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This is what happens.
"Sorry," Min barely managed to say. The wetness of shameful tears drenched her cheeks. Her chest was stuffy; her tongue tasted salt. Her legs for sore, for no reason aside from the fact they just were. It was embarrassing, but the smell of iron made her dizzy. "I'm sorry."
This is what happens when you lose control.
It had been an accident. An accident, like when dad threatened mom with a kitchen knife, and Min and Jun locked themselves in their bedroom with mom's cellphone after the yelling kept getting louder. Jun called the cops, his shaky little fingers smushing against the little buttons as Min gripped his shoulder in anticipation. They were young, how young, she doesn't remember, but young enough to call the police when their parents were fighting, just because they are scared someone will get hurt.
Two cars came, pulled up to their street in the pitch black of night. Min sat on the arm of her couches as dad explained what happened to the police. This must've been what Jack and the Beanstalk felt, watching these two giants converse. Dad looked calm, but he had not been so a moment ago. A moment ago, his face had an ugly twist, with that drunken red flush crawling about his skin. Min didn't know what he was truly thinking—she never did, not really. He had told the police it was an accident. Liar, Min thought—but in the time itself, she did not say anything, and the police left after writing something down. Liar, she thinks now, disgusted by how easy it had been to say accident. Min doesn't remember going to bed that night. She wonders, what if I had spoken up? What if I insisted they listen to me? Would they even believe me?
How do you lie so easily? Do you believe your own words? How stupid are you to do that?
The bodies of the baby birds are twitching and smeared with red. Min can't bring herself to touch them, can only see herself from an outsider's point of view—crying over the baby birds she just killed, squeezing handfuls of grass and ripping them out. Who would believe this was an accident? Who wouldn't believe would treat the world cruelly too? The lack of their chirping rings in her ears.
It was an accident—Min couldn't say for sure what happened. She was angry, and everything was blurry, and she blinked, and then she was here. It was an accident.
The police asked about the broken glass. Dad said it was an accident.
The broken eggshells, the guts spilled over the sticks. It was an accident.
It had been an accident when Dad spilled all the rice porridge when they were kids. They were arguing, and the pot was boiling, and it all came crashing down with one hateful, jagged wave of his arm. He refused to clean it, but so did Mom, which resulting in Jun and Min doing it. Mom said that comfortable children grow useless, that they didn't know a shred of the labor she had to help her own mother with. They didn't have lunch that day because of what Dad did; dinner came and it felt like a string about to snap. Min remembers burping from a drink of water, earning a glare from mom for that. How dare you. What are you trying to say? Why do you speak at all? Good children will listen and good children will do as told.
Min didn't want to do as she was told, but sometimes she did, anyway. Sometimes screaming and fighting and kicking, no matter how hard you try, couldn't stop you from drowning.
It would be better to not make a sound, to let the clink of soup spoons and chopsticks do the talking of tense silence. She shrunk into her chair—Min didn't like feeling small. She hated feeling small. Smallness made her clench her fists and grit her teeth, fire in her hands and the sun in her eyes. The sensation must be power—power, she had so much of it, it was singed into her blood. Her fists would scald dad's skin—she could do it, if she wanted to.
It was an accident. She was holding onto the fire, and the fire had gotten so hot, it had grown bigger and more wild than her little fingers could grip; the greedy flames licked the sky, reaching for whatever was near. She didn't let the fire go—it burst away from her and ran, down the street and back again, leaping into her heart and burning it so that it became scorched and solemn when she fell to her knees.
There had been a branch, Min recalls—it'd just been a moment ago. She had felt so powerful—was that blind rage? No, but she could see. It wasn't blind. She could see, and she could see herself, but it was a blur. She leapt so high and she pulled and pulled the branch until the nest fell, then she stomped on the eggshells with the chirping baby birds. She remembers Jun, who—seasons before—had told her about how they were so lucky as to have a robin select their frontyard as a place to build a nest. What does that dumb bird know, Min had thought. This is my house. Go build somewhere else. Why would you want to live in a place like this?
