Chapter 5 — Seeds After the Rain

After the successful reporting session, the atmosphere in the Environmental Club became much more comfortable. Gia Huy clearly noticed a change in the way the members treated him - there were no longer prying eyes or hidden questions about their motives for joining the club, instead it was the naturalness of friends who had gone through a challenge together and overcame it together.

One Thursday afternoon, when Gia Huy came to the garden, he saw Quynh Nhu sitting alone under a mango tree, holding an old notebook with a faded cover, writing something neatly. He approached curiously.

"What are you writing?" he asked, sitting down next to her, careful to keep enough distance.

"Ah, this is the garden's diary," Quynh Nhu replied, a bit embarrassed to be seen, but still showed the notebook to him. "Since the day Mr. Binh initiated the project, I've been recording a little bit every day — what was planted today, what plants are flowering, what plants need special care, and sometimes even the little things that happened during the activities."

Gia Huy flipped through a few pages and saw small, regular lines of letters, interspersed with a few simple sketches of leaf shapes and vegetable bed diagrams. There are pages that record the day the mango tree first bloomed, there are pages that record a heavy rain that washed away the newly planted vegetable beds, and there are pages that contain just a short sentence: "I miss dad today." He stopped at that page, not daring to read further, carefully closed the book, and returned it to her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to peek," he said.

"It's okay," Quynh Nhu replied, receiving the notebook back, her eyes gentle. "I don't hide anything from anyone, it's just that no one rarely asks."

The two sat in silence for a while, the wind blowing through the mango leaves created a gentle rustling sound. Gia Huy looked around the garden, at the green vegetable beds and blooming flower trellises, and suddenly realized something that startled him a bit — he was feeling comfortable, truly comfortable, in a way that he rarely allowed himself to feel anywhere else.

"Thank you for the video the other day," Quynh Nhu said, breaking the silence. "I know I've said it before, but I really want to say it again. You don't have to do that much just for twenty hours of volunteering."

"I know," Gia Huy replied, and this time, he realized he was telling the truth. "But I want to do it."

That sentence suddenly slipped out of his mouth before he could think, and immediately afterward, he felt a bit confused at his own sudden honesty. Quynh Nhu looked at him for a moment, her eyes sparkling with something he couldn't name yet, then smiled slightly, said nothing more, just turned back to continue writing in the notebook.

In the following days, Gia Huy began to notice a strange pattern in his weekly schedule. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, as soon as he wakes up, the first thing he thinks about is not the unfinished homework or the upcoming basketball match, but the small garden behind the gym building, the work waiting for him there, the familiar faces he will meet in the afternoon. He started to pay attention to see if it would rain today, because if it did, perhaps the activity would be moved to the classroom instead of the garden, and for some reason, that thought always made him a little disappointed.

One evening, while eating dinner with his parents, his mother suddenly asked: "You've been coming home later than usual lately, are you still at the Environmental Club?"

"Yes, I'm still trying to get enough volunteer hours," Gia Huy replied, even though he clearly knew in his heart that he had enough volunteer hours last week, he still continued to come to the garden regularly as if nothing had ever changed.

"Yeah, that's good," his father commented, not paying much attention, continuing to eat. "It's good to have friends and activities. After all, I'm about to move somewhere else, so if anything's fun, just enjoy it while you're here."

That unintentional statement from his father made Gia Huy pause, the chopsticks in his hand stopped in mid-air. "Are we going to move again, Dad?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Not sure yet, but the company is considering a new project in the Central region. It may have to move after you graduate from high school," his father replied, his voice still gentle as if he were discussing a very normal matter. "But that's still far away, just worry about studying first."

Gia Huy nodded and continued to eat, but a vague feeling of insecurity arose in his heart that he had never experienced so clearly before. Previously, every time he heard that his family was about to move, he just considered it an inevitable part of life, nothing to worry too much about because he had never really been attached to any place. But this time, the thought of having to leave this school, leave the small garden behind the gymnasium, leave the faces he had just begun to become familiar with, made his chest tighten uncomfortably.

That night, he lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, trying to analyze the strange feeling rising in his heart. He wondered why after just a few weeks of getting to know a club, with a few new friends, he could feel so attached that he was afraid of the prospect of leaving, when before, after many years of constantly changing schools, he had learned to keep a safe distance from all relationships, not letting himself invest too deeply emotionally in anything that could be lost.

Maybe, he thought, that was what was different about this garden — it wasn't like the superficial friendships he usually built to easily integrate into each new school. Here, you really worked, really contributed, and were really recognized for what you did, not for who you are. And perhaps, it was Quynh Nhu, with her undisguised sincerity, with the story about the mango tree and her deceased father, that made him begin to yearn for something he had never dared to yearn for before - the feeling of belonging somewhere, even if only for a short period of time.

He took out his phone, opened the calendar, looked at the notes about upcoming club activities that he had voluntarily marked, even though he was no longer required to come for the purpose of volunteer hours. He found himself looking forward to next Tuesday, looking forward to seeing Quynh Nhu again, to hear her tell more about the things she wrote in that old diary, to feel again the rare peaceful atmosphere that small garden brought.

But right behind that expectation was a creeping insecurity, a question he hadn't dared to face directly: if he let himself be truly attached to this place, to these people, then when the day of separation came - which he knew would definitely come, as it always did every few years in his life - would he be able to endure the pain of that separation? Or is it better to keep your distance like you always do, enjoying what the present has to offer but not letting your heart sink any deeper?

He turned off the room light, pulled up the blanket, but sleep never came. In the darkness, the image of the garden under the afternoon sunlight, the laughter of Anh Duong and Thao, and Quynh Nhu's gentle eyes when talking about her father's mango tree, kept appearing in his mind alternately, mixed with vague fears about an undetermined future. This was the first time, since he started joining the club just for a scholarship application, Gia Huy realized he was facing an emotional crossroads that he had never faced before - between continuing to keep a safe distance as he had been doing for many years, and allowing himself, even just once, to truly take root in a place, knowing that those roots could be uprooted at any time.

He remembered an old story, when he was in seventh grade, in another city whose street names he now only vaguely remembered. At that time, he also had a group of close friends, promised to keep in touch forever, and cried during the farewell before the family moved. But just a few months later, the messages back and forth gradually became less frequent, then stopped completely, as if that friendship had never been deep enough to withstand the distance. From there, he learned a lesson that he considered wise — never make far-fetched promises, never let yourself believe that a relationship can last through time and distance, because in the end, the pain of separation is always heavier than the short-lived joy of togetherness.

But lying here, in the darkness of the room that still had a few cardboard boxes that had not yet been unpacked, he saw that lesson, for the first time, no longer brought the same sense of safety as before. It just made him feel empty, as if he had voluntarily locked himself into a shell to avoid getting hurt, but at the same time deprived himself of the chance to fully feel anything truly meaningful. Quynh Nhu, even though she knew that one day she would have to face the fact that her father was no more, still chose to be completely attached to the mango tree, to the garden, to the memory of her father, instead of avoiding the pain by keeping a distance. Maybe, he thought, that was the difference between living safely and living truly fully.

He turned over, pulled the blanket over his shoulders, trying not to think any more, but that question still lingered somewhere in his mind, unanswered, like a seed that had just been planted, not knowing whether it had the conditions to germinate or not.