I’m Loc, and somehow I’d ended up sitting in the front row of a university media festival with a plastic lotus flower still buried inside my backpack from last week’s mythology photoshoot.
I still hadn’t thrown it away.
The auditorium was already alive by the time we arrived.
Students squeezed into nearly every seat while professors drifted through the aisles greeting former colleagues.
Parents held up phones long before anything had started, determined to record every second of their children’s presentations.
Volunteers hurried back and forth with cue cards, microphones, and laptops, trying to look composed despite the obvious panic.
Scattered among them were the neighborhood aunties who somehow attended every university event in the city.
No one knew how they got in.
No one questioned it anymore.
“How many aunties do you think are actually related to students?” I asked.
Minh, still wearing that awkward formal shirt, studied the audience like a wildlife researcher.
“…Three.”
“There are at least twenty.”
“Exactly.”
“They reproduce through free cultural events.”
Tram pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I regret sitting with you two.”
“I’ve accepted that as your default emotional state.”
She didn’t deny it.
Instead, she quietly smiled.
I let my eyes wander across the crowd.
Near one of the side exits, away from the applause and conversations, sat a familiar weathered figure on a plastic chair. His battered shopping cart rested beside him while the same scruffy orange stray cat slept comfortably across his lap, utterly unconcerned by the hundreds of people filling the auditorium.
The old man looked up.
Our eyes met.
He simply gave me a small nod.
Just the same quiet acknowledgment he’d offered every time our paths had crossed.
I nodded back.
The cat opened one eye, judged the entire auditorium in complete silence, then decided everyone present was beneath its standards and went back to sleep.
Honestly…
Fair enough.
Further ahead, the reserved VIP section caught my attention.
Mr. Luat sat in the front row beside two coworkers from the firm, all dressed in immaculate suits. They spoke quietly while flipping through the festival program, occasionally discussing something before making notes in the margins.
Something about the sight made my chest tighten.
A few weeks ago, Quynh would’ve spent the entire day worrying about what they thought.
Whether they’d approve.
Whether she’d disappointed them.
Whether she’d disappointed her father.
I found myself looking toward the backstage entrance.
She wasn’t there yet.
“…She’ll be okay,” Minh said quietly.
I hadn’t realized I’d been staring.
“You can read minds now?” I asked.
“No.”
He folded the program onto his lap.
“You make that face whenever you’re worrying about someone.”
Before I could answer, Quan suddenly reappeared from the lobby carrying enough food to qualify as a small catering service.
“I have returned!”
He somehow balanced grilled rice paper, fish balls, popcorn chicken, iced sugarcane juice, roasted sweet potatoes, and three mystery snacks that looked like they had been invented five minutes ago.
Minh blinked.
“…The opening ceremony hasn’t even started.”
“I know.”
“So why—”
“I refuse to let artistic appreciation interfere with nutritional efficiency.”
Without asking, he shoved food into everyone’s hands.
A skewer landed in mine.
Another appeared in Tram’s.
He even handed one to Minh.
“For corporate morale.”
Minh accepted it.
“…Thanks.”
Quan stared.
“…You accepted that way too easily.”
“I was hungry.”
“…He’s adapting.”
The lights dimmed before Quan could launch into another conspiracy theory.
A faculty member stepped onto the stage and welcomed everyone to the university’s annual capstone showcase, explaining that each finalist had spent the past academic year researching, producing, and refining a project that represented both their technical ability and personal voice.
“Our first finalist,” the host announced, “asks a simple question: What happens when a city grows faster than its memories?”
A young woman stepped onto the stage.
“My documentary, Echoes Between Alleys, follows three neighborhoods in Saigon that are slowly disappearing beneath redevelopment,” she explained. “Rather than interviewing historians, I wanted to record the people who still wake up there every morning—the tailor who’s worked on the same corner for forty years, the woman who sells sticky rice before sunrise, and the children who’ll never know the streets the way their grandparents did.”
Her film unfolded with quiet confidence, contrasting towering glass buildings against aging apartment blocks whose walls still carried decades of family photographs.
