Eiran's pov

My hands feel heavier as I raise them to knock on the door. It's eleven in the night why am I even doing this?

The door opens suddenly to reveal Akira standing there with her infamous blank expression. How does she even do that? I miss her-

"Yes?" She asks.

"Were you sleeping?" I ask, as it suddenly dawned on me "did I wake you?"

"No" she answers, searching my face for something.

It must be weird of me to come here at this hour huh?

"Oh That's good" the nervousness starts to catch up. How do I bring it up? "Umm..I was kinda craving Ice cream.." what?

She raises her eyebrows, questioning. Same sis, same. Ok properly this time.

"Do you wanna..you know..get some ice cream?" I ask, my voice soft, almost a whisper.

She stares at me for a few moments. That blank stare which gives no clue of what is going on in her head.

"I have school tomorrow" she says.

Knowing her, that seems like an excuse and that too a weak one.

"I'll get you back in time to rest" I say with my best smile as I try to convince her and then add, fumbling "or like if you don't want- that's alright too-it's your wish"

"No" she immediately deadpans.

Ouch- that hurt. But it's alright. It's Akira. It's my baby sister.

"That's alright" I try to sound just as cheerful and wish her "good night" but the disappointment manages to make its way into my voice and me as turn around and leave.

"I'll come" I hear her voice speak up and immediately turn around, overjoyed.

"Grab a hoodie or something, it's cold outside" I try to not let my excitement show in my voice.

I take out my phone as she heads inside. She comes back wearing a blue hoodie. It looks really nice on her.

"Ready?"

"Yeah"

The halls are eerily silent as we make our way downstairs and towards my car. I open the passenger seat door for her and she awkwardly takes a seat.

The silence feels very awkward and my excitement on having my baby sister sitting beside me doesn't help either, so I ask "So you know how to drive a car?"

"No"

Silence follows her reply as I try to think of something interesting to say and finally end up with "do you know the game twenty one questions?"

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel as I ask and she replies "No"

"Oh" the duty of explaining it falls on me "it's like a game where one person asks a question and every body answers"

Okay that sounds dumb. I am pretty sure she is thinking the same thing.

"Wanna play?" I ask hopefully

She shrugs her shoulders. I'll take that as a yes.

"Ok I'll go first" I ask the first thing that comes to my mind "what's your favorite ice cream flavor?"

She looks down at her hands and then as if steeling herself, stares ahead at the road and says quietly "I've never had any"

No she has. Her favorite flavor used to be cookies and cream. "Oh b-" I start but quickly shut up as it dawns on me that she doesn't remember anything "sorry, mine is chocolate brownie anyways"

"Hmm"

Change the subject. Change the subject.

"Your turn" I say smiling encouragingly.

She thinks for a while and still the best she's able to come up with is "what's your age?"

"22" I answer "your?"

"16"

Of course I know what her age is. But what matters is that she feels comfortable.

"My turn" I speak up into the silence and then drumming my fingers on the wheel, ask "what's your favorite food?"

Please be pancakes. It's probably pancakes. Pancakes!

"Pancakes" she answers immediately.

A laugh escapes my lips at how she is still just as sure of pancakes as she was then. At least something didn't change.

She turns in the direction of sudden noise and quickly looks away, stony eyed. Did I do something wrong? Shit, she must have thought I was laughing at her.

"Your turn" I remind her.

She thinks for a while before saying "I can't think of any.."

"That's alright" I smile reassuringly. I should ask her about her life. How? An anecdote? "Tell me story from your past"

She thinks for a good while and I was about to tell her to leave it if it's uncomfortable but she starts.

"I used to work at a underground fighting ring, sometimes bartended and mostly as server" she looks deep in thought as she says "sometimes for extra money or if I had enough energy, I would fight too. Those nights were rare. There was this girl who was regular there and often won fights. I would've loved to fight her but she just wasn't there on the days that I fought."

I listen attentively and she says "That's was the girl that fought me on my first day here"

"Damn!" I am so proud of her "you showed her her place that day. That's my sister!"

She looks out the window all the way until we reach the ice cream shop. The shop is ours, we used to come here when we were young. Sebastian liked cookies and cream which then turned into Sebastian and Akira both liking it. She did everything that he did.

The staff greets me which I reciprocate before turning to Akira "what would you like Akira?"

She looks up at me cluelessly so I quickly pass her the menu and she peers at it for a while before ultimately saying "you decide"

"You don't wanna choose?"

She shakes her head in a no. Alright then, her old favorite it is.

"Alright" I turn to employees "chocolate brownie and cookies and cream"

We get our ice creams and head to the tables.

