Silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that felt like it could shatter if anyone breathed too hard.
Rrrrip.
A page drifted down. A rough sketch of Athena landed at Quynh’s feet.
Rrrrip.
Another. Coffee stains. Hurried arrows. Notes only she could read.
Rrrrip.
Years of bus rides. Sleepless nights. Half-formed dreams. Everything she had poured into that notebook now scattered across cold tiles.
Quynh didn’t move. She just stared—the same empty look people wear right after a crash, when the mind knows something terrible has happened but refuses to accept it.
Then Minh walked past me.
He stopped in front of Mr. Luat. For the first time since I’d known him, there was no trace of the easygoing inventor who joked through disasters.
“You broke the promise.”
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“You told me if I shut everything down… sold it all… got the job… you’d leave Quynh alone.”
Mr. Luat didn’t even look at him.
“I said what I needed to say. I needed you cooperative long enough to clean up your own mistakes. As for Quynh—” he held up the notebook dismissively—“this was never hers to keep.”
Minh laughed. The kind of laugh that escapes when anger gets too big to hold.
“You used me.”
“I protected this family.”
“You lied.”
“I did what a father should do.”
“You destroyed the one thing she loved.”
“I redirected her toward something worthwhile.”
“You never once asked what either of us wanted!”
Mr. Luat’s composure finally flickered.
Tram stepped forward. Her voice was quieter. Sharper.
“You watched her presentation. You heard every word. You saw exactly how much this meant to her. And your first instinct was to punish her for becoming herself.”
I didn’t remember deciding to move. One moment I was watching. The next I was standing beside them. Quan was already there, fists clenched white.
I met Mr. Luat’s eyes.
“You’re wrong. This was never just a project. That’s years of wondering. Years of creating. Years of becoming the person she wanted to be. You don’t get to decide those years were meaningless because they don’t fit the future you planned.”
Mr. Luat looked at all of us in turn, contempt clinical and calm.
“This is exactly the problem. Every single one of you. You encouraged her to mistake fantasy for ambition. You celebrated chaos. You taught her that passion alone could build a future.”
He pointed at each of us.
“You taught her to rebel. You taught her to question. You taught her brooding is wisdom.”
Finally he looked at Quan.
“And whatever it is you’ve been teaching—”
“I mostly taught Vietnamese food cultures,” Quan said flatly.
Then, louder:
“..Wait—actually. You know what?” He jabbed a finger at Mr Luat, keeping his voice steady despite his shaken shoulders. “I taught her something you never did.”
Everyone turned to stare at him.
“How to laugh.”
The corridor went still again.
I looked at Quynh.
She was kneeling now, quietly gathering the torn pages with trembling hands, trying to fit pieces together that no longer matched.
In that moment it became clear.
This wasn’t an argument about a notebook.
It was a fight over who got to decide what Quynh’s life was allowed to become.
And none of us was willing to lose it.
The argument only grew sharper.
Mr. Luat’s voice never rose. If anything, it grew quieter.
“I thought she’d finally understood. Talent means nothing without discipline. Dreams don’t excuse irresponsibility. Growing up means letting childish things die.”
His eyes moved across the four of us.
“And then all of you came along. You filled her head with nonsense. You praised her worst instincts. Every time she tried to become someone who could survive the real world… you dragged her back.”
Quynh slowly lifted her head.
Tears still clung to her lashes, but her voice did not shake.
“I never went back. I’ve always been this way. You just never wanted to see me.”
Something flickered across Mr. Luat’s face. Not guilt. Annoyance.
“And whose fault do you think that is?” His laugh was bitter. “Your mother spent years poisoning both of you. A woman who hid inside fairy tales instead of accepting reality. She filled this house with stories instead of preparing either of you for life. She taught you to mistake fantasy for courage.”
A pause.
“She infected both of you.”
The air went still.
Quynh stepped forward until she stood directly in front of him.
“Don’t,” she said, frighteningly calm. “Don’t talk about Mom like that.”
She swallowed.
“She wrote stories after she lost her sight. She couldn’t see the world anymore… so she built new ones for other people. You have the audacity to call her weak? She spent every day teaching us how to keep living after losing something she could never get back.”
A single tear slipped down her cheek.
“If believing people deserve hope… if believing imagination matters… if believing freedom is worth protecting… is a disease…”
Her chin lifted.
“…then I’m grateful she gave it to me.”
The slap came without warning.
A sharp, violent crack that bounced off the concrete walls and vanished into silence.
