Chapter 3 — A Sweetness Forgotten

Group three's "trial" chemistry project became the perfect excuse for them all to gather at the Lá Me tea shop almost every afternoon for three weeks straight, even though the teacher only required a report and a ten-minute presentation.

"I think we overdid it," Đình Bách said while spooning green bean soup with coconut milk, "with three pages of reports, we tried to cook eight dishes."

"Who said you were greedy?" Tường Vy teased, throwing him a tissue. "Wipe your mouth, it's covered in coconut milk."

Diệp Chi stood next to the stove, quickly weighing the sugar and measuring the water temperature, constantly explaining to Thế Khôi about the caramelization reaction - why sugar turns from white to cockroach brown when heated at a certain temperature, why if it's too hot it will turn into an irreversibly bitter taste.

"It's like human emotions," Thế Khôi blurted out, then was a bit stunned because the sentence he just said sounded a bit cheesy. "I mean, a little too much fire and it's all gone."

"Did you really just say that?" Diệp Chi turned to look at him, eyes wide, couldn't help but laugh. "Oh my god, young master even knows how to say similes like this."

"Don't call me young master." Thế Khôi frowned, his voice surprisingly serious. "I hate that name."

Diệp Chi paused, realizing she had just touched something more sensitive than she thought. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"It's okay." He shook his head, his voice softening. "It's just... people often look at me through that label, but forget I'm just a seventeen year old trying to learn how to wash the dishes myself."

The group was silent for a moment, only the sound of the fire simmering at the bottom of the pot remained.

Diệp Chi glanced at Thế Khôi and saw that his ears were red because he had just accidentally said something in front of others - she realized that it was not because of normal shyness, but because he had just revealed something more real than what he had been trying to keep secret for the past three weeks. She remained silent and did not tease him further, just quietly scooped him a cup of tea fuller than usual, placed it in front of him without saying anything.

"Thank you," Thế Khôi said softly, his eyes still looking down at the cup of tea, not daring to look up.

From that day on, the whole group formed a routine: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday gathering at the tea shop after school, bringing along books and increasingly bold experimental tastes. One day, Tường Vy suggested adding flute dew to the recipe, resulting in a "chaotic mixed sweet soup" that the whole group ate while laughing so hard because the taste was so strange that no one could describe it. One day, Đình Bách insisted on trying to cook sweet soup with coconut water instead of canned coconut milk, but as a result, Mrs. Ngọc Lành scolded him for wasting ingredients.

"You guys destroy rather than learn," she scolded and laughed, still nimbly cleaning up the mess on the kitchen table. "But it's fun, having laughter in the house also makes it less sad," Thế Khôi noticed that every time Mrs. Ngọc Lành said something about the loneliness of the small house, Diệp Chi quickly moved away from something else, like a reflex that had become a habit. He didn't ask, just silently remembered, understanding that there are doors that need to be opened at the right time, not by hastily knocking.

"So from now on can I call you 'bad dishwasher'?" Đình Bách broke the atmosphere and laughed. "Sounds friendlier." Thế Khôi laughed, a relaxed laugh that had rarely been seen in him in the past three weeks. "Okay, I'll accept that."

***

The afternoons that followed gradually no longer revolved around the chemistry project. Some days the whole group just sat around doing homework together, other days Diệp Chi was busy delivering goods, so Thế Khôi volunteered to ride her old bicycle to deliver instead - the first time in his life he rode a bicycle on a crowded street, he almost fell twice, spilling half a pot of tea, causing Mrs. Ngọc Lành to make up for it.

"You really said that boy," Mrs. Ngọc Lành laughed and shook her head when listening to Diệp Chi's story, "no matter how good he is at school, he can't ride a bike."

"He never rides a bike, mom. He always has a driver to take him everywhere." Diệp Chi laughed along, but there was something warm in her voice that she couldn't hide. "And yet you insist on delivering it for me."

"It looks like you love your child so much." She glanced at her daughter, her eyes searching and full of meaning.

"Mom! Don't talk nonsense." Diệp Chi blushed, turned away and pretended to be busy clearing the table.

But that night, lying on the small bed in the cramped room behind the shop, Diệp Chi kept tossing and turning, unable to sleep, her mind replaying over and over again the image of Thế Khôi awkwardly balancing on a bicycle, his hands trembling at the wheel, his mouth still smiling widely even though he almost fell twice.

She didn't dare to name the feeling stirring in her chest. At seventeen, she had so much to worry about—final exams, next semester's tuition, early morning deliveries. Romance, if any, was a luxury she had not allowed herself to pay much attention to.

***

One Saturday afternoon, when Diệp Chi was alone looking after the shop because her mother went to get groceries, Thế Khôi stopped by, unannounced, holding a small paper bag.

