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The morning sang with a deceptive softness, the sky draped in tender blue ribbons, as though the world had conspired to create the perfect facade. Mirae felt the sun seep into her skin, each ray threading through her pores like molten gold. It was an almost maternal touch that coaxed her to close her eyes, tilt her face heavenward, and surrender. Behind her eyelids, the light painted everything in rich, saturating hues of orange, burning away the clutter of her mind.

In that suspended moment, she was weightless, thoughtless, drifting. Then came the shrill interruption—the angry hum of an insect buzzing too close to her ear. Her brows knitted instinctively, lips curling in a faint scowl as the tranquillity splintered, and her eyelids fluttered open, the world flooding back in.

Ahead of her lay a tableau that might have been picturesque to anyone else. Her grandfather sat a short distance away, the creak of his favourite lawn chair mingling with the hum of the breeze. His face was tilted toward the sun too, his leathery skin weathered by years spent courting the daylight. We're sunflowers, you and I, he'd always said, grinning at her when she mimicked him as a child, their faces chasing the light. Beside him, her brother sat in an almost feline sprawl, legs tucked beneath him as he lazily turned the pages of the book resting on his lap. A languid serenity hovered over the scene, as though it belonged to someone else's life, but if she focused hard enough, it would remain hers. If she didn't move, didn't breathe, she could almost make out a hundred paper roses blooming at the edge of her vision, the kind that framed the happy scenes in the cartoons her brother teased her for enjoying. 

"Stop daydreaming, Mirae," her father's voice cut through, its clipped precision a whip-crack in the still air.

Mirae turned slowly, dragging the motion out. She already knew what was coming; her father's impatience was as predictable as the sun, and sure enough, he stood there, rigid as a steel rod, carrying the familiar heft of a shotgun. He shoved it toward her without ceremony, the glint of the barrel catching in the light like a sneer.

"It's your turn now."

The girl stared at the weapon, her reflection warped in the polished steel. The memory tugged at her like a rip current—the crack of a shot, the impossible holler that followed, and the cacophony that had burst in its wake, the final straw to break their already fragile household. It had been nearly a year since the incident, and though her fingers no longer trembled at the sight of a firearm, something deeper inside her recoiled.

Any other father might have hesitated to place such a thing in his child's hands. Any other father might have recognized the damage of what he was doing, but Oh Il-woo was not like other fathers. His resolve was a fortress, and his pride a blade. There was no room for hesitation in his world.

"Eyes on the target," he ordered. "You won't miss this time."

Mirae's fingers closed around the shotgun, the metal cool against her palm, but not cool enough to douse the flicker of heat rising in her chest. She allowed him to guide her stance and correct her grip as the pristine expanse of their manicured lawn stretched out before them. 

When the first clay pigeon was launched into the air, she took a deep breath. 

Crack. 

She missed. 

Crack. Crack. Crack. 

She missed three more times, and with each failed attempt, she could sense the coil within her father wound tighter until finally, he placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She would have gone on longer but even she knew that defiance was a dangerous game to play. 

"I thought we decided that you would not miss again," he chastised.

They hadn't decided that, he had, but Mirae wasn't going to mouth off to him when he was already irritated. 

"Let's try again, shall we?" Il-woo glanced back at her brother, the warning evident. "And this time you won't miss."

Mirae nodded, and he bent to brush his lips against her temple in some sort of mockery of paternal affection. He had never raised his hand at her, even when she misbehaved, even when she disobeyed him, but that made it worse. The punishments of his choosing were far more effective. 

She shot the next five targets clean through, the clay disks disintegrating mid-flight, their rust-coloured remains scattering across the grass. Mirae stood with the shotgun braced against her shoulder, her chest rising and falling with shallow, steady breaths, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught her brother's reaction—he flinched with each pull of her trigger. Not their father's, though. Only hers.

Minhyuk had abandoned his book now, letting it fall limp as he followed her every move, and she wondered if he saw her slowly moulding into their father's image. Would he too carve out his escape route before the transformation was complete?

Their grandfather's applause broke the moment, his face splitting into a grin that seemed almost too broad for its age. "That's enough for today," he declared with indulgent pride. "The child needs to rest—enjoy the good weather while we've got it."

Mirae turned to hand the gun back to her father, who took it with a brisk nod. He patted her head, the gesture strangely dissonant—a soldier's approval disguised as a father's affection.

