▍Late-night Embrace
On Daisy's single bed, she always clings to Amy like a koala hugging a tree. The force is strong enough to make her ribs ache, as if she wants to press the warmth inside her into her empty womb.
"You act like a perverted old man," Amy purposely nudges her with her knee, but in the darkness, her hand brushes against the scar on Daisy’s back—left from when her father beat her with a belt during puberty, deeper than any scars from gender-reassignment surgeries.
▍The Smell of Lies
Daisy always says she enjoys the freedom of living alone:
The fridge only holds estrogen injections and beer
The bathroom mirror is always foggy (so she doesn't have to look at her body's flaws)
A radio playing Buddhist scriptures is on all day (to cover up the silence from no family calls)
But Amy knows, whenever the old woman selling rice noodles at the alley asks, "Where are your parents, little sister?" Daisy would suddenly add enough chili sauce to make it lethal.
▍The Guilt of the Lucky Ones
Amy’s family has:
Her mother helping with rent every month
Her brother sending "Sister, you’re so beautiful today" stickers
Even her bunny girl photo is placed beside the ancestor tablets ("At least it’s a legitimate job")
This makes her secretly flip family photos over when staying at Daisy's. Once Daisy discovered this but just turned the frame back: "You need to practice accepting happiness."
▍Substitute Relatives
They invented their own family rituals:
Using a pregnancy test as a chopstick rest (ironic for the menstruation that will never come)
Stacking estrogen pill boxes into the shape of a pagoda
Hanging "Sisters United" spring couplets behind the door (written with Daisy’s old name)
When Daisy cries out for her "mom" in her sleep, Amy immediately plays the sound of stir-frying on her phone—that’s the white noise she recorded from her own mother’s busy movements in the kitchen.
▍Temporary Shelter
The embrace is tightest just before dawn. When Daisy buries her face in Amy’s chest, her mascara smudges into strange shapes, like two wounded black butterflies perched in the snow.
"Do you know?" Amy gently strokes the knot where Daisy’s hair extensions meet, "My mom said..." she pauses, "she said you can come to our place for Songkran."
Daisy's shudder comes through their pressed skin, more honest than any words. The sound of the garbage truck's music from the alley compresses this moment into just another piece of their many survival scraps.
In the heat of Bangkok, no matter how close their bodies are, they can’t hatch a real home. But at least tonight, the shapes their sweat left on the sheets resemble an unfinished family tree.