[This chapter contains familial violence, or in other words, child abuse. This includes controlling behaviour and both physical and verbal abuse. Any readers made uncomfortable by these topics may want to refrain from reading, and a summary will be provided at the end of the chapter.]

...

  "Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here to celebrate the graduation of the class of 2019." Yao's high school principal smiled down at the audience. They were seated in the school's massive auditorium, staring up at the principal upon her podium. She continued, "each and every one of these students have left their mark at Redwood High, and I am sure that they will change the world in their own way after leaving."

  Leon yawned. Vicente reached over Kiku to jab him in the chest until his head stopped drooping and gestured towards their stepmother, who was eyeing them like a tiger would its prey. Leon prodded him back with an indignant huff. Their stepbrother remained quiet.

  A few more minutes of the principal's speech was enough to make him drift off; his middle school graduation ceremony hadn't been half as dull. Vicente looked at the banner behind the stage, where "CLASS OF 2019" was written in big bold letters. A row of teachers was seated on the stage, some of them looking just as bored as him. The principal droned on.

  After what could've been five or fifty-five minutes (he really hoped he hadn't fallen asleep midway), the principal ended her speech. "Now, let's welcome our graduating class with a huge round of applause!"

  The entire auditorium seemed to come awake at that sentence, clapping and clapping as the first twelfth-graders began to walk on stage in their gowns. Vicente craned his neck and shifted up as much as he could without actually standing up, trying to catch a glimpse of his brother amidst the sea of students.

  Yao was among the last of the students to go on stage, head held up high and carrying himself like an emperor. He stood at the very edge of the stage, where he was almost out of his family's sight. Then the principal continued talking, apparently inviting the valedictorian (what was that?) to deliver a speech.

  To Vicente's surprise, Yao began pushing his way through his classmates and towards the podium. He tapped the microphone a few times, then began to speak.

  Their father suddenly leaned over to whisper to the four siblings, "a valedictorian is the person who got the highest marks in the entire grade level. You should all be proud of your brother for achieving something like this."

  He couldn't help raising his eyebrows in surprise. Yao, at the top of his class? It hadn't been a surprise back in Taipei, but in Arlingdale, with subjects like French and a tougher English syllabus, it was way harder to get top grades. Yet Yao had done it anyways. Leon and Ling looked impressed, while Kiku remained stony-faced. Their stepmother's face seemed to darken.

  Yao delivered his speech in flawless English, without the accent that he'd been teased for when they first moved to the West. And when he finished, a few of the other high-school students — his friends, no doubt — clapped louder than the rest as he went to take his seat.

  Then came the process of receiving the diplomas. The principal started with the last name "Adams", then "Bresson", then on and on, until an hour passed. Then, right after somebody with the last name "Valdez" got their diploma, Yao's name was called. He stood up and crossed the stage again, taking the diploma with a huge smile. Vicente and his siblings clapped again, though he noticed that Kiku was glancing furtively at her mother while she did so.

  Soon after, the ceremony ended and the graduates went off the stage to talk to their families. Vicente reached Yao first, stopping him at the end of the stairs. "Congratulations."

  His brother's proud, elated expression faded to a nervous one when he saw their stepmother approaching. "Was my speech all right?"

  "Huh?"

  "I practised so much, I really hope I didn't slip up..." Yao wrung his hands, retreating slightly against the wall. "Stepmother reviewed my notes last night, told me I couldn't make a fool of myself in front of her and Father, oh, goodness, if she thinks I did badly I don't know what she'll do!"

  "It was fine," Vicente reassured. "Stepmother won't say a word." He noticed her just a stone's throw away from the stage, loudly telling Ling off for not paying attention during the ceremony while a few concerned families glanced at them.

  Yao took off his cap and clutched it tightly. He still kept an eye on their stepmother and father, who were far away enough that they were out of earshot. "Today's the day all the universities I applied to let me know if I'm accepted. If I don't get into at least one..." he squeezed his cap tighter. "if I don't get into at least one of the universities I applied for, I don't know how Father or Stepmother are going to react!"

  Why's Brother so worried about university? Vicente thought. Yao was the one who got the scholarship into a private high school, who got an hour of sleep every night and studied round the clock, whose Grade Point Average was a perfect 4.0. There couldn't be any university that would veto his application.