When the credits rolled, the applause was long and sincere.
“The second project,” the host continued, “explores the inheritance we can’t photograph directly.”
A student wearing paint-stained overalls adjusted the microphone.
“My series, Inherited Hands, documents traditional craftsmen across southern Vietnam. Every portrait pairs an artisan with the younger generation expected to inherit their work. I wasn’t interested in whether they chose to continue the craft. I wanted to capture the moment before that decision.”
The screen filled with remarkably intimate portraits—wrinkled hands guiding younger ones across wood, clay, silk, and lacquer.
Even the professors leaned forward.
Beside me, Quan whispered,
“…Now I feel guilty for only inheriting student debt.”
“You haven’t graduated.”
“I’m planning ahead.”
The third finalist presented Twenty-Four Hours, an experimental short film assembled entirely from locked-off shots taken at the same intersections throughout a single day.
“I wanted to remove the camera from the story,” he explained. “When the frame never moves, people stop performing for it. The city begins telling its own story.”
Rush hour dissolved into midnight.
Street vendors gave way to sanitation workers.
The same crossroads transformed hour by hour until the audience wasn’t watching traffic anymore.
They were watching time itself.
When the lights came back on, the auditorium erupted into applause.
Each project had been different.
Each had something genuine to say.
And every one of them had raised the bar just a little higher.
The screen faded to black once more.
Elegant gold lettering slowly appeared.
‘Gods Among Mortals’
Without thinking, all four of us looked toward the wings at the same time.
There she was.
Camera hanging from one shoulder.
White shirt.
Oversized glasses.
Hands resting quietly at her sides.
She wasn’t pacing.
She wasn’t muttering Greek mythology under her breath.
She wasn’t rehearsing speeches to invisible Olympians.
She simply stood there, breathing.
Ready.
Applause rippled through the hall.
Quynh walked to the center of the stage, adjusted the microphone, and took one slow breath.
When she finally looked up, her eyes briefly found ours in the front row.
Minh gave the smallest nod.
Beside him, Quan raised both thumbs with the solemn intensity of a man sending a soldier into battle.
Tram offered an encouraging smile.
Without thinking, I found myself smiling back at her.
Then Quynh faced the audience.
“Good afternoon, everyone.”
Her voice carried cleanly through the auditorium.
“My final project is a photographic film exploring Greek mythology through the lens of modern Saigon life.”
~~~•••~~~
About an hour earlier, before everyone had been ushered into the auditorium, we’d been wandering around the festival booths set up across the university courtyard.
The place looked less like an academic exhibition and more like someone had accidentally merged an art festival with a night market.
Student clubs competed to see whose booth could be louder. Seniors enthusiastically explained projects to anyone unfortunate enough to make eye contact. Somewhere nearby, a band was attempting to perform jazz while another club tested a speaker that sounded capable of communicating with satellites.
Quan declared the entire event “an efficient ecosystem” because every five meters there was another food stall.
He had already proven his theory three times.
“I’m conducting research,” he insisted while carrying a paper tray piled with grilled squid.
“On what?” I asked.
“How many free samples one university can legally distribute.”
Tram looked at the growing collection of food in his hands.
“…You’ve bought all of those.”
“I am expanding the control group.”
Minh glanced at his watch.
“You’ve been researching for twenty minutes.”
“Groundbreaking discoveries require sacrifice.”
“The only thing being sacrificed is your wallet.”
Quan pointed at him with a fish ball skewer.
“Look who’s talking.”
Minh frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“You’ve spent an entire week pretending to be a respectable office employee.”
“I am a respectable office employee.”
“You kicked cat poop wearing dress shoes.”
“…”
Even Minh couldn’t argue with that.
Quynh, walking a few steps ahead of us with her camera hanging from one shoulder, laughed quietly to herself.
It was a small sound.
But after the last few days, it was enough to make me realize how much I’d missed hearing it.
Funny.
Only a week ago we’d been sprinting across Saigon’s night street at three in the morning because Quynh had decided Greek gods looked more authentic under broken fluorescent lights.