"Good girl," he commended mildly, though there was an edge of satisfaction that she couldn't miss. "I knew you could do it. Those first three rounds must've been your idea of a game, hmm?"

She didn't answer, didn't dare break the rhythm of his good humour as he slung the gun over his shoulder and began to walk toward the towering silhouette of their house, pausing only briefly to issue his parting command. "Tomorrow, smaller targets. Further distance. Be ready."

When he disappeared inside, her grandfather beckoned again, and the stiffness in her limbs melted as she ran to him with outstretched hands, eager for the reward. As always, he reached into the deep recesses of his pocket and retrieved five caramel toffees, their cellophane gleaming like stolen sunlight. He dropped them into her cupped palms, and she cradled them as if they were treasure. 

"Keep your father happy, hmm?" the old man murmured. "It's been a difficult time for him, but he's pleased with your progress. Very pleased. You'll be as good as him in no time, you'll see. And then you can join him for the real fun."

Mirae would have laughed and dismissed the thought as absurd if he hadn't sounded so serious. But his insistence dampened any amusement that might have bubbled up. She didn't want to match her father—neither in skill nor temperament—but she bit her tongue, nodding obediently before turning away.

She skipped back toward her brother, her bare feet whispering against the grass, but he didn't look up as she approached, his head bowed and his shoulders curved inward. Even when she dropped three of her earnings into his lap, he didn't thank her, or move to touch the sweets. At fourteen, he was only three years her senior, but most days he seemed a lifetime older. 

The plum-coloured welt stretching along his jaw was hard to miss, the mark spreading like an overripe stain, and it gave his face a mottled look, akin to a bruised peach. She also tried not to notice the way he tensed when she drew near, how even the pad of her footsteps had made him flinch.

Instead, Mirae crouched beside him, the remaining candy clenched tightly in her palm, their edges biting into her skin. "You can have the rest too, if you like," she remarked with a smile. 

Nonetheless, his expression remained immovable, his lips set in a thin line that betrayed nothing. He's angry, she thought, the conclusion slipping into place like a puzzle piece. But at what? There were far too many reasons to choose from. Was it for something she had done, some fragment of the past she couldn't erase no matter how hard she tried? Or was it because their father had made him sit out here, under the sun he loathed, just to watch her? She couldn't blame him if that were true.

Minhyuk was her punishment—or perhaps she was his, a living reminder that their actions carried consequences for each other. That must be why he hated her. The thought sank its teeth into her, until suddenly she could scarcely breathe around it.

Her focus narrowed as she peered into his face, searching for some proof or confirmation, and she leaned a little closer, as if the answers she sought might be hidden in the angles of his jaw or the way the marks curved around his cheek.

"What?" he barked abruptly, making her jolt.

But then, his sternness fractured—splintered by a grin so unexpected it felt like sunlight bursting through storm clouds. He shoved her away, sending her sprawling back into the grass with an indignant giggle.

"Get out of my face, bug eyes," he scoffed, though the moniker lacked any real bite.

Mirae found herself smiling, a small, tentative thing that grew brighter under his attention. He wasn't angry with her, after all, and relief pooled in her chest, flooding out in every direction until she felt like the sun itself. 

Minhyuk reached down and plucked the candies she had offered from his lap, dropping them unceremoniously back into her hands. "You know I hate these," he grumbled. "They get stuck in my teeth."

"That's the fun part!" 

"It is not if you have braces," he retorted with a scowl.

"Too bad for you," she taunted, sticking out her tongue for good measure.

He narrowed his eyes in mock indignation, screwing his brows together in exaggerated frustration. Then, without a word, he kicked off his shoes, the movement deliberate and slow—a warning that sent a jolt of anticipation racing through her limbs.

"Minhyuk, wait—"

Without pausing to watch him rise, she scrambled to her feet and bolted, her delighted shriek trailing behind her like a kite caught in the wind. The sun warmed her path as she sprinted across the grass, and behind her, she could hear his footsteps pounding in pursuit, his shouts mingling with hers in a harmony that belonged to the here and now.

For a fleeting, golden moment, it was easy to sink back into the daydream where her family was whole again. Where punishments didn't exist, and the space between them was only ever filled with euphoria. Where their father's shadow stretched long behind them, not over them, and where the sunlit chase across the lawn could last forever.

