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Dinner at the Oak household was typically a boisterous affair. Discussions of the day’s events and spirited debates on all subjects filled the dining room, punctuated by the clattering of plates, bowls, and cutlery as dishes were passed back and forth along the table. Occasionally a small fight would break out over the last dumpling or some such. It was a daily cacophony that Hugo had come to look forward to since rejoining his family. Which is why the current quiet had him thoroughly unsettled.
Lio, Song, and Wolf talked about their respective days, but their words carried none of their usual energy. Hugo looked at them all questioningly. Song and Lio both responded with looks that were likely intended to be comforting, but their eyes carried the same tinge of sadness and worry they had for months, and thus only heightened his unease. The look he received from Wolf seemed to indicate that she was just as confused, and concerned, as he was.
Most alarming, though, was Kipo. Throughout the meal she never spoke more than a word or two a time, and always in a shaky voice that barely rose above a whisper. While she normally ate with gusto, cleaning every crumb off her plate, tonight she only picked at her food, pushing it around the plate with a fork and taking only an occasional small bite. Her eyes seemed dull and if Hugo didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was avoiding his gaze.
When the meal ended, Wolf helped their parents to clear the table and wash the dishes. Odd. Hugo was certain it was Kipo’s turn tonight. Oh well. Perhaps they’d made a change to that absurd ‘chore chart’ he barely deigned to acknowledge. He’d check in the morning. If he felt like it.
Hugo was about to head off to his room for the night when Kipo approached him, still looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Hugo, could we talk for minute?” Whatever it was that was bothering her, it seemed he was about to find out.
“Of course.” Hugo gestured back towards the dining room, but Kipo had already begun making her way to the front porch. Wordlessly he followed as she went out the front door and sat on the far end of the porch swing. The swing creaked and swung back a bit as he sat down next to her. Her eyes never left her shoes.
They sat in silence for a few moments while Hugo waited for Kipo to speak. When the quiet became too tense, he spoke first. “So, dear sister,” he began. He and Wolf had grown (however grudgingly) to accept each other as siblings over the past several months, but the title of ‘dear sister’ belonged to Kipo alone. “What did you want to discuss?”
Her response was a sigh far too weary for someone so young. Her already small form seemed to deflate with the effort. Gaze still firmly on her shoes, she started “So… you remember back at Prahm? The fight with Emilia?”
He gave a wry smirk. “How could I forget?” He considered making a joke, ‘How often does one see two human-mega hybrids fighting for the fate of the world?’, but thought better of it. This didn’t seem the time for humor. The smirk softened to a more neutral expression.
“Hugo… when you went to distract her,” Kipo paused as she struggled to speak past the lump in her throat. She finally turned to look at him. “You… you meant to come back… right?”
There it was. The question he’d been dreading for months. From her tone, he knew she already suspected the answer. Hardly surprising. Kipo was a smart girl. While Lio and Song had agreed to let Hugo tell his sisters when and if he felt it was right, they’d done a poor job of hiding their concern. During his hospital stay they had checked in on him as often as rebuilding efforts would allow, and they’d all but constantly hovered over him since he moved into the house. For the first few weeks their parents’ worried looks had been attributed to the severity of his injuries. But as time went on his body mended and the looks stayed. It had only been a matter of time before Kipo figured out something was amiss.
Her eyes pleaded with him, begging him to say that her suspicions were unfounded. That all the sad and worried looks from their parents had been imagined. That of course he’d always fully intended to come out of the fight healthy and whole and ready to begin his new life with his family. If only that were true.
It wasn’t as if he’d intended to die. But he hadn’t really intended to live, either. He’d known that charging Emilia would almost certainly mean his death, but that hadn’t been the goal. Or had it? Song and Lio had both pointed out that there had been far less risky ways to draw Emilia away from Kipo. Hugo himself sometimes wondered if he’d simply overlooked these other options or if he had subconsciously chosen the one with the lowest chance of survival. That he wasn’t sure worried him far more than the possibility that it might be the latter.
“Kipo, I-“ he hesitated. He closed his eyes tightly as he tried to find the right words. Kipo didn’t give him the chance.
Her whispered ‘No’ was so quiet he almost didn’t hear it. Almost. Opening his eyes, he saw her own filled with tears. They ran down her face as she visibly struggled not to break down into sobs. Her knuckles turned white as she balled her hands into fists and pressed them into her thighs, trying in vain to stop her shoulders from trembling. The sight of it was a knife through Hugo’s heart.
He started to reach out, to put a hand on her shoulder, but stopped a few inches away. The hand dropped back to his side as he tried to justify his actions that day; both to Kipo and to himself.
“Kipo, I was only trying to protect you. To protect our family.” Hugo sighed, then steeled himself. He’d done what he’d had to. Right? Surely Kipo would understand. “I had to stop Emilia; to buy you time.” He closed his eyes again as he said the words he hoped would convince them both, “I knew when I went to distract her that it might cost me my life. But I also knew that dying was worth it, so long as it was for you.”
Kipo whipped around to face him, tears still falling. “I don’t want you to die for me!” she all but yelled, “I want you!” She threw herself against him and buried her face just below the ruffled collar of his shirt. The rest of her words came out quiet and muffled. “We’re family. We’re supposed to be together. We were all apart for so long, and then we were finally together and…” she clung to him as if she thought her grip was the only thing keeping him from vanishing into thin air. Pinpricks on his chest told him that her arms had transformed, claws further holding him in place. Hugo reached down to stroke her hair, hand grazing over her now pinned-back, feline ears. Her eyes were shut tight as she finally broke down shaking and sobbing. He suspected that those, too, had shifted.
Hugo placed his free hand on his little sister’s back while the other stayed at the crown of her head, thumb running small circles over her hair. “I’m sorry, Kipo,” he said as he pulled her closer. What exactly he was sorry for Hugo wasn’t sure of. Certainly he was sorry that she was so upset, but to say that he was sorry for the act that upset her seemed to him to imply that he’d go back and do things differently if he could. Hugo wasn’t sure whether that was the case.
From there, words failed both of them. The siblings sat on the porch swing, holding each other for what felt like hours as Kipo cried herself out. Hugo only loosened his grip on her after he felt her claws retract and her hair shift as her ears moved back to the sides of her head. Even then he didn’t fully let go. Instead he let her turn around and find a comfortable position in his lap. They stayed that way, watching the stars together, until Hugo heard a soft snoring.
Gently, careful not to wake her, he picked Kipo up and carried her to her bed. He saw Wolf giving him a stern look from her bed on the other side of the room, intense gaze demanding to know that her sister was alright. Hugo gave her a small nod, which seemed to satisfy the young girl as she turned her back to him and pulled her covers up over herself. Hugo looked back to Kipo. As he brought her blanket up to her chin he whispered, low enough that only a fellow mute could hear it, “I’m here, Kipo.” Walking back to his own room he whispered again, this time to himself, “I’m here.”