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Ema was always told that she looked just like Lana.
She never really saw the similarity in her own eyes, and every time she heard it, she dismissed it as “eh, no, I don't see it” — not trying to be humble, but she genuinely meant it. She couldn't see all the similarities everyone talked about. They had completely different eyes, complexions, hair colors, she definitely wouldn't say they were very much alike.
It was probably normal for siblings, not to notice the similarities between each other even if they were obvious to everybody else. How many times has she told their friends that they looked exactly like their siblings, only to hear them deny it? There was probably nothing strange in it.
Ema could only assume that at least part of this phenomenon had some kind of scientific explanation. Nowhere near her field of study, but just thinking about it completely logically, she concluded it was because of how well every person knew their own face. Mirrors, photos, they had much more material to use when subconsciously becoming familiar with the appearance that's accompanied them ever since they came to this world. So the reason she could barely see the supposedly glaring similarities was probably because she was too used to seeing her own face.
Or, maybe, because she wasn't used enough to seeing Lana's recently.
Of course, she knew why that was. It's been almost four years since the day of Lana's imprisonment, and even the regular visits were nowhere near all the time they spent when she was a little girl and a teenager. She might've not shown it a lot, but she was always in awe of just how much time her sister was able to dedicate to her while also working very hard for the sake of them both.
Ema could say she understood her more now — she was the one living by herself, studying and trying to manage an adult life now, after all — but their situations were completely different. As hard as she might’ve had it at this point in life, she wasn’t alone and had many people to reach out to. Even if her sister couldn’t help her, she could always rely on the adults she knew. Unlike Lana, who only had herself and a literal child to take care of, and still managed to become a detective and, though in an unlawful way, get promoted to the position of a chief prosecutor. It was no surprise that she would often return home exhausted after all that.
Sometimes when she was almost as tired and returned home to her small apartment after classes and she looked in the bathroom mirror, she could almost see another face, merging with her own. She was reminded of late evenings shared with her sister, where both of them wanted to sleep more than anything already, but Ema would feel too lonely after a whole day without seeing her sister. Of sleepless nights, stressing about every preteen girl’s usual worries, only for Lana to wake up before she even fell asleep.
The realization that this similarity wasn’t just an illusion created by her tired brain made her feel a bunch of things at once, and she couldn’t quite name them all. Regret, realizing that maybe she should’ve shown her appreciation for her sister’s sacrifices more clearly. Disappointment, thinking of the time they spent together and of how much she missed it.
But between all that, there was a strange kind of happiness, seeing just how similar they really were.