Minh had somehow ended up dressed as Dionysus.
Quan spent half the night insisting he was Hermes because he’d stolen three props from the theater department.
I, against every reasonable life decision I’d ever made, became Hades.
Then came the leaked photographs.
The overnight stay at school.
The impossible argument.
The rooftop.
The bridge.
Somehow, every disaster had led us here.
I looked toward Quynh again.
She had slowed to photograph a tiny flower growing through a crack in the pavement, then excitedly showed the result to me.
I looked at the picture, but my mind had drifted somewhere else entirely.
Just moments later, she will have to choose which version of her project to put on the big screen.
What would she choose?
The polished version she’d spent weeks—or her entire life—building?
The beautifully chaotic one she’d always loved?
Or something neither of us had imagined yet?
I watched her catch up with the group, laughing as Quan tried to convince Minh that expense reports should include reimbursement for emotional damage.
Maybe…
Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.
Whatever she chose to show the audience today—
Whether the judges applauded.
Whether Mr. Luat approved.
Whether her father understood.
I’d already made up my mind.
I’d be sitting in the front row.
And when the lights came back on, I’d applaud the loudest.
Not because the project was perfect.
Because, for the first time…
It would finally be hers.
~~~•••~~~
“…Loc?”
I blinked.
The auditorium returned all at once.
The lights.
The audience.
The giant projection screen waiting behind the stage.
Somewhere beside me, Quan had whispered my name after realizing I’d been staring into space for a concerning amount of time.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded.
“…Yeah.”
The host stepped aside.
The spotlight settled at center stage.
Quynh took one slow breath before stepping toward the microphone.
“Before I begin…” she said, her voice carrying clearly through the hall, “…I’d like to thank the people who helped make this project possible.”
She paused, glancing toward the side of the stage where several media students who had worked on editing, sound design, and production were seated.
“My teammates spent months helping me refine every frame, every transition, and every recording you are about to see. Thank you for believing in ideas that sometimes sounded… impossible.”
A ripple of laughter spread through the audience.
She smiled.
“Thank you for staying up through more late nights than any university project should reasonably require.”
One of the students raised a coffee cup in salute, earning another round of chuckles.
Then Quynh looked toward the front row.
Toward us.
“And…”
Her smile softened.
“…thank you to my friends.”
The microphone caught the slightest shake in her voice.
“You’ve spent the past few weeks pretending that chasing Greek gods across Saigon at three in the morning was completely normal.”
Quan proudly gave two thumbs up.
Several nearby students turned to look at us.
“…Please don’t encourage him,” Tram muttered.
Quynh laughed.
“You dressed up when I asked, argued with me when I needed it, believed in me when I couldn’t…” She stopped for just a moment before continuing. “…and reminded me why I wanted to tell stories in the first place.”
Her eyes lingered on Minh for the briefest second.
“Thank you.”
She stepped away from the microphone.
The auditorium darkened.
The title appeared once more.
‘Gods Among Mortals’
Soft orchestral music filled the hall.
The first image emerged from black.
A lone figure dressed as Hades stood atop a familiar Saigon rooftop before sunrise, the city’s skyline stretching endlessly behind him.
The composition was immaculate.
Every line balanced.
Every shadow carefully placed.
A calm narration followed.
“The ancients believed the gods never truly left mankind. They simply learned to observe in silence.”
The next photographs flowed seamlessly.
Hades overlooking endless streams of motorcycles from above an overpass.
Standing unnoticed beneath the incense smoke of an old temple.
Watching office workers disappear into glass towers while the morning sun reflected against polished windows.
Greek statues dissolved into modern architecture through elegant crossfades.
Fragments of mythology intertwined with ordinary life.
The editing was restrained.
Measured.
Every transition felt deliberate.
The voice-over quoted Homer, Hesiod, and fragments of Orphic hymns with the quiet confidence of someone delivering a lecture rather than telling a story.
Around the auditorium, appreciative murmurs spread through the audience.
A professor beside the aisle nodded several times while scribbling notes.
