Chapter 11 — Between Two Runways

Than Van Khoat's voice echoed from the briefing room before Boi Thu could put her hand on the doorknob, loud enough for her to hear every word clearly through the frosted glass door.

"I'm not saying she's not good. I'm saying returning someone to the exact same position, in the exact type of situation that caused the trauma, after just a few weeks, is a hasty decision, no matter what the paperwork says."

She stopped in the hallway, her hand still on the doorknob but not pushing it, partly out of common courtesy, partly because a familiar feeling was squeezing her chest—the feeling of someone listening to others talk about her as if she weren't there.

"Do you have any proof of that, or is it just a feeling?" Van's voice was sharper than usual.

"I have fifteen years of experience and a former colleague," Khoat replied, his voice dropping a bit. "The person who had experienced a serious incident, was assessed to be eligible to return after due process, as is the case now. Three months later, he made a small mistake in a normal, stress-free situation, a mistake he had never made before. When asked, he said he spent those three months trying to prove that he was okay, to the point that he no longer had the strength to pay attention to the small details that he had always instinctively noticed before."

The room was silent for a moment. Boi Thu, standing in the hallway, felt every word Khoat said like small stones falling, not enough to knock her down right away, but enough to leave a mark.

She had known Khoat since the first day she moved to Tra Son seven years ago, a man who rarely beat around the bush, often complaining about everything from the speed of the internal network to the quality of coffee in the shift break room, but was also the first to volunteer to stay an extra shift when someone needed to take an unexpected break due to family mattered. She never thought she would one day stand outside a room, hearing that same colleague question whether she should return to the position she had held for ten years. That feeling was so strange that it took her a few seconds to realize that it wasn't exactly hurt, but mixed with something close to relief — because at least, someone had the courage to say frankly what many other people on the station were probably thinking but didn't dare say.

"Where did that happen?" Vong asked, his voice still maintaining the neutrality of a meeting moderator.

"Another station, many years ago, before I moved here," Khoat said. "I'm not telling this story to bring down Ms. Thu. I'm telling it because I've seen firsthand what can happen when the whole system, including that person, is too quick to want things to return to normal."

"So what do you suggest?" Van asked, her voice still a bit harsh.

"I suggest that when she comes back, she should not be left alone in the main position in the first shifts, even if the paperwork says she is qualified. There should be supervision, at least for the first two weeks, not because I doubt her professional ability, but because I think even the best people need time for their belief in themselves to catch up with their actual abilities."

Boi Thu pushed the door open at that moment, not because she wanted to surprise her, but because she realized she had been standing outside long enough, and continuing to stand there would only make things more awkward.

The three people in the room all turned to look at her. Khoa did not avoid her eyes, even though his face looked a little confused.

"I heard the last part," Boi Thu said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. "Mr. Khoat, I'm not angry about what you just said."

"I'm sorry for speaking when you weren't there," Khoat said, his voice losing its previous harshness. "But I don't retract my position."

"I don't want you to take it back either." Boi Thu pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him, a gesture that surprised both Van and Vong. "You're partly right. I'm worried about the same thing, perhaps more than you think."

The room was silent, waiting for her to continue.

"But I don't think the solution is to keep me out of position any longer, or to pretend that just as time passes and everything will be fine," she said. "I think the solution is closer to what you just suggested — not a delay, but a supervised return, with regular testing, with a mechanism so that anyone, including me, can self-report if they feel they're not ready for a particular case, without being seen as weak."

Vong lightly tapped his pen on the table, observed both of them, did not interfere, let the conversation find its own way.

Khoat looked at her for a long time, his eyes were still a bit skeptical but had softened a lot. "That's what I want to hear, honestly. I don't want you to have to prove you're strong by pretending nothing's going on. I want you to be strong enough to say when something's not right, even if it makes you look weak in front of others."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to relearn," Boi Thu said, her voice quieter but firm. "Speak up even when uncertain, even when afraid of being judged. I wish I had learned that lesson years earlier."

No one in the room asked more about that last statement, although both Van and Vong realized it carried a weight beyond the scope of the current conversation.

Vong broke the silence, his voice returned to its familiar executive tone. "So we agree: when the official investigation is concluded and the psychological evaluation is completed, Thu will return to at least two weeks of duty with direct supervision, not formal supervision. Sure, are you willing to be the main supervisor? I think there is no one more suitable than the person who just made this request."

Khoo was surprised for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. I'll do it."

No one in the room applauded or uttered any words of praise after her statement, and she didn't need it either. The meeting ended after that, each person returned to their own work, but when Boi Thu stood up to leave the room, Khoat called her back, his voice was completely different from the harsh voice she heard through the door before.

"Ky Boi Shu," he said, using her full name, a formal form of address he rarely used. "The colleague I told you about earlier, I consider him like an older brother in the profession. I don't want to see the same thing happen to you, not because I doubt you, but because I have seen the cost of letting everyone, including insiders, be too quick to believe that everything is okay."

"I understand," Boi Thu said. "And I thank you for speaking frankly, instead of just silently doubting yourself behind your back. I think, if eight years ago someone had told me directly what they were really worried about, instead of letting everything pass in polite silence, maybe it wouldn't have taken me so many years to face myself."

"I'm not the type to talk behind your back," Khoat said, almost smiling, although his expression remained stern. "If you ask Van, I annoy everyone by saying things to their faces more."

That was the closest thing to a joke that Boi Thu had ever heard from Khoat, and even though the context wasn't light, she still felt a rare sense of relief creeping in amid the heaviness of the past few days—not because all her worries had been resolved, but because for the first time, a part of that worry had been spoken out loud, in broad daylight, in front of everyone, instead of being buried in silence like a point of light off the center line that no one dared to mention.

On the way back to the shift break room, Van caught up with her, walked side by side for a while without saying anything, then spoke up. "Are you okay? I thought you would be very angry with Khoat."

"I was angry, a little, when I stood outside the door listening," Boi Thu admitted. "But then I realized he didn't say anything wrong. I asked myself the same question, every night, I just didn't have the courage to say it out loud like he did. Hearing someone else say it out loud, although uncomfortable at first, was much more pleasant than just letting it gnaw at me in the dark."

"You just said it, right in the room." Van smiled, a tired but sincere smile. "I think that's the biggest improvement I've seen in you since the incident."

Boi Thu didn't respond right away, just nodded slightly, and the two continued walking in silence, a silence that was completely different from the kind of silence she had been used to carrying for the past eight years — this time, it wasn't a closed door, but simply a pause between two sentences of people who understood each other well enough to not need to fill in all the gaps with words.