Chapter 1 — Appointment Under the Stars

Tran Ngoc Han has an unwritten rule for herself: never look up at the night sky for more than three seconds.

That rule may sound strange to anyone who doesn't know her well, but to Ngoc Han, it's the only way to keep her heart from sinking every time night falls and the stars begin to peek out from behind the thin layer of clouds. She could walk across the entire starry sky without once raising her head, her eyes always fixed on the sidewalk, on her phone screen, on anything that wasn't the vast space above.

"Ngoc Han, did you leave the desk lamp on until this late?" Her mother's voice, Ms. Lan, came from outside the room's door, accompanied by a light knock.

"Yes, I'm studying Chemistry, mom." Ngoc Han replied, not raising her head from the stack of books in front of her.

Ms. Lan pushed the door open and walked in, holding a cup of warm milk and placing it on her daughter's desk. "I brought you milk. Besides, I have something to tell you."

Ngoc Han put down her pen, turned to look at her mother, an unpleasant premonition rising in her heart. Every time my mother opens with "I have something to say" in such a serious way, it's usually not good news.

"The homeroom teacher called my mother this afternoon," Ms. Lan said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "to tell me that my extracurricular activities record is too thin. I only have to study, I don't join any clubs. She said if I want my study abroad application to be competitive, I need to have at least one fixed extracurricular activity this semester."

"I don't like joining clubs, you know that." Ngoc Han said, her voice somewhat stiff.

"I know you like quiet, like to study alone," Ms. Lan said, her voice gentle but determined, "but this time it can't be helped anymore. The university over there looks at you as a whole person, not just your grades. You need to choose a club, any club you find suitable, and participate regularly until the end of the year."

Ngoc Han sighed, knowing that arguing further was useless. Her mother, although always gentle, is someone who, once she has decided something for her daughter's future, rarely budges.

"I'll think about it," she replied, lowering her eyes to the pile of books, hoping the subject would be left there.

The next morning, at school, Ngoc Han told this story to Dang Yen Nhi during recess, when they both sat in a familiar corner of the yard near the Biology laboratory.

"So you have to choose a club?" Yen Nhi asked, her eyes shining with excitement. "Come to Fine Arts with me! We need more people to paint backgrounds for the year-end exhibition."

"I'm really bad at drawing, you know," Ngoc Han shook her head, laughing lightly at her friend's enthusiastic suggestion. "Besides, your club is so crowded, I'm not familiar with it."

"So..." Yen Nhi squinted her eyes in thought, scrolling through the list of clubs in her head. "What subjects do you like the most? Chemistry and Biology. Does our school have an Applied Chemistry club?"

"No," Ngoc Han replied, "only the Natural Science club in general, but I heard it disbanded this year because there weren't enough teachers in charge."

The two were silent for a while, flipping through the leaflets introducing the school's clubs that the Youth Union room had just distributed to the class this morning. Yen Nhi stopped at a page and pointed at it.

"Here, the Astronomy Club," she said. "I heard it's about to be disbanded this year because there are too few people. It must be easy to get in. Besides, they often write in their resumes 'scientific observation skills, outdoor teamwork', which sounds like it fits your profile for studying abroad in the Environment major."

Ngoc Han looked down at the leaflet, her heart suddenly tightening in a strange rhythm. The word "Astronomy" printed boldly on a dark blue background with a few stylized stars, made an old memory suddenly surface in her mind - the image of a nine-year-old boy sitting on the terrace next to his father, holding a red flashlight, eyes glued to the binoculars, waiting for the moment a streak of light streaked across the sky.

"No," she said, quickly folding the flyer, her voice more decisive than she intended. "That club probably isn't for me."

"What's wrong? You just finished reading the sentence and already refused." Yen Nhi's eyes widened in surprise at her friend's unusual reaction.

"I just... don't like looking at stars," Ngoc Han replied, trying to keep her voice normal, even though old memories were still churning in her heart. "Can you help me find another club? Anything is fine, as long as it's not astronomy."

Yen Nhi looked at her friend for a moment, realizing there was something behind that unexpectedly harsh reaction, but she didn't ask further, just nodded, continuing to flip through the leaflets to find another solution. The two looked at several options — English club, Volunteer club, Chess club — but none of them really interested Ngoc Han.

"The English Club meets at the same time I study Chemistry," Ngoc Han said, crossing out a line in the flyer. "The Volunteer Club has to travel far, every weekend my mother needs me to stay home to help. As for Chess..."

"You're so afraid of losing that you don't dare try," Yen Nhi teased, giggling.

"No," Ngoc Han objected, although the corners of her lips slightly curled up. "I just feel like sitting all afternoon looking at the chess board would make me sleepy."

The bell signaling the end of recess rang, interrupting the unfinished conversation. The two quickly packed up their books and promised to continue learning more after class. But throughout the remaining classes of the day, Ngoc Han's mind kept returning to the image of the Astronomy Club flyer that she had hastily folded, as if there was an invisible string that kept pulling her thoughts towards it, no matter how much she tried to ignore it.

That afternoon, on the way home, Ngoc Han cycled slowly through a familiar street, her mind still lingering on the image of the Astronomy Club flyer. She stopped by the small bookstore on the street as usual, intending to buy a few more Chemistry reference books, but her feet unconsciously stopped in front of the popular science bookshelf, where there was a dark blue hardcover star map atlas.

She stood there for a long time, not touching the book, just looking at it like a strange object from another life. In her mind, the image of the hand-drawn star map her father gave her when she was twelve years old appeared clearly again - scribbled lines connecting the star dots to form familiar constellations, accompanied by a note in the margin in her father's handwriting: "Daughter, when I grow up tomorrow, no matter where I am, just look up at this sky, our three children will still be looking at the same star."

The bookstore owner, who had known Ngoc Han for several years, saw her standing blankly in front of the bookshelf and asked. "Are you looking for a book or something? That star atlas just arrived last week. It's beautifully printed and includes a map of the seasonal constellations."

"Yes, I'm just checking it out," Ngoc Han replied, hastily taking a step back, as if the book had just burned her hand. "I won't buy it."

The shop owner looked at her with gentle questioning eyes but did not press further, just smiled and turned back to the cashier. Ngoc Han stood for a moment longer, then turned and walked out of the shop, the wind chimes hanging on the door jingling behind her like a small farewell.

She left the bookstore without buying anything, her heart heavy with a feeling that was hard to name. When she got home, she went straight to her room, opened the desk drawer, pulled out a small wooden box at the bottom of the drawer, where she kept that old star map and a few handwritten letters from her father about the first years she worked on the rig. She didn't open the box, just put her hand on the wooden lid and sat quietly for a long time in the pale yellow light of the table lamp.

It's been five years since Dad last came home on the promised meteor shower. Five years with countless apologies over the phone, countless busy work reasons that couldn't be rescheduled, countless times Ngoc Han stood alone on the rooftop looking at the empty sky, waiting for someone who would never arrive on time.

She put the wooden box back in the drawer, slammed it shut a bit more forcefully than necessary, then returned to her desk, trying to bury her head in her unfinished Chemistry homework, telling herself that tomorrow she would find another club, any club, as long as she didn't have to face the night sky and all that it reminded her of.

But that night, when she turned off the lights and prepared to sleep, she still lay awake, the crescent moonlight shining through the window curtains, creating a faint streak of light on the ceiling. She tried to close her eyes, but the images of the Astronomy Club flyer, the blue-covered atlas in the bookstore, and her father's scribbled handwriting on the old star map kept appearing in her mind, refusing to let her sleep.