Chapter 17 — Two Sides of an Argument

Hạ Vy noticed the change in Việt Bách before she could even name it.

The first practice session after the school's qualifying round victory took place on Monday afternoon. The atmosphere in the club's living room still retained a trace of the joy of the previous days, congratulations, pats on the shoulder, and the achievement board with a new line neatly pasted by Mr. Sơn next to the two names. But Việt Bách entered the room about fifteen minutes later than usual, without any explanation, placing his bag on the chair with a more decisive movement than usual, and when Hạ Vy smiled and greeted him like a habit she had formed over the past few weeks, he just nodded slightly, his eyes glanced over her and then stopped at the stack of documents on the table, as if she was just a part of the scene, nothing more, nothing less.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice gentle, trying not to show her concern.

"It's okay," Việt Bách replied, without raising his head. "Let's get started. Time is running out before the national preparation round begins."

That short answer made Hạ Vy pause a bit, but she told herself that maybe he was just tired, or worried about the amount of work accumulated after the days of focusing on the school qualifiers. She let it go, focusing on practice, but that small feeling of insecurity still lingered somewhere in her heart all afternoon, like a small grain that hadn't yet been named.

Mr. Sơn introduced a new topic for the simulation session to prepare for the highly concentrated period before the national tournament: educational policy on including personal finance skills in the compulsory high school curriculum. This was the type of topic they were familiar with, the type of topic where their combined strategy was most effective—Hạ Vy opened with the story of a specific family, making the whole audience see the real people behind the dry policy, while Việt Bách followed with a logical framework and data, turning that story into an argument that could not be broken. It was a formula they had spent weeks perfecting, one that had delivered back-to-back wins.

But when they sat down to sketch out a strategy for the new topic, Việt Bách suddenly shook his head at Hạ Vy's suggestion of opening with a story.

“I think this time we should start with the general data first,” he said, his voice blunt, leaving almost no room for debate. "Competitors at the national level will not be easily swayed by a personal story. They will immediately attack its representativeness. We need a solid data base first, then consider whether to add emotion or not."

"But it's that combination that makes us different," Hạ Vy countered, trying to keep her voice calm even though she sensed something was wrong with the way he spoke, a coldness she hadn't seen from him since those first rough training sessions many weeks ago. "The school qualifying judges noted exactly that, do you remember? They said the opening story gave the entire argument that followed much more weight."

"The school qualifying round is not the national round," Việt Bách said, almost interrupting her, something he rarely did. "There we face familiar opponents, judges who have followed the club for many years. In the national tournament, we will face well-trained teams from all over the country, judges who are much stricter. I'm just trying to make sure we don't get underestimated because of our lack of academics."

The phrase "lack of academic character" sent a cold chill down Hạ Vy's spine, although she couldn't pinpoint exactly why. It sounded strangely familiar, like a saying she had heard somewhere, in a moment she didn't want to remember. She looked at Việt Bách, trying to find in his eyes some trace of her teammate who had built this strategy with her through many late nights of practice, but what she saw was just a new, flat and unfamiliar wall.

"Okay," she said, swallowing the rising feeling of discomfort. "So let's try both ways, see which works better before deciding."

Việt Bách didn't object, but he didn't really agree either, just nodded briefly and returned to his notes, and for the rest of the practice session, he almost didn't look at her again, his voice maintained a cold professionalism that made Hạ Vy feel like he was practicing with a stranger playing the role of Việt Bách, not himself.

In the days that followed, that change did not improve but became more obvious. Việt Bách started coming to practice sessions on time but was always the first to leave, citing schoolwork or family matters without further explanation. He no longer participated in the small talk before and after practice like before, no longer responded to Hồ Tuấn Kiệt's familiar teasing words with his characteristic half-smile, only remained silent or gave short answers. One afternoon, when Hạ Vy brought up a new story she had just thought of to open the presentation, a story about a single father struggling between working and taking care of his children in the context of social welfare policies being discussed, Việt Bách just listened with an expressionless face, then said, his voice so blunt that it was almost cruel: "Sounds good, but I think we should cut this part. It takes up too much presentation time without adding any evidence value." any specific proof."

Hạ Vy felt like she had been slapped, even though she tried not to show it. "It's not for proof, Việt Bách," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "It lets listeners feel it, so they understand why this policy matters to real people, not just abstract numbers."

"I understand," Việt Bách replied, but his voice showed no understanding at all, just the cold patience of someone waiting for the argument to end so he could get back to work. "But at the national level, we don't have enough time for things that don't directly serve the argument. I think we should minimize that part, maybe eliminate it altogether."

