Chapter 9 — Two Sides of an Argument

The small coffee shop near the school gate was still empty when Hạ Vy arrived, with only a few regular customers reading the morning newspaper over a cup of hot coffee. She chose the innermost corner table, ordered a glass of peach tea, then sat twirling the small spoon in her hand, not really drinking, just to have something to do while waiting.

Việt Bách arrived on time, as always, sitting down opposite her with a cup of black coffee without sugar. For the first few seconds, both were silent, no one knew where to start, even though they both knew clearly why they were here.

"I stayed up most of the night thinking about this," Việt Bách said first, his voice a bit more tired than usual. "And I still haven't found a definite answer."

"Me too," Hạ Vy admitted. "But I think there's one thing I know for sure — if we say no, the whole club will lose their spot this year. I can't live with that feeling, knowing that I'm one of the two reasons why twenty other people lost the chance they worked all year to get."

Việt Bách nodded slowly, his eyes looking down at the coffee cup. "I think so too. But I'm still scared." He looked up at her, and this time, the frankness in his eyes made Hạ Vy a bit surprised. "I'm afraid if we screw this up, it won't just be losing a match. It will be... much more than that, for me."

She didn't ask him more what he wanted to say, sensing that there was something behind that sentence that he wasn't ready to fully share. Instead, she spoke, her voice more assured than she thought she could be at seven in the morning on a stressful Wednesday like this. "Then let's not let it spoil. I don't promise it will be easy, nor do I promise we'll get along right from the start. But I think we owe ourselves, and the whole club, a chance to try."

Việt Bách looked at her for a long time, then nodded slightly, a small but powerful gesture. "Okay. Try."

They informed Mr. Sơn during recess that morning, and his reaction — a smile of relief he rarely showed — made Hạ Vy feel somewhat more secure about the decision she had just made, even though her worries were still intact.

The first pairing practice session took place that afternoon, in an empty classroom that Mr. Sơn borrowed privately so that the two of them could have space to work without being watched by the curious eyes of the whole club. But right from the first minutes, both of them realized that "trying" was much more difficult than what they imagined in the coffee shop this morning.

"I think I should be the one to start," Việt Bách said, opening his notepad, his tone casual as if it were obvious. "Build the argument first, come up with a clear structure to guide the whole essay, then you can weave in a story to soften it."

"Why are you the one who starts?" Hạ Vy asked, feeling a familiar discomfort rising. "If I open with a story, the listener will be hooked from the first second, then you can reinforce it with facts and structure. That's what I've always done, and it works."

"It's effective for just you, maybe," Việt Bách replied, his voice still calm but somewhat stiffer. "But in the national arena, the jury will evaluate the overall structure from the first minute. Without a clear argument framework to guide it, your story, no matter how moving, will be judged as lacking organization."

The debate lasted nearly half an hour, revolving around who should open, who should take on the main argument, and how to divide speaking time fairly while still taking advantage of each person's strengths. Neither one was willing to give in completely, and at the end of the first practice session, both left the classroom in a heavy silence, unlike any feeling they had felt after previous practices.

The days that followed weren't much better. One day they argued about how much evidence should be presented in an argument - Việt Bách wanted to maximize data to ensure logical persuasiveness, Hạ Vy was worried that too much data would make the presentation dry and lose vitality. There was a session where they argued about the overall tone — should it be serious and professional from beginning to end, or should there be moments of calmness that touch the listener's emotions. Every practice session ended with a feeling of fatigue rather than progress, and more than once, Hạ Vy came home, sat at her desk, wondering whether Mr. Sơn was really right in believing that these two opposing styles could be compatible with each other.

But amid those constant collisions, small, almost unnoticeable, moments begin to creep in.

One afternoon, while they were practicing the topic of subsidy policies for lonely elderly people, Hạ Vy told a story about her grandmother - a woman who lived alone in an old house in the suburbs, only visited by her children and grandchildren once a week, and the silent loneliness that she had never expressed in words but everyone could feel through the way she always kept a pot of hot tea ready, even though she knew full well that no one would come to drink with her for most of the day. When Hạ Vy finished speaking, Việt Bách was silent for a moment longer than usual before continuing his argument.

