Chapter 27 — Unfinished Music

The City Youth Cultural House was already packed with people that Saturday morning. Unlike the modest hall used for the semi-finals, the main auditorium where the city-level finals would take place was a massive space, with rows of red chairs stretching from the stage to the back of the room. The upper floor also had a balcony for the audience, and it was estimated that up to a thousand people would be seated when the program officially began in the afternoon. Flags and banners were spread throughout the lobby, reporters from several city education newspapers stood haphazardly with cameras in front of the door, and the sounds of test speakers echoed continuously from the stage, creating a bustling, breathtaking atmosphere.

Gia Bảo stood in the wings, looking through the gap in the dark red velvet curtain at the auditorium that was gradually filling with seats, and felt his whole body freeze. This was not the familiar thrill he had learned to make friends with over the past few months. This was an old fear, raw, cold, pounding into his chest like an unannounced punch.

This auditorium was at least three times larger than the old middle school auditorium. But the feeling - the feeling of hundreds, thousands of eyes that could turn towards him at any moment, the feeling of having nowhere to hide once he stepped out into the light - was identical, frighteningly similar, as if time had folded in half and thrown him back to that fateful May afternoon three years ago.

"Gia Bảo, are you okay?" Quốc Huy asked. He had come to support the team as a spectator but still managed to sneak backstage through a few contacts among the logistics crew, then placed a hand on Gia Bảo's shoulder. "Your face is turning white."

"I... I don't know," Gia Bảo replied, his voice shaking so much that he could hear it clearly. He raised his hand to his chest, feeling his heart beating rapidly and chaotically, like a small bird trying to escape from its narrow chest. His breathing became shallow and rapid, his palms were covered in cold sweat, and a strange buzzing sound kept ringing in his ears, drowning out most of the sounds around him.

He looked down at his hands, saw them shaking uncontrollably, and in his head, the memories of ninth grade rushed back more intensely than ever before — the hall fell silent for a split second, then giggles spread from the rows of seats below, his face burned with embarrassment, and the feeling of standing still in the middle of the stage, not knowing whether to continue singing or run away, while the bright lights above his head seemed to burn him from the inside.

"There are ten minutes left until our group's performance," Ms. Hạnh said as she walked over, her voice a little worried when she saw Gia Bảo's face. "Gia Bảo, do you need to sit down for a moment? Drink some water?"

Gia Bảo nodded mechanically and took the bottle of water Ngọc Diễm had just thrust into his hand, but his fingers shook so much that he almost dropped the bottle on the floor. Ngọc Diễm grabbed his hand and held it tightly, her eyes looking straight at him, not with pity but with a calm understanding.

"Gia Bảo," she said, her voice small but firm. "Do you remember the first time you sang in front of the group? At that time you were just as scared as you are now, just as shaky, and you still did it. You did it not just once, but many times."

"This time is different," Gia Bảo whispered, feeling like his throat was being slowly strangled by someone. "It's so crowded... more crowded than all the previous times combined. I... I'm not sure I can..."

He couldn't finish his sentence, because at that moment, the MC of the program began to announce the name of the next participating unit through the loudspeaker system, and Gia Bảo clearly heard his school's name ring out in that large space: "Please welcome Nguyễn Trãi High School Choir Club!"

The group began to move backstage, preparing to step onto the stage, and in that chaotic moment, Gia Bảo felt like his legs turned to stone, unable to lift them up. He stood still, letting the group accidentally walk past, his eyes fixed on the bright stage in front, where the lights were waiting, and in that split second, a panicked thought flashed through his mind: he could run away. I could turn around and run straight out the back door, like I did three years ago.

"Gia Bảo." A warm hand grabbed his arm, pulling him back. Tường Vy stood there in the club's performance uniform, her face a little tense but her eyes strangely steady as she looked straight at him. "Look at me."

Gia Bảo looked at her, and in those eyes, he saw not a push or pressure, but a complete trust, the trust she had in him from the first day she accidentally heard him humming in the music room.

"You don't have to do this alone," she said, her voice small but each word clear, ringing clearly above the surrounding noise. "I'll stand right next to you, from beginning to end. If you forget the words, look at me. If you're scared, look at me. We'll sing this song together, just like all the times we practiced together."

"What if... what if I mess it all up again?" Gia Bảo asked, his voice breaking into a trembling whisper. "What if I stand there again, unable to sing, like..."

"I'm still here," Tường Vy interrupted, squeezing his hand tighter. "No matter what happens, I will not leave that stage without you. We have come all the way here together, Gia Bảo. This music belongs to both of us. Without you, it will forever be just an unfinished song."

That sentence, that song's name, rang out at that moment, like a key that opened something in Gia Bảo's chest. He took a deep breath, feeling the air flow into his lungs, slowly and controlled, just like she had taught him during many private practice sessions in the small music room. He looked into her eyes, then nodded, a small but decisive nod.

