It took Father longer than usual to come home. Lunch smells of fried greens and soy mash as he waves the container at me. The door closes with a tired softness. His boots knock twice against the floor, a rhythm he kept from his deployments. Mother’s already set everything out.

  "Were there problems in the Depot?"

  "Just a late delivery and the shift manager being strict," Father says, smiling tiredly at me.

  We eat like always—quiet, neat, nothing wasted. Father doesn’t talk much when he’s home for lunch. Mother hums sometimes, just under her breath, a half-melody carried over from her time in the workshop. I wait until we’re just done with the meal. Timing matters. Too early, and they’ll think I’m playing a game. Too late, and Father will already be standing, reaching for his work jacket.

  I clear my throat. Small, enough to be heard. “Can I show you something?”

  Father looks up from his tea, chopsticks just laid down. Mother lifts one eyebrow in that way that says this better be worth it, dear. I slip away before they answer and return with the Notebook that holds my experiments and the new drawings.

  They’re the drawings I made this morning after testing my powers. They aren’t masterpieces, but not because I couldn’t make them so. A portrait of the tree outside our building. A sketch of Mother’s soldering station. The front gate and its rusted hinges. All the lines precisely where I wanted them.

  I set them on the table.

  Father sets down his tea. Mother leans forward. She doesn’t touch the paper at first—just looks. Her eyes sharpen the way they do when she sights down a scope.

  “You drew these?” Father asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “This morning. Just for practice.”

  Mother reaches out with two fingers and lifts the top page. She traces the tree trunk with her nail, slow, like she’s testing if it’s real. Her mouth presses into something close to approval. Father stays quiet, but his eyes are on the pages.

  “I was thinking…” I say before overthinking swallows me, “about registering with the Office of Artistic Expression. Maybe start selling small portraits. Street work. It counts toward Community Dedication.”

  Their attention sharpens just a little. The air feels different.

  “It’s allowed,” I add quickly. “Even encouraged. People do it. And—” I push the words out before doubt chews them up—“worst case, being part of the artist caste is better than sinking to servitor. It counts positively toward my Citizenship. And even if I do well in the School Competition, having something else can’t hurt.”

  Mother doesn’t look up immediately. When she does, her eyes narrow—not angry, just sharper. “Jun-Tao,” she says slowly, “do you actually think you’ll end up a servitor?”

  Father sips his tea. He doesn’t interrupt, but the way he leans back shows he’s listening now.

  I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Then why say it like that?” she presses. “Like it’s hanging over you.”

  I notice a loose thread on my sleeve. The drawings lie on the table. My body language should show them a child trying to feel safe.

  “Because it could happen,” I say. “Even if I do well. Even if I don’t mess up. One bad test. One wrong person having the wrong opinion of me. I’d rather not be at the bottom of… of life.”

  Father huffs softly. “You always did like to plan our outings to the Museum.”

  I shrug. “Better safe than sorry. And itineraries are fun.”

  Mother’s mouth twitches—then she sighs and chuckles. “You’re eight. You shouldn’t be thinking about that yet.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “But I am,” I say. “Please don’t make me pretend I’m stupid.” I give them a wide-eyed look, pleading, full of hope.

  That gets a look between them. One of those silent, heavy parent looks that decides in a moment how they will both act.

  Father finally nods once. "You did the right thing by coming to us first."

  Mother taps the tree drawing with her fingertip. “And you’d better make these worth something.”

  “Already criticizing my art?”

  Mother studies the soldering station page. “You’ve been watching me,” she says softly. She’s never this soft. It seems like this conversation made her feel something.

  “Perhaps he should do more than watch,” Father says, glancing at her.

  I remain quiet, knowing this has been a point of contention between them.

  “If you’re serious,” Mother says, glancing between him and the page, “then you’ll need to go to the Office. Registration first. They don’t like people popping up out of nowhere.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  The air settles. We hash out some of the numbers with the little time we have left. Mother hums again, and I go with Father to the Depot.

