Chapter 14 — Late Night Radio

Nearly a week after the conversation with Mr. Binh, Vy's life rhythm began to bring a new layer of work, quiet but busy - in the morning she spent a few hours calling, re-reading old emails, recording every number about the number of letters, the number of calls, the average time each listener spent with the program, trying to build a picture different from the cold picture Do Bao Toan once showed on the auditorium screen. Thao Nhi excitedly participated, sitting for hours in front of a laptop filtering interaction data on the fanpage, while Hai Duong silently digitized dozens of old tapes, looking for recordings that could be used as proof of the program's lasting value through many generations of listeners. That work took up most of Vy's free time, to the point that some afternoons she forgot to eat, so she had to ask Ms. Xuan to pack a portion of porridge for her to eat on the way to the station.

On Friday afternoon, the weather in Cam Duong became windy early, heavy gray clouds pulled in from the sea, signaling that a late-season rain was about to fall. Vy stopped by Ms. Xuan's restaurant at five-thirty, nearly an hour earlier than usual, intending to quickly eat a bowl of porridge and then sit back and look at a few more data tables that Thao Nhi had just sent via email before starting her shift. The restaurant was more crowded than usual because it was about to rain. Low plastic tables were placed close together under the awning, which had been covered with tarpaulins. Most of the customers were familiar faces - long-distance truck drivers, a few workers on the afternoon shift who took advantage of the opportunity to eat early before going into the factory, and an old man selling lottery tickets or sitting in the corner reading old newspapers together.

Vy sat at a familiar table near the counter, opened her laptop, attentively looked at the data sheet Thao Nhi sent, her ears still faintly heard the hustle and bustle of the restaurant - the sound of spoons hitting porcelain bowls, the sound of Ms. Xuan ordering food, the chatter and laughter of the drivers discussing the newly opened route. She got so used to that background sound that it almost became a part of her second workspace, no different from the hum of the air conditioner in the radio editing room.

Then a voice spoke up, not loud, not intentionally standing out in the crowd, but there was something that made all of Vy's attention suddenly stop, like a compass needle suddenly turning sharply in a direction it had never pointed before.

"Please give me a bowl of onion porridge, just a little pepper, I'm about to start my shift and can't eat spicy food."

The sentence was normal, nothing special in terms of content, but the way the man pronounced it - low, slow, each word released with a steady, almost deliberate rhythm, not hastily like the way most customers still order during busy times - made Vy's hand stop on the keyboard, her fingers hanging in mid-air. She raised her head, her heart beating irrationally, her eyes searching for the owner of that voice among the crowd of diners.

The man stood next to the counter, his back slightly bent while waiting for Ms. Xuan to scoop up the porridge, wearing a faded blue-gray protective suit, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal sun-tanned stains, and an old cross-body bag slung over his shoulder. He was in his late thirties, with a thin but sturdy figure, his hair cut neatly in the style of people used to manual work, nothing particularly outstanding in appearance, only his eyes, when he accidentally looked around the shop while waiting, had a quiet, distant look, as if thinking about something far away from where he was standing.

Vy sat motionless, her whole body tense like a string, listening to each next syllable as the man thanked Ms. Xuan after receiving the bowl of porridge. "Thank you." Just two short words, but the way he lightly emphasized the last syllable, the very quiet pause before saying thank you, was eerily similar to the way White Night used to talk to her every time he ended a call on the air - a deliberate slowness, as if he always considered each word before letting it escape his mouth.

She tried to calm herself, reminding herself that this city of Jinyang had thousands of men with deep voices, that her mind was probably drawing unrealistic similarities, just because she was so desperate to hear that voice in real life that she began to hear it everywhere, like a thirsty person in the desert seeing the illusion of a stream everywhere. But even though she told herself that, her heart still refused to slow down, and she found herself staring at the man longer than was normally allowed, to the point of almost being caught by him when he turned around to find a seat.

He chose a stool in the corner of the restaurant, not far from Vy's table, ate alone in silence, did not turn on the phone, did not talk to anyone, just bowed his head and ate each spoonful of porridge slowly as if enjoying a rare moment of rest before a long night ahead. There was something in that lonely sitting posture, in the way he occasionally stopped his spoon, his eyes looking far into the dark alley outside as if waiting or remembering something, that made Vy even more convinced that she was sitting just a few steps away from the man who still called into her program every night.

She glanced at Ms. Xuan who was busy behind the counter, hesitated for a moment, then stood up, walked closer, pretending to naturally ask for an extra portion of raw vegetables to have an excuse to stand closer to the counter. "Miss, please give me some more vegetables."