Someone farther back whispered,
“The cinematography is incredible.”
Another quietly admired the symbolism behind the recurring rooftop shots.
I found my eyes drifting toward the VIP section.
Mr. Luat sat perfectly still.
Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
One of his coworkers leaned over.
“The framing is exceptionally disciplined.”
“The visual language is remarkably mature,” another whispered.
“It feels ready for professional exhibition.”
Mr. Luat’s expression relaxed into something that looked suspiciously close to satisfaction.
For the first time since we’d arrived, I felt the knot in my chest loosen.
Beside me, Tram exhaled quietly.
“I think…”
She glanced toward Quynh standing in the wings.
“…they like it.”
Quan lowered the half-eaten fish ball he’d somehow continued eating in complete darkness.
“So this is the serious version.”
Minh didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“…Yeah.”
“It isn’t bad.”
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“It never was.”
I looked toward Quynh.
She stood just beyond the curtain, watching the audience instead of the film.
She saw the approving nods.
The professors writing notes.
Mr. Luat quietly exchanging compliments with his colleagues.
For a moment, relief crossed her face.
I felt myself breathe out as well.
Maybe this was the choice she’d made.
Maybe this was the version she wanted people to remember.
Whatever happened next…
Whether this was the project she’d dreamed of or simply the one she’d decided to share…
I’d already made my peace with it.
I’d support her all the same.
The film continued.
Hades stood alone beneath the towering pillars of an old temple, his cloak disappearing into drifting incense smoke.
“The Underworld is not merely a place of death. It is where every burden eventually arrives.”
Another elegant shot.
Another careful metaphor.
The audience remained completely absorbed.
Then—
The soundtrack stuttered.
A loud digital record scratch ripped through the auditorium.
The screen flickered violently.
Static exploded across the projection.
Someone in the audience gasped.
Several professors instinctively looked toward the projection booth.
For half a second, I genuinely thought the projector had malfunctioned.
Then huge handwritten letters slammed onto the screen.
”…Actually.”
Silence.
Then—
“Nah.”
The orchestral score cut off so abruptly it felt almost violent.
It was replaced by the unmistakable sound of Quan yelling somewhere off-camera.
“HADES! YOU CAN’T CROSS THE STYX WITHOUT PAYING PARKING!”
The screen smash-cut to me—
—or rather, Hades—
standing in the middle of a hopeless Saigon traffic jam while pushing a broken motorbike uphill, sweat pouring down my face.
The majestic black cloak dragged directly through a muddy puddle.
My expression looked exactly like someone reconsidering every decision that had led to this moment.
Quynh’s narration returned.
Only now it sounded completely different.
Warmer.
More amused.
“The myths never mentioned rush hour.”
For a split second…
Nothing.
Not a single clap.
Not a laugh.
Hundreds of people simply stared at the screen, collectively trying to determine whether the festival projector had been hacked.
Beside me, Quan was already wheezing.
“I TOLD HER TO KEEP THAT IN!”
The film barreled onward before anyone could recover.
Hermes—otherwise known as Quan—was enthusiastically directing traffic despite nobody asking him to.
He’d somehow acquired an orange construction vest.
Half the drivers ignored him.
The other half yelled.
Hermes saluted every single one of them anyway.
“Speed is meaningless,” the narration continued thoughtfully, “when your friend believes confidence is legally equivalent to authority.”
Quan slapped his own knee so hard I thought he’d dislocated something.
“Oh, that’s my favorite line.”
Tram quietly covered her mouth.
Minh had already bent forward, laughing into both hands.
Meanwhile…
The auditorium remained absolutely still.
Some students slowly turned toward one another as if silently asking,
…Is this still the same project?
Near the aisle, one professor cautiously adjusted his glasses before looking back at the screen, apparently hoping the answer would reveal itself if he stared long enough.
It did not.
The next photographs arrived anyway.
Hades sitting behind a desk labeled UNDERWORLD ADMINISTRATION OFFICE while mountains of paperwork spilled across every surface.