Min didn't want to tell Jun. She had gotten mad, it was an accident—no, it wouldn't matter. Accidents happened all the time, and the memories still stick to them sorely. Jun wouldn't want to talk to her after finding out she's the reason a mama bird would go home to a bloody massacre nest. Diya would hate her—she just would, which is why she won't tell her either. They wouldn't want to be around her. Who would want to be with her, if she did things like this and called them accidents? Jun would think she was just like their dad. Min didn't want him to think that.
There's blood on her hands. Min has to dig a hole, a deep one, so that no one will see this, so no one will know her shame. If no one else knows it, then there is no more shame.
"I'm really sorry." She dropped the bodies into the dirt, and it feels too careless. She buried the rest in the hole with as much gentleness she can manage, a cheap copy of the word's actual meaning.
Diya wouldn't have an accident like this. She would've treated the baby birds with all the world's care. Diya's like a princess—she's kind, she would've loved those birds—when they were alive. They would fly to her, and rest in the cup of her gentle hands. Diya is a princess, and Min is a bad person who wants to call herself a knight. Min's hands are cruel; they can only break precious things, which will make people made at her, which will make her mad at them.
How much do you forget in an accident? Min doesn't remember what had made the fire so agitated. It's probably bad if she doesn't remember what makes her lose control. She's bad at this—a mother has lost her children, just because she's bad at this.
They can't know about this. Even if I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to do it. But I did it. I think there's something wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with me. It was an accident.
"—I'm sorry," Min said to the pile of dirt. She sounds miserable—she shouldn't, she was the one who killed them. She took the nest, sticks woven into sticks, and ran away—to go throw it where she hoped no one would find. She's angry at herself, but now she feels more sad than angry. When it comes to her parents, she likes to feel more angry at them than sad, because the roaring fire in her chest makes her bigger and stronger. Min is not sure what she wants, when the anger is for herself, and then it just loops back to her being sad. She doesn't get pity. She doesn't like being sad.
"My parents don't really love each other," Min told Diya, hiding under Diya's star patterned blanket. Min shined the flashlight in Diya's eyes—Diya recoiled, and reached out to turn the flashlight away. When she saw Min's face, she realized it had been a distraction. "So I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't really love me or Jun—but they say they do. They said they love us."
Diya looked at Min sadly. She didn't know what to say—she wished she did. Maybe if she were stronger, she could lift Min's heavy heart. She wanted to—she really wanted to.
"I like being with you," Min continued, avoiding Diya's gaze. "I-I— I lo… I want to be with you forever. But what if I love like my parents?"
Diya took Min's hand. You don't, she wanted to say. You love like a wildfire, but you would never hurt me.
She doesn't know how say that in a way that matters, or a way that'll get through to Min. The attempt at words gets stuck in her throat—so she squeezes her hand, and they hug, and she prays that Min gets the message. They're just kids, they're learning how to love, they want to be together—does anything else matter? Diya holds Min, and she's warm—Min squeezes her, thinking her the most precious being on the planet—in the world, in all worlds that will ever exist.
"I'll be with you," said Diya, desperately wanting the Min in her arms to know that she thinks the world of her. "You're not them. I trust you. I'll be with you."
They're adults now, and they've made it out, and they're making do, and they are together.
"I don't want kids," Min blurts out one day. Something old, a shard pressed at the bottom of their soul, it bubbles and boils and rises—she has to say it. "Human kids," she corrects.
"…" Diya glances at her girlfriend and raises a brow. "Yeah. I'm with you. Pom and Shibe count for hundreds of human children already."
Min melts in something like relief—it's a cool, breezy feeling—like their chest is open and the wind is running through her ribcage, cooling her fire into a hearth. Still strong. Still roaring. Wild, untamed, burning with affection.
She smiles. Happy. Content. Diya.
There is a future that is warm and bright and beautiful.
"You know I love you, right?" she says. "'Cause I do. I really do."