Chapter 24 — Unfinished Music

Saturday night, the night before the semi-finals, the music room at Nguyễn Trãi school gradually became empty as each club member left one by one after the final practice session. Ms. Hạnh was the last one to leave among the teachers, telling the group to remember to go to bed early, keep their voice down, then lock the office door, leaving the key to the music room for Tường Vy with instructions to turn off the lights and lock the door before leaving.

Gia Bảo stayed behind, making excuses to help Tường Vy rearrange the pile of sheet music and the handheld microphones she had just borrowed from the school. The truth was that he didn't want this evening to end too quickly, didn't want to leave this small room, where so many things had changed in his life over the past few months, to step out to face the night before the most important competition day ever.

"You don't need to stay to help," Tường Vy said, although her voice did not mean to chase away politely, on the contrary, there was something warm when she saw him still lingering. "You should go home early and rest, you have to wake up early tomorrow."

"I can't sleep well early," Gia Bảo answered honestly, neatly folding several sheets of sheet music into a folder. "I think I'd rather stay here a little longer than lie in bed tossing and turning and thinking."

Tường Vy laughed softly, pulled the window curtain halfway, revealing a night sky sparkling with city lights shining into the room, mixed with the soft light of the table lamp that was on, creating a dim, cozy space, reminiscent of this very room on the afternoons they used to practice alone together many months ago, when everything between the two of them was still small sparks that they didn't dare to name.

"Do you remember the first time we practiced here?" Tường Vy asked, sitting down on the piano chair, her fingers absentmindedly gliding over a few keys without forming a specific melody. "At that time, you didn't even dare sing louder than a whisper, because you were afraid I would hear you and laugh at you."

"I remember," Gia Bảo replied, sitting down on the opposite window sill, his eyes turned towards her. "At that time I thought, maybe you're just being patient with me because you need enough people for the club."

"So do you still think so now?" Tường Vy asked again, her voice gentle but somewhat probing, as if she really wanted to know the answer.

Gia Bảo shook his head, feeling his heart beat faster. “No,” he said. "I stopped thinking like that a long time ago."

A gentle silence passed between the two of them, not as heavy as the silences of the past few days, but a comfortable, familiar silence, as if they both knew that there was something important waiting to be said, but no one was brave enough to say it first.

Tường Vy stood up, walked to the sheet music shelf, took out an old stack of paper, the edges of the paper were curled from being turned over and over again. "You know," she said, her voice became quieter, with a hint of hesitation that was rare in someone as confident as her, "this song, Unfinished Song, I started writing it in tenth grade, right after I transferred school here. At that time I was very lonely, didn't know anyone, only had this piano for company. I wrote the beginning, the middle, but I couldn't write the ending, because I didn't know how to end a song about loneliness like that when I hadn't found the solution for myself yet."

Gia Bảo listened silently, feeling the sincerity in every word she said.

"Then the club accepted me, my previous classmates took care of me, and gradually I found a second home here," Tường Vy continued, looking down at the sheet music in her hand. "But I haven't finished writing the ending of the song yet, because I think, a song about finding yourself after loneliness, there needs to be two voices in harmony, not just me singing the whole thing. I waited, waited for a long time, until I heard you sing for the first time in this room, then I realized, maybe I have found that missing voice."

"So the ending," Gia Bảo asked softly, "have you finished writing it yet?"

Tường Vy shook her head, showed him the sheet of music, pointed to the last bars that were left blank, with only a few scribbled notes written in pencil, incomplete, as if waiting for something to fill them. "I still left the last four beats blank. I thought, maybe it should be completed not just with my ideas alone."

Gia Bảo took the sheet music, looked at those empty bars for a long time, then for some reason, he stood up, walked to the guitar he always carried in his guitar bag in the corner of the room - his grandfather's guitar, the guitar that had accompanied him through every practice session hidden in his private room for the past three years. He took out the piano, sat down next to Tường Vy on the piano bench, and gently played a few chords, trying to find a melody that could continue the piece of music she had unfinished.

"Let's try this part," he said, then softly sang the random words that just came to mind, words that were imperfect, clumsy, but sincere in every word - about a person who was once afraid of his own voice, but found it again thanks to someone who waited patiently, without forcing, just quietly trusting.

Tường Vy listened, her eyes gradually filled with tears, and when Gia Bảo sang the last verse, she softly mixed her voice in, the two voices intertwined in the small room, creating an ending that neither of them had ever imagined before, but it felt like it had always been there, just waiting for the right time to be sung.

When the last melody dissolved into the air, the two sat quietly for a while, no one said anything, only the sound of light breathing and their eyes looking at each other in a very close distance.

"Gia Bảo," Tường Vy spoke first, her voice trembling but clear. "I think it's time I told you something straight, no more beating around the bush."