"Why did you come here alone today?" Diệp Chi asked, a bit surprised because he usually only visited with the group.

"I brought this to show you." Thế Khôi put the paper bag on the table, took out a thin leather-covered notebook, inside were pages filled with handwritten letters - the same notebook he had been carrying with him for the past three weeks. "I recorded every tea recipe you taught, both the chemical explanation and... the part where you told real life stories."

Diệp Chi flipped through a few pages and was surprised to see that there were not only formulas and figures, but also small notes in the margins: "Diệp Chi said old coconuts give fattier juice than young coconuts — remember to ask why," "it's raining today, the shop is empty, D.C. tells the story of when he was a child skipping school to go fishing with Tường Vy," and there was a whole page of doodles of a tea pot with the caption "it looks simple but is extremely difficult."

"Why did you write all this down?" She asked, her voice somewhat disturbed and unable to hide it.

"I don't know." Thế Khôi scratched his head, rarely so confused. "It's just... I'm afraid of forgetting. These three weeks have been the time I feel most alive ever. I don't want to let it pass without recording anything."

Diệp Chi lowered her eyes to the notebook page, her fingers lightly gliding over her neat handwriting. "You sound like you're about to leave."

"That's not true." Thế Khôi shook his head quickly. "It's just that I always have the habit of writing down everything important. I'm afraid I'll get busy later and forget this feeling."

"What does it feel like?"

He hesitated, his eyes avoided for a moment and then looked straight at her. "The feeling of being yourself, not someone else's son."

Diệp Chi was silent, her heart beating a beat faster than usual. The afternoon wind blew through the tamarind canopy, small leaves falling onto the table. She was about to say something, but at that moment the restaurant doorbell rang, a customer walked in and ordered two cups of tea to take away, interrupting the moment that was just forming between the two of them.

"Let me get tea for the guests first," Diệp Chi stood up, her voice a bit more hasty than necessary.

Thế Khôi nodded, watched her walk into the kitchen, then bent down, wrote another line in the notebook, his handwriting was a bit shaky: "I don't know if I should say it, but maybe I like someone I shouldn't like too soon."

He crossed out that line as soon as he finished writing, but the ink remained on the page, faint but unable to be completely erased.

***

That evening, when the group gathered for the last time to complete the presentation before submitting it, Tường Vy pulled Diệp Chi to a separate corner while the two boys were arguing about how to present the slides.

"I think you two are being very creepy lately," Tường Vy said softly, her eyes mischievous. "Don't deny it, I've been paying attention for a long time."

"It's nothing," Diệp Chi muttered, but did not deny it outright like usual.

"Well, I'll just remind you one thing." Tường Vy's serious face is rare. "He's from a rich family, you're from a poor family. It's not that I'm making any distinction, but... that gap is real, Diệp Chi. Be careful with your heart."

Diệp Chi looked over to where Thế Khôi was laughing and chatting happily with Đình Bách, the light from the restaurant cast a warm glow on his face. She knew Tường Vy was right — she knew better than anyone else, because she was the one who lived in that gap every day, from the tea pot on her head in the morning to the shiny car that picked him up every afternoon.

But there are things that, once they begin to sprout in your heart, are not easy to uproot with just a reminder of reason.

"I know," she replied softly, her eyes still not leaving Thế Khôi. "I know."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet." Diệp Chi sighed, twirling the pen in her hand. "But I think, at least for now, I don't want to have to do anything. Let's just leave things as they are. This semester is over, exams are coming, then move on." Tường Vy looked at her friend for a long time, then finally sighed and patted Diệp Chi on the shoulder lightly. "Well, you're grown up, you know how to take care of yourself. I'm just afraid..." She hesitated, not finishing her sentence.

"Afraid of what?"

"I'm afraid these three beautiful things won't last," Tường Vy said, her voice suddenly low, different from her usual joking tone. "I've seen it a lot in my life. Students like this, after high school, everyone goes their separate ways. No matter how much they love each other, they can easily lose each other."

Diệp Chi didn't answer, just looked down at her hands, which still had sticky rice flour from the afternoon of trying out a new dish. She didn't want to think that far. For her, the present - three afternoons a week with a pot of tea, the laughter of four seventeen-year-old children, Thế Khôi's eyes every time he looked at her working in the kitchen - was more than enough for her to keep, no matter what tomorrow would bring.

That evening, after finishing cleaning the restaurant, she sat alone at the table and opened her notebook to review, but her eyes wandered absentmindedly to the small yard where the old tamarind tree whispered in the wind. She didn't know that, just a few months later, this very yard would witness the quietest farewell of her life—but right now, she was just a seventeen-year-old girl, filled with emotions that had yet to be named, believing that the summer ahead was still long and everything beautiful would still be waiting for her.