The two walked out onto the stage with the rest of the members, and the lights fell immediately, blinding and hot on his face. Polite applause rang out from the auditorium as the group settled into position, and Gia Bảo stood there, amidst thousands of eyes facing the stage, the familiar feeling of fear still there, reverberating in waves in his chest.

The first song, "Song of Student Age", passed in a semi-conscious state for Gia Bảo. He sang in the right rhythm and rhythm, but it felt like his body was operating according to inertia, while his mind was still stuck somewhere between the present and the memory. He heard applause when the song ended, saw Ms. Hạnh nodding encouragement from below the stage, but it all seemed to be happening behind a layer of frosted glass.

Then the opening notes of "Unfinished Song" rang out from Anh Kiệt's piano, and Gia Bảo walked up to the front of the stage to begin his singing, just as he had practiced countless times.

The stage light shined straight down on him, and in that moment, standing alone in front, all the sounds around him seemed to disappear, leaving only the pounding sound of his own heart, so intense that he thought the whole auditorium could hear it. His breathing became shallow, his chest tightened as if someone was squeezing him tightly, and in that terrifying moment, he felt like he was standing in the same place, three years ago, in the middle of the middle school hall, right before the moment his voice broke into the laughter of the whole crowd.

The first verse came out, trembling but still in the right rhythm and at the right pitch. Gia Bảo heard his own voice echo through the speaker system and throughout the large auditorium, and that feeling—the feeling of his voice, which he once thought was the most embarrassing, now amplified for thousands of people to hear—made his heart stop beating for a moment.

At the climax, the most difficult part of the whole song, where his voice had to rise high and maintain it for a few beats before moving on to the duet with Tường Vy, Gia Bảo felt his breath running out. He couldn't take a deep breath, and right in the middle of the song, his voice wavered slightly, trembling briefly, a small sound, almost no one in the audience noticed, but to him, it rang hauntingly loud, like an alarm bell ringing straight into his mind.

In that one hundredth of a second, everything seemed to fall apart again. He felt his legs want to collapse, felt tears starting to sting the corners of his eyes, felt the ghost of three years ago reaching out his hand, trying to pull him back to that horrifying moment again.

But then, in the midst of that panic, he turned his head, following the exact reflex that Tường Vy had told him just a few minutes ago—to look at her—and met her eyes. Tường Vy was standing right there, less than a step away from him, also singing, her voice blending into his voice as naturally as breathing, and her eyes, amidst the dazzling stage lights, were looking straight at him, without any hesitation, without any fear, just an absolute trust and a warm gentleness that made him feel like someone was gently holding him from behind.

In those eyes, Gia Bảo suddenly realized something: the light shining down on him was nothing like the cold, exposed light that had always haunted his memories. It was warm—strangely warm, covering his shoulders like a blanket, just like the orange-yellow light in the music room the previous Friday afternoon, exactly like the light that had witnessed him sing fully for the first time in three years, only for Tường Vy to hear, in that small and quiet music room.

He remembered his grandfather's voice, to whom he had sung in memory that fateful afternoon, and for the first time in many years, his memory was no longer associated with pain and shame, but with the pure love he had for him, the love that had made him want to sing from the bottom of his heart in the first place. He remembered Quốc Huy's hand that had always pulled him towards the music room door over the years, remembered Ngọc Diễm's trusting eyes, remembered his mother's promise last night that she would be here, somewhere among these thousands of spectators, watching him not in fear, but in pride.

And he remembered himself, the student who dared to enter the music room for the first time, dared to hum softly, dared to let music creep back into his life even though he had tried to bury it deeply for three long years.

His breathing slowed down. He took a deep breath, just like he had practiced hundreds of times, feeling the air fill his chest, then he continued singing, his voice steady again, even stronger than before that moment of wobble, as if that small stumble had become a stepping stone for him to jump higher.

The duet between him and Tường Vy sounded, the two voices blended together, complementing each other, just like the way this song was written - an unfinished song of hers, now completely completed by both of them. Gia Bảo sang, no longer looking down at the stage floor to avoid the audience's eyes like the first time he practiced, but holding his head high, letting that warm light shine directly on his face, letting him fully feel the feeling of standing there, being himself, singing everything he had ever hidden.

When the song ended, the last sound of Anh Kiệt's piano faded into the air, the whole auditorium was silent for a second, then applause erupted like a wave, fierce and warm, spreading from the front row to the back of the room. Gia Bảo stood there, his chest still heaving with emotion, and he turned to look at Tường Vy, seeing that she was also looking at him, her eyes shining with tears of happiness that had not yet fallen.

"You did it," she whispered, her voice barely audible to only him over the loud applause around her. "You did it, Gia Bảo."

Gia Bảo smiled, a genuine, relieved smile, radiating from the bottom of his heart, and in that moment, standing in the warm spotlight, amid the applause of thousands of strangers, he felt as if the last fragment of the fear that had followed him for three years had finally, completely disappeared.