Chapter 10 — Anonymous Drawing

Dieu Linh did not go to class for the next three days. Khoi Nguyen, even though his father allowed him to stay in Cay Gon alley for a short time instead of moving immediately, still had no intention of studying, and every recess he stood silently in the corner of the yard, eyes watching her empty seat.

On the fourth day, Dieu Linh returned to class, her face terrifyingly calm, as if she had built an invisible wall around her. She didn't look at Khoi Nguyen even once, didn't respond when he tried to start a conversation during recess, just quietly packed up her books and left as soon as the last class ended.

"Dieu Linh, can I talk to you for a moment?" Khoi Nguyen stood in front of the classroom door, trying to stop her one afternoon that weekend.

"I have nothing to say," she replied, her voice cold, trying to step around him.

"I only need five minutes. I want to fully explain everything, about my family, about why—"

"I don't need to know the reason." She stopped, turned to look straight into his eyes, her eyes were no longer as fierce as that morning, but had turned into an even more terrifying coldness. "No reason can change the fact that you let me live for nearly two years in an illusion. I don't blame you because you're rich, Khoi Nguyen. I blame you because you let me give all my sincerity to someone who doesn't need it, without even telling me."

“I need it,” he said, his voice urgent. "I need your sincerity more than anything I've ever had—"

"Don't say that again." She interrupted, her voice shaking from trying to hold back. "Do you know what the worst thing is? Now, every time I think back to the times I gave you food, lent you money to buy a pen, argued with Nhat Huy to defend you, I no longer see those as beautiful memories. I just feel ashamed. Ashamed that I was so naive that I didn't realize the truth right in front of my eyes."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," Khoi Nguyen said, taking a step closer. "Everything you do comes from true kindness, it doesn't become meaningless just because of who I am—"

"To me, it has a different meaning!" Dieu Linh shouted, then immediately lowered her voice, as if suddenly remembering that she was standing in the middle of the school hallway. "Don't you understand? My pride, what I've always been proud of — that even though I'm poor, I can still help others with my own abilities — has now become a farce in my eyes. I help someone who doesn't need help. I pity someone who doesn't. Don't you see how cruel that is to me?"

Khoi Nguyen stood still, unable to find any words to refute, because he understood that in Dieu Linh's emotional logic at this time, all his explanations would sound like a meaningless justification. He could only stand there, looking at her, his heart aching as if someone was choking him.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice choked. "I'm sorry for not having the courage to tell the truth sooner. But I have never, even for a second, considered you a joke, or considered your feelings as something I received cheaply."

Dieu Linh looked at him for a long time, her eyes were red but no more tears were shed, as if she had cried dry for the past three days. "I believe you didn't mean to hurt me. But that doesn't change the fact that I was hurt. I need time, Khoi Nguyen. Maybe a lot of time."

"I can wait," he said immediately, without hesitation.

"Don't wait," she replied, her voice determined. "You're transferring schools, right? Just go. Live your life. I'll live mine. Maybe it's better for both of us this way."

She turned and walked away, this time without stopping even though Khoi Nguyen called her name two more times, his voice cracking in the empty hallway.

Two weeks later, just as Mr. Bach Son announced, Khoi Nguyen completed the procedures to transfer to an international school in the city center to complete the twelfth grade program and prepare his application to study abroad. On the last day at Tan Viet school, teacher Cao Huu Khang called him to the teacher's room, didn't say much, just gave him a certificate of appreciation that he hadn't received in the ceremony the day before, and a brief advice.

"I don't know how complicated your family is, and it's not convenient for me to ask in detail," Mr. Khang said, his voice was gentle and slow, as if he was considering each word. "But I believe that your talent, the kindness I have seen in you over the past two years, are not something that can be faked by circumstances. In the future, no matter where you study or what job you do, I hope you can still maintain that."

Khoi Nguyen bowed his head to thank the teacher, then left the teacher's room, walked through the school yard one last time, stopping at the tree where it all began. This season's cotton tree has bloomed its first bunches of red flowers, brilliant against the blue sky, completely contrasting with the heavy mood in his heart.

He couldn't find Dieu Linh to say goodbye - she had deliberately avoided him during those last days, and even though he was heartbroken, he respected her wishes and did not intentionally seek her out. He only left in the old desk drawer of the classroom - where she would definitely clean it up after the Tet holiday - a thick sketchbook, containing all the designs he had drawn over the past two years, including a drawing of the community center with the words "For D.L, when the time comes."

He wasn't sure if she would find it, open it, or simply throw it away along with every other memory of him. He just knew, that was the only way he could think of to say his final apology, in the most sincere way he knew how — not with money, not with family power, but with what he had created with his own hands, just for her.

In fact, Dieu Linh found that notebook on the first morning back to class after the Tet holiday, when she cleaned out her old desk drawer to prepare for the second semester. She sat silently for a long time in the empty classroom, turning the pages one by one, looking back at the entire journey the two of them had gone through together - from the first tube house with a skylight, to the "Tree Gon House" of a tenth grade assignment, to the drawing of the community center with the dedication on the last page.

Her tears fell onto the page, blurring a corner of the drawing, but she didn't wipe it away, just sat there, letting the emotions in her heart freely burst out after days of trying to suppress them. She was angry at Khoi Nguyen, so angry that she didn't want to hear any more explanations from him, but she wasn't cruel enough to throw away the notebook that contained the most sincere part of her youth.

Finally, she took the notebook home, putting it at the bottom of an old wooden chest under her bed, where she kept her most important memorabilia—not because she wanted to keep his memory, she told herself, but because she couldn't bear to let such a beautiful drawing go to waste. Little did she know, that action, although small, silently planted a seed that eight years later would have the opportunity to germinate again.

That evening, when leaving Cay Gon alley for the last time in the car that took him back to his old villa, Khoi Nguyen looked back at the small alley through the glass window, the yellow streetlights illuminating the familiar shabby roofs, and promised himself only one thing: no matter how long it took, no matter how many years he had to go through, he would find a way to prove to Dieu Linh his feelings for her, and for what she had taught him about truth. between people, is never a joke or a lie.

He didn't know, it took exactly eight years for that promise to have a chance to be proven - not through an empty apology, but through a real project, standing tall in the heart of the city, carrying within it everything they had dreamed of together under the tree all those years ago.

The car carrying him left Cay Gon alley, gradually blending into the traffic of major streets, leaving behind a period of his life that he knew he would never find the same again. Aunt Bay Nha stood in front of the house, waved him off until the car disappeared around the corner, then returned to the house, sat down next to the unfinished loom, her heart heavy with a sadness that was hard to name, mixed with a fragile hope that one day, the two children she had witnessed growing up together would find their way back to each other, in their own way.