The morning after the spider drawing, Lian woke up to his father humming softly in the kitchen. It wasn't a song he recognized—more like something half-remembered, the way dreams sometimes linger.
His mother had already left for her early shift at the nail salon, leaving behind a neatly folded note with a hand-drawn heart and a string of characters reminding him to eat breakfast.
"You hungry?" his father asked, glancing up from the pan. There were scrambled eggs on the stove. Toast. Not congee.
Lian nodded. It wasn't a truce, but it wasn't war either. It was something in between.
They ate in near silence, the scraping of forks the only sound. But it wasn't the heavy silence. It was something softer.
"Your mom told me you had a poem. For school?"
Lian shrugged. "Ms. Devon wants me to submit it. For a showcase."
"You going to?"
He hesitated. "I don't know."
His father nodded, then went back to his eggs. "Well, I think you should. For what it's worth."
That small comment stayed with him the whole walk to school.
Ms. Devon smiled when Lian handed her the printed version of his poem. She didn't say anything at first, just read it slowly.
Then she said, "You found your voice. It's quieter than others, but it cuts deeper. That's power, Lian."
For once, he didn't look away.
At lunch, Jamie waved him over. Her lunchbox had stickers all over it—bats, mushrooms, and a tiny dragon with huge eyes.
"I read the poem," she said. "Ms. Devon showed me."
He raised an eyebrow.
"She said she needed another set of eyes before sending it to the district," Jamie explained. "I liked it. Especially the part about the cage made of silk."
Lian nodded. "I think I was writing about my house. And myself."
She didn't ask questions. She just nodded.
After lunch, they were paired together in Art. The project was simple: a mixed media piece that represented transformation.
"Fitting," Jamie said.
"Yeah," Lian agreed.
They got to work.
He tore pages from old notebooks, layering them with watercolor. Jamie added soft swirls of cotton, a string of wire bent into tree roots, and glitter that she insisted wasn't cheesy.
"Glitter is rebellion," she said. "It's saying, I exist and I refuse to be dull."
Lian laughed.
He hadn't laughed like that in a while.
At home, his mother was asleep early, exhausted from a long shift.
Lian tiptoed into her room and left the sketchbook by her bedside. He had drawn something for her: a crane in flight, carrying a small bundle in its beak. Inside the bundle was a curled-up panda cub.
She'd know what it meant.
That night, his father knocked gently on his door.
"Can I come in?"
Lian nodded.
His father sat on the edge of the bed. "I read your poem. Your mom translated it for me."
Lian's chest tightened.
"It was honest. Painfully honest. And brave. I see myself in it. The parts you don't like. The parts that hurt you."
Lian looked down.
"I'm going to mess up, probably a lot. But I don't want to be a spider in your dreams anymore."
Lian didn't say anything.
His father stood up, but paused at the door. "Thank you for writing it. Even if it wasn't for me. Especially because it wasn't."
After he left, Lian lay in the dark.
He didn't cry. But his chest felt warm in a way that made breathing feel less like work.
He imagined the animals again. Not as cages, but companions.
Not fixed, but changing.
Just like him.