Chapter 1 — A Sweetness Forgotten

At 6:20 a.m., Chử Diệp Chi balanced a pot of tea against her shoulder, gripping its handle with both hands as she ran through three alleys to deliver it to the coffee shop on Đông Hòa Street before dawn.

"Just let it go slowly, pour it out now!" Ms. Chử Ngọc Lành stood in front of the door, her voice echoing, her hands still scooping each batch of hot taro soup into the pot to keep warm for the next batch.

"I'm on time, Mom. If I'm late, Miss Sau Ca Coffee will deduct my salary!" Diệp Chi shouted back, without slowing her pace.

Fifteen minutes later, she stood panting at the school gate. A stain of coconut milk marked her uniform sleeve, and the wind had blown her hair loose. She stuffed her wages into her bag, zipped it, and looked up at the gate clock: 6:43. Seven minutes remained before class, and she still had four flights of stairs to climb.

She rushed into the school yard just as a shiny black car - the kind of car that the entire twelfth grade was lucky to see parked in front of the gate on a parent-teacher conference day - pulled up to the curb in front of the gate, the car door opened.

Diệp Chi did not look closely; she was still running. A shallow plastic basin used for the tea was tucked under her arm, with a film of glistening coconut milk still clinging to its bottom.

The collision occurred in exactly one and a half seconds.

She crashed into someone who was getting out of that car, the pot flew out, and the remaining coconut milk — not much, but enough — splashed straight onto the front of his pure white shirt.

"Ouch!" Diệp Chi blurted out and stopped.

The other person - a boy half a head taller than her, his hair neatly cut, his uniform shirt still as straight as if it had just been taken out of a plastic bag - looked down at the stain on his chest, remaining silent for so long that Diệp Chi began to think about kneeling down and apologizing on the spot.

"Sorry, sorry, I was in a hurry," she said quickly, bending down to pick up the basin lying on the ground. "You... you go to this school? Why have I never seen you before?"

"Today is the first day," he replied, his voice strangely calm, not as uncomfortable as Diệp Chi thought. He looked at the coconut milk stain on his shirt, then smelled it, his expression slightly surprised. "This... is coconut milk?"

"Yes. Oh, yes." Diệp Chi awkwardly changed the way she addressed herself, not sure what tone to use to talk to this stranger wearing a new uniform. "Coconut taro sweet soup. I sell it."

"It's delicious," he said it, not sarcastically, but like he was actually commenting. "But I guess I have to go back and change my clothes."

Behind him, a middle-aged man in a gray suit stepped out of the car, frowned at the dirty stain on his son's shirt, and was about to say something when he raised his hand to signal.

"It's okay, dad. I can handle it myself." He turned to Diệp Chi, bowed briefly, politely to the point of being a bit stiff, as if he had just memorized the correct way to greet. "Thank you for letting me know what good tea smells like, even though it was a bit surprising."

Diệp Chi stood still, not knowing whether to be embarrassed or amused. "You... you're not angry?"

"Angry about what? Because your shirt is dirty?" He looked back at the stain and shrugged. "There's soap and it's clean. Besides—" he paused for a second, his eyes filled with something almost curious—"I just arrived, I don't know anyone. At least now I have a story to tell." The black car slowly rolled away after the man in the gray suit said something through the half-down window. Diệp Chi glanced after him, then glanced at his son standing next to him with a stain of coconut milk on his white shirt, a fountain pen neatly tucked in his pocket, and his leather shoes still brand new and not covered with road dust.

Ring. Both were startled.

"Damn, it's late!" Diệp Chi ran ahead holding the basin, forgetting to ask the name of the person she had just bumped into.

Class 12A3 is located on the third floor, at the end of the hallway. Diệp Chi rushed in just as the homeroom teacher stepped up to the podium and was able to sit down at the first table by the window before being late for roll call. She exhaled, placing the empty tea pot under the table - a habit that the whole class had become accustomed to for two and a half years, no one bothered to ask why the class president who was the best student in the grade went to school with peddling equipment.

"The whole class is silent." The homeroom teacher tapped lightly on the board. "Today our class has a new transfer student. Please come in."

The classroom door opened.

Diệp Chi raised her head, and for a moment she almost burst out laughing - the boy from before walked in, his shirt had been replaced with a brand new one (must have been in his bag, she thought, no one prepares that carefully unless an adult has arranged every detail), his hair was still neat as before, only his expression was a bit... unnatural, as if he was trying to appear normal among the thirty-eight pairs of eyes focused on him.

"I'm Wen Shikhoi," he said, his voice steady and clear, not shaking even though he was definitely being stared at. "Transferred from Wellington International School. Hope everyone can help."