A giant red stamp reading SOULS - PENDING lay upside down on the floor.
Another folder simply read:
URGENT.
VERY URGENT.
PLEASE STOP IGNORING US.
Me, holding three papers at once with the unmistakable expression of someone seconds away from resigning from mythology itself.
Then Persephone entered.
Or Tram.
She quietly picked up one folder.
Then another.
Without saying anything, she sat beside Hades.
The next photograph showed the paperwork becoming organized.
Not because Hades suddenly knew what he was doing.
Because he had finally accepted help.
The narration softened.
“Some kingdoms aren’t held together by kings.”
A beat.
“They’re held together by the people patient enough to clean up after them.”
“…She actually used that,” Tram whispered, equal parts horrified and touched.
Minh nodded through his laughter.
“I knew she would.”
Around us…
Still nothing.
The silence had somehow become even worse.
It wasn’t the respectful silence of an attentive audience.
It was the silence of several hundred people whose brains had quietly stopped functioning.
Then came Zeus.
Lightning split the screen.
A towering silhouette stood atop an office building, pointing accusingly downward.
The image lasted only seconds.
Long enough.
I instantly understood.
It was her father.
The expectation he shoved onto her like a neat office dress.
The pressure she endured.
But the next frame answered it.
Instead of kneeling—
Hades stepped forward. With Hermes appeared carrying an umbrella like a divine spear, and Persephone stood beside him armed with a potted sunflower she’d insisted counted as a sacred artifact.
Athena arrived last, carrying nothing except a camera.
“Turns out…” Quynh narrated casually, “facing the sky is much less terrifying when someone insists on standing beside you.”
Then—
The soundtrack abruptly changed again.
My own voice echoed through the auditorium.
“Whose idea was it to make the God of the Dead push a motorbike?”
Without missing a beat—
“Character development.”
Quan’s voice exploded across the speakers.
“KEEP PUSHING, HADES! GREECE BELIEVES IN YOU!”
I completely lost it.
Minh was no better. He had abandoned every attempt at maintaining composure, while Quan nearly slid out of his chair laughing so hard. Even Tram, usually the most controlled person among us, had buried her face in both hands as her shoulders shook.
Behind us, the rest of the auditorium was slowly falling apart.
Someone coughed awkwardly. A student shifted in their seat, unsure whether to laugh or pretend they hadn’t witnessed anything. A phone slipped from someone’s lap and hit the floor with a loud clack.
Nobody reacted.
The presentation simply continued, charging forward and destroying whatever dignity the entire auditorium had left.
Another clip appeared.
Hermes sprinting through a crowded market while carrying twelve plastic bags because he had volunteered to “deliver messages between realms.”
He tripped over a curb.
Every bag launched into the air.
The frame froze at the exact moment his dignity left his body.
Quan pointed at the screen like he had just uncovered a masterpiece.
“LOOK AT THAT FORM!”
“I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to admire,” I managed to say between laughs.
Before anyone could recover, the next image appeared.
Athena stood confidently in front of everyone, directing the group with absolute authority…
…only to walk straight into a tree because she had been too focused on looking through her camera.
The narration continued with complete seriousness.
“Wisdom is knowing many things.”
A pause.
“Looking where you’re walking is apparently not one of them.”
The entire auditorium erupted again.
Even behind the curtain, Quynh had completely abandoned any attempt to appear professional. I caught a glimpse of her trying not to laugh, failing miserably as she watched her carefully planned presentation turned into beautiful chaos.
Then I remembered something and looked toward the VIP section.
Mr. Luat hadn’t moved.
His hands remained tightly clasped together on his lap, but one of his knuckles had turned completely white from the pressure.
The calm, approving expression he had worn earlier was gone.
In its place was something much harder to read.
Quiet disbelief.
Beside him, one of his coworkers slowly leaned toward another. Neither of them said anything. They simply exchanged a glance, as if silently asking the same question.
‘Was this really the presentation we were supposed to judge?’
The kind reserved for witnessing a spectacular professional disaster unfold in real time.
