Chapter 13 — Love Awakens After Leaving

Something Familiar

On Friday afternoon, Doan Gia Group organized a small party for the office block on the occasion of completing a large project, held right on the rooftop of the headquarters building, where you could see the entire city at sunset. This was one of the few occasions when Bach Vu actively participates with employees in a comfortable atmosphere, without serious work as usual.

Small banquet tables were arranged simply but delicately along the terrace railing, fresh flowers were arranged in transparent glass vases, mixed with light music playing from the portable speaker someone brought. The atmosphere of the party was much more comfortable than the usual office space, with chatter and laughter resounding everywhere, mixed with the gentle clinking of glasses as everyone congratulated each other for the successful completion of the project.

Tuyet Nhi stood in a corner of the terrace, holding a glass of orange juice, chatting with Bich Ngoc and a few other colleagues. The afternoon sunlight dyed the entire space golden, and the gentle wind blew, making her hair gently sway. She smiled and talked much more naturally than the serious and professional attitude she still maintained during working hours, revealing a part of her youthful, innocent personality that few people in the company had ever had the opportunity to witness.

Bach Vu, standing not far away, was chatting socially with a few department heads, but his eyes occasionally glanced towards Tuyet Nhi, observing the way she smiled, the way she raised her hand to brush back her wind-blown hair, the way she tilted her head to listen to her colleague's story with genuine attentiveness. There was something in that look, in the way she tilted her head so characteristically, that made his heart skip a beat, as if he had just seen a familiar image from some distant dream.

He asked permission to leave the group of colleagues who were chatting, walked closer to Tuyet Nhi, pretending like he wanted to watch the sunset from the rooftop railing. From that distance, he could hear her laughter more clearly, and every time she laughed, he felt a strange tingling feeling in his heart, like a string of memories being stretched but not strong enough to completely break and reveal its form.

He stood silently looking at her for a moment, trying to analyze that strange feeling with the same sharp logical thinking he usually applied when solving the most complex business problems. But emotions, unlike numbers or financial statements, refuse to obey any rules that he could grasp. The more he tried to explain, the fog in his mind seemed to become thicker, covering certain memories, only allowing him to see dim fragments that were not enough to form a complete picture.

"Mr. Vu, don't you join the conversation with everyone?" Tuyet Nhi realized he was standing nearby and walked over, her voice still maintaining the cheerfulness of the party.

"I just want to watch the sunset for a bit." Bach Vu replied, his eyes still not leaving her face. "Tuyet Nhi, when you were little, did you often play any games with your friends?"

The sudden question made Tuyet Nhi pause, but she quickly regained her natural look. "Why do you suddenly ask? I played a lot of games, but it's been so long that I don't remember them all clearly."

"Have you ever played a game of catching locusts, or hide and seek in the garden?" Bach Vu continued asking, his voice carrying an incomprehensible earnestness, as if trying to find some confirmation from her.

Tuyet Nhi's heart was pounding. She knew that if she didn't answer tactfully, she could accidentally reveal dangerous clues. "Yes, when I was little, I used to play those games with my friends in the neighborhood. I guess it's the same for children everywhere." She tried to answer as generally as possible, avoiding going into specific details.

Bach Vu looked at her for a long time, his eyes still lingering with scrutiny, but then he didn't ask any more, just nodded slightly, turning back to look at the sunset scene in front of him. "Nothing, just suddenly remembering some vague memories from childhood. Maybe because the weather is so beautiful today, I suddenly feel nostalgic."

"Do you still remember much about your childhood?" Tuyet Nhi asked, trying to keep her voice natural even though she was extremely nervous.

"Not much." Bach Vu shook his head, his voice a bit regretful. "I've been studying abroad since I was twelve years old. I've been away from home for so long. Many memories fade over the years. Sometimes I can only remember fragments — a garden, a dog, a girl... but I can't put them together into a complete story."

Tuyet Nhi heard the word "dog", her heart seemed to stop beating for a beat. She tightened her grip on the glass of orange juice, trying to keep her appearance as calm as possible, even though inside her heart was churning violently. "Maybe it's just dreams, people often dream about things that aren't real."

"Maybe you're right." Bach Vu nodded, but his eyes were still not completely convincing, as if a part of him still believed that those memories were not simply meaningless dreams.

He looked down at his arm, where there was a small, faint scar on the back of his left hand that he had always thought was a trace of a small childhood accident, never bothering to find out the true origin. "You know, I have a small scar here, from when I was a kid. I don't remember why I got it, I just vaguely remember it had something to do with a certain barbed wire fence."

Tuyet Nhi glanced at the faint scar on his hand, a choking feeling rising in her throat. She knew the exact origin of that scar, knew it better than Bach Vu himself, but she didn't dare say it, she could only stay silent, smiling slightly and wryly. "I guess everyone has a few scars like that when they were kids."

"Yeah, probably." Bach Vu replied, but his eyes remained glued to the scar on his hand for a long time, as if trying to retrieve a memory that was buried too deep to be easily dug out.

Bich Ngoc, standing nearby, observed the entire short conversation between Tuyet Nhi and Bach Vu, then came to her friend's side, lowering her voice to a curious whisper. "Miss Nhi, what did Boss Vu ask you that made your face so pale? Is something wrong?" Tuyet Nhi just shook her head, trying to force a smile to reassure her friend, saying that it was nothing serious, just a gossip about childhood. But Bich Ngoc, with the sensitivity of a close friend, still looked at her with eyes that were not completely trusting, even though she did not ask further questions.

The party ended when it was dark and everyone gradually dispersed. On the way back to the backyard, Tuyet Nhi sat in her private room, her hands trembling as she opened the small wooden box that kept her childhood mementos - old letters, and especially a faded film photo of two children smiling in the garden. She looked at the photo for a long time, feeling both hope and fear at the sign that Bach Vu's memory was gradually returning.

If he remembered the truth, would things between them change for the better, or would they become much more complicated and awkward than they were now? She couldn't be sure of the answer, she only knew that her heart was beating unprecedentedly chaotic rhythms, between the fear of being discovered and the secret desire to once fully recognize her true self in front of the person she loved.

She remembered what her mother had often told her over the years, about always maintaining the boundaries of her identity and not letting anyone in the mansion know about the special relationship between her and her old master. But now, as she witnessed every little sign that Bach Vu's memories were gradually awakening, she began to wonder if hiding the truth all this time was really the right thing to do, or if it was just a way to avoid her own fears, hiding in the name of respecting her mother's instructions.

The night got later and the wind outside the window got colder, but Tuyet Nhi still sat there, holding the small wooden box in her lap, letting endless thoughts carry her through layers of accumulated memories of twenty-six years of life, until drowsiness finally came, bringing her into a fitful sleep filled with fragmentary images of the old garden.

She put the photo back in the wooden box, closed the lid carefully, then sat quietly by the window looking out at the darkness outside. In the distance, the light of Bach Vu's office was still bright as usual, and for the first time after many nights, Tuyet Nhi wondered if she, too, was starting to long for the day the truth would be revealed, even though that meant having to face so many unpredictable risks.