Vipin already knows the year.
That isn't the problem anymore.
The problem is what to do with that knowledge while everyone else moves through the morning as if nothing has changed.
He sits near the edge of the courtyard, back against the wall, watching the house wake fully. The initial chaos has settled into rhythm—brooms scraping stone, vessels clinking, footsteps tracing familiar paths. The haveli runs on muscle memory older than him.
Older than his fear.
Dadi's voice cuts through the air, sharp and irritated.
"They've changed the temple timing again. Morning aarti used to start earlier."
A woman answers from the kitchen, distracted. "They said it'll stay like this now."
Dadi snorts. "They always say that."
Vipin's fingers curl against the stone.
It will stay like this, he thinks.
For years.
The certainty rises automatically, precise and unhelpful.
He says nothing.
A cousin slumps onto the steps nearby, tying his shoelaces with exaggerated misery. "School fees are going up again," the boy complains. "What's the point? It's not like they teach anything useful."
Vipin almost laughs.
The sound gets stuck halfway in his chest.
They won't teach you what you'll need, he thinks.
And you won't realize that until it's too late.
He swallows it down.
Someone mentions wheat prices. Someone else argues about whether to replace a broken latch now or "after the next harvest." Small decisions. Ordinary conversations. The kind that feel temporary when you're inside them.
Vipin knows which ones aren't.
That knowledge presses against his teeth, begging to be spoken, corrected, optimized.
He doesn't.
Because he's already learning the rule.
A child's opinion is noise.
A child's certainty is arrogance.
A child who knows too much is corrected.
He watches Dadaji cross the courtyard, newspaper folded neatly under one arm. The old man moves with purpose, stopping briefly to inspect the water level in a bucket before walking on.
Vipin knows how this man will age.
He knows the year the stiffness will begin.
He knows when pride will stop him from admitting pain.
He opens his mouth.
Then closes it.
The future does not belong to him yet.
Near the hand pump, a woman scolds a younger child for spilling water. The tone is mild, habitual. The child nods, chastened, and moves aside.
Vipin feels the urge to say something helpful. To explain. To fix.
Don't correct the method, his mind supplies.
Change the grip. Less spill that way.
He stays silent.
The lesson sharpens.
Knowing the system doesn't give you permission to interfere with it.
Not yet.
He shifts his position on the step, careful now, fully aware of how his body fits into the space. Smaller. Lighter. Easier to ignore.
That, he realizes, is an advantage too.
No one watches children closely unless they cause trouble.
No one suspects them of planning.
Vipin lowers his gaze, lets his shoulders slump slightly, and adopts the posture expected of him. From the outside, he looks like any other six-year-old—quiet, slightly awkward, already forgotten.
Inside, his mind is alert and steady.
This life has rules.
He cannot rewrite them all at once.
He cannot warn people who aren't ready to hear.
He cannot optimize a system he doesn't yet control.
So he does the only logical thing.
He waits.
He listens.
He lets the future happen around him without touching it.
For now.
Because if there is one thing he learned in his first life, it is this:
The fastest way to get removed from a system
is to announce that you understand it better than everyone else.
Vipin presses his back into the cool wall and watches the morning unfold.
Silent.
Invisible.
Learning the boundaries of the world he has been returned to—
and the cost of crossing them too early.