The second coworker subtly cleared his throat and looked back at the screen, visibly unsure whether continuing to watch somehow made him complicit.
Mr. Luat’s jaw tightened.
His shoulders rose almost imperceptibly with each controlled breath.
From where I sat, I couldn’t hear a single word.
I didn’t need to.
The embarrassment radiating off him was loud enough.
And somehow…
The presentation noticed.
The next slide appeared.
Across the photograph, handwritten text flashed for barely a second.
“If you’re uncomfortable…”
Another click.
”…good.”
Before anyone could process it—
Quynh’s voice returned one final time.
“I used to think growing up meant becoming someone impressive.”
Then a photograph faded in.
The five of us sitting on a bench at sunrise after an all-night shoot, sharing convenience-store bread while laughing at absolutely nothing.
“But somewhere between the broken motorbike…”
Another image.
Quan proudly wearing Hermes’ winged helmet backwards.
“…the sleepless nights…”
Tram asleep against a stack of editing equipment.
“…the impossible ideas…”
Minh repairing a camera with a screwdriver held between his teeth.
“…and the people stubborn enough to stay…”
The final image appeared.
The entire pantheon standing shoulder to shoulder against the rising Saigon sun.
No perfect poses.
No majestic expressions.
Just five exhausted idiots grinning at the camera.
Quynh’s voice trembled ever so slightly.
“I realized maybe every Underworld deserves a little chaos.”
A pause.
“As long as you have people willing to rule it with you.”
Then the screen faded to black.
The music ended.
…
No applause.
No whispers.
No one even shifted in their seats.
The auditorium simply… stopped.
It was the kind of silence that only appeared when several hundred people experienced the exact same thought simultaneously and none of them knew how to put it into words.
Onstage, Quynh stood alone beneath the spotlight.
She waited.
The host opened his mouth.
“…”
Nothing came out.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Looked down at his cue cards.
Looked back at the giant black screen, as if checking whether there was perhaps another ending hidden somewhere.
There wasn’t.
The microphone caught a tiny, involuntary breath.
“…Well…”
Another pause.
“…That was…”
He searched desperately for a suitable adjective.
His degree had not prepared him for this.
Neither had life.
The silence that followed somehow became louder than the laughter before it.
Then—
A single clap echoed through the auditorium.
Every head turned.
Minh was standing.
There was no embarrassment on his face. No hesitation. No attempt to pretend the presentation had been anything other than what it was.
He looked like an older brother watching his little sister finally become the person she had always been trying to be.
He clapped again.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
A small smile appeared on his face.
“That’s my sister.”
His voice wasn’t loud, but it didn’t need to be.
Another clap followed.
Then another.
Soon, his applause was the only sound filling the silent auditorium.
Without exchanging a word, Tram stood beside him.
“So that’s the project you wanted to make.”
She looked toward the stage with a faint smile.
“It was worth the wait.”
Then she joined him.
I stood as well.
Honestly, I don’t even remember making the decision.
My hands simply started moving.
Across the stage, Quynh looked at us.
And for the first time in weeks, the weight she had been carrying seemed to disappear.
Then Quan shot to his feet so quickly his chair nearly fell backward.
“WOOOOOO!”
Half the auditorium jumped.
“THAT’S MY—”
He froze.
“…future—”
Another pause.
Tram slowly turned toward him.
“Choose your next word very carefully.”
Quan’s entire expression changed as he visibly reconsidered every decision that had led him to this moment.
“…favorite photographer!”
The auditorium went silent again.
Then Minh covered his face.
I could only shake my head.
He pointed both hands dramatically toward the stage.
“ATHENA! GREECE IS SO PROUD OF YOU!”
His applause sounded less like clapping and more like someone attempting to summon Zeus.
A few students in the back couldn’t help laughing.
Then one of Quynh’s classmates stood.
“I helped edit that disaster.”
She grinned.
“And I’d absolutely do it again.”
She started clapping.
One by one, students from the media department rose to their feet.
Some had held reflectors.
Some had carried equipment.
Some had simply stayed awake beside Quynh during endless nights of editing.