  The depot isn’t far. Three blocks of cracked concrete and uneven pavement separate it from the apartment block. We walk it often enough that I could trace every broken tile with my eyes closed. The factory crest above the entrance is the same as the one on the side of our home—a wavy shield with a fractured sun. It belongs to the noble house that sponsors our block.

  Once, their name actually meant something. Now their factories run, their mechs fail, and the family barely keeps their holdings alive with state subsidies and whatever contracts they can scrounge from the Ministry. Everyone knows they’re circling the drain, but no one says it out loud.

  Father doesn’t even glance at the crest as we pass.

  Inside, the depot smells of machine oil, old iron, and grit soaked deep into the concrete. Two skeletal machines line the walls, seemingly waiting for parts; others further in are being stripped of their armor plates. The air hums faintly with distant conveyors.

  Father straightens the moment we step inside. Not a big change—just his shoulders set, his voice leveling. Here, he isn’t just Father. He’s Technician Second Grade, in charge of a corner of the floor that someone higher up doesn’t want to touch.

  “Zhen, grab the inventory tagger and tell me how many crates came in last night,” he calls before we reach his section.

  A young man in a stained jumpsuit hurries off without a word. Two others nod at him as we walk past. They don’t salute him, not really, but there’s weight in the way they glance at him before returning to work. Typical ‘Oh, the boss is watching.’

  Father is a leader here. A small one. Enough to get things moving. Enough to give our lives a safety net.

  We stop by the workbench, dented surface littered with organized chaos. Above us, the catwalk where the senior technicians work looks almost too clean—polished boots, crisp jumpsuits, the quiet superiority of people who get to use words like “authority.” Higher still, behind smoked glass, sits the lord technician’s office. I’ve never seen him up close. He doesn’t come down here. People like Father go up there only when something’s wrong.

  “Same as always,” Father mutters. “We fix things. You hand me the tool I ask for and tell me what it’s for.”

  I follow him on his rounds. He checks tags, counts supplies, and makes people work faster without raising his voice. Quiet authority. People listen. But when the senior techs stroll by, he bows his head. They merely smile at me. I merely smile and bow back.

  A step below. Always a harmless step below.

  Zhen returns with the count, stammering through the numbers. Father corrects him once, steady, patient, smiling. The way someone leads people who trust them.

  A man steps around the corner, jumpsuit smeared with grease. About Father’s height but broader, older, maybe forty.

  “Lian,” he calls out. “My shift’s done. What’s left for you guys?”

  Father shifts his gaze. Zhen leaves quietly after a nod. “Only the last armor plates and the spare hydraulics crates. Shouldn’t take long.”

  The man walks closer, then looks at me. “Hey… Jun-Tao, right? School’s going well?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I’m learning lots of things.”

  He scratches the back of his neck, gestures vaguely at the depot. “So… all these machines, all this oil… Bet you don’t see much of your friends here, huh?”

  I shrug. “Father is here.” A son being reassured by his father's presence.

  He smiles slightly at the cultural trait of filial piety. “Right, right… classes, tests, lunch… all that?”

  I give a small smile. Polite. Not real. His words have no rhythm, as if he forgot how to speak to someone smaller, someone younger.

  “Good. Good,” he mutters, clapping once. “Well, I’m out. Don’t let your dad make you work too hard, eh?”

  I nod again. He pats my shoulder. I puff out my chest and nod with childish seriousness.

  I watch him chuckle and go. I decide he doesn’t know how to talk to children, wonder how his own are treated.

  Father doesn’t comment. Just smiles and continues inspecting the numbers Zhen brought.

  I watch his eyes move—sure, practiced, rhythmically. He has no illusions about climbing higher. There’s no ladder for people like him. Just steady work. Reliable. Quiet.

  And as I trail him through the depot, through the smell of oil and the echo of machines, I understand something I didn’t this morning.

  This is what being useful looks like here. Not glorious. Not heroic. Just a man making sure everything keeps turning.