"Try it!" I say unable to hide my excitement as we sit down.

She slowly lifts a spoonful of ice cream and eats it. but before I could ask her how she liked it, she shuts her eyes tightly and starts shaking her head. Huh? Oh-

"Brain freeze!" I laugh at her reaction.

After swallowing that bit, she stares questioningly at the ice cream in front of her, as if deciding if it's edible or not.

"You like it?" I ask as she digs in for another bite, a much more controlled one this time.

She nods in response but the look of pleasure on her face tells me much more than that.

We eat in companionable silence after that and she seems to be enjoying herself. I decide to break that silence after a while.

"Akira" I say seriously "we are trying to create all the legal documents for you and I wanted to ask you what name you want as your legal one?"

She looks confused at that so I elaborate "your old name was Iris and now it is Akira so it's your choice now which one you wish to keep"

She nods in understanding and responds with no hesitation "Akira"

"Alright" I smile softly before asking "middle name?"

She thinks for a while before asking quietly "what was my middle name?"

"Rose" I say, barely over a whisper.

She stares at me, thinking. And then decides "Iris"

I smile at that "you'll be Akira Iris Volkov"

A few moments of silence follow before the urge to know her past gets the better of me as I ask "so, how did you end up becoming..you know..one of the best assasin, as far as I know?"

She frowns at the question and answers with a spoonful of ice cream hovering in front of her "..training?"

I smile softly at her answer, and with a sad laugh, say "you know because Iris- you-you were so soft and pampered...we couldn't imagine you ever getting involved in this"

She shrugs at this "It's always been rough, as far as I know"

A sigh escapes my lips. Oh how I wish I could make it all okay for her, and the young her, she wouldn't have had to struggle, shouldn't have.

I stare out the window and then turn back to her "we missed you"

She doesn't look up or acknowledge it in anyway. Did I make her uncomfortable?

"So..umm...I've heard that Carlos is quite ruthless to his soldiers" I try to change the subject "that's true?"

She nods thoughtfully before looking me in the eyes "yes"

"What's your symbol?" She asks.

"A raven" I answer and then I pull up my t shirt to show a raven tattoo on my bicep.

She nods before asking "why didn't I get it?"

"Because you didn't officially start duty yet" I answer "you will when you get 18"

She nods at that.

A question suddenly comes to my mind "don't you wanna be something other than an assasin or a soldier? Like a doctor, photographer, programmer, teacher, scientist or something?"

She thinks deep before answering thoughtfully "never really thought about that"

"About your passion?"

"Yeah, life was always about surviving" she speaks up, lost in thought "I never really had a chance to about things like this and now I think I am not able to"

"No you can." I assure her with a smile "you can be anything you want in the world"

She shrugs "I like how it is right now"

"Still you do have a choice now..." I reason

"I guess"

I notice that her ice cream has finished "do you want more?"

"No" she says, still lost in thought.

"Alright" I say getting up "shall we go then?"

I pay for the ice creams and get some for everybody. We both make our way back to our car and I open the door for her. She gets in awkwardly again. On the way home, we sit in companionable silence. It didn't feel as awkward now.

"What was it like?" She asks quietly "when I was here?"

"It was..those were the best years of our lives" I say as a sad smile creeps up on my face "it was a point in our lives when everyone was happy. Everything only went downhill after that.."

She looks at up at me as I answer her questions and I just wanna hug her tight. There's a thing called personal space Eiran, I remind myself.

We reach home fairly quick and make our way out of the parking.

"Shit. Seb's missed calls." I say checking my phone.

He's going to be livid.

"Boss's?" She perks up immediately.

"No Akira. Your brother's" I speak softly "your eldest brother who probably loved you more than us. He cares Akira."

She stares ahead while walking as I say this and then just shrugs "alright"

We enter through the huge front doors and head to the kitchen to store the ice creams. Akira gets some water from the fridge.

The air suddenly starts to feel heavier and the lights seem to darken and I turn around to notice Sebastian standing on the kitchen door. Akira notices it too and quickly puts down the glass of water and stands straighter.

I turn around with the bag of ice creams still half full and rummage in it to find the 'cookies and cream' flavor and slide it towards Seb.

"Where were you?" He asks me as if he's talking to one of his soldiers.

"Doesn't matter, I got you ice cream" I say cheerfully and then add "still like 'cookies and cream'?"

"Why did both of your bodyguards say that I'd ordered them off duty?" He asks, livid.

Oh shit. He found out.

"Okay, I may or may not have sent them off duty on 'your orders'.." I say cautiously.

