the unsung.

fight. - zhuang

"I didn't know." Zhuang said matter-of-factly, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Neither did I till I got here." said Haoran. "My jaw still locks when I shift sometimes."

"No..." Zhuang shook his head, "I mean, yeah, obviously I didn't know I was a tiger. But that's because I didn't know I was any sort of magical at all."

Haoran's eyes narrowed in an almost cartoonish fashion as Kuo choked on his nth bite, coughing out, "What do you mean you didn't know?"

"I was Unaware — like, totally Unaware."

"How is that even possible?"

Zhuang shrugged, feeling awkward. "My mama's nonmagical. I don't even know my dad, but Amah told me he was a demimagical."

Was — that's exactly what she'd said. Zhuang didn't dare ask more, but her chosen tense had  lingered in his thoughts for so long that he was now sure his father had long passed.

"I was just a kid..." His cheeks reddened slightly as he stretched out his arms and adjusted his glasses anxiously. "I mean I'm no... y-you guys know I'm almost immagical, right? I wasn't some all-powerful, Aura-spewing baby. I always liked reading and thinking and building things in my head. I guess I assumed numbers floated around like that for everyone. I had no way of knowing."

He gnawed on his bottom lip, mumbling, "I grew up in this place called Greenhills. I never had friends, really. Mama ko taught at a girl's school and I went to this Chinese boy school nearby. She was always working overtime, taking tutoring jobs and things like that, trying to make ends meet. Being alone that often meant I didn't really have a way of realizing 'oh, that's not very human', since I had little to no reference of ordinary. Felt it inside, I guess - like there was something in me fighting to be let out. But I didn't want to think I was special."

He sighed, shaking his head. "I just... didn't know."

"You grew up in Guilin hills? In Guangxi?" Guanyu asked excitedly.

"What?! No, idiot." Zhuang held back laughter. "Greenhills. San Juan. National Capital Region. Philippines."

Kuo burst into a giggly fit as Haoran pounded a fist on the table. An opportunity to humiliate Mister Vogue China would never go amiss.

Haoran gasped and pointed at Zhuang furiously — "Oh gege, I was actually meaning to ask you if your mom is Creedean or if she's Filipino Filipino."

"Yeah she's a mainlander."

"That's good. I don't like Creede."

Zhuang frowned, confused. Everyone liked Creede. "Why not?"

"Too nice. The Cades are too nice. It's far too quiet."

Michio smiled at that, unable to resist the urge to pinch his didi's right cheek affectionately. Since Haoran arrived a few months prior, he'd felt lighter and more understood.

But Zhuang looked a little upset. His lips had pressed together into a thin line as he spoke defensively, "You know, they're good people."

"You've never even met them!" Guanyu laughed, "Filipinos really do just love the Cades, don't they? I remember you shrieked when I showed you my photos from Arko's eighteenth birthday party."

Zhuang's ears turned a shade of bright red. "I didn't shriek. You said yourself that they're good people."

"They are."

"Oh shut up, Vogue China." Kuo scowled. "Let Zack Santos finish his story."

Haoran screamed. "They called you Zack Santos?!" But Haoran screamed all the time, and everyone else had known this of Zhuang already.

Guanyu buried himself into his shirt again as Zhuang grimaced, muttering "I'm not a fanboy," under his breath like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

"If you didn't know, how did you find out?" Michio asked, his head tilted to the side in tiredness as the hour grew later.

"Amah came to visit." As he said it, Zhuang's eyes lit up in a glossy haze, his mouth curling upwards in the slightest of smiles at the memory. "She knew, of course. She presented herself as an old, distant relative who offered to watch over me and help around at home for a while. Mama ko was naturally suspicious, and had to be kept blissfully Unaware, but Amah knows the way to anyone's heart."

Zhuang remembered how the house seemed to grow warmer with each passing day. Amah taught him little things, like how the numbers he saw in his head were actually pieces of code or math which fit together like a puzzle. Then came the bigger things, like how she bought him his first computer, and how he quickly learned to put the puzzle pieces together with a few taps and clicks. There were also the essentials — like how to brew a proper cup of tea, or how to fold his clothes, shoot a gun, hack into a mainframe, destroy a government. But most importantly of all,

"One day," he recalled it precisely, "That thing inside me that was desperately fighting to be heard... it grew guttural. Instinctual."

He smirked, regaining his confidence. "Then she taught me how to roar."