building. "I'll be right here if you need me." He steps out of sight but the aura of his presence radiates from behind the glass.
Minho glances back at the car again.
Mira could guess at who he's looking at, but whoever it is doesn't seem keen to join them. "Do Mother and Father know?" She’s concerned about his sudden reappearance in her life, the way he just walked up to her on the street. If that’s something she’s going to have to start worrying about with her parents she’s going to have to get Bobby on it right away.
"Know what?"
"Who I am." It's her turn to gesture at the side of the building.
Minho shrugs a little. "If they do, they've never said anything to me. They say you're dead. In fact when I came back from serving that's what they told me. That you had died from an overdose on the streets. There's an empty grave for you in the family plot."
Mira laughs. "Wow." Honestly though, that's probably for the best. When she ran and was spirited away to Jeju Island with Celine that had been floated as a possibility.
"Yeah, so imagine my surprise when I saw you on a billboard the next year. You looked so different, but still, I knew it was you." His smile looks a little uncomfortable. "You look..." he pauses and seems to wrestle with his words, "right. When we were kids you were always so sour and angry, for good reason, but now you look confident. I'm really proud of you."
Mira scowls. "I don't need your validation or your pride." How dare he, honestly. They hardly had a relationship before she left home and here he is trying to make some sort of claim to her? So he'd thought she was dead for two years? What was he doing for the past six? He certainly hadn't tried to reach out to her.
Minho takes a step back and holds up his hands in a placating gesture. "I know, but you have it anyway." He stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. "I'm not asking for your forgiveness or for us to become the best siblings ever. I really did just want to give you the announcement. And, I guess, let you know that I see you. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good brother."
"Why now? If you've known for six years, why now?" Mira tries to keep her tone even. She can feel the familiar rage building up behind her ribs, that desire to lash out that he always inspired in her.
Minho rounds his shoulders. The guilt is clear in his expression. "Because of the baby. I'm going to be a father, and it's gotten me thinking a lot about how we were raised and how I failed and how Father failed us. And I don't want to be like him. I want to treat my baby with all the support she deserves but I felt like I couldn't do that if I didn't reach out and try to make amends, I guess."
Mira grips the envelope tighter and taps it against her thigh. She can feel how tight her face is and knows her expression is probably unpleasant. She takes a deep breath and tries to relax. Minho always did have a way with riling her up. "Well thanks, I guess. And congratulations."
Minho sees it for the dismissal it is and does a weird little bow to her which Mira does not respond to. He's about to turn around and head for the car when Mira calls out one last question.
"How did you know it was me if I really look different?"
Minho pauses with his hand on the door handle. She can practically smell his brain cooking with how hard he's thinking. "I guess it's just a feeling. Like, your eyes and nose are still the same shape, but you look so much more ...free. I mean, honestly?"
Mira nods.
"You look exactly like chinhalmeoni."
Mira recoils in shock. "No, I do not!"
Minho laughs. "You do! I swear. It's uncanny."
"Shut up." Mira rolls her eyes. Of course he would try to tease her, that's what he always did. She's surprised to note that it actually doesn't upset her the way she thought it would. There's worse things than being told you look like an old lady, at least he didn't point out how much she looks like their father.
Minho laughs again. "Good luck, Mira. Maybe I'll see you around."
Mira doesn't want to examine why the sound of her name in her brother's voice makes her want to cry. She nods at him and walks away into the safety of her building.
She feels like her face is burning. She makes it to the elevator and lets the doors close before she breaks down. She can't hold the sobs in any more and by the time the elevator reaches the penthouse she's barely staying upright.
She makes it two steps out of the elevator before she falls to her knees in the entrance hall and curls forward until her forehead hits the floor with a wail. She's crying with enough force and sound that she doesn't even realize she isn't alone until Zoey's hands are on her shoulders. She jerks away on instinct and curls further into a ball.
Zoey doesn't give up though and Mira is eventually handled into her girlfriend's lap. Mira can feel her tears and drool and snot soaking into Zoey's shoulder but she can't stop crying. She's gasping for air and the noises she's making sound animalistic. But Zoey's arms are strong around her and she doesn't do anything but rock her and whisper soft words into her ear that she can barely hear or comprehend.
"I'm here. It's okay. Let it out, baby. I've got you." Still, just the sound of her voice, the feeling of their bodies pressed together, and the comforting familiarity of her scent was enough to start calming her racing heart. It still takes a while for her to calm down enough to respond to Zoey's questions about what happened, and she's so physically and emotionally drained that she can't even get the full story out.
"He called me his sister," she manages brokenly into Zoey's neck. "He said my name. He said he was sorry."
“Minho was here?”
“Outside.”
“Okay, okay. What do you need, sweetie?”
“Sedate me!” Mira wails, clutching at the front of Zoey’s shirt.
The elevator opens behind them. Mira doesn't look up but she can feel Zoey relax under her.
"Thank God, help me get her up."