  On the other hand, Vicente knew his time was running short. He'd start high school in September. Unlike Yao, he hadn't won any scholarships, nor were his grades Harvard or Oxford material. He shuddered to think about what their stepmother would say when she found out he was painfully average compared to his brother.

  "Well done."

  Their stepmother had reached the two of them, smiling sweetly enough to make a cat sick. She placed a hand on Yao's shoulder and said, "your father and I are so proud of you."

  "Oh." Yao flinched. "Thank you."

  "Yes, well done," their father echoed. His smile seemed a little more genuine than their stepmother's, although it still looked unnatural. Vicente stepped out of the way to let him stand in front of Yao. "With those grades of yours, I'm sure you can get into any university you want."

  The drive home was rather pleasant, with their stepmother chattering on about some of the universities Yao had applied for, bringing up her friends who'd studied there as examples. "I've heard that the University of Toronto has a lovely campus," she said, "and with all the street vendors around the area, you'll never go hungry. They say that Rice University has the best dormitories, though."

  "I'll be able to give you tips if you choose the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong," their father chimed in. "I got my Bachelor's degree there."

  The atmosphere was so pleasant that Vicente expected their stepmother to drop a bomb at some point, to make a scathing comment and shatter everyone's good mood to pieces, but she did nothing of the sort. All the way back home, their stepmother was cheerful — almost too cheerful.

  Not even lunch dampened their mood. Their stepmother served them all heaping bowls of sōmen — thin noodles in a chilly broth of kombu and bonito — and grilled cod. She even made dessert: sweet, crumbly green bean cakes that lightened the mood even more. While Kiku tried to split the last bean cake into five equal pieces, their stepmother even volunteered to get the mail from downstairs. That was strange, too. Collecting the mail was something that she ordered one of them to do on most days.

  She returned with a pile of envelopes a few minutes later, just as the siblings were done with the bean cakes. She turned her back on them at the kitchen counter to sort them out. No more than a minute later, though, when all the spam mail was sorted out, she gasped. "Jing Yao!"

  Yao nearly dropped his cup as he got up from the kitchen table. "What is it?" He asked.

  "An acceptance letter!" She showed him the envelope, which was stamped with the crest of some university. "Look, you were even awarded a fifty-percent scholarship!"

  He took the letter out of the envelope and read it. "I got in," he said slowly, like he was trying to believe it. Yao smiled. "Did I get any other letters?"

  "That doesn't matter, now, surely you'll pick — "

  "Where are my other letters?" Yao looked through the pile of letters on the counter. "Did I get any? Even if this were the only one I got into, surely there'd be rejection letters from other schools."

  "That doesn't matter," their stepmother repeated. "Why would you need another choice?"

  He looked at his letter, then at their stepmother. "Where did my other letters go?" He said slowly. "This can't be the only one in the mail."

  "This university is so close to home, you won't even need to pay to live in the dormitories," their stepmother continued, like she hadn't heard Yao at all, "and you won't get homesick, either. Isn't that wonderful?"

  "Where are my letters?" Yao paced around the kitchen, looking in every nook and cranny, then back to the kitchen counter, where he laid out every envelope. "Where are they?" Back at the kitchen table, Vicente tried not to look. He could sense that both his brother and their stepmother were getting more agitated. "I bet you hid them."

  "Don't talk to me with that tone, I won't tolerate disrespect in this house. Now go sit down and read over the letter again."

  "You hid them, didn't you?" Yao's voice rose. "You hid them, you're keeping me from leaving because you don't want me to amount to anything. I'm sure of it." His fists were clenched. "University was my only chance of leaving this wreck of a place, and you took it away. You just want me to be compliant — "

  "ENOUGH!"

  All four younger siblings winced at the sound of skin striking against skin. Vicente dared to look, hardly able to breathe, and his heart leapt to his throat when he saw the red slap mark on Yao's cheek. Their stepmother's hand was still outstretched, as though she wanted to hit him again.

  Even when their mother and father argued, shouting and screaming from their bedroom, or lectured them about their grades, neither had ever laid a hand on them. Yao clearly knew this, as he raised one trembling hand to touch his face. His eyes blazed with a combination of pain, anger and shock.

  "You ungrateful brat!" She hit him again and again, until Ling gasped, covered her ears and began to inch out of the kitchen. Kiku followed slowly, eyes on the floor. "Don't talk back to me, don't doubt me, don't turn against me! Accept it, won't you? Accept that you're too incompetent for any other school, that this local place is the only one good enough. Accept that you're not going to Yale or Stanford!"

