Chapter 4 — The Arrow That Missed the Mark

The news of the regional tournament, even though it was nearly two months away, was enough to reawaken the perfectionist monster that Thanh Tam seemed to have begun to tame in recent weeks. She started staying at the training ground longer than the prescribed time, asking Mr. Kien for permission to borrow the key to the equipment warehouse so she could practice more on days when the club had no official activities.

"Are you going to practice archery again?" Mom asked on a Wednesday night, when she saw Thanh Tam carrying a bow bag out of the house at dusk. "Today is not the club's schedule, right?"

"I'll just practice more on my own," Thanh Tam replied, not stopping. "The tournament is coming, I want to prepare well."

Her mother looked at her daughter's shadow behind the gate, her face flashed with a bit of worry that Thanh Tam did not see, because she was in a hurry to ride her bike to school, thinking only about having to practice more, more, to not disappoint anyone - teacher Kien, Nam Khanh, the whole team, and most deeply, to not disappoint the perfect image she always imagined of herself when standing next to her sister's shadow.

The training ground was quiet in the late afternoon, only the sound of insects chirping and the high-pressure lights that had just turned on in the distance. Thanh Tam set up his bike, took out his bow, and began practicing alone as he had done for three consecutive days. She shot round after round of arrows, not allowing herself to rest for more than five minutes between rounds, her eyes always glued to the scoreboard she drew herself in her notebook, recording each number as a way to punish herself whenever the results were not as expected.

By the eightieth shot of the day, her arms began to tremble from fatigue, her fingers pulling the bowstring were red and painful even though she was wearing protective gloves. But she continued, telling herself that she only needed one more round, that she only needed to hit the tenth ring three times in a row to allow herself to stop.

The arrow flew away, landing in ring eight. She bit her lip, picked up the arrow, preparing to shoot again from the beginning of the counting round, when a familiar voice rang out from behind, startling her.

"What are you doing here at this hour?"

Thanh Tam turned around and saw Nam Khanh standing there, carrying a sports backpack, seemingly from somewhere passing through the school yard and seeing the lights still on in the archery area. His eyes glanced over her tired face, then stopped at her slightly shaking hands.

"I'll just practice more on my own," Thanh Tam replied, trying to stand up straight, hiding the exhaustion creeping throughout her body. "The tournament is almost here."

"How long have you been practicing here?" Nam Khanh asked, his voice was no longer gentle as usual, but carried a rare bit of seriousness.

"About... three hours," she replied, trying to avoid his eyes.

"Three hours, alone, no restart, no proper breaks?" Nam Khanh repeated, stepping closer, observing more closely her unstable standing posture. "Thanh Tam, this is not practice anymore, this is self-harm."

"I just want to prepare well for the tournament," she countered, her voice shaking slightly, though it wasn't clear whether it was from fatigue or the feeling of being caught doing something wrong. "I don't want to let the team down."

"The team is disappointed?" Nam Khanh frowned, a bit confused by that statement. "I've only been at the club for less than a month, no one has placed any expectations on me. I only put those expectations on myself."

That sentence was like a small needle pricking the painful spot that Thanh Tam was still trying to hide. She stood silently, still holding the bow tightly, not knowing how to refute because she knew Nam Khanh was right.

"Sit down," Nam Khanh said, his voice softening, pointing to a nearby bench. "Drink some water, rest for a while. I don't blame you for wanting to try, but practicing like this won't help you improve faster, it will only make you exhausted and more susceptible to injury."

Thanh Tam reluctantly sat down and accepted the bottle of water he gave her, her hand still shaking slightly as she opened the lid. Nam Khanh sat down next to her, silent for a moment, giving her time to catch her breath, before speaking again, her voice deeper, as if she was considering each word.

"Let me tell you something," he said. "When I first joined the province's gifted team, in ninth grade, I was just like you are now. I thought the more I shot, the faster I would get better, so I shot until my elbows were swollen, and I had to stop practicing for three weeks. During those three weeks, I watched other students progress and I could only sit and watch, doing nothing. That was the most painful lesson I've ever learned — that the body needs time to recover and absorb what you've just practiced, not a machine that can run continuously. rest."

Thanh Tam looked at him, a bit surprised by this honesty. She never thought that Nam Khanh, who always appeared calm and steady in every training session, had also gone through a period of haste and mistakes similar to the one she was going through.

"You used to be like that too?" she asked, sounding a little surprised.