Mira recognizes Rumi's touch as she's shifted from Zoey's lap into Rumi's arms, so she doesn't fight. Rumi is tacky with sweat and wearing her workout clothes, either Zoey texted her or she felt a disturbance in the Honmoon that brought her back upstairs from the gym. She's not winded at all though and lifts Mira up bridal style without any trouble.
Mira ends up in bed, cradled by her girlfriends on each side and sipping weakly at a cup of chamomile tea, which is as close to sedation as she's probably going to get.
Rumi and Zoey don’t push for her to talk but she ends up telling them anyway. She’s never felt the need to go into much detail about her childhood, but she finds herself sharing some funny things she remembers. Times when Minho was a good brother, rare though they were, or times when she absolutely was being a menace of a younger sibling spill out in a wave of memory. She doesn’t mention her parents much at all if she can avoid it.
It hurts. There’s a physical tightness in her chest when she talks about it. But it also feels good to get it out, like releasing a pressure valve or excising a poison.
It doesn’t feel like forgiveness, exactly. Mira’s not sure she’ll ever be able to forgive it. It feels more like closing a book at the end of a story. It’s all still there, but it’s over now, and if she doesn’t want to look at it again, she doesn’t have to.
And then she remembers the envelope. She dropped it in the entryway. Zoey goes to fetch it for her. She and Rumi nestle her between them while she opens it. While it’s very clearly made of quality materials, the contents are fairly standard. The names of her brother and his wife, the expected due date, and a copy of the ultrasound picture. It’s small and grainy but the outline of a little face is visible.
“You’re going to be an aunt,” Zoey whispers. She reaches out and traces the face in the photo reverently.
“Am I, though?” Mira asks. She’s not sure how she feels other than drained. “Just knowing about her doesn’t really make me an aunt, right? If I don’t show up for her or participate in her life, I’m just someone that she’s related to.”
“What do you want? Do you want to be part of her life?” Rumi leans her head on Mira’s shoulder.
“I don’t know.” Mira sighs deeply. “Kind of? But also, no? I feel like it would be dangerous, because my parents are going to be around too.”
“Fair,” Rumi comments. “Though, not forever.”
Mira snorts. “Dark.”
“It’s not like you have to decide right away,” Zoey points out. “She’s not due for half a year.”
“Minho said he wasn’t asking me for anything, but why even bother, if that’s the case? Can I trust that he was being honest?” Mira sinks down in the bed and stares up at the ceiling.
“What reason would he have to lie, really? He’s in a much better position in your family with you ‘dead’ so it wouldn’t be advantageous to him to bring attention to you.” Rumi, as always, tries to be the voice of reason. But she didn’t grow up with him. She never experienced the levels of pettiness Minho could sink to.
Of course, that’s when they were kids. They’re adults now.
Zoey pulls the announcement out of her hand and sets it on the bedside table before curling up beside her and tucking herself under Mira’s chin. “Honestly, maybe it’s not even about you. Maybe he just wanted to make himself feel better. Like, he sought you out, he apologized, he extended an offer. That’s all he can do right? He can’t make you forgive him, but he can say to himself that he tried.”
Mira hums an acknowledgement. “Yeah, I guess.”
“And then, if you decide to stay in contact with him, then it worked out, and if you don’t, well that’s that and he can go on with his life knowing that he did what he could. Plus, he gets the satisfaction of being better than your father.”
“Something that we both want,” Mira concedes.
“Something that you have achieved in spades,” Rumi corrects.
Mira groans and scrubs at her face. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let's finish that K-drama from yesterday.”
Zoey rubs Mira’s belly. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Mira sits up and helps Zoey up as well. “I’m done with this for now.” She doesn’t want to spend the rest of the evening thinking about her old family. She has plenty more she could be doing with her current one.
~
Two weeks later an inconspicuous letter arrives in the mail. It's addressed to Mira and the return address is one she doesn't recognize. Inside there are two photos and a sticky note. One is a clipping of her from her most recent Vogue Korea shoot and the other is a photograph that was taken long enough ago that the colors are pale and soft. She recognizes her paternal grandparents in their wedding clothes immediately. She walked past this exact photo in the hallway of her family home every day for sixteen years, often enough for it to just become part of the scenery.
The note says simply: I told you so!
She looks back at the face of her grandmother, the same age as Mira is now. She tries not to see it, Minho being right about something is a little galling, but it's hard to ignore the truth. The woman in the photo looks as if Mira had dyed her hair back to black and stepped backwards in time.
She shows the girls of course. They both make the appropriate sounds of amazement as they each drape themselves over her shoulders.
"Now I know what you'll look like in a hanbok," Zoey says lightly enough, but her tone carries a hint of promise.
"Oh, is that right? Making plans, huh?" Mira reaches up and links their fingers.
Zoey shrugs and puts on an innocent expression. "Maybe."
“Not if I make plans first,” Rumi ribs, poking at Zoey’s cheek.
Mira pins the picture to the cork board over her vanity, just as a visual reminder that actually, she doesn’t look like her father. She looks like her grandmother.
She sends an unreasonable number of different sized diapers to the address on the envelope.