"That story," he said slowly, more to himself than to her, "gives the numbers I'm about to give more weight." He looked down at his notes, then looked up, a rare look of surprise on his face. "I just tried rereading my argument in my head, right after your story. It sounded... different. Much more convincing than when I presented it myself."

Hạ Vy felt a sudden warmth spread inside her heart at that admission, completely different from the familiar defensiveness she had kept in her head during previous practice sessions. "What about your structure?" she asked, genuinely curious. "Can I try to fit my story into the frame you built?"

They tried again, this time with a new openness. Việt Bách built three main arguments according to his familiar logical structure, but this time, instead of letting Hạ Vy find a way to insert the story himself, he actively left certain gaps in the argument frame - transition points between arguments - as a shelter specifically for her story. And Hạ Vy, for the first time, clearly felt what she had only vaguely realized before: when her story had a solid logical framework behind it, it was no longer in danger of "drowning" in the middle like the times she presented it alone, no longer had the feeling of floating, lacking a fulcrum that she often felt after finishing a touching story but not knowing where to anchor it.

“This,” she said, her voice filled with genuine excitement for the first time since they started practicing together, “this might work.”

Việt Bách did not respond immediately, but the corner of his lips slightly raised, an expression close to satisfaction that Hạ Vy had gradually learned to recognize in him.

The next day's practice session, when Hạ Vy arrived earlier than usual to prepare, she happened to meet Hồ Tuấn Kiệt sitting alone in the hallway, waiting for Việt Bách who was busy with something with his homeroom teacher. Kiệt waved and invited her to sit with him, a familiar, comfortable smile on his lips.

"What's up, reluctant couple?" Kiệt teased, making Hạ Vy blush and protest lightly.

"Don't call us that," she said, though she couldn't hide a smile. "Still crashing a lot. But maybe it's getting better."

"For Việt Bách, this is great progress," Kiệt said, his voice somewhat lower, different from the initial joking. "You know, I've been playing with him since the tenth grade. I've never seen him willing to let anyone correct his arguments like what you just mentioned."

"He's quite... strict with himself," Hạ Vy said, choosing her words carefully.

Kiệt smiled softly, but that smile was not entirely happy. "Being strict is a bit of a stretch. His dad is a law lecturer, you know that? He grades everything in Việt Bách's life as if he were grading an exam - his grades, his way of speaking, even the way he chooses who to play with. I went to his house a few times in middle school, before things became more stressful. He doesn't like anything that can't be measured by numbers or qualifications." Kiệt paused, as if realizing he had probably said more than he intended. "I shouldn't tell you this much, it's not my story to tell. But I think you should know, just a little, to understand why he sometimes reacts so badly when someone touches the way he does things."

"Thank you for speaking," Hạ Vy replied, her voice gentle, feeling that a small piece of the puzzle had just been placed into the picture that was already vague in her mind from the times she happened to witness Việt Bách after stressful phone calls. She didn't ask further, sensing that Kiệt had reached the limit of what he was willing to share, but what she had just heard was still enough to make her look at Việt Bách, when he appeared at the end of the hallway shortly after, with a gentler, more patient look than a few days ago.

In the following rehearsals there were still collisions — perhaps there always would be collisions, Hạ Vy thought, because that was the nature of two people so different learning to work together — but gradually, those collisions began to take on a different quality, no longer the fierce confrontation of the early days, but more like a process of mutual sharpening, where each friction made both parts of their arguments become sharper, more rounded.

That weekend, when the two sat down to summarize what they had learned after a turbulent week, Việt Bách suddenly spoke, his voice somewhat hesitant. "I think I was wrong to worry that you would make me lose control." He looked down at the pile of notes between the two of them. The pages were now filled with both of their handwriting, intertwined with each other, no longer clearly distinguishing who wrote which part. "Maybe I'm just learning a different way of control, one I've never known before."

Hạ Vy looked at him, feeling a strange warmth spread in her heart, and for the first time since the day Mr. Sơn announced the decision to pair up, she allowed herself to believe, even if just a little, that maybe they could really did this.