He came to see children's art before it dies. Before the world gets its hands on them. Before teachers tell them clouds have to be white and trees have to be green and people have to look like people instead of whatever strange creatures live in their heads. Before they learn to be embarrassed. Before they learn to hide.

Hashida watches Sae. She draws like she's apologizing for taking up space: tiny strokes, barely there, as if the paper might bite back. He watches her erase the same line six times until it's nothing but a ghost and a smudge.

Stop, he wants to say. Stop killing it. But he doesn't. He's not a teacher. He's just some guy with a resting face that makes parents clutch their kids closer.

The other children crowd him. They like his drawings, the way he doesn't talk down, doesn't do that adorable voice adults use. He lets them grab his markers, smear paint on his sleeves. For a few hours, it's almost enough.

But Sae stays at her desk.

He tries. God, he tries. Kneels beside her chair, points at her half-erased sun and says, "That yellow. Use more of it. Be selfish with it." And she only looks at him like he's speaking another language.

At the end of the class, he watches her pack up. Her drawing goes into her bag face-down. Ashamed of itself.

Outside, you stand beside him. The silence between you is heavy with everything that didn't happen. Every kid you couldn't reach. Every spark you watched gutter out. He thought he could do this. Thought he could be the guy who catches them before they fall out of love with art. Before the world teaches them their drawings aren't good enough, aren't right, aren't worth the paper.

But Sae already learned that lesson. Probably learned it at home. Learned it from teachers who praised the "neat" pictures and ignored the wild ones. Learned it from a hundred small deaths until her hand forgot how to be selfish with yellow.

"I'm not doing this again," he says.

You don't argue. You don't tell him he's wrong, that he could try harder, that one kid isn't everything. You just stand there, and for some reason that makes it worse. That you understand. That you're not trying to fix it.

Because there's nothing to fix. Some things just break.