Chapter 1 — Across the Six Meter Line

The electronic board wakes up at the last six seconds, even though the training session hasn't even started yet.

On the black screen, the number 00:06 lit up in red, standing still like a person whose name had just been called but didn't know how to answer. Phan Yen Chi put his bag down on the secretary's desk, looked at that number for a second, then raised his hand to tap the edge of the control panel.

00:06.

Don't jump. Do not turn off. There is no beep.

“Luan,” she called.

Tran Luan was kneeling under the table, one hand plugging in the power cord, the other holding the stopwatch. He looked up, his hair disheveled because he had just crawled out from under the closet.

“I haven't turned on the game yet.”

“The board turns itself on.”

Luan looked at the screen and let out a sigh. “It remembers the last time.”

“The electronic board should not remember six seconds.”

“The electronic board remembers everything that people don't erase.”

Chi didn't laugh. She opened her bag, took out a black-faced watch and placed it next to the scoreboard. The second hand runs smoothly. 00:00, 00:01, 00:02. She pressed pause at 00:06 and then pressed again.

“Semifinals tomorrow,” she said. “Don't let the board decide where you are.”

Tan Lap Gymnasium still smells of mop wood and rubber dust from the rolled carpets in the corners. Outside, the first rain of the season causes red basalt soil to flow into thin lines on the steps. Inside, the Central Highlands Lightning team is running a coordinated exercise. The sound of shoes stopping, the sound of the ball bouncing, the sound of coach Nguyen Manh hitting the strategy board against his palm echoed under the high roof.

“Do not stand within the six meter zone!” Strong shouted. "Bao Tram, if you step in before receiving the ball, you will lose the right to attack. Just step back half a foot!"

Do Bao Tram immediately stepped back. She is taller than her friends, has broad shoulders, and ties her hair with a green string. Every time she heard the whistle, she looked down at the curved white line around the goal as if looking at the edge of a cliff.

“I know,” Tram said.

"Knowing with your head is not enough. Your feet must know first."

At the goal, Vu Khanh Vy clapped her hands together. She is the main goalkeeper, wearing a dark red shirt that is not the same as the team's shirt color. Seven years ago, Vy and Chi stood next to each other there. When Chi was injured, Vy was the one to replace him. From then on, she no longer liked to hear anyone say she was just a replacement.

Le Thao Vi ran on the right wing, yawning as she ran. She worked the night shift at the bakery from 10 p.m. the previous day until 4 a.m., took the bus to the stadium at 5:30 a.m., slept for two hours on the locker room chair before going to practice. The smell of flour still lingered on her wrist.

“Vi, are you awake?” Manh asked.

“Awake enough to score.”

“Are you awake enough to go back?”

Vi raised two fingers and ran into the empty space. She passed it to Tram, then received it back in a heartbeat. Tram turned late and was lightly pulled by the simulated defender. The ball flew out.

Manh blew the whistle. "Stop."

Chi looked at the time on the clock. 09:17. The electronic board remained standing at 00:06.

Manh walked out into the middle of the field. "Tomorrow we meet Hong Ha. They don't give me time to correct mistakes. One wrong step at the six-meter line and I lose the ball, one slow change of people is a penalty, one time looking at the scoreboard instead of the referee is losing rhythm."

I heard these things from the secretary's desk and found them to be both true and lacking at the same time. The match is not just a place where players have to react quickly. It's also where the people on the field have to accurately record what happens.

Ngo Diep, manager of the gym, walked through the rows of seats with a file. She stopped at the table.

“Is the board running yet?”

“Run from six seconds,” Luan replied.

Diep looked at the screen. “Turn off the power completely and then restart.”

“I did it twice.”

“Still the same?”

"It remember six seconds.”

Diep put down the file. “Tomorrow I will have someone stand next to the power source. If the board is standing, use a clock.”

Chi asked: "Does the organizing committee agree to use a clock as the main source?"

Diep looked at her. “I will ask.”

“Not asking. Must be recorded in the technical minutes before the match.”

Diep frowned slightly. “Chi, this is practice.”

“Not tomorrow.”

Diep looked at the yard. Vy had just pushed a ball out of the top corner, Tram was one step slow, Vi lay on her side laughing at her own slip. The old arena had a lot of things that needed fixing, but people were still playing as if they just tried hard enough and the floor would be on their side.

Chi doesn't think so. Seven years ago, she also thought so.

The landing that day happened in the 24th minute of the second half. Chi rushed out of goal, blocking a seven-meter throw. The left foot touches the floor seam correctly, the knee rotates askew. The whistle sounded after the sound of her falling. The minutes only have one line: "The goalkeeper is hurt in a defensive situation, the match continues." No one noted the raised seam. No one knows whether to record it.

Chi left the field before the match ended. Vy replaced him and caught the next ball. The team wins, then loses the next match. Chi's injury became a side story in a season where everyone missed the trophy.

“Miss Chi,” Tram called from the yard. “Can you help me see this line?”

Chi stood up. Tram pointed to the six-meter curve. In one part, the paint is worn off, the white color almost matches the yellow wood layer.

“I don't know where my feet are when I turn my back.”