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Three nights later, Minhyuk slipped into Mirae's room just as the sun had all but dipped below the horizon, leaving the room awash in a muted glow, the fading light reflecting faintly off the massive fish tank set into the back wall.

She caught his entrance in the reflection of the glass, but didn't turn, her gaze fixed on the trio of clownfish drifting lazily between the colourful plants and synthetic coral, their world a perpetual sunset of shifting lights. She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, close enough to feel the faint hum of the water filter, and wondered idly if the fish could sense her scrutiny. Did they feel the weight of her eyes, or did they remain blissfully oblivious, existing in a world untouched by the chaos that seeped into hers?

Either way, she couldn't face her brother. To look at him was to acknowledge the truth, to drag herself out of this suspended moment of peace. She had heard the shouting earlier, her father's voice rising and falling like the crashing of waves. Today, she hadn't found the strength to intervene, hiding away instead, in the hopes that the storm would pass with minimal wreckage, but Minhyuk had not been so lucky.

Reluctantly she turned, and the sight that greeted her was enough to make her stifle a sob. The bruises under his eyes were fresh, purple shadows smudged with vermillion, as though an angry child had scribbled across his face with a broken crayon. A darker bloom crept along his temple, stark against the pale cast of his skin, and his eyes, though no longer teary, were still swollen and rimmed in raw redness. They were fixed on her, burning with frustration and something sharper, more desperate.

He strode forward without a word, his hand latching onto her wrist with a grip that bordered on painful.

"We're leaving," he stated resolutely. "Right now."

Somewhere else in the house, Mirae thought she could hear the faint echo of a door slamming—a punctuation to their father's outbursts. He always stormed out after an argument, disappearing for hours, sometimes days, leaving only the aftermath of his rage behind. And every time, Minhyuk's ritual followed: slipping into her room, begging her to leave with him. It was a script they both knew by heart, and Mirae had long since resigned herself to its futility.

"We have to go, please," Minhyuk repeated, his wavering intonation betraying the emotion he fought to suppress. "We can stay with Mother for a while."

His sister didn't miss the way he avoided the obvious: that their mother's home would only welcome one of them. She had made that much clear the last time Mirae had shown up on her doorstep.

"I haven't fed the fish yet," she responded, turning back toward the tank. "You go."

The older boy stared at her, incredulous. "The housekeeper will feed them tomorrow. You cannot possibly be serious."

Mirae didn't answer immediately, avoiding his gaze by watching the darting movements of her pets, their orange-and-white forms glowing faintly under the tank's artificial light. "It's not the same."

"Stop pretending that you don't want to leave either!"

She shrugged, and Minhyuk released her wrist, his shoulders tensed like a bowstring pulled taut. 

"Mirae, please."

Eventually, she nodded. There was very little she could deny her brother, and wasn't this a good thing? His insistence that she come with him, even when he knew how much easier it would be to leave her behind? It meant he didn't hate her, not yet. Of all the people in her world, he was perhaps the only one who cared for the person she already was—without dread or expectation for what she might become.

At the staircase, she caught sight of their grandfather, leaning over the bannister on the second floor, his calculating eyes following their every movement. His posture was casual, almost disinterested, but Mirae knew better. This was part of the routine too.

He always watched them leave, and never tried to stop them—there was no need. Mirae understood, as surely as he did, that they would return. Il-nam was no fool, and he would never allow his grandchildren to walk away so easily unless he was entirely confident that no other place would take them. They were his hounds and sooner rather than later, they'd come crawling back with their tails between their legs, and he'd welcome them with a knowing smile. 

The evening air was warm when they stepped outside, the kind of lingering heat that wrapped around you like a second skin. Mirae's arms felt light as her brother draped his jacket over her shoulders, the crisp fabric holding a faint scent of home—or what passed for it. 

Their mother's apartment was two bus rides away—three hours of transit through a city that seemed perpetually on the edge of dusk. She had stayed nearby, mercifully close, though Mirae suspected it wasn't for her. 

The bus stop wasn't far, but the walk stretched too long, their footsteps syncing over uneven pavement. It wasn't until they reached it, where a small group of strangers loitered in quiet conversation, that her brother spoke.

"Sorry I dragged you out in such a hurry," he confessed. "I should've let you get your things first, maybe."

He was still keyed up—his hand raked through his hair too often, and his gaze darted to their surroundings like he expected someone to follow, but there was also a note of ease now, every step away from the house loosening an invisible chain.

