Chapter 4 — The Alley Is No Longer On The Map

Ms. Hanh's English tutoring class meets three times a week in an empty classroom on the ground floor, with tables and chairs arranged askew because they were temporarily borrowed from the laboratory. There were only three students registered: Vy, a Math classmate named Kiet, and a shy eleventh grade girl who had never dared to speak more than two consecutive sentences. Every class ends with a mock interview. Ms. Hanh plays the role of judge, asking questions that seem simple but always make Vy confused.

"Tell me about a place that means home to you." Ms. Hanh tapped her pen on the table, her voice stern like a real admission committee.

Vy cleared her throat, trying to remember the sentences she memorized last night, but her mind went blank as soon as she opened her mouth. "My home is... a small alley. We have a... well, a water well, in the middle. Every... every evening, people gather there to..." She hesitated, unable to find the English word for "scoop water", so she waved her hand to describe the action of pulling the bucket, making the whole class laugh.

"It's okay, calm down." Ms. Hanh softened her voice. "The interview panel doesn't need you to speak perfectly, they need to see you speak the truth. Just tell it like you're telling a friend, don't try to translate every Vietnamese sentence into English."

After class, Vy walked to the school gate, her mind still buzzing because her words had not yet been put in order. Khanh had been waiting outside for a while now, one foot propped up on the steps, holding two mung bean ice cream cones with liquid at the ends.

"What, did you learn anything new?" He handed a stick to her, without waiting for a reply.

"Learned that I'm worse at English than I thought." Vy took a bite of ice cream and sighed. "When it comes to the description of the common well, I'm speechless. I don't know how to translate it so people can understand the atmosphere there."

"So let me describe it for you in Vietnamese. Record it and look up the translation in the dictionary." Khanh suggested, his voice natural as if it were a small matter. "That well is where my father and the guys in the neighborhood dug it back in the year of drought. The water is fresh and cool, and the whole neighborhood drinks it together without anyone counting who's money. Every night, someone comes out to sit, the adults talk about business, the kids play with the water, sometimes they argue a few words and then make up the next day as if nothing had ever happened."

Vy took out her phone, turned on the recording, and let Khanh start from the beginning. His voice rang out clearly in the quiet space of the afternoon after school. She listened to that recording over and over again for the next week, not necessarily because she needed it for the interview, but because there was something about the way Khanh described the shared well that made her want to keep it forever.

What Vy didn't know, because Khanh didn't tell her, was that same week he also received a flyer posted at the big spare parts store where he often visited to buy tools: the Young Skills competition was organized by a large car garage chain in the city, the preliminary round fell on the afternoons he still took Vy to take extra classes. The highest prize was a paid apprenticeship at a genuine factory, a rare opportunity for someone who was only used to repairing old bicycles and motorbikes in small alleys. He read the leaflet twice, folded it, stuffed it into the bottom drawer of the workman's desk, and didn't tell anyone, not even Mo.

"Why don't you register?" Luo accidentally saw the leaflet while rummaging through the drawer looking for a wrench, sounding surprised. "You're the best at fixing cars in this alley. You're more than capable of winning a prize in that competition."

"Close schedule." Khanh replied curtly, took the leaflet back, and stuffed it deeper into the bottom of the drawer. "Next time."

"What calendar overlap?"

"Lich took Vy to extra classes." Khanh said, without looking at Mo, his hand continued to tighten the unfinished screw. "In a few weeks he will take the real exam. Now that I have to worry about myself, who will pick him up?"

Fat opened his mouth to say something, probably "you're so stupid, there won't be a second chance like that", but looking at Khanh's calm face, he stopped and just shook his head, not understanding what his best friend was thinking. For Khanh, it was not a big sacrifice, it was simply a calculation he did very quickly in his head: his opportunity could wait another year, but Vy's opportunity could not.

*

Three weeks before the official interview date, a small incident almost upset all plans. Ms. Nhien fell ill, had a high fever for two consecutive days, had to take time off from receiving laundry, and lay flat on her bed with a basin of ice water on her forehead. Vy took a day off from school to take care of her mother, missing the most important tutoring session, the one where Ms. Hanh planned to have the whole class practice for an interview with a foreign teacher personally invited from the foreign language center.

"Stay home and take care of mom, we'll think about the scholarship later." Mrs. Nhien said, her voice was weak but she still tried to act tough. "Mom, it's okay, just a cold."

