Vipin finds the mirror by accident.
It's wedged behind a grain trunk in a side room that smells of old cloth and mustard oil, its surface clouded with dust and hairline cracks. The frame is chipped wood, darkened by years of fingers lifting it, setting it down, forgetting it again.
He recognizes the place immediately—not by memory, but by neglect. This is where objects go when they're no longer useful but not yet thrown away.
He wipes the glass with the edge of his shirt.
The reflection that stares back makes him pause.
For a moment, his mind refuses to accept it. It waits for correction. For the image to adjust itself the way reflections always have—aligning with expectation, smoothing over flaws.
It doesn't.
The boy in the mirror is narrow in a way that feels unfinished. Ribs show faintly beneath the skin, not sharply enough to alarm anyone, but clearly enough to register if you're looking for it. His shoulders slope inward, hollow at the joints. His wrists are thin, almost delicate, the bones too close to the surface.
Vipin leans closer.
His face is softer than he remembers ever being. Cheeks fuller. Jaw unformed. The sharpness that once defined him—angles carved by stress and time—is gone. In its place is something rounder, less defined.
Younger.
He lifts one arm experimentally.
The boy in the mirror copies him, slow and uncertain.
Vipin rotates his wrist, flexes his fingers. The movement lags a fraction behind his intent, as if the signal has to travel farther than it should. He tightens his hand into a fist.
The fist is small.
Too small.
He exhales through his nose and lowers himself to the floor, placing his palms flat against the stone. The surface is cool, slightly gritty. He positions his hands the way he always has—shoulder-width apart, fingers spread for balance.
A push-up should be nothing.
He lowers his chest carefully, elbows bending.
When he tries to push back up, his arms simply… don't.
They shake violently, muscles firing in a panicked, uncoordinated burst before giving out entirely. His chest drops the remaining distance and hits the floor with a dull thud.
The sound feels louder than it should.
Vipin lies there for a second, face turned to the side, breathing hard. Not from exertion. From surprise.
He pushes himself back up onto his knees, slower this time, and sits back on his heels.
One.
That's all he managed.
Not a full one. Not even close.
He stares at his hands again, flexing them like he's testing a connection that keeps dropping packets.
Faulty hardware.
He stands and moves back to the doorway, eyes lifting to the wooden frame. It's old, the beam warped slightly with age. He remembers clearing doorframes without thinking, ducking only when he had to.
He takes a step back, gauges the distance, then jumps.
His fingers miss the beam by a wide margin.
Not inches.
A full foot.
He lands awkwardly, knees absorbing the shock badly, and has to steady himself against the wall to keep from tipping over. The jolt sends a brief flash of pain up his legs—sharp, but fleeting.
Vipin straightens slowly, heart pounding again.
This isn't just weakness.
This is scale.
His body hasn't caught up to the world yet. It doesn't have the leverage, the mass, the margins for error his mind keeps assuming it does.
He looks back at the mirror one last time.
The boy looks back without judgment.
Outside, noise erupts suddenly—shouts, laughter, the slap of skin against skin. Vipin moves toward the sound instinctively, drawn to it despite himself.
In the open patch of ground beyond the courtyard wall, a group of boys are playing kabaddi.
They're older than him. Not by much. Maybe eight, nine, ten. But the difference feels vast.
They move in bursts—lunging, dodging, colliding. Dust kicks up around their feet. Bare skin gleams with sweat. One boy charges forward, arm outstretched, yelling as he tries to tag another before retreating back across the line.
"Try stopping me!" someone shouts, laughing.
The defender meets him head-on.
The impact is loud and ugly. Bodies slam together. Someone stumbles, recovers, pushes back harder. The watching boys whoop and clap, already calling out the next move.
Vipin stands at the edge of the wall, fingers curling unconsciously around the rough brick.
He doesn't imagine himself there.
He calculates.
Mass.
Momentum.
Bone density.
If he stepped into that circle now, one careless shove would knock the wind out of him. A harder hit would put him on the ground. A bad fall—
He stops the thought before it finishes.
One of the boys glances his way and grins. "Oye," he calls, breathless. "Wanna play with us!"
Vipin doesn't answer.
He knows better.
The boy shrugs and turns back to the game, already forgetting him. The match resumes, louder than before.
Vipin watches in silence, committing the movements to memory. Not the speed. Not the aggression.
The mechanics.
How they lower their center of gravity before contact. How their feet dig in. How balance decides who stays standing and who doesn't.
He understands something important then.
Skill comes later.
Right now, his problem is simpler and more unforgiving.
This body cannot compete.
Not yet.
A laugh bubbles up unexpectedly—thin, dry, entirely internal.
Of course it can't.
He's six.
He turns away from the game and heads back into the house, steps measured now, careful. The mirror catches his eye again as he passes the side room.
He stops.
This time, he doesn't study his reflection with disbelief or panic. He studies it the way he used to study code—looking for constraints, limits, bottlenecks.
The ribs are visible, but not protruding dangerously.
The wrists are thin, but not malformed.
The shoulders are hollow, but the joints look clean. No swelling. No deformity.
Nothing is broken.
It's just… unfinished.
Vipin presses his palms together in front of his chest and pushes lightly, feeling the resistance, the tremor in his arms. He releases and shakes them out slowly.
This body will grow.
But growth, he knows, is not automatic. Not equal. Not fair.
If he leaves it to chance, it will become whatever the house allows it to become.
And the house, he's already learning, feeds utility before potential.
He steps away from the mirror and back into the flow of the household, keeping to the edges, listening more than he speaks.
Outside, the kabaddi game dissolves into argument and laughter.
Inside, someone calls for more water.
Vipin responds without being asked, lifting a smaller vessel this time, carrying it with both hands. He moves carefully, deliberately, aware of every step, every shift in balance.
It isn't strength.
But it's control.
And control, he knows, is where everything starts.
As he sets the vessel down and steps back, unnoticed, he allows himself one final, quiet thought:
This body may be too small for the world.
But the world, eventually, will have to adjust to him.
Just not today.
Today, he learns the limits.
Tomorrow, he begins working around them.