Quynh’s head snapped sideways. She did not cry out. She simply stood there, one hand rising toward the bright red mark spreading across her cheek.
For one impossible second, no one moved.
Then Minh did.
He was between them before I fully registered the motion.
“Don’t.”
His voice was low, almost unrecognizable.
“Ever touch her again.”
Mr. Luat looked at his son. Then at his daughter. Whatever warmth had once existed in his expression was gone.
“So this is what became of my children. One abandoned everything to chase impossible ideas.” His eyes settled on Minh. “You traded stability for childish heroics.”
Then on Quynh.
“And you threw away your future for myths.”
He looked at both of them together.
“My greatest fear was raising children who would spend their lives running away from reality.”
A final, quiet breath.
“I see now… I failed.”
No one answered.
Not because we had nothing to say.
Because I watched those words land on Quynh’s face and realized they cut far deeper than the slap ever could.
She didn’t argue. She didn’t cry.
She just stood there, holding the torn pieces of her notebook against her chest as though, if she held them tightly enough, something inside her might still be worth saving.
Somehow, that was the most heartbreaking thing I’d seen all day.
Mr. Luat looked at the four of us as though the decision had been made long before we entered the corridor.
“I’ve indulged this long enough.”
His voice was calm again, stripped of anger.
“When this semester ends, Quynh will transfer to a university in another city. A fresh environment. New teachers. New people.” His eyes settled on her. “And no more distractions.”
Quynh’s face drained of color.
“No…”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“You’ll start over. Everything connected to this—” his gaze swept across the torn notebook and then to us—“ends today.”
Quan stepped forward.
“You can’t just uproot her life because you don’t like her friends!”
“I can.”
“She’s not a child anymore!”
“No. She’s a daughter who has spent too much time listening to children pretending to be adults.”
I caught Quan’s shoulder before he could lunge.
“You don’t get to isolate her,” I said. “You don’t get to erase the people who stood beside her just because they don’t fit the future you imagined.”
Mr. Luat met my eyes without hesitation.
“I don’t need your permission.”
He looked at each of us in turn.
“From this moment on, stay away from her. If you care about Quynh at all… you’ll disappear from her life.”
Silence settled over the corridor like dust.
Then another voice spoke from the far end of the hallway.
“…Well.”
Every head turned.
The old homeless man stood beneath the fluorescent lights, one hand resting on the handle of his battered walking stick. The orange stray cat sat atop his worn hat like a king on a weathered throne.
Neither looked remotely surprised.
The old man sighed.
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to interrupt.”
His eyes moved from the torn notebook to the red mark on Quynh’s cheek. Something ancient settled into his expression.
Mr. Luat frowned.
“This area is restricted. Leave.”
The old man ignored him.
“You broke your word to your own son. A vow freely given. You crushed what another person held sacred simply because you lacked the imagination to understand it.”
He shook his head.
“And worst of all… you’ve shown astonishing disrespect toward Greek mythology.”
Quan blinked.
“…Wait.”
The old man looked up at the cat.
“What do you think?”
The cat answered with a long, gravelly mrrrrow.
“I agree.”
Another meow.
“No, eternal torment is excessive.”
A louder meow.
“You always negotiate too aggressively.”
One final, decisive meow.
“You make a compelling point.”
The old man nodded solemnly and extended his hand. The cat placed a single paw in his palm.
“Greek judgment, then.”
Quan whispered beside me,
“…They’re holding a meeting.”
“I noticed.”
“I think the cat won.”
“I definitely think the cat won.”
The old man faced Mr. Luat once more.
“In ancient Greece, those who forgot humility often left offerings in the temples. I’ve always found the symbolism rather elegant.”
At that moment, I could feel something shifted in the air.
Mr. Luat scoffed and turned to leave.
“I’m done with this nonsense.” As he walked away, he left behind words as coldly as an ice bucket. “Just.. mark my words, Quynh. I don’t want to hurt you, or any of your ridiculous friends.”
But he never reached the door.
The fluorescent lights flickered. Somewhere far away, bronze bells seemed to echo. The old man tapped his walking stick against the floor—once, twice.
The air rippled like the surface of a pond.
Mr. Luat stopped.
Then he shrank.
His tailored suit folded inward. His shoes vanished. His voice became tiny, distant, almost squeaking.
In the space of a breath, the man was gone.
In his place, resting neatly on the polished floor, stood a small carved wooden figure no taller than my hand—an ancient Greek votive offering with simplified limbs, rigid posture, and tiny painted eyes.
