Suburbitalia Ep. 7: Big Brother Bother

He was sitting in the kitchen one evening, stirring his tea absentmindedly, while he thought it over. However, he was interrupted by the soft footfall of his sister creeping up to him.

“Everything alright, Slavoschka?” she asked with a smile. Vladislav looked up at her, staring keenly into her large violet eyes. Although they seemed bright and innocent, he knew that there was a secret lurking behind them, and he was determined to find out what it was.

“I’m alright,” was all he said. “What about you?”

“I’m fine. Dmitry is going to take me out for some ice cream. Would you like to come?” Vladislav shifted his gaze slightly, bringing his older brother into focus, from where he stood in the hallway, going through his wallet.

“No thanks,” he answered. “I’m a little tired. I think I’ll stay here.”

“Okay.” Anya seemed a little disappointed.

“Enjoy yourself,” Vladislav called, as his siblings disappeared through the front door. He waited until he thought that they had walked well enough away from the house, and then he made his way upstairs, abandoning the steaming cup of tea on the kitchen table.

With calm, even steps, he walked past his own bedroom door, and entered Anya’s room with an effortless turn of her doorknob. He stood in the doorway, inhaling the familiar mixture of his sister’s unique aroma and her favourite perfume, before venturing into the room. Beginning at her nightstand, he began to carefully comb through her things, making sure to replace everything exactly as he had found it. He didn’t find anything interesting until he got to her vanity table. Tucked into a corner of her jewelry box, he found the torn-off stub of a movie ticket; the date printed on it showed that she had seen the movie on Valentine’s night. Vladislav furrowed his brow while he studied it.

Dmitry and I were both working on Valentine’s night, he thought. Did Anya go to the movies alone? No, that’s highly unlikely. He sat on Anya’s chair, wondering who she might have gone to the movies with, when his eyes fell on an empty vase standing on the vanity. With a frown, he remembered the young man who had brought Anya flowers only a few weeks ago, whom he had forbidden Anya to see ever again. He wondered if she had seen a movie with him.

It seems likely, he realized. Anya didn’t usually disobey him, but she didn’t have any other friends that he knew of. Deciding that he needed some more information, he looked around for Anya’s cell phone, and realized that surprisingly, Anya had taken her phone out with her.

So she’s expecting calls, he noticed. Angrily, he got up and went to his own room, but not before carefully placing the ticket stub back into the jewelry box. He sat on his bed and opened his laptop, and hurried to log into Friendtalia, a popular social network. It had been such a long time since he had last used it, that the website took him through a number of painstaking security checks before he could access his account. Once he was in, he positioned his cursor over the search bar, then hesitated.

What did Anya say his name was? he wondered. After some brain-wracking, he typed B-E-R-V-A-L-T into the search engine. The website didn’t offer any suggestions, since Vladislav didn’t have many friends from Hetaburg connected with his account. Unfazed, Vladislav signed out, and then signed back in using Dmitry’s email address. He knew that Dmitry usually set his networks to remember his passwords, so he wasn’t surprised at the ease with which he was able to enter his account. After glancing over his newsfeed, he began again to type B-E-R into the search engine. Before he could continue, the name Berwald Oxenstierna popped up under “People You May Know”.

I wonder where he’s from? he wondered, looking at his surname. He clicked on the man’s icon, and was quickly redirected to his account. Unfortunately, he only shared a small amount of information publicly, but Vladislav could see that he was from Sweden, and worked at Hetakea, the local furniture and hardware store. His profile picture showed a tall blond man sitting in a fishing boat. He had eyes as blue as the water around him, framed by black spectacles, and he stared blankly at the camera while he gripped a fishing rod firmly. Without a second thought, Vladislav sent him a friend request. He leaned back against his bedstead, staring at Berwald’s profile picture. He tried to size up what kind of a man he was by the photograph, but it was difficult to do when he showed no expression.

He must be some kind of cold-hearted brute, Vladislav surmised. He was about to log off of the website, when a notification arrived, alerting him that Berwald had accepted “Dmitry’s” friend request. Vladislav quickly returned to the Swede’s wall, perusing his posts and photo albums, and snooping around on his friends’ pages as well. He spent a good hour or two on it, but he couldn’t come up with anything other than that he liked woodwork and glasscraft, and dogs. He didn’t seem to like taking pictures much, as most of his photos were of furniture that he had built or repaired in his own workshop. He didn’t post much either, but he had a friend by the name of Tino who seemed to post at least five times a day, and tagged Berwald in most of them. Satisfied with his search, Vladislav shut down the computer, making a mental note to check on Tino some time soon. His timing was perfect – as soon as he had closed the laptop, he heard the front door open and close, signaling that Dmitry and Anya had returned home. When Anya peeped into his room, she found Vladislav sitting on his bed, with the laptop on his lap.

“Slav?” she said, surprised to find him in the same clothes that she had left him in. “You haven’t showered yet.”

“No,” Vladislav answered. “I stopped to do some work and I lost track of the time.”

“Oh, you work yourself so hard sometimes,” Anya fussed, hurrying over to take the laptop off of him and put it down on the table, across the room.

“Well, I was just getting to bed now,” Vladislav shrugged, sliding off of the bed and heading to the bathroom.

“Alright. Have a good night, Slavoschka,” Anya smiled, leaving the room after him. She waltzed into her bedroom and flung herself onto the bed, not suspecting for a moment what her brother had been up to while she was gone.

“I had a really nice time tonight,” Sakura said while she fiddled with the clasp of her clutch. She was returning home from dinner, and Alfred had just pulled up to her house, but it was obvious that neither of them was intent on separating just then.