Chapter 12 — The Thirteenth Desk Drawer

Tomorrow comes the same rumor: Khoi is the one who took the basement files. An anonymous account posted a photo of him holding a screwdriver next to table number 13, with the words "A carpenter repairs a table to hide things." The photo is cut off and Mr. Quang is standing behind. During recess, some friends said Khoi just wanted to protect his father from the past.

Khoi did not argue. He put away his toolbox and planned to leave the classroom. An Khe blocked the door. “You can't go alone.”

“If I stay, everyone will look at me like a thief.”

“If you go, they will say you ran away.”

Hao stood up and said the account used photos taken from the archive room, only people with access there could have them. Thu realized that the posting time coincided with Tuong Vy's time with teacher Phuc. Tuong Vy heard this and her face turned pale. She said she didn't post, but her phone was borrowed by someone else.

An Khe asked the class not to share the post. The homeroom teacher asked everyone to keep the evidence and wait for verification. But a friend named Duy Khang stood in the middle of the class and blamed Khoi for dragging the whole class into danger. Khang is the son of the person in charge of the old facilities. He often heard his father say that the school was affected by the Mai incident.

“Do you want the school to lose the project?” Khang asked.

“I want the school not to sell students' stories for projects,” Khoi replied.

Khang burst out laughing, but no one laughed with him. An Khe realized that the question on the paper was correct: a name was pushed to the front so that everyone would forget who benefited. Khoi was the easiest target because he was quiet, his father used to work at school, and he was holding tools.

Teacher Quang invited Khoi to his room. He asked if he got the basement files. Khoi answered no. He asked if he would remove the table. Khoi said yes, but with the teacher's permission. He asked why he didn't report it immediately when he saw that the file was missing. Khoi looked down: "Because I'm afraid people won't believe me."

Teacher Quang sighed. He did not punish Khoi, but asked him to hand over the toolbox for inspection. Khoi gave it and did not object. There were no documents in the box except a piece of wood engraved with the number 13. Tuong Vy witnessed it, then told Mr. Phuc that the photo posted had cut out the part where she was also standing in the warehouse.

In the afternoon, Ms. Mai Huong sent an announcement: the school will open an independent verification of fund records and the spread of student photos. The person who posted the photo must remove the post. Tuong Vy gave a copy of the storage room access schedule, proving that her account was logged in elsewhere. Khang still did not apologize to Khoi.

An Khe asked Khoi what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to find the person who took the photo, not to retaliate, but to know who intentionally caused the class to divide. Hao found the original photo in the camera system: the person behind the phone was a project communications officer, not Tuong Vy. The employee received the order from an anonymous email, but the subject line contained the code “VP-13”.

“V.Phu,” Thu said. “Master Phuc.”

Master Phuc denied. He said emails could be faked. Ms. Mai Huong did not come to a conclusion, just asked to collect her work computer for assessment. He got angry and said his students were ruining his career. The homeroom teacher stood next to her and said clearly for the first time: "Career is not an excuse to push mistakes onto students."

That night, Khoi did not return home immediately. He sat under the stairs, cleaning each screw. An Khe gave him a bottle of water. He asked why she didn't leave when things started to get dangerous. She said because if she kept leaving every time she was looked at wrongly, she would no longer have a place that was hers.

“I don't want you to be dragged down,” Khoi said.

“You're not a hole.”

Khoi laughed, then asked if she was afraid standing next to him. An Khe said yes, but fear is not a reason to lie. He was silent, then gave her the small pliers. "Hold it for me. My hands are shaking."

At night, a new piece of paper wrote: **The photographer is not the one who wrote the caption. The person who wrote the caption is not the person who issued the order.**

Three layers of responsibility. An Khe drew a diagram on the board: photographer, poster, beneficiary. Ms. Mai Huong said they need to prove all three, but not necessarily the same person. Tuong Vy provides project email; Hoang Lam sent the entire server. In the log file, there is a folder created before the photo was posted: “Push_Khoi_from_the_team”.

Hoang Lam called Ms. Mai Huong, saying he did not give the order but knew the communications manager did it to "reduce pressure". He admitted that he thought pushing someone out would make the project easier. Ms. Mai Huong asked him to come to work.

After listening, Khoi just asked: "If he apologizes, do I have to forgive him?"

“No,” An Khe said. “But you have the right to decide how long you want to carry that anger.”

