Yury Smirnov

Forest

Yury was born somewhere in Russia to someone on the 1st of October. His early childhood was a blur of damn mouldy rooms, visits by child services, fleeing countries and cold lonely evenings wrapped up in a blanket with his twin brother, Lev. The twins weren't given names and were, by all meanings of the word, undocumented. They were never seen by any nurses or doctors or dentists nor did they attend school. When he was 5 years old, his little sister was born and his biological mother dumped the three of them outside Craggits Orphange in Florida and left never to be seen again.

As they were the newest inmates to Craggits, the staff took special interest in the three siblings. It was rare for them to take in siblings, let alone three of them where two of them were even twins so naturally the other kids always singled him and his brother out to call them freaks and make them into their own circus attractions. He was finally given a name by the nurses - Yury, symbolic of new hope and joy and began to learn to read and write by being home-schooled at the orphanage.

Even from a young age, he knew that him and his twin brother were diametrically opposite people. He spent his time reading alone in the damp basement the matrons called a library under a flickering light which looked like it was straight out of a horror film. Even when cockroaches scampered across the floor tiles and mice squeaked in the odd corners, Yury stayed, too enamoured with his adventure books to break away and move. More than once, stayed up reading all through the night, woke up and read all through the day as well. When he saw the matrons too rushing about or cleaning up after all of the other kids, he'd always offer to help to get some spare food to give to his baby sister.

As he grew up a little more into his preteens, his relationship with his twin brother began to shift. Lev got involved with the popular, sporty kids at the orphange who accepted him so Yury was left behind, alone to look after Lilia all by himself. Yury began to hear rumours that he wasn't actually Lev's twin, and that he was actually his 'weirdo' little brother and after overhearing Lev spreading that same rhetoric, he got angry, unable to understand why his twin was saying all of that when it simply wasn't true. The gossip spread through the orphange like wildfire and soon Yury was the orphanage pariah and all the other kids avoided him like the plague. Eventually all his restment for his twin brother, the one meant to protect him and have his back, bumbled over and he punched Lev in the face, nearly hard enough to break his nose.

The word of the twin's fight spread through the town and the chances of the three of them all being adopted together dropped ten-fold as which person in their right mind would want to take on brothers who tried to kill each other as well as a one year old?

Both Aguero and August wanted to be parents, they always had. Something inside the both of them screamed that they wanted to have their own families... so when Yury and Lev were outside the orphanage one day, tidying up leaves as part of their punishment for the fight, Aguero jusy so happened to spot them and insisted on visiting them every now and then as well as paying for medicine for Lilia. Yury was sceptical at first, not knowing what to do with this stranger's kindness but after a few weeks and a bit of advice for him getting along with his twin, he got his hopes up that he'd just met his new dad. A week after, a tall Russian man with bright pink hair came with Aguero and introduced himself to the three siblings as 'August, nice to meet you kids, my guero here has told me lots bout the three of you'. The couple exchanged secret looks between them as if communicating without the need for words then smiled at him and took him and his siblings inside the office to formally sign their adoption papers.

His new home was nothing like anything Yury had seen before. Big, modern windows, carpeted flooring which felt like cushions under his little bare feet and a bedroom for them each. His room was small and sparsely decorated but it was much lovelier than the room full of bunk-beds he slept in at Craggits. He walked into his bedroom, sat on the bed then fell straight asleep. When he woke up, his room was covered in pages of his favourite books with corkboards for him to pin up his own achivements. He sleepily blinked at his new dad who was trying to put some fairy lights up around the room and watched him, thinking for the first time that he had a proper, real family.

As Yury grew up and eventually began to attend high-school, he was gifted a vintage camera from his grandfather Aziel. It was a retro old thing, red and black and covered in dust, but after watching hours and hours of YouTube videos he managed to repair it and take photos of the every day things that made him happy. He attened Sunnywinds adventure camp during the summers and snapped all sorts of photos of maple leaves, grand oak trees and evergreens, his best friend Tommie's face as she gently pet bugs on her arm, the sun gently cupping the soft line of her face and flowing through her bright red afro as it set over the horizon. He snapped photos of Lev playing basketball, Lilia asleep, stuffing her face with cookies or chasing butterflies. He took photos of Lev's train set he got for their birthday from their auntie, then took photos of the A&E trip later when it went straight through his dad's foot and made him cry.

Even though he was as happy as he could possibly be with the best parents and siblings in the whole entire world, a part of him was still the same scared little boy who was abandoned by his mum. Combined with the bullies at school and Lev's attempts to fix the scars from the past, Yury developed a serious anxiety disorder. The only thing that could help absolve it was going outside and talking some photos in the fresh air. When Tommie texted him, asking how he was his fingers shook so much that he couldn't send her anything back... just in case she read his reply and decided to leave him, too.

He fought the idea of therapy for a year before eventually having a mental break down a week after his high-school exams. He locked himself in his room, didn't eat, didn't talk to anyone and his parents got worried. August and Aguero forced him to go to the doctor to get anti-anxiety medication as well as seeing a therapist. It took a little while but after two months of adjusting to both of them Yury began to feel able to do what he loved again and his anxiety stopped weighing him down.

When he went to his adventure camp for the last year, he was going to confess to his best friend, Tommie. He hadn't known it but over the years of exploring with her he'd fallen for her antics and confidence. However, as her head laid on his shoulder as they watched the stars together, he couldn't get his mouth to say the words, 'I like you'. If she rejected and left him... he didn't know what he'd do.

After the camp ended, Yury was ready to send Tommie a text when his phone, a horribly old thing, decided to factory reset and he lost her phone number. He racked his brain, thinking of things he knew about her only to realise that all he had was her first name... he searched for her for a while but couldn't find anything. Eventually, he realised that he never should've let her go.

Yury started university enrolled in a photography course. He was just about to head into class when his phone buzzed to life... with a text from Tommie.