Chapter 21 — Unfinished Music

Part V — Learning How to Sing Again

Three days. That was the time when Gia Bảo avoided the entire Choir Club, avoided the hallway leading to the music room even though he had to go twice as far to get to class, and also avoided the phone lying face down on the desk, where the club's chat group still occasionally lit up and then turned off without him bothering to open it.

He wasn't angry at anyone, or at least he tried to convince himself so. He just didn't know how to face the eleven faces that witnessed him running away from the rehearsal like a child, and he didn't know how to face the words that were still echoing in his head for three straight nights, the words he heard while standing outside the music room door, his hands still shaking, trying to catch his breath after running away from the school reporter's bright flash. "Only seven more days," Tường Vy's voice was urgent, not at all like the warm voice he was used to hearing every private practice session, "If Gia Bảo doesn't come back in time, we have to consider another plan immediately, we can't wait any longer."

He stood there, right outside the door, listening to that sentence, then quietly turned around and left without anyone in the room knowing he was still there. For the next three days, that sentence kept repeating in his head like a stuck chorus, each time deepening the feeling that for Tường Vy, for the whole club, he was just a link that needed to operate on schedule, nothing more, nothing less.

You know it's unfair to think like that. He knew, somewhere in the corner of his conscious mind, that Tường Vy was probably just as panicked as he was at that moment, that she was having to keep the whole team from collapsing right before her eyes while the person she cared about the most just rushed out of the room as if fleeing a fire. But knowing was one thing, but feeling left behind, treated like a malfunctioning piece of audio equipment rather than a truly frightened person, was another thing entirely.

On Wednesday afternoon, when Gia Bảo was sitting alone in the corner of the backyard, far from the hallway where one could see the music room, Quốc Huy came without warning, holding two cans of soy milk bought at the cafeteria, plopped one down next to him and then sat down on the concrete steps.

"How long are you planning to hide?" Quốc Huy asked directly, without beating around the bush as usual. "I couldn't find you in class, I couldn't find you in the cafeteria. In the end, I had to ask Tuan from the next class to know that you often sneak out here."

"I'm not hiding," Gia Bảo replied, his voice small, his eyes still glued to the unopened milk carton. "I just… need a quiet place."

"Be quiet for three days in a row, don't text, don't answer the phone, don't appear anywhere where you might encounter anyone in the club?" Quốc Huy raised his eyebrows, his voice not harsh but uncompromising. "Gia Bảo, I'm your best friend, I'm on your side in everything, you know that. But this time I think you're hiding not because of the rehearsal that day, but because you're afraid of hearing what people really think."

Gia Bảo was silent. He unscrewed the lid of the milk carton and took a small sip, feeling the familiar sweetness doing nothing to ease the tight knot in his chest. "You know what I heard that day," he said finally, his voice hoarse. "I stood right outside the door, listening to Tường Vy say there were only seven days left. If I couldn't come back in time, I would have to think of another plan. Not a single question asking if I was okay. Not a single question."

Quốc Huy was silent for a moment, looking out at the empty yard in front of him, where a few dry almond leaves were rolling in the afternoon wind. "I wasn't there at the time so I don't know exactly what happened," he said slowly. "But I stopped by the music room yesterday and brought back the microphones to Ms. Hạnh. Do you know what Tường Vy looks like? Her eyes are dark, her voice is hoarse because she practiced singing alone until late for two days in a row so she wouldn't have to think. Ms. Hạnh told me that she blames herself more than you blame yourself."

"So why didn't he come to me and tell me?" Gia Bảo asked, his voice had a mixture of hurt and sulking that he couldn't control.

"Because he was scared, just like you are scared now," Quốc Huy replied, looking straight into your eyes. "Both of you are standing at both ends of a broken bridge, neither of you dares to step forward for fear of falling. I'm so tired of seeing this, Gia Bảo. I talked to Ms. Hạnh, and she agreed that you two need to sit down and talk honestly, not through text messages, not through rumors heard outside the door. This afternoon, after class, Ms. Hạnh will stay in the music room. She invited you to come, just to talk, not to practice singing."

