Chapter 18 — Fake Kisses with My Ex's Best Friend

After the moment Bách Nhân publicly defended Khả Tâm in front of the entire cafeteria, the news reached Thành Kiệt's ears within just a few hours, told through many different versions but the core remained the same: his best friend had just publicly admitted his true feelings for his own ex-lover, in front of the whole company. The feeling of loss that Thành Kiệt tried to bury all these days now flares up into a bitterness that is difficult to control.

He no longer has any hope of winning Khả Tâm back, but a part of him, the most selfish and hurt part, still cannot accept seeing her completely happy with someone else, especially with his own best friend. If he can't have her, perhaps, the dark part of his heart thought, at least he wouldn't want to see that relationship built on a solid and complete foundation.

He justified those thoughts with all kinds of seemingly legitimate arguments: that he was just worried about his best friend, that he had the right to know the truth before seeing his ten-year friendship juxtaposed with a relationship with not-so-pure origins. But deep inside, he knew clearly that those were just layers of cover for a much more naked sense of selfishness: he didn't want to lose both of the most important people in his life at the same time, even though he was the one who pushed things to this point.

He met Bách Nhân on a weekend evening and invited him to drink coffee with the reason that "we haven't talked properly for a long time", an invitation that Bách Nhân, despite having many problems with his friend, still decided to accept, partly because ten years of friendship is not easy to completely cut off, partly because he also wanted to find a way to mend the relationship that had been broken over the past time.

"I congratulate you and Tâm." Thành Kiệt opened his mouth, trying to sound calm, "I heard what happened in the cafeteria. You're really brave, daring to go public like that."

"Thank you," Bách Nhân replied, his voice still cautious, not sure what the real purpose of this meeting was.

"I just have one thing to ask, then I won't bother you two anymore," Thành Kiệt said, his eyes looked down at the coffee cup, as if he was carefully considering each word before speaking," Do you know, the day I said goodbye to Tâm, what did she say to me?"

Bách Nhân frowned, "What do you want to say?"

"She said, she thanked you," Thành Kiệt spoke, his voice slow, deliberately letting each word carry its own weight," she said, without what you did, she would never have had the chance to realize what she really needed. What do you think that statement means? I think, perhaps, for Tâm, this whole thing, including you, is just part of the process she needs to go through to find herself, not that you are the final destination she is looking for."

That sentence, even though it was just a fragment cut from a much longer conversation, was still enough to pierce straight into the deepest insecurity that Bách Nhân had tried to bury for so many weeks: whether he was really the person she chose, or simply a means, a path she needed to go through to heal her heartbreak and find peace with herself.

"Where did you overhear that sentence?" Bách Nhân asked, his voice trying to stay calm but unable to hide the wavering.

"She told me herself, right during our farewell conversation," Thành Kiệt replied, not denying, "I don't want to separate you two, really. I just think, as your best friend, I have a responsibility to tell you what I know, so that you don't have to enter a relationship without fully understanding what happened." Bách Nhân was silent, not knowing how much to believe what Thành Kiệt just said. He knew clearly that his friend was hurt, bitter, and had every motive to distort the truth to harm his relationship with Khả Tâm. But at the same time, that sentence fit so well with the secret fear he wrote down in his notebook many weeks ago: "If it wasn't for Kiệt, would I dare admit this feeling?"

"I don't know what you mean by telling me this," Bách Nhân finally spoke, his voice becoming colder, "But if you think saying a sentence taken out of context can make me doubt Tâm, you are wrong."

"I didn't cut anything, I just told her exactly what she said." Thành Kiệt retorted, his voice somewhat harsher, "You can choose not to believe me, but at least, you should confirm it yourself, instead of blindly believing what you want to believe."

Bách Nhân tightened his hand around the cold coffee cup, feeling like he was being pushed into a corner with no way out: if he completely ignored Thành Kiệt's words, he was afraid he would be deceiving himself because he was too infatuated; And if he doubts Khả Tâm just because of the words of someone who was bitter about being rejected, he was afraid that he was betraying the sincere feelings that the two of them had built together.

"I didn't mean to cut anything off." Thành Kiệt objected, his voice also starting to get harsher, "I'm just telling the truth, and you have the right to decide who to believe."

The conversation ended in unprecedented tension between two close friends of the past ten years. Bách Nhân left the coffee shop in a more confused mood than ever, even though he tried to tell himself that Thành Kiệt's words were not trustworthy, not enough to shake his belief in the true feelings between him and Khả Tâm.

Before breaking up, Thành Kiệt also said one more sentence that made Bách Nhân's heart even heavier, "I don't expect you to immediately believe what I say. I just hope you ask Tâm yourself, ask directly, see how she answers. If she is as sincere as you think, the answer will prove it, but if not, at least you will know the truth before it's too late." That statement, which seemed like sincere advice from a worried friend, was actually a sophisticated trap, putting Bách Nhân in a position of having to doubt first, ask questions later, a sequence that would certainly make any relationship more fragile.

But people, no matter how rational, cannot avoid letting the smallest seeds of doubt take root in their hearts, especially when those seeds strike right at the insecurity that has been smoldering for a long time. During the following days, even though he tried to act normally with Khả Tâm, Bách Nhân could not stop himself from occasionally having a moment of hesitation, a small silence before responding to her words, something that Khả Tâm himself, no matter how subtle, also began to feel but did not clearly understand the cause.

"Is there something wrong with you lately?" She asked one evening, when the two were having dinner together at her apartment, noticing a difference in his eyes.

"Nothing," Bách Nhân replied, trying to smile naturally, "It's just that there's been a lot of work lately."

Khả Tâm didn't completely believe that answer, but she also didn't want to ask further, telling herself that maybe he was just really tired after the past few turbulent days. Unbeknownst to her, the seed of doubt that Thành Kiệt had just planted in Bách Nhân's heart was silently growing, waiting for an opportunity to erupt into a crisis much bigger than anything either of them had ever faced before.

That night, after Khả Tâm fell asleep, Bách Nhân still lay awake, took out his phone and re-read all the messages the two had exchanged since the first day, trying to find in it a solid enough evidence to dispel the doubts creeping in his heart. But the more he read, the more he realized that love was not something that can be proven with words, but can only be felt with intuition, and his intuition was currently being torn between two directions: one side was the belief in what he had witnessed with his own eyes for many weeks, the other side was the fear of being taken advantage of that Thành Kiệt had just cruelly aroused.

He closed the phone, looked at Khả Tâm sleeping soundly next to him, her face peaceful in the dim nightlight, and blamed himself for letting Thành Kiệt's words creep into his mind so easily. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, that question still lingered, waiting for a clear answer that he knew, sooner or later, he would have to face Khả Tâm directly to find out.

He did not know that his own silence and unusual small silences in the coming days would accidentally become the trigger for a much larger confrontation, a confrontation not only between two people in love, but between all three people who were once linked together by complicated emotional bonds: friendship, love, and even the unhealed wounds from a betrayal that had never been completely resolved.