Chapter 4 — Theater at the End of the Hallway

Lam's mother took the jewelry box after serving dinner. The box is made of dark wood, the lid has an arc-shaped scratch. Inside were only two pairs of earrings, a thin silver ring and a star-shaped hairpin.

“Where did you buy this?” Lam asked.

"Didn't buy it. A friend gave it to me."

“The one in the movie?”

Mom didn't ask what she watched. Mom placed the clip on her palm and turned her face toward the light.

"The giver is Nguyen Khai. He directed the movie."

Lam knew that name from the news. Khai is the only person on the list with the title "director", who also does not appear in the posts after the show was canceled.

“The last scene has mom and uncle Khai?”

“There's mom, Khai and one other person.”

"Who?"

Mom put the clip back. "A girl at school. She didn't want to be filmed, but Khai thought her story needed to be heard."

“So why are you filming?”

"Because at that time, I thought a camera only recorded the truth. Later I learned that cameras can also hurt people."

Lam sat down opposite her mother. She wanted to ask more but saw her mother's fingers tightening on the edge of the box. Mom used to make promotional videos, but always cut out other people's faces without permission. Lam thought it was a professional habit. Maybe it started from the old theater.

At school, Huy found a spare projector in the practice room. He removed the circuit board, replaced the capacitor, and spent nearly two hours reinstalling it. Quan standing next to him gave the wrong screwdriver four times, causing Huy to finally label it "correct" and "don't give it again."

“Where did you learn to repair machines?” Lam asked.

"My uncle has an electronics store. I work after school."

“So you don't like being filmed?”

Huy stopped turning the screws. “Who did you hear from?”

“I guess.”

“Don't guess other people's business.”

His voice made Lam uncomfortable. She also hates being told by her mother not to look. The two were silent until Vy turned on the speaker and played a newly extracted audio clip from the cassette tape. Amid the sound of the rain, there was a very small sentence: "Don't let her see your face."

Tran recorded the moment. Quan looked at the list of old characters and pointed to one name: Nguyen Thao Nhi, a student of class 10A in 2004, with no photo in the yearbook.

“It could be that girl,” Lam said.

Teacher Quang confirmed that Nhi used to study at the school but moved away after the first semester. The profile only states "family reasons". No address, no phone number.

The group started looking through old articles. Many articles talk about the movie, but each article tells it differently. A song praising the club that dared to record “a story that is difficult to tell”. Another article criticized the group for secretly filming a student having family problems. The name Hoai An appears next to two opposing assessments.

Lam sent her mother the links, but she did not reply. She added: **I don't want to defend you or blame you. I just want to understand why people remember differently.**

That afternoon, the vice principal announced a meeting about the project to renovate area B. The theater will be dismantled to expand the commercial area and parking lot. Students were invited to submit comments within two weeks, but the drawings already had a start date.

After listening, Quan dropped the chair he was carrying. “If they build a parking lot, who will park in our memories?”

Tran told him to stop talking, then formed the group "Keeping the Theater". Huy did not join immediately. Lam wrote his name first, then looked at him.

“You may not be in. But your projector is in the theater.”

Huy looked at the screwdriver in his hand. “Me Join to fix the machine, not to get on stage.”

“No one forced you to go on stage.”

“You might catch it.”

Lam was about to argue when the phone vibrated. Mom sent an old photo: she and Khai stood in front of a cloth curtain, and behind was an empty chair. Mom texted: **The last scene was filmed in a place no one expected. Little Nhi chose that place.**

Below the photo there is an arrow pointing to an empty chair.

In the theater, sixty chairs are lined up in rows. One at the end corner is locked with a blue wire.

Huy looked at it and said for the first time proactively: "Open that chair tomorrow."

Lam couldn't sleep because of her mother's words and the green chair. She looked in the closet for an old yearbook her mother lent her and flipped to the club section. The group photo has Hoai An, Khai, Tuan, Dat and a little girl standing on the edge. The girl doesn't look at the camera; Her hand holds a green umbrella.

Mom used a pen to mark other faces, but not the girl. On the back of the photo it says: **Whoever wants to see it can come in.** Lam guessed Khai's words.

In the morning, the group met Ha via video call. She said chair A-27 was placed at the end of the row because Nhi liked to observe before participating. Nhi once proposed to make a movie where the main character only appeared in traces. Khai agreed, Hoai An worried that the audience would turn her into a "pitiful secret".

