Chapter 11 — Wind and Snow Falling, Ancient People Return

The Night Before Flight

After the reception, Diep Khanh returned to the flower shop in a heavy mood. She sat alone in the backyard, under the faint moonlight through the thin mist, letting her mind drift back to the night before Bach Du left Vietnam, five years ago.

That night, Diep Khanh was at the hospital, sitting next to her mother's bed in the intensive care room. Chu Thi Yen had just experienced a critical episode, the doctor had to intervene urgently, and Diep Khanh, then only twenty-three years old, only heard the sound of her mother's heart rate monitor beeping steadily behind the door, which seemed like a countdown to her own life. She sat crouched on a hard plastic chair in the hallway, her hands shaking, her mind blank from exhaustion and fear.

Her phone, after many hours of continuous use to contact relatives, call a taxi, and look up information about the hospital, had been turned off at a time she couldn't remember. She intended to go home to get a backup charger but didn't dare leave the hospital, afraid that something would happen to her mother while she was away.

At that moment, Ta Bao Tram appeared, carrying a basket of fruit to visit, as a classmate from the same year. "Diep Khanh, you look so tired, do you need any help?"

"Thank you Tram for stopping by." Diep Khanh then only had enough strength to nod weakly, no longer in the mood to notice Bao Tram's eyes when looking at the turned off phone placed on her lap.

"Is your phone out of battery? Let me take it home and charge it, then I'll bring it back to you tomorrow. Just stay here and take care of your aunt, don't worry about anything." Bao Tram said, her voice full of sincere concern, making Diep Khanh not suspicious at all, just gratefully nodded and gave her the phone.

What Diep Khanh didn't know was that very night, when she fell asleep from exhaustion in the hospital hallway chair, Bao Tram brought her phone home, not to charge the battery as he said, but to read through all the messages and missed calls from Bach Du that had been pouring in over the past three weeks, the messages he asked for her opinion about his decision to go to France, the words he expressed his fear of leaving her, the questions he wanted her to answer. advice, a companionship.

Bao Tram read each line of that message in her rented room, the table lamp light cast a complicated expression on her face that was hard to name, between jealousy, between desire, between a decision that she knew was wrong but still couldn't stop herself from making it. She had secretly loved Bach Du since the first days of college, witnessing him and Diep Khanh gradually becoming close, then falling in love, while she could only watch from afar, swallowing her jealousy inside, putting on the appearance of a kind friend, always willing to help them both.

That night, with Diep Khanh's phone in hand, Bao Tram composed a message, carefully choosing each word to resemble Diep Khanh's writing style as much as possible, based on what she had observed over many years of acquaintance. "Just go, don't contact me again, I don't want to get in your way. My mother is seriously ill, I don't have the mind to think about love anymore. Let's just stop here." She sent that text message right at midnight, knowing that Bach Du would read it before leaving for the airport early the next morning.

The next morning, when Diep Khanh woke up in the hospital hallway chair, she saw that Bao Tram had placed the fully charged phone on the table next to her, along with a small note hastily written: "I have something to do and have to go early, here is your phone, fully charged. Take care of your aunt's health." Diep Khanh, tired and worried about her mother's condition, did not pay attention to checking the history of messages sent during the night, simply put the phone in her pocket, and continued the cycle of taking care of her mother in the hospital.

At the same time, at the airport, Bach Du read and reread that message on the phone screen, his hands shaking with shock and pain. He tried to call back immediately, but the subscriber could not be reached, because at that time Diep Khanh was in the intensive care room with his mother and was not allowed to use the phone. He stood in the middle of the airport, amidst the bustling flow of people, his hands clasped tightly around the suitcase handle until his knuckles turned white, his ears were so ringing that he could no longer clearly hear the loudspeaker announcing the flight calling his name.

He planned to cancel the flight and ran to the hospital to find her immediately to ask clearly. But at that moment, his mother, Ngo Thuc Van, who was also at the airport to see her son off, grabbed his hand, her voice filled with determination mixed with sadness.

"Son, if she has made that decision, you should respect her choice. You have tried for many years to get this opportunity. Don't lose your future because of a love affair. If fate is still there, we will naturally meet again in the future."

Those words, in the context of Bach Du's extremely chaotic mood at that time, seemed to be the only comfort medicine that helped him have enough courage to board the flight. He thought to himself, perhaps Diep Khanh was right, she was under too much pressure from her mother's illness, and was no longer able to maintain an uncertain long-distance relationship. He chose to respect what he believed was her decision, even though his heart was in so much pain that it seemed unbearable.

During the long flight to France, Bach Du sat quietly by the plane window, looking down at the endless white clouds. His tears did not fall, but his heart was broken into pieces. Little did he know that, somewhere far away, the girl he had just left behind was also spending a long night filled with tears, when she heard the news from Bao Tram himself, who came to the hospital to visit her the next afternoon, telling her that Bach Du had texted her to convey his message, that he chose his career, chose to leave and did not want her to wait in vain, that he hoped she would not try to contact her again.

"Diep Khanh, I know this news is hard to hear, but I think you should know the truth instead of forever hoping for something that no longer exists." Bao Tram said so, his voice full of sharing and concern, leaving Diep Khanh without any reason to doubt.

Diep Khanh, at that time, had to face her mother's critical health condition and accept the cruel news that the person she loved had actively let go of her, and completely collapsed for many weeks afterward. She no longer had the mind to learn more, no longer had the motivation to question or verify anything, simply accepted that pain as part of fate, wrapped it up carefully in a deep corner of her heart, then continued to walk with the burden of taking care of her sick mother and maintaining the family flower shop.

In the months that followed, Bach Du started a new life in Lyon with a heart full of cracks. He immersed himself in work, often working overtime and taking on more difficult projects so that he had no free time to think. Colleagues at the new company commented that he is a talented but closed person, rarely shares private matters, and always keeps a certain distance from people around him. Only Minh Lam, who often calls from Vietnam to inquire, knows a little about what his friend is really going through behind that calm appearance.

And Diep Khanh, after hearing the news from Bao Tram, spent many weeks immersed in silent pain. She didn't dare tell anyone about her broken love story, partly because she didn't want to upset her mother who was still undergoing treatment, and partly because she herself couldn't accept the truth. She learned to hide her pain behind a forced smile every time a customer came to the shop, learned to focus all her mind on her work so that she had no time to think about what she had lost, a way of coping that, until now, has become a habit ingrained in her personality.

Both of them, for five long years, carried a completely false version of the truth about the other, subtly crafted by a third person they both believed was a good friend. And now, when fate brings them back to meet on the same street, fragments of the truth begin to gradually reveal themselves, although both still cannot imagine the full picture behind the tragedy they have suffered.

Diep Khanh sat in the backyard, the faint moonlight covering her face with a layer of cold light. She didn't know the exact details of what happened that night, but a woman's intuition, combined with recent unusual signs, made her begin to suspect that the story of her and Bach Du's separation from the past might not be as simple as what she had always believed for the past five years.