Chapter Text
Yuna turns off the tap, head cocked for an unfamiliar sound. After a beat of silence where it doesn’t repeat, she’s reaching for the sink when the sound finally comes again.
It’s laughter; bright, pealing giggles.
Hurriedly grabbing a dish towel to dry her hands and making her way down the hall to Shane’s room, Yuna steps carefully around the creaking boards in the hall, listening hard.
Shane is such a quiet child; at two years old he doesn’t have much to say, but even when he plays, he’s very quiet.
Catching at her hair to keep it from swinging out into the doorway as she leans forward, Yuna peers carefully around the doorframe into Shane’s bedroom. He’s sitting on the floor, at the edge of the toy carpet with a town and little roads for his cars; there’s nothing in his hands, but the one on the right is clenched into a fist.
He yanks his fist back towards his chest, twice, like he’s playing tug of war; a moment later, his fist jerks away from his body, and he squeals with delight.
Yuna can’t help the grin that breaks on her face. Every other mother on the planet thinks they have the cutest child, but they’re all, obviously, wrong. Shane is the absolute cutest, hands down.
“Mom?”
She’s been spotted.
“Look, red!” Shane holds his clenched fist up triumphantly, and Yuna carefully steps over the baby gate blocking Shane’s doorway.
“Let me see.” she says softly, knowing full well that there’s nothing for her to see at all. The red string of fate that ties two souls together can only be seen by the people connected by it. Her own string leads her right to David, and she can only hope that whoever’s on the other end of Shane’s string is a worthy soulmate for her baby.
“Mine.” Shane, who’s never been possessive about any of his toys, is practically growling at her; stubbornly shaking his head. He wraps his free hand around his fist, pulling both close to his chest.
She tries not to find it adorable, and fails.
“Okay.” Holding her hands up placatingly, Yuna’s eyes catch on her own string, hanging off of her right pinky. “Okay.”
Shane’s hand tugs free as the other end of the string, somewhere out there in the world, gets pulled on.
His delighted laughter fills the air, and Yuna couldn’t be happier for her son.
🧶
Ilya is diligently practicing his letters before lunch when the the string on his pinky tugs twice, and he streaks the crayon across the page in a gash of bright red. Ducking his chin to hide a smile before his father sees it, he’s too late to keep Papa from noticing the mistake on his practice page.
“Stop fooling around and get back to your letters.” his father says firmly, scowling something fierce. “Lazy boy.”
“He is not lazy.” Mama insists, sleeves rolled up as she prepares lunch. “Look at how he is practicing his English. Where is Andrei? He needs to wash up for lunch.”
Ilya turns back to his letters as his father leaves the room, still muttering curses. The second he’s gone, Ilya quickly tugs back twice on his string, not wanting his soulmate to think they were being ignored.
“Sorry, Mama.” he apologizes, gesturing at the red streak on his practice sheet as she walks over to him. “It was an accident.”
“Hmm.” She hums, kneeling beside him at the table and looking over his work. “I don’t think so. Probably, hm... no.”
“No?” Ilya frowns down at his letters. He needs to work on his spacing, the letters too far apart to be easy to read as single words, because he’s still learning to tell each shape apart. But he doesn’t think they look bad.
“Your letters are beautiful, Ilyusha.” Mama assures him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pressing a kiss to his unruly curls. “I was talking about your soulmate. Saying hello like that, it’s not an accident.”
Ilya’s shoulders sag in relief. Papa thinking his letters are bad and that he’s a lazy boy, he’s used to; he’s not sure what he would even do if Mama thought he was bad.
“Does Papa say hello to you? With your string?” he asks, because Papa… doesn’t seem like the same kind of person as Ilya’s soulmate. He’s never even met the person on the other end of his string of fate, but he just knows they can’t be like Papa.
Pozhaluysta.
Please.
Ilya practices the English word in his head, but it’s hard when the only practice he gets is at school. Mama never learned, and Papa refuses to speak it in their home.
“Ah. No.” Mama says, and her voice is sad.
Mama is sad much more than Ilya likes.
“I will tell you a secret, and you cannot tell anyone, okay?” she whispers, glancing towards the doorway Papa left through to find Andrei.
Ilya nods eagerly. Papa says they are too much alike, him and Mama, but Ilya thinks this is probably for the best. He does not want to be like Papa.
“Papa is not my soulmate.” Mama says quietly.
It feels like being pushed off of the top of the playset, the sudden shock of open air followed by the impact of the ground rushing up to greet you.
If Ilya was like Mama, then Andrei was like Papa; he did not always play so nice.
“But you’re married.” Ilya protests. “You’re in love.”
Mama’s smile is all sad this time, just her lips moving with no heart or sunshine in it.
“My soulmate died, before I married Papa.”
She pinches her pinky finger, the same one that Ilya’s string is wrapped around; her fingertips slip free, like she’s tracing an invisible string straight up through the air.
“She is in Heaven now. She watches over me.”
Ilya’s chin and lower lip start to wobble, because that’s the saddest thing he’s ever heard. Just as his vision begins to blur from the tears, Mama’s pinky finger twitches upwards, twice.
“Ah! She says, ‘Hello, malyshka!’” Mama teases, and Ilya snorts, rubbing at his eyes to hide his tears before Papa returns.
“No she didn’t.” he insists. “That was you!”
“What? No. Are you calling me a liar, Ilyushka?” Mama puts her hand to her neck, gripping at the crucifix that’s always hung there. “My own baby. Such betrayal!”
“Mama!” Ilya protests, smiling now.
The door slams in the next room, Andrei’s feet pounding against the stairs as Papa yells up after him to hurry up and get cleaned up for lunch.
Mama presses a quick kiss to Ilya’s head before she hurries back to the kitchen to check on the food.
Picking up his crayons and his practice sheets, Ilya carefully checks the string on his pinky. It’s a bright red, his favorite color. And it doesn’t go up. Sometimes it’s slack, and sometimes it’s taut, and his favorite is when he gets the two tugs on it sometimes. It’s usually around lunchtime, or very, very late at night.
It doesn’t go up.
He hopes it never goes up, because he doesn’t think he could be strong the way Mama is, and marry someone who isn’t his soulmate.
Maybe he should check on his soulmate. In case they didn’t feel it, when he tugged back earlier?
Two quick tugs of his fist against the red string, hidden behind his back as Papa comes back into the dining room, are all Ilya is able to get out before it’s time for set the table. He’s hardly taken a step though, when there’s a response.
Tug-tug.
Puffing his cheeks to hide a sigh of relief, Ilya hurries to help with lunch.