The institution has rules about belongings.
Only essentials.
Nothing sharp.
Nothing sentimental enough to be missed.
The rule is written on a laminated sheet near the intake desk, phrased politely, like a suggestion. In practice, it means anything that looks loved is suspicious. Anything that might anchor a child to a life outside these walls is considered a liability.
Most of the children still have things they shouldn't.
They learn quickly that rules here are less about right and wrong and more about visibility. What can be hidden. What can be defended. What can be replaced.
A boy named Rohan keeps a cracked toy car tucked inside his pillowcase. The plastic is faded and one wheel sticks, but he rubs it smooth with his thumb every night before sleeping, like a ritual. He cries when the lights go out, muffling the sound against his arm, convinced secrecy still exists here.
Everyone hears him.
Some pretend not to.
A girl called Meera wears the same red thread around her wrist every day. It's thin, fraying at the edges, darkened with sweat. She says it's for luck. She says it loudly, like daring someone to disagree. When an attendant tries to cut it off during inspection, Meera bites him—hard enough to draw blood. After that, no one touches the thread. They write her name down instead. Red ink. Twice.
There's also Samir.
Samir is older than the rest, tall enough that people forget he's still a child until they look too closely. He learned early that smiling makes adults uneasy. A smile without explanation. Without gratitude. Without submission.
He smiles anyway.
It keeps them guessing.
Ira notices everything.
She notices who flinches when keys jingle. Who eats too fast, like the food might disappear mid-bite. Who never finishes dessert because sweetness feels undeserved. She notices how the adults use different voices for different children—soft for the compliant, sharp for the quiet, falsely cheerful for the ones they don't understand.
She notices how punishment isn't always loud.
Sometimes it's absence.
The boy—she has learned his name is Alexander now, spoken once by a staff member during roll call and never repeated—watches patterns instead.
He notices which attendant counts properly and which one skips numbers during headcount. Which footsteps mean inspection. Which mean boredom. Which mean irritation masked as routine.
He memorizes schedules the way other children memorize stories.
During "free hour"—which is neither free nor an hour—they sit together on the floor near the wall where the paint has chipped into soft, irregular shapes. The activity bin is nearby, mostly empty. A few dull crayons. A deck of cards missing faces.
Rohan slides closer to Ira, eyes red, cheeks still wet. "They took my car," he whispers.
Ira turns toward him immediately. Lowers her voice. "Where did you keep it?"
"Under my bed."
She winces before she can stop herself. "That's the first place they look."
Rohan's mouth trembles. "I didn't know."
Alexander listens without interrupting. His gaze shifts briefly toward the corridor, then back.
Meera plops down nearby, legs stretched out, back against the wall. "My father sends gifts," she announces loudly, like it's a challenge. "Expensive ones."
Rohan sniffs. "Then why are you here?"
Meera shrugs, twisting the red thread around her wrist. "Because he never visits."
The words land heavier than she intends. The room goes quiet in that way that isn't silence—just attention pulled tight.
Samir, lounging against the opposite wall, breaks it. "Gifts aren't the same as staying."
An attendant clears her throat across the room.
Samir smiles wider.
Later that evening, when the noise settles into the dull rhythm of the building, Ira sits on her bed turning something over in her hands.
It's small. A fabric bookmark. Pale blue, the edges soft with wear. There's a pressed flower stitched into one corner, barely visible now. Her grandmother gave it to her once, slipped into her palm like a secret when Ira was too young to understand why secrets mattered.
Ira hid it in her shoe when she arrived.
Alexander watches her from his bed. His posture is relaxed, but his eyes miss nothing.
"You're not supposed to have that," he says quietly.
"I know."
"Why keep it?"
She turns it once more between her fingers. "It reminds me someone noticed what I like."
He nods slowly. That makes sense.
After a moment, he reaches into his pocket. The movement is careful, deliberate. He pulls out a coin. Old. Worn smooth at the edges, the engraving barely legible.
"My grandfather gave me this," he says. "Said it was valuable."
"Is it?"
"No," he says. "But he thought it was."
He doesn't offer it. He just holds it out so she can see.
Ira studies the coin. The dull gleam. The weight of meaning attached to something ordinary. "Why are you showing me?"
He hesitates. A rare thing. His fingers tighten slightly around the coin.
"If they take it," he says, "it won't matter if someone else remembers it."
She understands immediately.
Without ceremony, she hands him the bookmark.
He freezes. "I didn't—"
"I know," she says. "Just… keep it safe."
He takes it carefully, like it might tear if he breathes wrong imagining it. Studies the stitching. The flower. Then, after a moment, he places the coin on her palm.
They don't smile. They don't say thank you.
It isn't a trade.
It's insurance.
The next morning, an attendant searches beds.
She lifts mattresses, checks pillowcases, opens drawers with brisk efficiency. Rohan watches from his spot by the wall, jaw clenched. When she pulls the car from his pillowcase, he makes a sound he can't stop. It's small. Sharp. Gone too fast.
She pockets it without comment.
She misses the bookmark folded into the seam of Alexander's sleeve. Misses the coin tucked inside Ira's sock, wrapped in fabric so it won't clink.
Meera watches with sharp eyes. Samir watches with amusement.
That night, Rohan cries harder than usual.
Ira sits beside him until he falls asleep. She doesn't say much. Just stays. Lets him hold onto her sleeve until his grip loosens.
Alexander stands by the window, watching the corridor reflection instead of the room itself. He tracks shadows. Movement. Timing.
When Ira returns to her bed, she whispers, "He didn't deserve that."
"No," Alexander agrees.
She fingers the coin through the fabric. "If they take this too…"
"They won't," he says.
"How do you know?"
"Because now it matters to both of us."
Across the room, Samir watches them with a look that isn't teasing for once. Something quieter. Something like recognition.
"You two are strange," he says softly.
Ira glances up. "Is that bad?"
Samir shakes his head. "No. It's how people survive places like this."
Lights out.
In the dark, Ira thinks about the bookmark folded neatly somewhere she can't see. Alexander thinks about the coin warming slowly in her hand.
Neither of them says it.
But they both understand the same thing at the same time.
Some things aren't gifts.
They're proof