Now they applauded with the unmistakable pride of people who knew exactly how much of herself she’d poured into those ridiculous photographs.
The sound spread across the hall.
Near the side exit, the old homeless man slowly rose from his folded blanket.
He removed his worn cap.
Then, with a gentle smile, he began applauding too.
The scruffy orange stray cat sitting beside him glanced around the auditorium with visible annoyance, as though wondering why humans insisted on expressing emotions so noisily.
After a long, judgmental sigh, it lifted one paw…
…and tapped it twice against the old man’s knee.
The old man chuckled.
“I know.”
He scratched behind the cat’s ears.
“It was amazing.”
The cat looked deeply offended by the gesture but let him continue anyways.
Back onstage, Quynh’s eyes had grown noticeably red behind her oversized glasses.
She laughed once.
A small, disbelieving laugh.
The kind that escaped when reality became too absurd to process.
Because after everything—
The first applause she’d heard had come from the people who knew every mistake behind every photograph.
And somehow, those were the only ones that mattered.
~~~•••~~~
The applause continued rolling through the auditorium.
Not everyone had joined in, but enough had. Enough to fill the hall with a sound that refused to fade.
Across the VIP section, Mr. Luat’s two coworkers remained seated. Neither applauded. One adjusted his glasses before leaning toward the other, and their brief conversation was impossible to hear, but their expressions said enough.
Professional.
Measured.
Judgmental.
I looked toward Mr. Luat.
His posture remained unchanged, perfectly composed, but the satisfaction he had carried during the first half of the presentation had disappeared.
What replaced it was something colder.
Not anger.
Humiliation.
The kind that came from having your pride broken in front of the people whose respect you valued.
And somehow, that frightened me more than rage ever could.
Onstage, Quynh gave one final bow before thanking the audience and stepping away from the microphone. The applause followed her as she disappeared behind the curtain.
Mr. Luat didn’t wait.
He leaned slightly toward his coworkers.
“Excuse me.”
Two words.
Calm.
Controlled.
Then he stood and walked toward the backstage entrance without looking back.
A knot formed in my stomach.
I was already rising before I realized it.
“We should go.”
Nobody questioned it.
We slipped out of our row and hurried along the side aisle, weaving through students who were still talking excitedly about the presentation. Quan nearly collided with a camera operator before apologizing and continuing to run.
The applause faded behind us as we pushed through the backstage doors.
The corridor beyond was strangely quiet, the distant echoes of the auditorium fading with every step.
We rounded the corner—
—and stopped.
Mr. Luat stood with his back to us.
A few steps away, Quynh faced him in silence.
For a moment, it almost looked ordinary.
A father.
A daughter.
Another difficult conversation.
Then I noticed what he was holding.
A worn notebook.
The blue cover had faded from years of being carried everywhere. The corners were bent, and the elastic band that once held it together had long since broken.
I recognized it immediately.
Quynh had taken that notebook everywhere.
Into classrooms.
Onto rooftops.
Through countless chaotic photoshoots.
She’d scribbled story ideas into it while waiting for buses, sketched Greek gods during lectures, and filled the margins with impossible plans that somehow always became reality.
It wasn’t just a notebook.
It was years of her life pressed between paper covers.
Quynh noticed it too.
“Dad…”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Please.”
Mr. Luat didn’t answer.
His fingers rested on the first page.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
Rrrrip.
The sound cut through the corridor.
One page fell.
Then another.
Then another.
Each tear was slow and deliberate, as if he wanted her to hear every piece of it breaking apart.
Fragments drifted onto the floor.
A sketch of Athena.
Half a paragraph of narration.
Tiny handwritten notes crowded into the margins.
A coffee stain from a memory she had once laughed about.
Years of her life scattered across the cold tile.
Quynh didn’t move.
The color drained from her face.
I wanted to step forward, but my body refused to obey.
None of us spoke.
None of us even breathed.
We could only stand there as page after page fell between them, until the corridor looked less like a hallway…
…and more like the place where someone had quietly torn apart a dream.