Mirae pulled his jacket tighter around herself, the sleeves dangling past her hands. It didn't matter that she hadn't brought anything with her, their stay would be temporary anyway. He always seemed to forget that, or maybe his optimism simply overshadowed common sense. 

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop him," she said instead, her words carrying on a breeze that smelled faintly of asphalt and distant rain.

Minhyuk shrugged, his expression obscure as he stared down the street. "This one wasn't your fault. He was just in a mood—you know how he gets. There was nothing you could've done."

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Their mother reacted exactly as Mirae expected. The door swung open after the first knock, like she'd been standing on the other side, waiting. Likely, Minhyuk had let her know he was coming. But the subtle hardening of her gaze betrayed that he had neglected to mention his sister would be with him.

For a moment, the woman hesitated, deliberating whether to send her daughter away, but the sight of her son's discoloured face decided for her. The kitchen was cramped, bathed in warm, flickering light from the old overhead bulb, and Minhyuk was pulled into the room without ceremony, while Mirae hovered at the threshold, her shadow pooling against the doorframe.

Their mother moved with frantic precision, tears gathering in her eyes as she rummaged through a cabinet and then the freezer. She pressed an ice compress to her son's jaw, her hand quivered slightly as she cupped his face, and for a long while, the only sound in the room was the hum of the refrigerator and the muffled rustle of their movements.

Then she pulled him into her arms, her hands smoothing over his hair as she murmured assurances. "Shhh, my boy, you're safe now. I have the spare room all fixed up for you. You can just stay here. I keep telling you to stay, Minhyuk, but now you must. You must. You cannot go back to that man, to that house. I forbid it."

The boy crumpled into her, the bravado he had worn since arriving finally cracking under her affection. He sobbed, quietly at first, then harder as she kissed his bruises and held him close, trying to piece him back together within her embrace.

Mirae's presence dissolved into the edges of the room, and she told herself not to be jealous. This was how it always was—how it always had been. Their mother's tenderness belonged to Minhyuk and their father's unsympathetic approval to her. 

"I promise I'll listen this time," her brother choked out between sobs. "This time we'll stay, and we won't go back."

We. 

The word hung in the air and their mother's gaze lifted, her tears slowing as her lips pressed into a thin line. Mirae shrank further into the wall, willing herself to disappear.

There was a flicker of something indecipherable in the older woman's eyes as they lingered on her daughter. The bruiseless face, the smooth, unmarred skin. It almost made her laugh—of course, Il-woo would never lay a hand on her. How could he? She was his wretched mirror, every inch reflecting the man he revered most: himself. Narcissistic bastard. 

Nine months in her womb, and the girl had emerged a perfect copy of the husband she loathed with every fibre of her being. It was unfortunate, unfair, and exhausting. No matter how much she tried to care for her, there was always something missing. 

Maybe it was her eyes—those soulless, empty voids she had inherited from Il-woo. They looked through everything, devoid of anything resembling humanity or compassion, and in her darkest moments, back in that godforsaken house, she'd wondered if it would have been easier to love her daughter if she'd gouged those eyes out at birth. 

"She cannot stay. You know that, my love," she spoke at long last. "I have told you this before."

Mirae rarely cried. She had taught herself not to—the lesson had been drilled into her since she was a child. Tears were for the weak and pathetic, but standing here with her mother staring at her like she was something vile, she felt the ache threatening to surface.

For a moment, the room blurred, and she wasn't here anymore, not in this dingy apartment with its peeling wallpaper and flickering bulb. She was back in the foyer of her father's house, her fingers curled around the cool grip of a smoking handgun.

Her mother had looked at her like this back then too—with a mixture of horror and disgust, as though she was not her daughter but some grotesque creature that had crawled out of the sewer. A loathsome bug. Or worse, a monster with blood on her hands. 

The blood had been metaphorical, of course. Guns were efficient that way, impersonal. The spatter hadn't reached her, but the grimness of what she'd done—accidental or not—had been enough to crush the air from her lungs. She hadn't meant to kill, only frighten, but monstrosity was a slippery slope. 

Her mother's scream had pierced the air before she fled for good, but her father's reaction was worse. He had plucked the weapon from her without a word, his face unreadable as always. Then, with a pat on her head, he had said something that still echoed in her mind on restless nights:

"Next time, you won't miss. And it'll take you fewer bullets to do the job."

