Chapter 2 — Across the Six Meter Line

Ngo Diep brought a roll of yellow paper tape to the gym before the whole team. She did not use it for decoration. She pasted small marks along the floor seam, each mark exactly one meter apart, then stood far away to see which part made the light break into a broken line.

“Are you marking the damage?” Luan asked.

“Mark where to look.”

“What's the difference?”

"What's wrong is the conclusion. What needs to be looked at is the responsibility."

Diep bent down and placed a plastic ruler on the joint near the six meter area. The wooden edge protrudes about three millimeters. The number is so small that a person standing in the stands cannot see it, but it is enough for the tip of the shoe to trip when the player is turning.

Chi goes with her. “When was this floor last inspected?”

“Two months ago.”

“What does the record say?”

“Flatness within limits.”

“Did you measure this line correctly?”

Diep did not answer. She opened the file and pointed to the diagram. The nearest measuring point is one and a half meters from the seam. The checker does not follow the direction of movement of the handball. They measure according to a standard square grid.

“The square net doesn't know where the player rotates,” Diep said.

The team arrived at 7 o'clock. Vi brought two small bags of cakes from the oven and placed one bag on the secretary's desk. Tram arrived last, walking slowly because her new shoes were stiff. Vy pulled her into the warm-up, while Manh stood next to Diep looking at the yellow marks.

“If I replace this wooden panel, how long will it take?” Manh asked.

"Replace exactly one panel, four hours. But you have to let the glue dry, reapply the coating, check for failure. Can't play right away."

“Semi-finals tomorrow.”

"I know."

Manh looked at the match schedule posted on the wall. “Change pitch?”

"The backup stadium is smaller and has no stands. The federation has not approved it yet."

“Closing the gymnasium?”

Diep looked at him. "I can suggest. But if it closes, the match will be postponed or the Lightning will lose the right to host."

Manh stepped onto the field, using the tip of his shoe to lightly touch the joint. “If you don't close it, someone will fall.”

“If we close, some people will lose the entire season.”

When I heard those two sentences, I realized there was no innocent answer. She took out her phone, took a picture of the seam from a low angle, and placed it next to the ruler. Diep asked if he could take pictures.

“I'm creating a safety profile.”

“Don't send it out before I confirm.”

“I will send it to the team and organizers, but will not post it publicly.”

Diep nodded. “Record even the unmeasured areas.”

Manh called the whole team to gather. He did not say "safe floor" nor "dangerous floor". He just showed them the ramp, asked each person to cross it three times in their racing shoes, and then changed direction at low speed.

Vi was the first to discover that joints not only protruded but also became more slippery when wet. She stopped with the sole of her foot and gently pulled the tip of her shoe.

“This part failed.”

Tung is not in the team; Chi corrected the words in her own way. “Record condition: after mopping the floor, the surface is not evenly dry.”

Tram tried to rotate. She stopped half a step from the six-meter line, without hitting the seam.

“If I'm really competing, I can't run this slow,” Manh said.

Vy turned. “So let me know what the ground will be like before telling me to run fast.”

Manh looked at Vy, then nodded. "Correct."

Diep called the floor cleaning staff and asked to write down the cleaning time, solution and drying time. The staff said that in the past, we just needed to clean the ball so it wouldn't bounce wrong. Diep said that from now on, the sliding level in the movement area must also be recorded.

The practice session begins with no-ball exercises. The players run, stop, change direction, and let a bystander record the position of their feet. Tram was reminded three times for looking at the ball and forgetting the line. Vi showed her how to feel distance through the sound of teammates' shoes.

“When I can't see, I hear your footsteps,” Vi said. “If you stop, I have half a beat left.”

Tram asked: "What if you fail?"

“Then the whole team stops.”

Manh heard it. He did not interrupt.

At the opposing post, a substitute player changes direction close to the seam. Her shoes slipped and her knees buckled. Didn't fall completely, but the ball flew. Manh blew the whistle and Diep ran over. She asked where it hurt, not if she could stand up. The player said his ankle was okay, just panicked.

Diep opened the incident book. “Name, time, location, direction of movement, surface condition.”

Manh asked if it was necessary to record a small slip.

Chi replied: "If you don't write it down, tomorrow everyone will think no one has failed."

The medical team checked and let the player rest. No one was seriously injured. That's what makes it easy for the organizers to say the problem is insignificant. Diep photographed the surface immediately after sliding, placing the friction measurement card next to it.

“I will send the report within the day,” she said.

Manh asked: "What if they don't agree to move?"

“I will offer to play with conditions, but the conditions must be signed.”

Chi looked at her. “Do you have the right to stop the match if the conditions no longer exist?”

Diep replied: "If there is a clear danger, I have the right to ask the referee to stop. But the decision to play or not is up to the organizing committee and the team."

“So how is the responsibility divided?”

“No one should be pushed over to the floor cleaner.”

In the afternoon, the organizers replied that the floor met temporary standards, asking the team to warm up carefully. Manh read the news but did not speak. Vy asked if they were still competing.

“We'll have a team meeting,” he said.

Chi was invited in but did not sit in the coaching chair. She presented photos, measurements and conditions. No one said they were definitely injured. Tram asked if she was too scared, should she sit outside. Manh asked her what she wanted.

“I want to play on a field where everyone knows where to avoid,” Tram said. “It's not like the field can be called safe because no one has fallen seriously yet.”