"Everyone has been like that," Nam Khanh replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Especially those who really want to be good at something. The question is not whether or not we are impatient, but what we learn from that impatience, and whether we are willing to change our approach or not."

She lowered her head to look down at her red hands, her fingers were still a bit sore even though she was wearing gloves. "I'm afraid that if I don't try my best, I won't be good enough to compete," she confessed, her voice quiet, the first time she expressed that fear out loud in front of someone outside of Yen Thao.

"Trying your best and trying to the point of self-destruction are two different things," Nam Khanh said, his eyes looking at her filled with sincerity. "You know, the best athletes I've ever seen are not the ones who train the most, but the ones who know how to balance exercise and rest best. The body also needs its own kind of 'consistency' — regular training, regular rest, not having to go all out for a few days and then get exhausted."

Thanh Tam remained silent, letting those words slowly seep into her mind. She looked out at the deserted practice field under the high-pressure lights, the beer steins standing still in the fading darkness, and for the first time, she wondered if her fear of failure was holding her against the very goal she wanted to achieve.

"So what should I do now?" she asked.

"Go home and rest," Nam Khanh replied, stood up, and reached out to pull her up. "Don't practice alone tomorrow. If you want to practice more outside of club hours, just text me and I'll go with you to keep an eye on you so you don't overexercise. Is that okay?"

That suggestion made Thanh Tam's heart skip a beat, even though she knew clearly that it was just a responsible suggestion from a club captain to a new member, nothing more. But in that moment, under the pale yellow light of the training ground, she still felt a small warmth creeping into her heart.

"Okay," she replied, nodding, packing her bow and arrows into her bag.

Nam Khanh walked with her to the school gate. The two were silent most of the way, only exchanging a few gossips about classwork and the upcoming tournament. When saying goodbye at the crossroads, Nam Khanh added one more word before turning in another direction: "Remember to eat well and sleep early. Good archery is not just about the practice field."

Returning home, Thanh Tam took a shower, quickly ate the bowl of porridge her mother had left for her, then went to her room to lie down on the bed, her body exhausted but her mind unusually alert. She took out her notebook and wrote: "Today I learned that trying too hard is also a form of disguised fear. I thought practicing a lot was a sign of determination, but maybe sometimes it's just a way for me to avoid having to believe in myself without constant proof." She reread that line a few times, then turned off the light and fell asleep earlier than any other night in the past two weeks, carrying a rare feeling of understanding that she had never expected to come from someone she had known for less than a month.

The next morning, when Thanh Tam woke up, the first thing she noticed was that her arms were so sore that it was difficult to lift them off the pillow. She lay still for a while, letting the muscle pain remind her of the previous evening, of Nam Khanh's warning, of her own impatience. She rotated her wrist a few times, feeling every muscle tense in protest, and laughed softly to herself—a laugh that was both helpless and relieved, as if her body was speaking for itself on behalf of what her mind had yet to fully acknowledge.

At school that day, Yen Thao immediately noticed the difference when she saw Thanh Tam wince as she reached for the books on the high shelf during recess. "What's wrong with you?" her friend asked, her eyes worried.

"I practiced a little too hard last night," Thanh Tam admitted, briefly recounting the story of meeting Nam Khanh at the training ground. After listening, Yen Thao sighed and shook her head but could not hide her slight smile.

"I'm glad that someone besides me is willing to tell you this frankly," Yen Thao said. "No matter how many times I remind you not to push yourself too hard, you don't listen. Sometimes you have to let a stranger tell you to listen."

"He's not a stranger," Thanh Tam protested faster than she expected, causing Yen Thao to raise her eyebrows and look at you with meaningful eyes.

"Well, not a stranger," Yen Thao imitated, smiling. "It's okay, I won't tease you anymore. But remember to listen to him, don't make me have to go to the training ground to drag you back."

That afternoon was not on the club's schedule, but Thanh Tam still kept her promise to Nam Khanh - she did not go to the practice field alone. Instead, she took time to rest and review some basic technical videos that Nam Khanh had sent to the whole group in the club's group chat, this time with a much more relaxed state of mind, no longer feeling like she had to memorize every detail like she was studying for an exam. She noticed that in a video, Nam Khanh repeated the same thing he had said to her the night before — about the body needing time to rest to absorb exercise — and she smiled and realized that it was not a spontaneous statement, but a philosophy he truly believed and applied consistently, and not just for her.