Gia Bảo looked at his friend for a long time, a familiar feeling of fear rising in his heart, but this time there was another feeling creeping in, vague but persistent — the feeling that if he continued to hide like this, he would lose something more important than stage fright, something he didn't even dare to name clearly.

"Okay," he said finally, his voice quiet but firm. "I will come."

That afternoon, when Gia Bảo entered the music room, the last rays of the day's sunlight were streaming through the window, dyeing the whole room in a soft orange-yellow color, completely different from the bright stage lights that still haunted him. Ms. Hạnh was sitting at the teacher's desk, not grading papers as usual but just quietly rearranging the pile of sheet music, as if trying to find something to keep her hands busy while waiting.

"I'm here," she said, looking at him with gentle eyes without any reproach. "Tường Vy is here, waiting for you. I'll go into the next room to finish the unfinished test. I'll leave the door ajar. If you have anything, just call me."

She stood up, walked past Gia Bảo, stopped for a second, and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "You know, I've been teaching music for fifteen years, and I've met many students who are afraid of singing. But I've never met anyone who dared to turn back after being so scared that they ran away like you. That says a lot about you, Gia Bảo." Having finished speaking, she left, leaving the door slightly open.

Tường Vy was sitting on the piano chair, her back to the door, her shoulders slightly curled as if trying to make herself smaller. When she heard footsteps, she turned around, and Gia Bảo immediately realized that what Quốc Huy had said was true—her eyes were dark, and her face was much more haggard than just a week ago.

A heavy silence passed, so long that Gia Bảo could clearly hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, the sound of the wind gently shaking the undrawn window curtain.

"Thank you for coming," Tường Vy said first, her voice hoarse as if she had cried a lot. "I didn't think you would really come."

"I almost didn't come," Gia Bảo answered honestly, standing a few steps away from her, not daring to come closer. "But Quốc Huy said if I don't come, I will regret it."

Tường Vy nodded, looked down at her hands clasped together on her thighs. “I owe you an apology,” she said, her voice shaking. "A real apology, not a superficial apology to get it over with."

"I heard what you said that day," Gia Bảo interrupted, unable to hold back anymore, the words that had been pent up for the past three days suddenly poured out. "I was standing right outside the door. I heard you say there were only seven days left. If I couldn't come back in time, I had to think of another plan. There was no question about whether I was okay. It was as if I was just a broken microphone that needed to be fixed quickly to meet the schedule."

Tường Vy looked up, her eyes were red, and for a moment, Gia Bảo clearly saw that she was trying to hold back tears. "I know," she said, her voice choked. "I know how bad that statement sounds, I've been beating myself up for three days over that statement. But do you know what I was thinking at that moment? I saw you running away, I saw the whole team standing there dumbfounded, no one knew what to do, and there was only one panic in my mind — fear of losing you, fear of losing the whole club, fear of everything we had built for so long collapsing in an instant. I was so scared that the words came out of my mouth. But my head didn't even have time to think, and I said it wrong, very wrong."

"So why didn't you chase me? Why weren't you the first to find me?" Gia Bảo asked, his voice also began to tremble.

"Because I'm scared," Tường Vy replied, tears began to roll down her cheeks, she didn't bother to wipe them away. "I was afraid if I ran after you right then and there, I wouldn't know what to say, I'd just make things worse. I was afraid you'd hate me. I stood there, watching you walk away, and I chose to stay and take care of the team instead of running after you and take care of you, and that was the worst choice I've ever made in my life."

Gia Bảo didn't say anything, just stood there, letting the silence fill the distance between the two of them. He felt his throat tighten too, not from anger anymore, but from a deeper, more complex sadness that he had never allowed himself to fully feel.