The whole class was in an uproar. Wellington is a name that the well-off kids in the neighborhood still mention in a half-jealous, half-curious tone - one year's tuition there is equal to a decade of tuition for a kid like Diệp Chi combined. There was a sound of someone whispering, "Maybe rich kids are tired of playing at international schools" at the last table.

"You can sit anywhere, any table is free," the homeroom teacher said.

Thế Khôi looked around the classroom. His eyes stopped right at Diệp Chi - perhaps because that was the only face he had known this morning, even if it was familiar in the way of having coconut milk splashed on his shirt. The table next to Diệp Chi was empty, the seat of a friend who just transferred school last month.

He walked over, put down his bag, and sat in that seat as if he had planned it from the beginning.

"You again," he said softly, just loud enough for Diệp Chi to hear.

"It's me," Diệp Chi replied, trying to keep a neutral expression while her ears were burning with confusion — not because of any vibration, she told herself, but because the whole class was curiously looking at the two of them. "You... actually don't have to sit here, there are many other places."

"I like this place." Thế Khôi took out his books and arranged them neatly on the table in a certain order - books on top, notebooks on the bottom, pens on the right - as if he had never sat and studied at an old wooden table with scribbles engraved on it from generations of previous students. "Besides, I owe you a thank you."

"Thank you for what?"

"For giving me a story to tell on my first day at a new school, instead of having to stand there not knowing what to say." He looked at her, the corner of his mouth raised slightly. "At the old school, everything was pre-arranged. Not here. I find it... more interesting."

Diệp Chi didn't know how to respond, so she turned to the board and pretended to listen attentively to the teacher taking attendance, even though her ears still perked up to hear the sound of her new friend flipping through the pages of a textbook that still smelled of printed paper.

During recess, all the girls in the class were able to find out all sorts of information - no one knew exactly what Ôn Thế Khôi's family did, they could only guess based on the car this morning, based on the way he pronounced English correctly without any local accent, based on the shoes that a girl who loved branded goods claimed "cost half a month of my mother's salary."

"Hey, Diệp Chi, I heard that guy threw tea on you this morning?" Doãn Tường Vy — Diệp Chi's best friend since tenth grade, sitting at the back table — leaned forward, eyes bright with curiosity. "Tell me quickly, tell me quickly, I heard the whole class say three different versions."

"I splashed it on his shirt, he didn't splash it on me," Diệp Chi corrected, biting a piece of bread he brought from home. "Because I was in a hurry to deliver tea and didn't pay attention."

"Isn't that disgusting, splashing coconut milk on the young master on the first day we met." Tường Vy laughed happily. "But I don't think he's angry, he's sitting next to you. Does he like you?"

"Vy!" Diệp Chi blushed and pushed your shoulder. "Nonsense. We only met one morning."

"That's what I said, but look at the way he looked at you just now—"

"There's nothing to see," Diệp Chi interrupted, but secretly wondered how much Tường Vy was right.

She glanced at the next table. Thế Khôi was sitting alone, holding a leather-covered notebook and looking out at the schoolyard, where the lower grade students were playing shuttlecock, the sound of laughter resounding. There was something in his eyes - not necessarily sadness, but like he was observing a whole new world, carefully remembering every little detail that a public school student like Diệp Chi had never noticed because it was so normal.

That afternoon, after school, Diệp Chi had just taken her bike out of the parking lot when she saw Thế Khôi standing hesitantly at the school gate, holding his phone in his hand, looking a bit confused.

"What's up?" She asked, not intending to stop for long because she had to run back to help her mother clean up the groceries in the afternoon.

"The shuttle bus is late," Thế Khôi replied, trying to keep his voice calm but Diệp Chi realized he didn't know what to do next. "The driver reported a traffic jam at the intersection, probably another twenty minutes."

"Then wait, it's nothing."

"YES." He stood still, watching the stream of students pouring out of the school gate, each taking their own bicycles, electric motorbikes, or walking in their own direction without anyone picking them up. "It's just... I've never stood at the school gate waiting like this. It feels strange."

Diệp Chi looked at him for a moment, then for some reason blurted out: "Want to try sweet soup? My mother's shop is nearby, I can ride my bike in five minutes. Consider... compensation for the incident this morning."

Thế Khôi looked up at her, a bit of surprise evident on his face, which had always remained calm since morning.

"Is that Okay?" He asked again, as if afraid he heard wrong.

"Okay, why not? But you have to follow my bike on foot, I can't carry anyone, the bike is too expensive." Diệp Chi jumped on the saddle and tried a small cycle. "Go?"

A real smile — not the polite one he had been smiling all day — appeared on Ôn Thế Khôi's lips.

"Go."

And that was the first time Chử Diệp Chi led Ôn Thế Khôi into Lá Me alley, not knowing that afternoon would be the beginning of something that both of them, many years later, would name it very late.