Mu remembered his own childhood.
Then there was Xia Ya.
Mu had already been fairly grown by the time Xia Ya was born.
After that, everything passed like a fast-forwarded film. When Xia Ya began learning to speak, Al could not wait to impose all sorts of educational plans on him.
Languages, logic, history, natural sciences—Xia Ya's schedule was packed solid, several times harsher than any arrangement Mu had endured as a child.
Sometimes, when Mu passed the study, he would see his little brother sitting behind stacks of books taller than his head, reciting material far beyond his age in a childish voice. Before those azure eyes had the chance to take on the innocence of childhood, they had been forced to learn an unnatural calmness.
Mother and Al had argued over it more times than Mu could count.
The one Mu remembered most clearly took place in the study on the second floor of the estate.
The door had not been fully shut. Mu and Xia Ya sat shoulder to shoulder on the stairs by the landing, holding their breaths as they listened to the fierce argument spilling through the crack in the door.
Mother's voice rose with agitation as she said Al was using his child to satisfy his own obsession. Al, meanwhile, replied in a tone so cold it was nearly indifferent, saying that after ruining one, she now intended to ruin the second as well.
Mu had not fully understood what that meant at the time. Xia Ya said nothing, but Mu instinctively reached out and pulled his younger brother closer.
That night, Mu lay awake in bed for a long time.
He thought about things no child his age should have been thinking about. Why Father looked at him differently from how he looked