“You two quarreled?” Lam asked.

“No. They speak very softly. The scary thing is that small talk is often not remembered by others.”

Ha said that after the canceled screening, she saw Hoai An leave before talking to Nhi. Khai ran after him but was held back by his teacher. Tuan put away the tape. Dat locked the door. Each person did what they thought was protecting, then everything ended in silence.

Huy listened and removed the fabric strap from the chair. He said you shouldn't open the compartment with force because the wood is rotten. He used the heat to soften the glue and removed a thin piece of metal. Quan stood next to him and asked if he could open his safe. Huy said if Quan stopped losing the key.

Seat compartment open. The red book has an extra folded page. The page records the sounds needed to be used in the final scene: rain, door, footsteps, ice cream truck, someone calling from the yard. No dialogue.

“The last scene has no faces, no dialogue,” Vy said. “There are only options.”

Lam looked at the list and saw that the last line was crossed out: **The voice of someone staying behind asked if they needed help.**

Mom never asked. Maybe that's why the scene was cut.

Dat appeared at the theater with project drawings. He said Area B would be closed within the month if the council did not change its plans. He didn't come to threaten, he just wanted to know if the group could prove that the theater operates safely.

Tran gave him the table and chairs. Huy gave the electrical diagram. Lam introduced the privacy code. Dat looked at each page and then asked the person responsible when the group graduated.

“Underclassmen club,” Tran replied.

“What name?”

“Not yet.”

Dat said it was a loophole. A space that cannot live thanks to four students counting down to graduation. They need a successor, a budget and a handover.

Lam invited tenth graders into the theater. A friend named Thao Vy said she wanted to learn audio, a friend named Duc Minh knew how to do carpentry and a friend named Ngoc Anh liked to draw posters. The group does not immediately assign important tasks; They show you the process and ask which part they want to participate in.

Huy assigned Duc Minh to repair the chair arms under his guidance. Quan assigned Ngoc Anh to cut the ticket, but told him not to write another person's name without asking. Tran formed a successor team.

At the end of the day, Lam's mother arrived. She looked photo of a girl holding a green umbrella, then said it was Nhi. Hoai An apologized for once considering silence as protection. Lam did not ask her mother to say more. She just asked her mother where she wanted to stand in the new movie.

“Stay out of frame, if possible.”

“Mom can stand outside but still talk.”

Hoai An nodded. She agreed to record one sentence: “I didn't ask soon enough.”

Huy listened without looking at Lam's mother. He put his hand on the green chair, saying tomorrow they would film the scene of the chair being opened.

That night, a notice appeared on the bulletin board: the start date could be moved up early. Their time was shorter than expected.

Tran set up a countdown with colored paper, but Lam suggested including break times so no one worked to the point of exhaustion. Huy scheduled the machine inspection at the beginning of the shift, Quan was in charge of bringing water. A theater preservation project cannot start by making people so tired that they no longer want to watch movies.

In the evening, Lam's mother sent another photo: a green umbrella placed next to seat A-27. On the back there is only the word "wait". Lam did not ask who had to wait for whom. She put the photo in an archive box, then texted her mother that they would ask more questions tomorrow but wouldn't force her.

Mom replied with a period, then added: “Don't let the umbrella become a reason to find someone.” Lam understands that this is an important reminder. She folded the photo, labeled it "unused" and put it in a separate compartment.

On the way home, Lam passed the council room and heard the sound of a photocopier running. The door was ajar and she saw Mr. Quang reading old minutes about the theater. The teacher was startled when she appeared, but did not hide the papers. There are very normal numbers in there: the number of times the door is opened, the cost of replacing bulbs, the number of classes that have borrowed a room. The theater was not left out because of a big secret; it is forgotten because no one has the patience to record the little things every day.

The teacher lent a copy to Lam, telling him to only use it to understand history and not to put students' photos in the film without asking. Lam thanked him and carefully took a separate photo of the page with the electrical diagram, then returned the original. She realized she was used to thinking of documents as things to own. Now she began to see documents as something to take care of. When she got home, Lam texted her mother that she had found Hoai An's name on the list of volunteers from the past. Mom didn't answer right away. But this time, the dot didn't bother her; it's like an unopened door.