Gia Bảo turned to look at her, his heart pounding in his chest, not because of fear like before, but because of a completely different feeling of nervousness.

"I like you," Tường Vy said, without hesitation, her eyes looking straight at him with absolute sincerity. "Not the kind of liking a team leader has for his talented member, but liking in the true sense of a girl liking a boy. I've liked you for a long time, maybe since the first private practice sessions, when I saw you gradually regaining your confidence little by little, when I realized I always looked forward to the end of school just to see you. I'm sorry for waiting until now to say it, after everything that happened."

Gia Bảo felt a warm wave of emotion fill his body, an emotion that he had tried to suppress and not dare to name for many months, afraid that if he admitted it, he would have to face a new fear, a new vulnerability that he had never been mentally prepared to accept.

"I like you too," he said, his voice trembling but sincere, "a long time ago, maybe since the day you stubbornly refused to give up no matter how many times I rejected you at the membership recruitment at the beginning of the year. I just... I'm afraid to say it, because I'm afraid that if I like you, I'll have one more thing to fear losing, just like I've been afraid of losing my voice all these years."

Tường Vy smiled slightly, raised her hand, gently grasped Gia Bảo's hand that was placed on the guitar keys, their fingers intertwined naturally as if they were born for each other. "So from now on, let's face those fears together, okay? No one has to be alone anymore."

Gia Bảo nodded, feeling tears almost spill out again, but this time because of an overwhelming happiness that he hadn't allowed himself to fully experience in so long. He raised his other hand and gently lifted a strand of hair falling from Tường Vy's forehead, a small gesture but containing so much pent-up emotion.

“Thank you,” he whispered, “for never giving up on me, even when I gave you so many reasons to do so.”

Tường Vy shook her head slightly, her eyes sparkling under the gentle table lamp light. "I never intended to give up on you, Gia Bảo. Even on the worst days."

The two sat there for a long time, the distance between them gradually narrowing naturally, without haste, without force, like two melodies originally written to blend together, just needing enough time and enough courage to find the right rhythm of each other. When their foreheads gently touched each other, they both closed their eyes for a moment, enjoying that warm closeness, before Gia Bảo tilted his head slightly, and a gentle kiss, short but filled with so many emotions that had been pent up for many months, gently touched Tường Vy's lips, as gentle as the last note that had just been played to complete an unfinished symphony.

When they separated, they both smiled, a little embarrassed but full of happiness, and Tường Vy gently leaned her head on Gia Bảo's shoulder, both looking out the window, where the city night sky sparkled with lights in the distance, like thousands of small musical notes waiting to be sung.

"Tomorrow is exam day," Tường Vy said softly, her voice still filled with excitement. "Are you scared?"

"Yes," Gia Bảo answered honestly, "but this time is different. I'm no longer afraid of being alone."

They sat together for a while longer, not needing to say much else, simply enjoying each other's presence in the small room that had witnessed so many changed in both of them over the past months. Finally, when the clock pointed to nearly nine o'clock in the evening, Tường Vy stood up, collected her sheet music, folded it neatly into her bag, her eyes glanced at the last four bars, which were no longer empty.

"Are you home yet?" she asked, slinging her bag on her shoulder, signaling him to leave the room with her.

"Yes, I'm going home," Gia Bảo replied, stood up, and put the guitar back in his bag carefully as usual.

The two walked out of the music room side by side, Tường Vy locked the door, turned off the hallway light, and walked together to the school gate in the yellow streetlight of a late autumn night. The wind gently blew through the trees on the side of the road, bringing with it a gentle cold breeze, but this time, Gia Bảo did not feel lonely or worried like the previous nights. He held Tường Vy's hand tightly the whole way, clearly feeling an incredible peace spreading throughout his heart, as if after a long and arduous journey, he had finally found a solid fulcrum to continue on tomorrow, the day when he would, for the first time in three years, stand on a big stage and sing with all his heart, not alone, but with the person he loved standing right next to him.

At the intersection where the two roads home separated, they stopped, no one wanting to let go first. "See you at the meeting point at seven o'clock tomorrow morning," Tường Vy said, her voice still lingering with nostalgia.

"Yes, see you," Gia Bảo replied, gently squeezing her hand one last time before releasing it. "Sleep well, Tường Vy."

"You too," she replied, smiling, then turned and walked away, occasionally turning her head to look at him again before disappearing behind the corner.

Gia Bảo stood there for a moment, watching her figure gradually disappear, then raised his eyes to the night sky, clearly feeling that for the first time in his life, he no longer saw the fear of tomorrow as greater than the happiness he had in the present. He slowly walked home, humming the ending melody that the two of them had just written together, a melody that was no longer unfinished, but complete, warm, and full of hope for what lies ahead.