That conversation ended in suffocating silence, neither of them willing to give in but neither wanted to push it into a public argument. Hạ Vy went home that night with a heavy feeling in her heart, not because of a disagreement about strategy — they had disagreed like that many times before, it was normal between two contrasting styles — but because of the way Việt Bách spoke, the way he looked at her, as if she was no longer the teammate he had gradually learned to trust, but an obstacle that needed to be dealt with neatly.

She told this story to Mỹ Duyên at recess the next day, her voice trying to be gentle but unable to hide the growing worry in her heart.

"He's been very strange lately," Hạ Vy said, sitting with her back against the hallway railing, looking down at the deserted schoolyard at this hour. "It's not just about argument strategy. It's like he's... trying to push me away."

"Is there something wrong with him at home?" Mỹ Duyên asked, her eyes full of thought. "I remember one time Tuấn Kiệt casually mentioned that Việt Bách's father is very strict, the type of person who always sets suffocatingly high standards. Maybe something happened after the school qualifying round, you know, parents like that sometimes react strangely even when their children have just achieved good results."

"I think so too," Hạ Vy admitted, recalling the image of Mr. Trần Quốc Hùng she once encountered, his cold eyes assessing her from head toe, his voice filled with skepticism when asked about her academic achievements. "But every time I tried to ask, he avoided it, or answered like it was nothing, just busy. I didn't want to force him to talk if he wasn't ready, but... the way he treated me during practice, the way he denied every story I told, it made me feel like I was back to the day I first entered this club, the day he still considered me a weak debater who needed to be fixed."

Mỹ Duyên gently held her hand, her eyes warm and full of sympathy. "You've come a long way since that day. Don't let a few unpleasant practices make you forget that. Maybe you should try talking to him frankly again, that serious sit-down kind, not in the middle of a tense practice session."

Hạ Vy nodded, but in her heart she didn't really believe that a serious conversation would solve anything, when Việt Bách himself seemed to be deliberately building a distance between the two, a distance that became more and more obvious day by day.

She tried again at the end of practice on Thursday, when everyone had left, leaving only her and Việt Bách packing documents in the empty clubroom. The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, dyeing the whole room in a soft orange-yellow color, the light that had witnessed many of their late practice sessions, when the two were still laughing and arguing passionately about how to integrate a story into a strict logical framework.

"Việt Bách," she called, her voice gentle but determined. "Can I ask you something?"

He looked up, his eyes slightly alert. "What's going on?"

"What's going on with you?" she asked directly, without beating around the bush. "You've changed a lot, since the celebration of winning the school qualifying round. You've become much more distant and colder, as if you're trying to push me away from everything we've built together. If I've done anything wrong, or if there's something that makes you uncomfortable, I hope you'll tell me directly, instead of..." she hesitated, looking for the right words, "instead of just avoiding it like this."

There was a moment, just a very brief moment, when Hạ Vy thought she saw something shaken in Việt Bách's eyes, a fragile crack in the cold shell he was trying to maintain. But it disappeared almost immediately, replaced by a somewhat forced calmness.

"Nothing happened," he said, his voice even. "I'm just thinking a lot about the strategy for the national round. Time pressure, that's all. Don't think too much."

"Việt Bách—"

"I have to go home," he interrupted, quickly gathering the documents into his briefcase, avoiding her eyes. "See you tomorrow."

He walked out of the room before she could say anything more, leaving Hạ Vy standing alone in the middle of the room that was gradually sinking into darkness when the afternoon sunlight finally disappeared behind the trees in the school yard. She stood there for a long moment, clutching the stack of documents to her chest, feeling a vague but persistent anxiety spreading in her heart, as if she were standing in front of a storm whose true shape she could not yet see, only feeling the air pressure changing.

On the way home, she texted Hồ Tuấn Kiệt, who, she knew, understood Việt Bách better than anyone else in the club. "Do you know what's going on with Việt Bách? He's been so strange lately."

The reply message came after nearly half an hour, short and somewhat cautious: "I think it's a family matter. Việt Bách is not the type of person who easily shares that, even with me. Just be a little more patient, don't give up on him. I think he is facing a pressure that we can hardly imagine."

Hạ Vy read and reread that message many times, trying to find more clues in each word, but it only made her more confused and worried. She thought about tomorrow's practice session, about the proposal to minimize emotions that Việt Bách had been persistently making all week, about the growing gap between them that she didn't know how to close, and a new fear, silent but clear, began to form in her heart: the fear that the team they had both worked so hard to build, the partnership that had helped her regain confidence in her own debating style, might be at risk of breaking, but she had no idea what the real cause behind it was.

That night she struggled to sleep for a long time, Việt Bách's cold voice still echoed in her head when he talked about minimizing emotions, and she wondered, with an insecurity she had never had since the first day she entered the Debate Club of her new school, whether tomorrow, when the two of them entered the big practice session witnessed by Mr. Sơn and the entire club, how much worse things would get.