But Vy looked at her mother lying there, her face pale, her arms and legs shaking slightly every time the fever rose, and in her mind an image appeared that if she really went to Australia, when her mother was sick like this, there would be no one by her side. That thought made her feel suffocated.

Just as she was wondering whether to cancel the trial interview or not, there was a knock on the door. Mrs. Vui stood there, carrying a bag of hot porridge, behind her was Khanh leaning her bicycle against the wall.

"I heard Mrs. Nam say you were sick, so I cooked porridge and brought it over." Mrs. Vui walked in, put the bag of porridge on the table, naturally like a family member. "Just lie down and rest, let me take care of you, just call if you need anything."

"And you," Khanh turned to Vy, his voice decisive, not giving her time to object, "go for a test interview. Your mother has my mother here, so I can run around and take care of anything. If you miss the rehearsal with a foreign teacher, who knows when you'll have another chance."

"But—"

"No buts." Khanh interrupted, his eyes determined. "You go ahead. I'm here."

Vy stood still for a moment, looking at Khanh and then at her mother, torn between two choices. In the end, Ms. Nhien was the one to speak up, her voice was somewhat steadier.

"Go, son. Khanh and aunt Vui are here, mom is fine. If you miss it because of mom, mom will regret it for the rest of her life."

Vy nodded, quickly changed clothes, gave a few more instructions and then ran away. On the way to the foreign language center, she cycled while biting her lip to keep from crying, not because of the upcoming interview, but because of the way Khanh looked at her just now - without any hesitation, ready to shoulder everything so she could continue on her path.

During rehearsal that day, for the first time Vy spoke fluently in English about the place where she grew up, her voice was shaky but so sincere that the foreign teacher had to stop and nod in praise. She wasn't sure if she had spoken grammatically correctly or not. She just remembered talking about the common well, about the car repair shop that smelled of oil, and about a friend who was always there when she needed her.

*

That night, when Vy returned home, she saw her mother's fever had subsided, sitting up, chatting happily with Mrs. Vui while Khanh sat next to the bed peeling apples, her sleeves rolled up to reveal oil stains that hadn't been washed off since the morning.

"Mom, are you feeling better?" Vy asked, her voice still breathless from cycling quickly.

"It's better, thanks to Aunt Vui and Khanh taking good care of him." Mrs. Nhien smiled, her eyes shining with a warmth rarely seen since the day her husband passed away. "How was your interview?"

"I can say it." Vy sat down on the edge of the bed and held her mother's hand. "I told about the well, about my alley."

Khanh gave her a piece of peeled apple, didn't say much, just smirked, but his eyes sparkled with a pride that he didn't need to put into words. In that moment, in the middle of a cramped rented room with the lingering smell of porridge, Vy suddenly realized something: no matter how far the road ahead took her, it was the people left behind - her mother, Mrs. Vui, and especially Khanh - who gave her the courage to walk.

But she also realized something else, smaller but more insidious: the way Khanh always appeared right when she needed her, always ready to shoulder the burden without asking for anything, made her wonder if she was taking advantage of that kindness to easily choose the path to leave. She kept that thought to herself, not daring to say it out loud, afraid that once she said it, it would become a burden that neither of them could bear.

A few days later, accidentally cleaning out the drawer of the workbench to help Khanh find a missing screwdriver, Vy discovered a crumpled Young Skills competition flyer at the bottom of the drawer, the registration date for the preliminary round had passed last week. She picked up the paper, read each line carefully, and then understood everything.

"You knew this and didn't tell me?" She asked, her voice choked, when Khanh walked in from outside and saw her holding a flyer.

"It's a small matter, there's nothing to talk about." Khanh grabbed the paper, crumpled it up, and threw it into the trash can at the corner of the store, decisively as if wanting to erase all traces. "Next year they will organize it again. I can take the exam anytime."

"But because of me you missed—"

"I said it's a small matter." Khanh interrupted, his voice a bit harsh, rarely heard, then immediately calmed down, as if blaming himself for accidentally saying something. "Sorry. I don't mean to be harsh with you. Just... don't make this a burden for you, okay? I'm doing it because I want to do it, not because you owe me anything."

Vy looked at him, feeling a mixture of gratitude and guilt that was hard to name. She didn't say anything more, just quietly picked up the screwdriver and gave it to him, but from that day on, she told herself: if she has the opportunity in the future, she must definitely find a way to return to Khanh a part of what he had silently exchanged.