He stares at me, anger flashing in his eyes.

"Calm down bro" I try to sound chill "have some ice cream"

I seem to shrink under his stare and notice Akira watching the whole exchange, just as stoic as him. Like brother like sister, I guess.

"Get to your beds" He says "it's late"

"Yup" I try to quickly get my ass out but a sudden crash makes us all turn around.

It's Akira. The glass out of which she was drinking water earlier fell. She immediately bent down to pick up the shards.

Seb quickly makes his way over to her. "Sorry sir" she mutters as she quickly collects the broken pieces.

"Get up" he orders and she quietly obliges.

I glare at Seb for making Akira so scared of him that she wouldn't even look up at him.

His eyes widen in worry before he masks it up when he notices a drop of blood on the floor. He immediately forwards his hands for Akira to put the pieces in her hands in.

"Give me" He says when she doesn't move.

She slowly puts the broken glass in his hands and he speaks up "Eiran check her hands and put some anti-septic on the cuts"

"Come on Akira" I say quietly and I lead her to the bathroom.

"Sit here" I pat the counter top

she silently moves forward and sits on the counter with the help of her hands.

"you will hurt yourself" I say immediately but she just sits there unflinching.

I quickly take out the first aid box and apply some anti-septic on the cuts. thankfully no shard had gone inside the skin.

"don't pick up glass with your bare hands again" I scold her.

what if she had gotten more hurt?

"ask one of your brothers to help you" I say and then add softly "okay?"

she nods.

we head into the kitchen after patching her up to find Seb picking up the remaining pieces of the glass. His head perks up as he hears us enter and he stand straighter and throws away the glass in the dustbin.

His eyes go straight to the band aid on her hand and he speaks up "go to bed"

we both nod and make our way out of the kitchen and to our rooms.

"good night" I wish her as I enter my room "night" she responds

Third person pov

It is 1 am when Sebastian finally decides to head to his room. His steps are heavy as he drags himself up the stairs with his favourite ice cream in his hands. He still couldn't believe that Eiran would remember him or his favourite flavour from years ago.

His room is one the second floor but his feet carry him towards his younger siblings' bedrooms on the first floor. He quitely checks up on them by cautiously peeking into the rooms to find them sleeping. These routine check ups are one of the important things that keep him sane. After seeing both Kai and Leo sleeping peacefully in their rooms, his legs carry him to Akira's room.

Akira. He hadn't summoned the courage to check up on her in these routine check ups too. But tonight, he decided, he needed to. To give some peace to his consciousness which kept bugging him, if not anything. He didn't know how long he stood infront the door, trying to build up the courage to face her. Even she was sleeping, he couldn't look at her without coming on the verge of breakdown or another flashback.

He opened the door, and silent as night itself, peeked inside. She was sleeping, peacefully. Okay done. Checked up on her. She's safe. He wanted to shut the door and run off to his room, his bathroom. The urge was eating him up but Akira's face kept him transfixed. He's body seemed to have a mind of its own as he quitely shut the door and headed towards Akira.

He hesitated, standing a few feet away from her, as the guilt threatened to overflow every barrier that he put up. A deep breath, two. Several deep breaths later, he took steps towards her and crouched on the floor, beside the bed. His eyes darted to her hand with a bandaid on her palm, he reached his hand towards it to touch it ever so slightly as if afarid he might make her injury worse.

"I'm sorry" He breathed The words out. They came from deep inside him. Something he had repeated more times in his dreams and during the bad days than he could keep track of.

All of his restraints broke and the words overflowed out his mouth faster than his brain could decipher them "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, that I scare you. I'm sorry I'm not the brother you deserve. I'm sorry you had such a hard life because of me. You didn't deserve it. I did. They should have taken me instead, not you. I should have died then, when they took me. But mom came, she protected me. I couldn't end it then, knowing I'd be the Don, I'd have to. I didn't want Eiran to have to give up his passion to take up my place, so I stayed. But I promise, I punish myself. I give myself all the deserved punishment. I won't ever ask your forgiveness. I don't deserve that. But-but please don't hate me. Don't be scared of me..ple-ase?" His voice breaks off in the end as he stifles a cry that rises in him.

Staring at her calm and sleeping face, he hadn't realised when his face had become tear stricken and wet. He suppressed his sniffles and wipes his tears off his face. A deep breath or two later, he gets up and whispers "good night Luna" before exiting the room and closing the door.

The click of the door echoed through the room, and Akira's eyes opened, sharp and alert..

A.N--------- Hey guys:)

The updates are gonna be slower for a while, I have exams starting soon.

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