Dinner was rice, fried fish, and a vegetable soup that tasted like every dinner he'd never remembered eating. Mom sat across from him, eating slowly, occasionally glancing at his plate to make sure he was eating enough. There was a small scar on her left hand — he noticed it for the first time, or maybe the hundredth. He didn't ask about it.
"How was school?" she asked.
"Fine," he said. "Math was hard."
"You'll get better at it."
She said it like she knew. Like she'd watched him struggle with math before. Maybe she had. He didn't contradict her.
They ate in comfortable silence. The kind that didn't need filling. Outside, the neighborhood was settling into evening — dogs barking in the distance, a neighbor's television playing too loud, the sound of children being called inside for dinner. Normal sounds. The kind that didn't echo.
After eating, he helped her wash the dishes. She washed. He dried. His hands knew the rhythm — plate, bowl, glass, repeat. She hummed something while she worked. Not a song he recognized, but it was gentle. It made the kitchen feel smaller. Safer.
"You seem better today," she said, not looking at him.
He held a wet plate, considering the words. "Better how?"
"Less quiet. You were very quiet yesterday." She handed him another plate. "I was worried."
He dried it carefully. "I'm okay."
"I know." She smiled at the sink. "I can tell."
They finished the dishes. He put them away in the cabinet — his hands knew exactly where everything went. Top shelf for the everyday bowls. Second shelf for plates. Glasses in the third. It was muscle memory, but it felt like love. Like someone had shown him this a thousand times, and his body had learned to cherish the repetition.
In his room, he did more homework. English this time — a comprehension exercise about a story he'd already forgotten. He read it again. Carefully. The story was about a fisherman who caught something impossible in his net. A mermaid. A ghost. The text didn't specify. The questions asked what he thought it was.
He wrote: I think it was something he needed to find or opposite.
It wasn't a good answer. It wasn't even the right answer. But it was honest in a way that felt dangerous. He almost erased it. Didn't.
By eight o'clock, the house was quiet. Mom was in her room, the door closed but not locked. He could hear the soft sound of her radio — a late-night talk show, voices murmuring about things that didn't matter. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The ceiling had a water stain in the corner. Brown and spreading, like a slow bruise. He'd never noticed it before. Or maybe he had, in another life. In another body. In another time.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep came easy. No dreams. No flashes of white rooms or ticking watches. Just darkness, warm and complete, like being held by something that had no shape.
---
He woke at six. Not because an alarm went off — there was no alarm — but because his body knew the time. His internal clock, older than his bones, ticking away in the dark.
For a moment, he lay still. Listening. The house was asleep. Mom's door was still closed. The neighborhood hadn't started moving yet. It was just him and the sound of his own breathing.
He got up.
The bathroom was small and tiled, with a mirror that showed his face clearly. He looked at it for a long time. The boy looking back was real. Solid. Present. His eyes were dark. His hair was messy from sleep. There was a small pimple on his chin that he didn't remember getting.
He brushed his teeth. The toothpaste was mint flavored and too sweet. He didn't mind.
When he came out, Mom was in the kitchen, already making breakfast. Rice porridge. Salted egg. A small bowl of pickled vegetables. She moved around the kitchen like she'd done this a million times — because she had. Because this was real. Because this was her life, and he was part of it now.
"Good morning," she said.
"Morning," he replied.
She poured him a glass of water. "Eat before it gets cold."
He sat. Ate. The porridge was warm and soft and exactly what his body wanted. He didn't question why. He just ate.
Red Backpack was waiting at the jeepney stop again. So was Gap Teeth. So were the others. They greeted him like he'd always been there. Like he would always be there. He greeted them back.
"Did you finish the English homework?" Red Backpack asked.
"Yeah," Lumayon said. "You?"
"Nah. I'm gonna copy off Maria."
"Maria won't let you."
"Maria always lets me." Red Backpack grinned. "Because I'm charming."
Gap Teeth laughed. "You're delusional."
The jeepney arrived. They climbed in. The ride was the same as yesterday — the same conversations, the same jokes, the same rhythm. But this time, Lumayon didn't feel like he was watching from behind glass. He was here. Part of it. When someone made a joke, he laughed because it was funny, not because he was supposed to.
At school, the flag ceremony happened again. The anthem played. The students stood in rows. Lumayon's hand pressed against his chest, and he sang the words because he knew them. Because his voice belonged to this place. Because the sun was hot and the flag was real and the moment was exactly what it appeared to be.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
In Math class, he got three problems wrong on purpose. In English, he gave an answer that was mediocre and safe. During lunch, he sat with Red Backpack and the others, and they talked about a movie that was coming out, and he pretended he cared about which actor was in it.
He was good at pretending now.
But it didn't feel like pretending anymore.
It felt like living.
The walk home was warm. The vendor with the side car(tricycle bike, from previous chapter) is now selling a pancake with his wife. The dogs slept in the shade. The city moved around him in its ordinary way, and he moved through it like he belonged.
Because he did.
Mom was waiting at the gate again, apron tied, something cooking on the porch. She smiled when she saw him. Not a big smile. Just a small one. The kind a mother gives her son when he comes home from school.
"How was your day?" she asked.
"Good," he said. And he meant it.
They went inside together.
The house smelled like home.
For the first time, he understood what that meant.