Just walk along the line, using your feet not to touch the floor but only a small distance away. “You have to know by distance, not just by sight. Practice running closer, stopping first, then receiving the ball.”

“If the opponent pushes?”

“I use my body to hold the position, not my hands to pull. If you lose balance, drop the ball.”

“If you drop the ball, you lose your turn.”

“Losing a turn is better than losing a knee.”

Tram looked at her. “Have you ever missed a ball?”

Chi was silent for a beat. “I never gave up.”

Vy heard it and gave the ball to Tram. “Do it again. This time she stood behind the line and called.”

Chi returned to the secretary's desk. Luan opened the control panel cover, the colored wires lay like tree roots in the box.

“Do you accept a table tomorrow?” he asked.

“I haven't signed yet.”

“If you don't accept it, someone else will.”

“And if the old team plays?”

“The secretariat is not the team.”

Chi looked at him. “The law says so.”

“The law also says the referee must avoid conflicts of interest.”

“I'm not the referee.”

“But I used to be Lightning's goalkeeper.”

Chi held the ballpoint pen and rotated it between her fingers. She studied law for two years and knows that conflicts of interest are not always fraud. Sometimes it's just a person who has loved a team for too long.

Manh came to the table and gave her assignments.

“Chi, I want you to sit at the table. Luan takes care of the board, I take care of the time and minutes.”

“You know I was on the team.”

"Know."

“You know I'm studying for a certificate.”

"Know."

“Do you still want it?”

Manh looked at her straight. “I want someone who understands handball, understands the gym and has the guts to stop me if I say something wrong.”

“What if the Flash wins thanks to a timing error?”

“I wrote down the wrong time.”

“What if the team is eliminated because I scored?”

Manh did not answer immediately. He looked at Vy, Vi, Tram and the players gathering the ball.

“Then at least we know we got eliminated in a match that was scored correctly.”

Chi holds assigned assignments. From the field, the training whistle sounded. She looked back at the board electronics. The six seconds disappeared after the last warm-up, but she felt no relief. A device may run correctly ten times and then fail the eleventh time.

She signed her name in the timekeeper box.

"Tomorrow," she told Luan, "don't trust the board. Don't trust the clock alone. Don't trust me alone."

Luan laughed. “So what news?”

Chi looked at the six meter line under the old light.

“Believe in things that can be tested together.”

After practice, Chi did not go straight home. She lingered in the last row, where the sound of the balls had stopped and the floor cleaner began to pull the wiper across the streaks. From there, she could see both the six-meter line and the electronic board. The two things are in the same field of vision, but never seen by anyone at the same time. People look at the line when a player runs in, look at the board when the ball enters the net, and then look at each other when they don't know what to believe.

Diep locked the door to the tool shed, passed by and stopped. “Who are you waiting for?”

"Not waiting for anyone. I want to see how the board turns off."

“It turns off with a switch.”

“I mean did it leave anything behind?”

Diep looked up at the screen showing 00:00 after practice. “A board is not a storyteller.”

“But the storyteller often relies on the board.”

Diep smiled faintly. “The girl is injured here but still likes to ask questions that make others check the electrical outlet.”

Chi placed her hands on her knees. “I wasn't hurt by the board.”

“I know.”

"I don't know because of the background. It's just that everyone was talking too fast at that time. They told me to step on the line, told my opponent to push, told me to lose my balance. Everyone remembers a piece."

Diep was in no hurry to answer. She took a small key from her pocket and gently tapped it on the secretary's desk. "There are things whose cause cannot be found again after they happen. But I can do it so that next time enough people can see it."

Chi looked up. “Does enough people look at it to make it less painful?”

“No. But it prevents them from having to endure the additional pain of being told that they are imagining things.”

That sentence stayed with Chi as she stood up. She walked down the field, going to the exact place where she used to skate. The floor has been polished but the seams are still blurred. Just put the toe of the shoe next to it, not touching. A year ago, she used her left foot to push herself towards the goal. Today, her left foot told her that it was about to rain.

Vy appeared at the door, holding two bottles of water. “I guess you're here.”

"Why?"

“I often stay in places where the sound has stopped.”

Only received a bottle of water. “That doesn't sound good.”

“Neither good nor wrong.”

The two sat next to each other on the touchline. Vy said that today Tram dropped the ball three times, Vi was late because her car broke down, and Manh made the team run five more laps. Chi asked about defense cards. They talked like two people who had once stood in the same goal and were still not used to the fact that only one person could stand in it.

“Will you take the secretarial job?” Vy asked.

"Maybe."

“Are you scared?”

“Afraid of sitting outside but still thinking I'm in the yard.”

Vy opened the bottle cap. “So start by looking at where other people really are.”

Chi looked at Vy. “Are you studying too?”

“I learned from the moment you left without saying anything.”

The rain began to tap on the corrugated iron roof. The electronic board flashes once, then returns to 00:00. Chi recorded the moment on her phone, not because it was immediately meaningful, but because she wanted to get into the habit of saving what her eyes saw before others told it.

As she left the arena, she turned back to look at the six-meter line one last time. It does not promise to protect anyone. It just lies there, waiting for the people around it to agree on how to read it. Chi doesn't know what she will do with her new job. But she knew she didn't want another match to end with "who can remember".