Chapter 6 — Stupid But Strong

Six years is long enough for an eighteen-year-old boy to become a stable twenty-four-year-old man, and also long enough to turn a once enthusiastic girl into a thirty-year-old woman who chooses to live quietly, cowering behind the foggy glass doors of a small cafe.

Tu Bach Duy is no longer a strange name. After three years of hard work as a solo singer, he has become one of the most beloved idol voices in the domestic entertainment industry, famous not only for his bright stage appearance but also for his ability to compose songs that touch listeners' emotions in a way that few young artists can. His albums continuously top the charts, and his concerts are always sold out within minutes of opening. People know him as a guy who always smiles brightly on stage, but very few people know about the void he has carried in his heart for the past six years.

He has never made his private life public, and has never dated anyone in the entertainment industry despite many invitations and rumors of pairings from the press. His manager - Lam Nha Thu, a sharp woman over thirty-five years old, who has been with him since his first days as a trainee - joked many times that he was "married to his career", but Bach Duy just laughed it off, not explaining further the real reason behind that reticence.

No one knew that, deep in his heart, Bach Duy still kept intact the image of a woman who taught him what love was, and was also the one who pushed him away to protect him from things he could not yet understand. He had tried to forget, dated a few times during the years of struggling to find a foothold, but none of the relationships had gone anywhere, because his heart seemed to have been locked tightly since the day he carried his suitcase and walked out of the Nhieu family's gate.

Lam Nha Thu, who has been by his side since the early days of struggling to enter an entertainment company, understands better than anyone else about that unusual reticence. She is the only person in the company who knows a little about Bach Duy's orphan situation, even though he has never told in detail about the years he lived in the Nhieu family or the real reason why he left there. "You don't have to tell me everything," she once told him one of the rare times he showed signs of fatigue after a long night of performing. "But if there ever comes a day when you need to talk to someone, I'm always here." Bach Duy just nodded in thanks, didn't say anything more, and Lam Nha Thu also didn't force him to open up when he wasn't ready.

The work of an idol singer draws Bach Duy into a non-stop cycle - recording, filming music videos, practicing for tours, press interviews, brand promotion events. He rarely has real free time for himself, and when he does, he often chooses to escape the noise of the entertainment industry by going for walks alone, wearing a mask and cap to avoid being recognized, weaving through quiet side streets that he has never been to, looking for a rare moment of silence amid the noisy life of a celebrity.

Meanwhile, not far from the city center, on a quiet, tree-lined street, Nhieu Tang Ninh is cleaning the wooden tables in his own coffee shop - a small shop called Vom La, located in the shape of a green climbing trellis covering the front porch. She left the family company just a few months after Bach Duy left, citing her desire to be independent and pursue her own business passion. The truth is, she cannot continue to work under the same roof with her father whom she increasingly suspects of unclear plans related to Bach Duy's assets.

The Vom La shop is small, with only ten tables, but Tang Ninh takes care of every detail - from the small potted plants placed on the windowsill, to the instrumental music playing throughout the day, to the coffee recipe she has been learning herself for many months. The shop's regular customers are mainly people living around the neighborhood, office workers looking for a quiet corner to work, and sometimes students who need a place to sit and study until late.

The decision to open a coffee shop did not come from a systematic business plan, but from an afternoon when Tang Ninh passed by this small street and saw an old four-level house with a rental sign hanging on it, a trellis of vines covering the facade like a natural green curtain. She stood in front of that house for a long time, for some reason there was a feeling in her heart that she wanted to stop, wanted to start over from a place completely unfamiliar with the family company, unfamiliar with the calculations that she was increasingly certain existed around her father. She signed the lease that same week, used all the money she had saved for many years to renovate, and personally chose every table, every chair, and every type of coffee bean.

Mr. Nhieu Trong Nhan objected strongly when he learned that his daughter wanted to leave the company to sell coffee, saying it was a rash decision and a waste of her years of being well-trained in finance. But Tang Ninh was determined, and for the first time in her life, she was determined not to budge under pressure from her father. Mr. Nhan's health then gradually weakened due to a recurrence of heart disease. He passed away just two years after Tang Ninh opened the restaurant, leaving control of the family company in the hands of his only younger brother - Nhieu Trong Khai. Tang Ninh stood at her father's funeral with a complicated mood that was hard to name, both saddened by the loss of her only remaining relative, and carrying a vague relief that she blamed herself for daring to think about.

Tang Ninh lives a simple, almost closed life. She had never been married and had never had a serious relationship since the day she chased Bach Duy away. Every time someone made a match, she gently refused, citing being busy with business. Only Ha Thuy Duong, her close friend who opened a small flower shop right next to her cafe, understands the real reason behind that voluntary loneliness.

"You still haven't forgotten it?" Thuy Duong once asked, one evening the two of them sat sipping a cup of tea after the shop had closed.

Tang Ninh did not answer immediately, just looked out the window, her eyes distant. "I don't know if I haven't forgotten or not. I just know, every time I see his picture on TV or in the newspaper, I wonder if he's okay, if he's happy, if he blames me for what I did."

"Haven't you ever thought about contacting him again? He's grown up now, so are you. No one is anyone's guardian anymore."

"That's why I don't dare," Tang Ninh replied, her voice low. "If I reappear in his life now, when he is already a public figure, just a small rumor about our past will be enough to destroy everything he has tried to build over the past six years. I would rather let him forget me, live a trouble-free life, than drag him back to the troubles I bring."

Thuy Duong sighed, did not argue further, just held her friend's hand, her eyes full of sympathy. She clearly understands that Tang Ninh is the type of person who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to protect the people she cares about, a precious quality but also the thing that caused her to lock herself in loneliness for six long years.

Every night, after closing the shop, Tang Ninh often sat alone, scrolling through articles about Bach Duy on his phone - the sold-out performances, the awards he won, the moments when he bowed his head to thank the audience on stage. She has never left a comment, never followed his official social network account, afraid that even a small trace could make someone discover their connection. She just silently watched from afar, like a mother watching her child grow up and fly away from home, proud but also heartbroken because of the distance that she was the one who created.

Some nights, she took out a small wooden box she kept in her bedside table - inside were a few old photos of her and Bach Duy during the years they lived together, a ticket to a school performance that she still kept, and a dry almond leaf she picked up in the yard of his old house on his eighteenth birthday. She never let anyone see that box, including Thuy Duong, considering it as the last private corner she allowed herself to keep from a love affair that had not yet begun but had to end.

Little did she know that, just a few weeks later, fate would bring the person she had tried to forget for six years through the foggy glass door of Vom La, bringing with her a seemingly impossible coincidence in a city of millions — and with it, reawakening everything she had tried to bury.