Amidst The Stars

Free

  In the four years Yao was off for university, he was a ghost.

  Every day, when he came back from school and began tackling his homework, Vicente never saw Yao. He rarely left his room, never spoke to any of the siblings, never smiled or joked or shared stories any more. It was like going to university had broken his spirit.

  The only time Vicente saw Yao was during dinner. His older brother always had shadows under his eyes, his shoulders slumped with something more than exhaustion. That wasn't new, but the proud gleam in his eyes was gone, replaced by something dull that looked like defeat. Even then, he never got the chance to talk to Yao. The moment he set his chopsticks down, he was gone, back into his room to bury himself in schoolwork. He couldn't talk to him during the weekend, either — every Saturday and Sunday, Yao left the apartment complex before he woke up and returned after he fell asleep. Their stepmother remarked waspishly that he was probably consorting with gangsters to cheat his way through university.

  It was like he'd lost his brother. The brother who'd taught him how to cook and complained about French with him, as well as the one who carried him to look at the nightlife of his hometown and told him stories in Mandarin, had been replaced by an empty shell of who he once was. Every day, Yao seemed to change more and more, until it seemed that he wasn't just a shell of himself, but an entirely different person.

  By the time he'd reached the end of his second year in university, Yao had let his hair grow out. He'd ignored their stepmother's various attempts to get his hair cut and tied it in a short ponytail to keep it out of his eyes, much to his siblings' amusement. Leon once joked that he looked like an imperial Chinese philosopher who sat by lotus ponds all day and thought about life.

  Kiku graduated from high school at around the same time. She, unlike her stepbrother, was able to choose where she went, though Vicente noticed that she still picked a university close by. The conflict between Yao and her mother, which seemed like such a long time ago, was clearly still on her mind.

  Their stepmother once lamented that she and their father had been spoiling Yao by buying him his own laptop for university and not saying much when he grew his hair out. Nobody said anything about how she'd always treated Kiku better — not kindly, only better. Even after four years, she treated Vicente with nothing but disinterest, passing him by at home like he was a ghost. She never made eye contact with him, never spoke to him.

  Once, while bringing a pile of laundry to Ling and Yao's room, Vicente noticed that Yao's side of the room looked plainer than usual. The shelves weren't as packed with books, his desk was less cluttered and, as he found out when he opened the musty drawers, he looked like he had far fewer clothes than he used to. But Vicente chalked that up to Yao losing things, which wasn't unusual, and said nothing about it.

  Then more things started disappearing. More and more, until it was clear that it wasn't just Yao's absent-mindedness. Vicente had gone into Yao's room one day with another load of laundry, opened his drawers and found all but the very bottom one, which was filled mostly with tightly-sealed envelopes and notebooks that were taped shut, empty. In fact, by the time Yao reached his final year of university, just a few months away from earning his degree, barely anything was left in his room.

  But Vicente had more important things to worry about by then. He'd graduate high school soon, and he had sent out his university applications a while ago. June, when he would take his public exams and figure out what to do for the rest of his life, was creeping closer and closer. Their stepmother would definitely disapprove if he picked a university far from Arlingdale, unlike Kiku and Yao, he thought. Or would she not even care? Did she even know he existed?

  Hopefully, he was insignificant enough to her that she'd leave him to do what he wanted, though he wasn't sure what that was. Yao was studying accounting, as per their father's request, and neither parent had protested too much when Kiku announced she wanted to study literature. They'd definitely say something if he told them he had no idea what course to take.