  Before she could say any more, before she could strike Yao again, Leon jumped out of his seat and ran towards Yao. "Leave him alone!"

  She grabbed his arm and wrenched him away, leaving him with angry red crescents on his forearm from where their stepmother's nails had dug in. Leon stumbled away with shaking knees and bright eyes. He wiped his eyes and sat back down, face crimson.

  "You will do what I say, do you understand?" Their stepmother advanced towards Yao again. He looked too defeated to fight back, not even flinching as she raised her hand again. "You will go to this rubbish school, you will learn what you can, and I will salvage a job for you with what little qualifications you have earned from your pathetic education. Do. You. Understand?" She accented every scathing word with a blow.

  Vicente, who'd felt frozen in place for most of the confrontation, mostly focused on not passing out, stood up. His heart thudded wildly; he clenched his fists, but he managed to shout, "stepmother!"

  She ignored him.

  "Stepmother!" He tried again, every strike scaring him more and more.

  This time she looked at him, waiting to see what he'd say.

  He opened his mouth to speak, looking at Yao. His nose was bleeding slightly, he had cuts on his cheeks and there was a line of bruises across his face. Whatever Vicente wanted to say couldn't come out.

  She turned away, expression saying enough: "you're not worth my time." Yao grabbed his acceptance letter and stumbled out of the kitchen, head bowed, and Vicente and Leon had no choice but to follow.

  He could feel their stepmother's gaze burning into them even from behind.

  The rest of the day passed like usual, with their stepmother acting like the borderline-tyrannical overlord that she normally was. Vicente hid in his room and tried to block out the echoes of their stepmother's voice, which was somehow a hundred times more terrifying than any argument he'd heard their mother and father have.

  An hour after lunch, Kiku knocked on the door of Yao's room, where the four of them were hiding. She stumbled into the room with a basin of warm water and a towel floating inside it, which she set down on the floor. "Are you all right?" She asked. It was one of the few times she'd spoken to them for a reason other than necessity.

  Yao pointed to his face. "As you can see, I'm doing amazingly."

  Kiku wrung out the towel and used it to wipe her stepbrother's face clean. Her hands were shaking. "I'm sorry I didn't stop her."

  "Don't blame yourself." He closed his eyes, clenching his fists in pain when the towel brushed a fresh bruise. "If you'd intervened, you'd have ended up like me."

  As she cleaned the rest of Yao's face, careful not to put too much pressure on the bruises, Kiku addressed Leon. "Can you go get some bandages from the washroom?"

  After Leon returned a few minutes later, she took the bandages and pressed them over the line of cuts on Yao's cheeks. "It should heal up in a week or so," she said.

  "Thanks, Kiku." Yao touched the bandages on his face. "You're better than your mother, that's for sure."

  Kiku's eyes were shiny, and she turned away from them to wipe her nose on her sleeve. She didn't say anything to them as she left the room, once again just the indifferent stepsister.

  After dinner, which had passed with nobody saying anything about Yao's injuries, Vicente decided to take out the trash before their stepmother flew into a rage again.

  While carrying the trash bag down to the nearby trash collection, he noticed a slip of paper poking out from a tear in the bag. It looked like a label, but he looked closer and noticed the bold caption: Cambridge University.

  It couldn't have been a rejection letter. Holding his nose, Vicente opened up the trash bag and found a pile of shredded paper on top of the food waste. All of them claimed to be letters from prestigious universities, and on quite a lot of them he saw the word "accepted".

 Yao was right, but what could be done? Every other accepted letter was torn up and covered in trash. Vicente closed the bag again and set it down, and he returned to the apartment complex feeling numb. He couldn't find the nerves to tell Yao what their stepmother did, not after she'd hurt him just for accusing her of the action. What he didn't know couldn't hurt him.

...

[Summary: Yao has graduated from high school, and he receives his university acceptance letters once he gets home. However, when he only receives one letter from a local school, he becomes suspicious that his stepmother has disposed of the rest. He doesn't get his answer, as his stepmother hurts him viciously for even questioning her. Kiku has begun treating her stepsiblings kindly, helping Yao, Leon and Vicente after the fight with her mother. While taking out the trash, Vicente discovers the torn remains of the rest of Yao's acceptance letters, but decides not to tell him about it.]