Jate didn't want to believe in magic. He believed in timing, instinct, and staying out of sight until he chose to be seen. Disappearing without choosing to was a different matter entirely.

During chores he turned a corner and suddenly felt… breezy.

He reached for the broom leaning against the wall.

His hand went through it.

Again, really?!

Then it went further. Jate's feet were suddenly passing through the ground, and he was falling. For a split second, he felt like a tipped-over glass of water. Like he was spilling out of himself, and right before hitting the ground, there was a sudden vertigo-inducing sensation of expanding outward into the humid air, his flesh and bone dissolving into mist.

Then he was nothing again.

Nothing to be, nothing to hold onto. He just was, full stop.

There were trees gently swaying in the breeze, children and staff occasionally walking up and down the path, and him detached from it all, utterly invisible to everyone and everything.

It reminded him of before the orphanage: the endless loneliness of being in cold, opulent rooms, present and as unacknowledged as the decorative furniture surrounding him.

When he finally stumbled back into being opaque, Jate was on his knees gasping for breath, hands patting himself all over, checking to make sure that his body was complete again.

⁕ ⁕ ⁕

Later, Thanom walked down the hall toward him and didn't say a word. Jate had been right there, and—

SWOOSH

Thanom had walked straight through the air where he stood. It felt like a violation. Jate felt Thanom's momentum pass through his center — a wave of suffocating heat passing through an icy draft. It swatted his atoms like dust in a wind tunnel.

Then Thanom continued walking away, shivering slightly, unaware he had just collided with another human being.

"Weird," he muttered, rubbing his arms.

Jate's hands flickered — solid, then faintly transparent, then solid again.

I don't want to do this anymore.

⁕ ⁕ ⁕

The next day, it happened again—but worse.

One second, he was walking by the water pump; the next, he was everywhere, observing the entire courtyard from above.

Sound assaulted him. Without ears to filter the noise, the world was a scream. The cicadas sounded like circular saws. Every conversation in a ten-meter radius hit him at full volume without mercy.

Jate coalesced back into himself by the old stairwell, retching dryly, his pulse pounding like a jackhammer.

Peach found him there, sitting on the floor, pale and vibrating with aftershocks.

"Congratulations," she said, crouching beside him, her voice unnervingly calm. "You're finally unstable."

Jate wiped sweat from his forehead, his hand still shaking. "What?"

He already knew what she meant. His old life had been built on meticulous control, and now he couldn't even predict his own body.

"What's happening to me?"

"You're listening in the wrong form," she said plainly. "You turn into smoke, silly. Or mist. Or something free and airy."

He stared at her, bewildered. "That's not a real thing."

"Neither is gravity." Peach shrugged, tilted her head at him then walked away.

⁕ ⁕ ⁕

That night, Jate skipped dinner.

He sat on the rooftop, trying to keep himself together by force of will.

But the world kept pulling at him. The urge to let go, to dissolve into the cool night wind, was seductive but petrifying. When he finally gave in—when he stopped fighting—the sounds conquered him.

The world roared. Thanom's sleep-mumbles from the dorm tangled with the rhythm of Art's steady inhalations.

It was too much clarity over too much distance—but an unfathomable part of him wanted to stay that way.

As vapor, nothing could hurt him.

Jate forced himself down from the roof. He collapsed onto a patch of cool grass underneath the old banyan tree, pressing his back against the earth, the world still feeling unreal around him.

He heard the soft patter of feet on the grass a few moments later. He squeezed his eyes shut, expected them to pass, but the footsteps stopped.

Go away.

Phun stood there for a moment watching Jate with a concerned expression. Then, without a word, he sat down, pulled out a small sketchbook, and picked up a stick of charcoal.

Scritch. Scratch. The sound was harsh at first, then dry, and comforting.

Jate turned his head on the grass. Phun was drawing the gnarled roots of the banyan tree. His hand moved with a purposeful restraint. As he drew, his eyes would occasionally flick from the roots to Jate's still form on the grass.

Scritch. Scratch.

Phun's brow furrowed, pouring all his intent into the lines of the roots.

Jate watched his hand move. Gradually, the bouncing in Jate's chest slowed to match the rhythm of the charcoal. The feeling of "spilling" receded. The borders of his skin felt firm again.

The noise acted as a metronome. It cut through the roar of hypersensitivity still lingering in Jate's head. It was the sound he wanted to focus on. Something solid dragging against something solid.

Jate closed his eyes, listened to the scratch, and breathed without fear. He focused on the sound until he felt human.

When he opened his eyes again, Phun was gone.

But on the grass where he had sat, weighted down by a small pebble, was a torn page.

Jate picked it up.

It was the drawing of the roots, grandiose and sturdy lines digging deep into the white space of the paper.

It was everything he felt he was not.

He ran his thumb over the sketch. The charcoal smudged, staining his thumb black.

Jate pressed his other four fingers against the rough paper, calming himself with the sensation.

⁕ ⁕ ⁕

Just before dawn, he walked by the mango tree. The others were already there. No one asked where he'd been.

Thanom nodded once in acknowledgment. Jate nodded back. Yesterday you walked through me. Today you see me. Okay.

Mali offered him half her mango.

Jate took it. The skin of the fruit was sticky and juice dripped between his fingers.

He didn't drift away. He stayed, but he gripped the fruit until his fingernails dug into the peel, just to be sure.