It was unmistakably Mr. Luat.
The miniature figure flailed its little wooden arms in silent, furious outrage.
The old man crouched beside it with quiet satisfaction.
“There. Much closer to the proper scale.”
The orange cat hopped down, padded over, and sat until they were eye to eye. After a long, profoundly judgmental stare, it lifted one paw and flicked the wooden figure onto its back.
The tiny Mr. Luat kicked his legs furiously.
The cat looked up.
“Mrrp.”
“Yes,” the old man agreed. “That was perhaps a touch undignified.”
A pause.
“…But admittedly, a little deserved.”
For several long seconds, nobody spoke.
Not from fear.
From the simple, overwhelming difficulty of processing the fact that an angry university director had just been turned into an ancient Greek wooden offering… and lost an argument to an orange stray cat.
…
The first one to break the silence was Quan.
He slowly raised a finger.
“…Did uncle just get compressed?”
I stared at the tiny wooden figure desperately trying to roll itself upright.
“I don’t think ‘compressed’ is the correct scientific term.”
“It’s the closest one I’ve got.”
Minh rubbed both hands over his face.
“I leave engineering for three days… and now my father is a souvenir.”
Tram crouched beside the little figure, careful not to touch it.
“…He’s actually moving.”
The wooden Mr. Luat immediately pointed both tiny arms at the old man and launched into what was clearly an outraged speech. Unfortunately, it sounded like an extremely offended hamster.
Quan leaned closer.
“I think he’s threatening legal action.”
“I think he’s threatening everyone,” I replied.
The orange cat yawned and nudged the figure away from its tail with perfect indifference.
“Mrr.”
“Quite right,” the old man agreed. “Personal space.”
Minh finally looked up.
“…What did you just do?”
Quynh’s face was still pale.
“Please… what happened to him?”
The old man scratched the cat behind its ears, almost cheerful.
“Oh, nothing particularly unusual. I’ve simply prepared him as an offering.”
“…An offering?”
“To the Greek gods.”
Silence.
Quan nodded thoughtfully.
“…Honestly, that tracks.”
The old man smiled.
“They appreciate craftsmanship.”
Then the smile disappeared.
“The judgment has already begun. No one who breaks a sacred vow walks away unchanged. No one who destroys another person’s soul-work escapes the stories they tried to silence.”
Minh’s voice caught.
“So when will he turn back?”
The old man did not answer.
Quynh stepped forward.
“He will turn back… right?”
“I do not decide that.”
“What happens if nobody does?” I asked.
“Then he remains what judgment has made him.”
“No.” Quynh shook her head hard. “He was wrong. He hurt us. But he’s still our dad. Please. Turn him back.”
Minh stood beside her.
“I don’t care what he said. I don’t care what he did. Just.. reverse your thing.”
The old man closed his eyes.
“No. I cannot.”
“You won’t.”
“I cannot.”
I stepped closer.
“You’ve helped me before. You gave me chances when nobody else would. If anyone can undo this… it’s you.”
He slowly shook his head.
“Not this. Because this judgment no longer belongs to me.”
Even Quan sounded worried.
“So we’re just supposed to watch him stay like this?”
The old man pointed his walking stick at the scattered notebook pages.
“No. The door is still open.”
We followed the tip of the stick—to the torn sketches, the myths, the dreams.
“They destroyed more than paper today. They broke a story. If you wish to save him… enter the pages he destroyed. Walk through the broken myths. Find the man who has lost himself. And rewrite what was ruined.”
Quan frowned.
“…That’s the least helpful instruction you’ve ever given.”
The old man ignored him.
“If you succeed, the judgment ends.”
“And if we fail?” I asked.
For the first time, he looked genuinely solemn.
“The stories will close. He will never remember being a man.”
The cat stood. Its golden eyes met ours one by one.
“Mrr.”
The old man nodded.
“Yes. And if you remain inside those broken myths when they close… the stories may decide to keep you as well.”
After that, he bent down and carefully picked up the tiny wooden figure.
Mr. Luat kicked and flailed with all the dignity of an extremely angry chess piece. The old man paid him no mind. He simply cupped the offering in one palm, turned toward the scattered pages, and began walking.
The torn notebook reacted the moment his shadow fell across it.
The edges of the pages lifted, as if stirred by a wind that did not exist. Sketches of gods and heroes shimmered faintly. Ink that had been dry for years began to darken again. The air above the paper thickened, folding inward like a curtain being drawn.