"I thought," he said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper, "that I was only important to you because I was the lead singer in Unfinished Song. That if I couldn't sing, I wouldn't mean anything to you anymore."

"No," Tường Vy said immediately, her voice suddenly becoming unusually determined mixed with tears, standing up from the piano chair, taking a step closer to him. "That's not it, Gia Bảo. Listen to me. I like listening to you sing, yes, I'm proud of you, yes. But if tomorrow you told me you would never sing in front of a crowd again, do you think I would stop caring about you? I liked you before I knew how well you could sing. I like the way you listen to others, the way you still remember to bring an umbrella when it looks like it's about to rain even though no one asks, the way you always stay to help Minh Thư clean up after every practice session without anyone asking. 'Unfinished Music' is my song, but you are not part of the performance to me. You are... you are important to me as a person, not as a role in a performance."

Her tears fell more as she said those words, and at this point, Gia Bảo also felt his eyes sting, a feeling he had been trying to suppress for the past three years, not only because of last week's rehearsal, but because of everything he had carried since that fateful day on stage in ninth grade.

"I'm sorry for running away," he said, his voice breaking into a soft sob that he couldn't stop. "I'm sorry for making the team panic, for making you have to shoulder everything alone while I could only hide for the past three days."

"We are all at fault," Tường Vy said, raising her hand to wipe away her tears, trying to smile even though her smile was still shaky. "I was so focused on the deadline, on the competition, that I forgot that behind each person on the team is a real person, with real fears, with real limits. I'm the team leader, I should have remembered that more than anyone else."

There was a long silence after that sentence, not as heavy as before, but more like a necessary silence for both of them to breathe together, for the emotions that had just flowed to subside. Gia Bảo looked at Tường Vy, at her red eyes, and for the first time in three days, he felt the knot in his chest begin to loosen, although it had not completely disappeared.

"I don't know if I'm ready to go back to training right now," he said honestly. "I'm still scared. Not just stage fright, but also... scared of disappointing everyone again."

"I don't need you to get ready right now," Tường Vy replied, her voice much softer. "I just need you to know that, no matter what you decide about the semi-finals, I'm still here, not as the club leader, but as... someone who cares about you. Just give me, give the team more time. As long as it takes."

Gia Bảo nodded, feeling one last tear roll down that he didn't bother to wipe away. He took another step towards her, hesitantly reached out his hand, not sure what to do, and Tường Vy, as if understanding that awkwardness, just gently held his hand for a moment, a brief hold but enough to say more than any words.

From the next room, Ms. Hạnh's footsteps sounded softly, then stopped, as if she was deliberately waiting a little longer before entering, giving the two children enough time to complete that short but arduous journey on their own.

"Are you two okay?" she asked when she finally appeared in the doorway, her gentle eyes sweeping over both tear-streaked faces.

"Yes, we're fine," Tường Vy replied, her voice had calmed down somewhat, although it was still a bit hoarse. "We just finished talking."

Ms. Hạnh nodded, did not ask for more details, just smiled with relief. "That's good. I won't force Gia Bảo to decide anything today. But I want you to know, the whole club is still waiting for you, not because they need you to sing, but because everyone truly misses you."

Gia Bảo didn't answer right away, just nodded slightly, feeling a little lighter in his heart than when he entered this room just half an hour ago, even though there was still a long road ahead that he had to walk on his own - the unfinished conversation with his mother, the stage fright that was still there, and the question of whether he had enough courage to stand on the stage of the City Youth Cultural House in the next few days, a question that even he, at this moment, was not sure of the answer to.

But when he stepped out of the music room, the sunset dyed the western sky orange, Gia Bảo felt, for the first time in three days, a real breath of fresh air entering his chest, bringing with it a small but certain ray of hope, that maybe, just maybe, everything could still be mended, little by little, like the way one relearns a song that had forgotten the rhythm — slowly, patiently, and not alone.