Ms. Xuan scooped vegetables for her, then lowered her voice, her eyes quickly glanced towards the corner of the restaurant where the man was sitting and eating, as if she noticed her niece's eyes drifting there unconsciously. "Are you paying attention to me?"

Vy was startled and tried to keep her face calm. "No, I just... do you know that guy? I feel strange, I don't think I've ever met him before."

"New customer, only been coming to the shop for a few weeks now," Ms. Xuan said, her voice low enough for two people to hear. "I don't know what job I do. I only see them coming in at this hour, eating alone, not saying much, paying and then leaving, never sitting for long. The drivers sitting nearby said it seemed like he worked the night shift somewhere outside the industrial park. That's what I heard, but I didn't ask carefully."

Night shift. Industrial park. Those two vague details, even though they didn't confirm anything specific, were enough to make Vy's heart beat faster, feeling like she was standing in front of a slightly open door, with just a slight push to be able to see what she had both feared and longed to see for so long. She stood there for a moment, a bowl of vegetables in her hand, wondering whether to return to her table as if nothing happened, or to walk straight up to the man and ask him something so natural, so harmless - perhaps with just one sentence, a few words exchanged, she would know immediately, with the intuition of someone who has listened to that voice dozens of times on the phone, whether it was really him or not.

But then another fear crept in, stronger than the curiosity that was driving her - the fear that if she stepped forward, if she asked, and it turned out the answer was just a meaningless coincidence, she would have to face a feeling of disappointment that she wasn't sure she could bear amid so many other things in her heart. And if, on the contrary, the answer is yes — if that man sitting quietly eating porridge really is White Night — then she will have to face the very thing he once admitted he feared most: the moment when the beautiful thing that still existed completely in the darkness of the wave, nameless, faceless, suddenly had to take on a specific shape, a real face, a real name, that neither of them had ever been mentally prepared to receive in this way — suddenly, unscheduled, in the middle of a noisy porridge shop at night.

Vy stood still between those two conflicting emotions, the bowl of vegetables in her hand began to cool, until Ms. Xuan gently pushed her shoulder, her voice gently urging. "What are you standing there for? The vegetables are cold, go back to the table, it's about to rain."

She returned to her table and sat down, but her eyes still couldn't help but keep gliding towards the corner of the shop. The man finished eating, stood up, took out money from his pocket to pay Ms. Xuan, said a short sentence that Vy could not hear clearly because of the sound of rain that had just begun to patter on the tarpaulin roof, then put his bag on his shoulder, walked out of the restaurant, into the thin curtain of rain spreading down the small alley, his gait was agile but not in a hurry, exactly like the way a person familiar with having to walk in the rain to work places without built-in roofs.

Vy sat quietly, watching his shadow disappear behind the rain, feeling both like she had lost an important opportunity and like she had just escaped a decision she hadn't had the courage to make. She didn't get up to run after her, didn't call anything after her, just sat there, her heart still beating fast, wondering if she had just missed a moment that could change everything, or just avoided a mistake that she would later regret in a completely different way.

"What's wrong?" Ms. Xuan walked over and sat down opposite Vy, her eyes full of concern mixed with a bit of undisguised curiosity. "Your face has been pale ever since."

Vy shook her head, trying to force a smile, her voice trembled slightly as she spoke. "I don't know, auntie. Maybe I'm just imagining something, because I want it to be real so much."

Ms. Xuan looked at her niece for a long time, didn't ask any more questions, just put her hand on Vy's shoulder, the familiar gentle touch like every time she comforted her. "There are some things, Vy, we don't need to rush to confirm right away. If it's fate, it will find its own way back, no need for you to run after it in the rain to catch it. If it's not, then you've also learned one thing - how much your heart is longing for something, and that, in itself, is worth cherishing."

Vy nodded, looking out at the thickening rain, where the small alley was now left with only a trail of sparkling water under the yellow light of the shop, and there was no longer a trace of that man. She wasn't sure who she had just met—it could have been a coincidence among the city's thousands of people with deep accents, or it could have been something much bigger that she hadn't yet had the courage to confirm. But she knew that, no matter what, the feeling of her heart skipping a beat in the middle of an ordinary porridge shop like any other time, would stay with her for a long time, perhaps throughout the upcoming broadcast night, as she sat in her familiar chair, waiting to see if the anonymous line would light up or not, and if so, would she still hear that voice in the same completely old way, or from now on, every time she heard it, she would always wonder, behind that wave, was a mirror. Her face had just been glimpsed in the middle of an afternoon rain at her aunt's familiar porridge shop.