The old man stepped onto the largest remaining fragment without hesitation.
The page accepted his weight.
Then it swallowed him.
One moment he was there—orange cat perched on his head, wooden father clutched in his hand—and the next, both man and cat and offering were gone. Only a soft ripple remained on the paper, like the surface of water after a stone has sunk.
Silence returned.
Quynh stared at the empty spot where they had vanished.
“…He’s really gone,” she whispered.
Quan was the first to speak.
“Okay. So. We go after him, right?”
He looked at Quynh the way a particularly loyal dog looks at its person—already prepared to agree with whatever she said next.
Tram exhaled slowly.
“We should think about this.”
Her voice was steady, practical, the same tone she used when Loc was about to do something catastrophically impulsive.
“We just watched a man get turned into a wooden doll and carried into a notebook by a homeless philosopher and his judgmental cat. The same man told us that if we stay inside those stories when they close, we might never come back. That is not a metaphor. That is a very literal warning.”
Quan frowned.
“But Quynh’s dad—”
“I know.” Tram’s eyes flicked to Quynh, then away. “I know. But rushing in without a plan is how people disappear permanently.”
I didn’t speak at first.
I was looking at Quynh.
At the way she still held a handful of torn pages against her chest. At the red mark on her cheek that hadn’t faded. At the quiet, stubborn set of her shoulders that had always been there, even when she was laughing about some obscure myth only she cared about.
I thought about the years she had spent carrying her father’s pride like a second spine. The way she had tried so hard to be both the daughter he demanded and the person she actually was. The notebook had been the only place those two versions of her were allowed to exist at the same time.
And now even that had been taken.
“Quynh’s going,” I said quietly.
Everyone looked at me.
“Whether we come with her or not. She’s already decided.”
Quynh’s eyes met mine. She didn’t deny it.
Tram closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again.
“…Then we don’t let her go alone.”
Quan immediately brightened.
“See? Logic. I was being logical the whole time.”
“You were being a puppy,” Tram muttered.
“An extremely supportive puppy,” Quan corrected.
Minh had been silent the longest. He stared at the place where the old man had vanished, jaw tight.
Finally he spoke.
“I’m not leaving him in there either.”
His voice was flat, final.
“Not like that.”
Quynh looked at each of us in turn—Minh, Quan, Tram, me—and something in her expression cracked open, just slightly.
“Thank you,” she said.
It was barely louder than a breath.
I stepped closer to the scattered pages. The ink still shimmered faintly, as if waiting.
“All right,” I said. “We go in. We find him. We finish whatever stories we land in. And we bring him back.”
Quan cracked his knuckles with far too much enthusiasm.
“Great. Who wants to be the tragic hero this time?”
Nobody answered.
The pages fluttered once, impatient.
We stepped forward together.
~~~•••~~~
The world dissolved into ink, light, and the sound of paper tearing itself apart.
Then we fell.
Or flew.
I honestly couldn’t tell anymore.
We were dragged through a twisting corridor that existed somewhere between a dream and a forgotten bookshelf. No sky. No ground. No direction. Only endless fragments of places that should never have been connected.
Objects drifted past like debris from a thousand unfinished stories.
Broken Greek columns.
Half-eaten banh mi still wrapped in paper.
Glowing notebooks whose pages flipped by themselves.
Motorbike mirrors reflecting worlds that weren’t there.
A rice cooker floating peacefully through the void, releasing steam as if reality collapsing was none of its business.
Handwritten myths spun around us like leaves in a storm, words glowing briefly before dissolving into nothing.
Then, through the chaos, I saw him.
The old man.
Far ahead. Moving calmly.
Riding a giant glowing wooden fish.
With tiny carved wings.
It looked like something a child would draw five minutes before bedtime and somehow convince the universe to take seriously.
He glanced back at us—completely unsurprised—then disappeared around a corner with his ridiculous mythical transportation.
“Of course he’s riding a fish,” I muttered, dodging a chunk of floating marble. “I don’t even know why I’m surprised anymore.”
For a few seconds we somehow stayed together.
Four seconds.
Maybe five.
Which was honestly impressive.
Then a floating statue of Zeus the size of a car spun toward us.
“Watch out—!”
I grabbed Tram’s wrist and yanked her sideways. The statue missed by inches and smashed into a storm of spinning pages.
The impact sent glowing fragments everywhere.
Then the paper beneath our feet began to rotate.
Faster.
A vortex of light opened under us.
“Shit!”