The corpse had been removed with clinical efficiency, no more fuss than if it had been a rat in the walls. One of his very important clients reduced to nothing more than an inconvenience. People like them had the luxury of making other people disappear. 

"I won't stay without my sister!" Minhyuk's voice shattered the memory, pulling her back to the present. "We have this argument every time. You know I won't leave her."

Their mother exhaled harshly, her hands clutching the edge of the counter to steady herself. "He doesn't care if you disappear. Your father doesn't care if you leave, but he will not let her leave. Do not make life difficult for yourself. He treats her well enough. She will be happier in his house."

The boy squared his shoulders in defiance while his sister remained motionless, the scene unfolding before her with a strange detachment, as if watching a play she'd already memorized.

"I won't stay without her," he repeated. "You know I won't. You keep saying he treats her well enough, but that doesn't mean she likes it there."

"And what do you think you can do?" their mother hissed. "You think you can protect her, when you can barely hold yourself together. What happens when he comes after you both? What happens when he drags you back, kicking and screaming? Who do you think will bear the worst of it? You think I don't know how this ends? I've seen it before."

"Then why didn't you take us with you? You left us there, knowing what he's like. You've always known. So don't act like you're worried about what he'll do."

"I am worried about you!" The woman's face crumpled for a moment before hardening again. "You don't understand what it's like. She is just like him. A murderer. I don't want her in my house, I cannot—" She stopped abruptly, the confession stunning even her.

Mirae had heard variations of this before, and she should have been prepared, but it hurt all the same. 

"She's not him," her brother defended quietly. "She's not him, just like I am not you, and I won't leave if it means leaving her there. 

"I just... I can't. I can't bear it. You don't understand what it's like to look at her and see him. It's like he's still here, like he's in this house too—"

"That's not her fault," Minhyuk interrupted. "That's not her fault, and it's not fair to put that on her. But if you can't see past that, then you're just as bad as he is."

"It's not my fault either!"

"I never said it was."

Minhyuk stood abruptly, the melting compress slipping from his hand and landing on the kitchen table with a splat as he grabbed his sister's hand. "We're leaving then, if you won't have us."

Their mother's reaction was instant. She surged forward, tears spilling freely now as she clamped onto his arm with desperate strength. "You cannot!" she cried out. "He'll hurt you worse the next time. You can't go back to him. Please, my son, don't do this!"

Tensing at her words, the boy's jaw tightened, trying to grind the pain away. The movement disturbed the swelling along his face, and he winced visibly, but he didn't look at her. Instead, his gaze locked onto Mirae's, steady and unflinching.

Mirae knew that look. She had seen it too many times before, that flicker of hesitation that danced in his eyes before he made himself push forward. Sometimes, she wondered if he brought her along for moments like this—as if her presence served to anchor him, to remind him of the reason he had to go back. Without her, he might have stayed. Without her, he might have been free. 

Their mother's sobs echoed through the small kitchen as she fell to her knees, her arms wrapped around herself as if her firstborn still resided there.

But he didn't falter, turning to pull his sister with him as they walked out the door and into the humid evening air, the plaintive whimpers following them long after they had left the apartment building behind.

Minhyuk's hand never left Mirae's as he led her down the cracked sidewalk toward the bus station half a block away, and the dull glow of the streetlights cast long shadows on the pavement, distorting their shapes into something unrecognizable. He hated leaving his mother like that, because, for all her faults, she had always cherished him, had always seen him as something worth saving. But he couldn't abandon his sister either. He owed her that much.

She had taken a life for him, after all, and for that, he would endure whatever pain awaited him back in the only home that would ever accept her.

Meanwhile, Mirae's stomach churned with a familiar cocktail of guilt, feeling every bit the vile, selfish creature her mother believed her to be. Every time this happened, she found herself wishing Minhyuk would stay behind, would let himself escape their father's wrath and live the life he deserved.

But because she was a vile selfish thing, she was also grateful that he didn't. 

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A/N: told myself this wasn't going to become another incomplete draft so I didn't wanna publish until I had at least a prologue ready lol. Anyways, here we are finally, hope you enjoyed my little angsty siblings. 

As usual, don't be a ghost reader. I live for yalls comments/questions/concerns/reactions, even a keyboard smash is highly appreciated and encouraged!