Same Endings [Jaakoppi Huotari & Ilmari Huotari]
Jaakoppi has always had this sincere look that needn’t words to support what he means. For Ilmari, it is the confirmation he seeks, the suggestion to think in another perspective, and the warning sign he never really follows before something unfortunate happens.
In contrast, Jaakoppi’s mouth barely moves as usual, but when it does, Ilmari is sure to hear everything.
…
There is only silence when Ilmari sees his brother’s face go pale and frightened, pupils abnormally compressed with the sight of his brother in a red-wet and bruised state.
He cannot bear to look at himself in the mirror through the rest of that night.
…
But Jaakoppi still cares. With all the headaches and sleepwalkings, with mindless rambles and strange behavior, even with the growl at the pit of Ilmari’s throat that comes when night is high and the forest breathes in its dense lungs of tall trees. He makes sure his brother eats, hydrates himself, and Jaakoppi always looks after him with the long gaze of local hunters, except that’s just Ilmari. His endeared and maddened Ilmari, only a blink away from staining his own hands with their neighbors of Watery.
…
Endeared Ilmari has already seen the expression Jaakoppi makes as he’s met with unrecoverable loss. He only doesn’t remember when, or where, or even if that life they share.
…
But as death arrives at the Huotaris’ door, Jaakoppi is not spared. Ilmari barely registers the act in his head—brother’s blood is already underneath his fingers and in his mouth, bitter as the perfect darkened frame of Jaakoppi’s wide open chest. Bitter, too, as the warning Ilmari did not heed because there was nothing to listen; his violence denied a word out of Jaakoppi’s mouth, but his lifeless eyes haunts him with the unsaid.
Ilmari cares for it for only a short moment during his grievance—until the body falls down the well and he turns away.