Quynh’s voice echoed from somewhere behind.
I turned just in time to see Quan flying past—not gracefully, not heroically, more like a very determined puppy thrown into a tornado. His grip on Quynh’s arm was unshakable.
“I’ve got you!” he shouted with completely unnecessary confidence. “We are absolutely not going to die!”
A beat.
“We might be temporarily lost!”
Another beat.
“But that’s different!”
Quynh looked like she wanted to argue. The vortex did not care. It caught them both and dragged them into another path.
“QUAN!”
“QUYNH!”
Their voices faded into the corridor.
Further ahead, another figure flashed between broken worlds.
Minh.
He wasn’t running or flying or falling. He was simply moving with the desperate determination of someone who had spent his entire life fixing impossible problems and had just found the biggest one yet. His formal shirt whipped behind him like a defeated flag.
Then he was gone.
The vortex beneath Tram and me widened. The pull grew stronger. I tightened my grip on her hand.
“So…” I forced the words out while trying not to get dragged into another dimension. “Looks like we’re going together.”
Tram looked at me. For once she had no sarcastic response ready—only a strange mixture of fear, disbelief, and the exhausted acceptance of someone who had known me long enough to expect exactly this.
“Of course we are.”
A faint smile.
“Apparently that’s just our life now.”
The light surged.
The corridor disappeared.
The sound of tearing paper grew louder until it drowned out everything else.
The last things I heard were Quan’s distant voice still confidently claiming he had a plan…
…and Quynh yelling that his plan was the reason they were currently flying sideways through another universe.
Then everything turned white.
And somewhere beyond that light, a broken story opened its eyes.
~~~•••~~~
I woke up to sunshine.
Warm. Bright. Extremely judgmental about how much my head hurt.
I was lying on hard ground, still gripping someone’s hand.
Tram.
I sat up and shook her shoulder.
“Tram. Hey. Wake up. I think we landed somewhere illegal.”
Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked at the sky, then at me, then at the sky again.
I looked down at myself.
I was wearing an ancient Greek tunic that felt like it had been designed by someone who hated knees. Sandals. A short cape that somehow made me look like I was late for a heroic photoshoot. My hair had decided to become dramatically wind-swept without my permission.
Tram was staring at her own clothes: a simple but elegant servant’s dress, sash, sandals that had never seen a Saigon sidewalk in their life.
We both looked around.
An ancient city stretched out under the bright sun—stone buildings, market stalls, people in tunics walking around like this was a completely normal Tuesday. The air smelled like dust, olive oil, and the faint promise of impending tragedy.
“…Where the hell are we?” I asked.
Tram sat up slowly, eyes wide.
“Okay. Don’t panic.”
“I’m already panicking.”
“This… this looks like Troy.” She pointed at the walls in the distance. “The architecture, the clothes, the whole ‘ancient Mediterranean city that is about to have a very bad decade’ vibe. I think we landed inside the Trojan War.”
I stared at her.
“The what War?”
“The Trojan War. The one with the giant horse.”
“Okay…? What the hell does that mean anyways?“
“It’s the ‘ten years of everyone being dramatic’ war.”
“…”
I looked down at my ridiculous cape again.
“…Whatever. Am I supposed to be someone important?”
Tram hesitated, still scanning the city like she was trying to match it to every history textbook she’d ever read.
“Maybe. Or maybe we’re just… background characters. You know, the ones who die in the first five minutes so the audience understands the stakes.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I’m trying to be realistic.”
She was still talking—explaining something about the walls of Troy, the Greek ships, how the whole war started because of a beauty contest and one extremely poor decision—when a girl’s voice suddenly called out behind us.
“Jason! My lord Jason!”
We both turned.
A young servant girl in similar clothing was running toward us, looking slightly panicked. Her eyes darted between me and Tram—specifically at how close we were sitting and how I was still holding Tram’s hand.
The three of us froze.
I had absolutely no idea who Jason was.
Or why this girl was staring at me like I had just been caught doing something extremely inappropriate in public.
Tram’s face went through several expressions in rapid succession: confusion, recognition, horror, and then the special kind of horror reserved for people who realize they have completely misidentified the entire myth.
This wasn’t Troy.
This was the story of Medea.
And the servant girl was looking at us with the exact expression of someone who had just walked in on her master having another secret affair.
Well, at that moment, I didn’t have any idea where we were yet.
So pure confusion settled over all three of us like a curse.
I still didn’t let go of Tram’s hand.
Mostly because I had no idea what else to do with it.