Vy recommends two more people observing the ramp during the match, one on each team. Manh agrees. Expenses recorded in the plan.

Vi tied her shoe laces and said: "If the match is postponed, I will lose my shift and would like to change it. But if someone gets injured, I will lose more."

No one told her to sacrifice. They recalculated the schedule, asked the bakery to change shifts and made a backup list. Handball on the field requires speed, but to be able to run, a team has to take care of a lot of slower things.

Before leaving, Diep pasted a piece of paper next to the seam: "Marked - not completely edited - observed during competition." Paper sentences make the gymnasium look less beautiful. It makes the place more honest.

Chi stood alone at the six meter line. She placed the tip of her shoe on the outside, looking at the goal. Seven years ago, she landed in a place that no one was prepared to know what the ground was saying.

Tomorrow, she will sit behind the desk. But from today, the floor seam is on the record.

The name of the connection is "A-3 connection", according to the way Diep marked it on the diagram. She did not call it a crack because the ground had not completely cracked, nor did she call it a failure because that word would require the organizers to explain more. Chi finds the technical name both convenient and suspicious. A dangerous road with a code will easily be included in the list, but it will also easily be turned into a box that has been checked.

In the morning, Diep called each member of the team to try out the field. Do not run at full speed. Each person must pass through the level joint Three styles of shoes: competition shoes, trainers and sneakers. Tram walked first, missed a step at the right corner and then stopped.

“How does it feel?” Diep asked.

"It's not slippery. But the foot is pulled back."

“Pull how?”

Tram tried again. “Like there's a very small edge.”

Diep marked the gold.

Vi passed by afterwards. She had just changed shifts at the bakery and the smell of dough still stuck to her hands. “I don't see anything.”

“Try it out.”

Vi ran. At the junction, she automatically shortened her steps. She didn't fall, but her shoulders tilted.

“I saw it too,” Vi said.

“It's just that I'm used to changing my steps quickly,” Diep replied.

Write down on the board. "Not seeing does not mean not existing."

Manh stood near the door and heard that sentence. He did not object, just walked into the yard, walking across the ramp with his old shoes. He has the gait of someone familiar with the gymnasium floor: his weight is evenly distributed, his feet do not lift high. On the third turn, he stopped.

“If people run fast and don't know where this is, it's dangerous,” he said.

Diep gave him a pen. “Write it down.”

Manh signed the "needs supervision" section, then asked: "Can the organizing committee fix the semi-finals before?"

“The boards can be sanded and glued, but the boards cannot be replaced.”

“So write clearly.”

“Just write it down clearly and they will ask why you still use the yard.”

"They will ask even if I don't write it down. The only difference is that at that time I didn't have the answer."

Chi noticed that Manh started talking differently. No more saying "it should be okay" to push things off to tomorrow. He began to ask who was responsible, what were the temporary measures, what were the signs to stop.

The team tries an attack near the six meter area. Tram must receive the ball, turn and jump and throw. For the first time, she stepped over the line. The second time, she stopped too early and the ball dropped. The third time, she was touched on the shoulder by the simulated defender, reflexively retreating towards the connection.

“Stop,” Chi said.

Tram frowned. “I didn't fall.”

“Not fallen yet.”

Manh raised his hand for everyone to stand still. Diep took a measuring tape and checked the distance from the heel of Tram's shoe to the seam. It's only a few inches, but if you change your speed, those few inches can become a whole foot.

“Rehearse from another point,” Manh said.

“But in the real game, no one let me choose the background.”

"A real match is not allowed to force you to step into danger. If a card can only run in one position, that card is not good enough."

They changed direction of attack. Ngan pulls the defender to the left. Vi runs on the right wing. Tram does not need to retreat to the seam. She received the ball in the middle and released it to Ngan. The attack didn't score, but no one had to sacrifice their ankles to prove the card was effective.

After the practice session, Chi and Diep stayed to do paperwork. Diep opened the computer and pulled up the old yard inspection report. In the background section, the previous person in charge wrote "pass".

“What do you want to change into?” Chi asked.

“Conditionally qualified.”

“What conditions?”

Diep listed: must post warnings, have someone check after each round, do not use the A-3 connection as a gathering point, have the right to stop the match if new ledges are discovered. Please add the item "who has the right to request an inspection".

“Athlete,” she said.

Diep looked at her. “I'm afraid I'm making things cumbersome.”

“I'm afraid people who are sick have to ask permission to speak.”

Diep added that line. She pressed save, then printed out two copies.

One copy was given to Manh. One copy sent to the organizing committee.

Chi holds the remaining copy. “What if they don't answer?”

"Tomorrow you sit behind the desk. Continue writing."

“Can just writing it down change anything?”

Diep looked at the seam on the floor. "One stroke of the pen cannot fix the background. But ten strokes of the pen in ten matches can make people not call A background like that is normal too.”

When the team returned, Tram went back to look for the yellow ribbon. She asked Diep for a small paragraph to paste in her notebook.

“For what?”

“To remember you don't have to wait to get hurt to learn how to see the floor.”

Chi watched Tram cut the tape and stick it right next to the match schedule. In the notebook, there are pages recording exercises, shirt numbers, and opponent names. A piece of ice doesn't make her run any better. But it turned something anonymous into a sign she could point to and say: be careful here.

Outside, the tool truck started up. Manh called the team one last time, asking everyone not to practice more on their own. Tomorrow they will play on the same field, but no longer entering it is like entering a derelict room.