Shuo stared at Luna as if she'd just discovered something rare and sparkling.
"You can laugh," she announced softly, as though confirming an important fact.
Luna's smile flickered, shy but real.
The tower lay scattered between them, pink and green blocks resting against Luna's knees. Instead of rebuilding it immediately, Shuo nudged one block toward her.
"You do," she said.
It wasn't a command. It wasn't even a suggestion.
It was permission.
Luna picked up the block. Her fingers didn't tremble this time. She placed it down carefully, a little crooked.
Shuo gasped in exaggerated admiration. "Ohhh."
Another block slid across the carpet.
Then another.
They weren't just stacking anymore. They were choosing together. Leaning closer. Whispering tiny decisions about which color should go where.
The space between them no longer felt careful.
It felt shared.
And somewhere between the third crooked wall and the fourth uneven corner, Shuo suddenly clapped her hands with bright authority.
"This is our kingdom," she declared.Shuo had already declared the carpet their "kingdom."
She placed a plush rabbit in Luna's hands with complete authority. "You be the doctor," she decided, nodding firmly as if this had been carefully planned. "Bunny is very sick."
Luna blinked, startled by the sudden assignment.
"Very, very sick," Shuo repeated gravely, then promptly fell onto her back in dramatic demonstration. "Like this."
For a second, Luna just stared.
Then carefully she copied what she'd seen adults do. She pressed her small hand against the plush rabbit's chest. "Heartbeat," she whispered, almost to herself.
Shuo rolled onto her stomach, chin in her hands, watching closely. "Is it okay?"
Luna hesitated. The old instinct to stay quiet tugged at her. But Shuo's eyes were wide, trusting.
"…It needs soup," Luna said softly.
Shuo gasped as if this was the most serious diagnosis in the world. She scrambled to her toy box and returned with a plastic teacup and a wooden spoon. "Emergency soup!"
They dissolved into quiet giggles as Luna pretended to blow on the invisible broth before holding it to the rabbit's stitched mouth.
It was such a small thing.
But Luna didn't feel frozen anymore.
Her shoulders weren't as tight. Her hands didn't tremble when she reached for toys. When Shuo tugged her wrist to show her a hidden stash of shiny stickers behind the curtain, Luna followed without hesitation.
Later, they built a house out of wooden blocks. It leaned dangerously to one side.
"It's okay," Shuo declared confidently. "Crooked houses are special."
Luna studied the slanted tower, then slowly adjusted one block at the bottom, steadying it. Shuo's eyes widened in admiration.
"You fixed it," she breathed.
Luna felt something warm bloom in her chest at that tone like sunlight pressing gently against a window. Not fear. Not caution.
Pride.
When the block house finally stood tall, Shuo grabbed Luna's hands and jumped in place. "We did it!"
The words felt strange to Luna.
We.
Not you. Not me.
We.
In the kitchen doorway, Ying Yue and Grandma Lin watched quietly. They didn't interrupt. They didn't comment. They simply let the girls exist in that fragile, growing space of shared joy.
By afternoon, Luna was sitting cross-legged without curling into herself. She told Shuo, in halting pieces, about a stray cat she once saw near a market. Shuo responded with a very serious story about a pigeon who stole her cookie.
The stories didn't need to make sense.
They only needed to be told.
When Shuo tripped over her own mismatched socks and landed in a heap of plush toys, Luna didn't just smile.
She laughed again.
Clearer this time.
Freer.
And when Shuo grabbed her hand and said, "Come tomorrow too," Luna didn't look toward the door in worry.
She looked toward the window, where the light was soft and kind, and nodded.
For the first time in a long while, the world didn't feel like something to survive.
It felt like something she might, someday, belong in