The next morning, Duy Khang put a piece of paper on table number 13. He wrote: "My dad also told me to shut up. I don't know what else to do." That was the first confession from someone on the other side.

Duy Khang suggested writing his own report instead of answering questions. He wrote for nearly an hour, deleting many passages that used the words "perhaps" and "apparently". Khoi reminded him to keep the uncertainties, because honest records must show the limits of memory.

In the report, Duy Khang did not say Hoang Lam was a bad person. He just wrote that he gave him the envelope, asked him not to mention it and stood in the warehouse with Mr. Phuc. He clearly noted that he did not see any money in the file boxes. After reading An Khe, she found it to be a responsible story.

Ms. Hanh stamped the date of receipt of the report. Duy Khang asked if his name would be posted. She said no, unless he agreed. He said he didn't want to, but wanted the statement to be used to check the adults who had signed. Privacy and responsibility are not opposites.

That afternoon, table number 13 was cleaned again. Duy Khang sat down, then stood up immediately. You said this place is not for you. An Khe said no chair is made for just one person. He smiled, lighter for the first time since entering the room.

Duy Khang took the group to the old football field, where the campaign committee used to set up a cash register table. The grass has grown tall, only a faint line of paint remains. He pointed to the spot where Hoang Lam usually stood, then remembered an argument between Mai and teacher Phuc. Mai said the amount did not match. Master Phuc said he would check after the ceremony.

“What did Hoang Lam say?” An Khe asked.

"He told Mai not to embarrass the whole class. When I asked, he gave me the envelope."

Khoi recorded the story and asked Duy Khang if anyone else had witnessed it. He remembers a friend named Ngoc Anh, who was in charge of selling books at that time. Ngoc Anh has moved to the South, but still uses her old social network account. Tuong Vy found your email address in the alumni list.

Ngoc Anh replied after a day. She agreed to video call, but wanted to hide her face. She remembers Mai used to sit behind the book counter, counting money with both hands for fear of making mistakes. She also remembered Hoang Lam bringing a stack of papers into the warehouse and asking everyone to leave.

“I don't know what's in it,” Ngoc Anh said. "But later that day, Mai asked me if I saw myself signing any papers. I said no. Mai said someone had used our names."

Ngoc Anh sent an old photo of the book stall. Behind the photo is an image of the roster. Mai's name is on the tally column, but the signature next to it is different from the signature on official records.

Ms. Hanh forwarded the photo the council. Master Phuc confirmed that fake signatures can be compared. He said he was suspicious at the time, but didn't have the courage to ask for a test. He thought that if he reported, Hoang Lam would cause the school to lose funding and many people to lose their jobs.

Khoi asked: "Do you think those who benefit from sponsorship money also have a responsibility?"

Master Phuc replied: "Yes. But the responsibility is not divided equally so that everyone is light. Each person must receive their own share."

Those words were recorded in the minutes. An Khe sees it as different from general apologies. People began to call their movements correctly: sign, hold, shut up, move.

Tuong Vy discovered a new email in her father's old mailbox. Hoang Lam once wrote that if Mai's records were checked, the sponsorship would be suspended. Her father forwarded the email to Mr. Phuc and asked to "keep things stable". He didn't take the money, but the word "stable" in the email became an excuse to ignore her.

Duy Khang read the summary and said he wanted to add one sentence: "I'm no longer a child at a fundraiser, but I don't want adults to use my age to erase my words." The whole group kept that sentence.

Late in the afternoon, An Khe put Duy Khang's paper in the document box. She added the label: “Voluntary statement, not conclusive.” Those lines make the story slower, but also fairer.

That night, Duy Khang called An Khe. He asked if the committee later concluded that he had accepted money, would he be kicked out of the club. An Khe did not promise. She said he had the right to hear the conclusions, receive explanations and be protected from unfounded accusations.

Khoi added that a child's mistake cannot be used as an excuse for adults to avoid responsibility. Duy Khang was silent and then asked the two if they thought Mai would hate him. An Khe told Mai that he had the right to be angry, but Mai's emotions were not a scale on which he could judge himself.

Tomorrow, Duy Khang will tell the story before the council. He prepared one copy for his father to keep, one copy for Ms. Hanh and one copy to keep in desk drawer number 13. The three copies were identical, so that no one could tell that his words had changed according to the listener.