The opening day of Nhat Ha's eleventh-grade year was bright and beautiful. The sun wasn't harsh, but it was warm enough to remind everyone that summer was coming to an end. Sunlight slipped through the narrow gaps in the balcony railing and stretched into the second-floor classroom hallway.
The school's opening ceremony was held in the school multipurpose hall. Huge fans blew from all four directions, keeping the students comfortable and cool as they looked forward to seeing their friends.
It was called a ceremony, but hardly anyone listened to the principal's speech. The students clustered in groups of three or five, chatting about games, makeup, and all sorts of random gossip that had nothing to do with them.
"Hey, there are two valedictorians this year, you guys. One boy and one girl. No idea what they look like." Ngoc turned around. She sat right in front of Nhat Ha.
"They're seriously insanely smart. There's this guy named Hoang. Yeah, he's the valedictorian. We went to the same middle school." Thanh Tam said, "I asked him, and he said he planned to try out for the eleventh-grade Math Team. A skip-ahead competition and everything. That's crazy."
"Whoa, that's pretty cool. But I don't know who either of them is." Nhat Ha didn't sound particularly interested. She didn't have the energy to be interested, either. The dark circles under her eyes hadn't even been covered with concealer, and she looked like she could fall asleep on the spot.
"Ha, that tenth grader over there keeps looking at you."
There were seven tenth-grade classes this year. With the seating arranged in order, Class 10A7 was only two rows of Class 11A1 seats away from Nhat Ha's Class 11A2.
Nhat Ha immediately turned to look toward the tenth graders.
"Ha! Ha!"
"Huh, Minh? You're in Class 10A7?" Nhat Ha blinked her sleep-deprived, stinging eyes and recognized the kid who lived two alleys away from her house.
Minh nodded rapidly, a sunny smile lighting up his still-childish face—the face of a student who had just moved up to high school. "Yeah, I just started here. I saw you earlier, but I didn't dare call out."
"So you've learned to be shy now?" Nhat Ha murmured. She lifted a hand and gently smoothed the long black hair spilling over her shoulder. Her hair was beautiful, with a soft, silky texture, deep black color, and naturally sleek shine that framed her round, soft face.
"Ha," Minh said, looking around curiously before nudging the bespectacled boy sitting right beside him. His voice was full of pride. "He's this year's valedictorian! My best friend."
At the word "valedictorian," Ngoc and Tam, who had been sitting in front of them, immediately whipped around, their eyes shining like car headlights. The boy named Hoang seemed unused to the attention. He shyly pushed his glasses up and mumbled, "Hi."
"Hi!" Ngoc and Tam said in unison, suddenly much more enthusiastic.
Nhat Ha smiled and nodded at the boy in a friendly manner, then rested her chin on her knees again. She wrapped both arms around her legs and curled herself into a tiny round ball on the plastic chair.
Ngoc clicked her tongue and patted her friend's shoulder sympathetically. "Poor thing. Mr. Khang, the math teacher, pulled her up for senior-year prep."
Every year, the school selected the most outstanding students from eleventh grade to prepare for the skip-ahead competition with the senior Math Team. In the notoriously brutal subject everyone called demonic math, exactly three eleventh graders had made it onto this "death list": Tuan, Nhat Ha, and Khoi. It was an honor, technically—but under Mr. Khang, the famously sinister teacher in charge, it meant endless days grinding through practice problems without ever seeing the sunlight.
"Hang in there. The team is meeting for the first time this afternoon, right? I heard the senior team is full of incredibly talented upperclassmen this year. Who knows, maybe you'll meet one who can make up for all the youth you're losing." Thanh Tam teased.
Onstage, the principal's speech finally ended beneath a roaring round of applause. The ceremony came to a close. The multipurpose hall grew noisier as the students began to scatter.
Nhat Ha and Ngoc headed to the cafeteria to buy drinks. Unable to push through the crowd of tall male students, they stood off to one side and waited for things to die down. Eventually, Ha managed to buy an ice-cold can of black coffee. She pressed it against her cheek and shivered, feeling a few of her neurons slowly wake back up.
At exactly 1:55 p.m., Nhat Ha stood with Tuan and Khoi in front of Enrichment Room 1.
The room was enormous, and the air conditioner blasted a chill down their spines. More than ten people were already inside, all wearing uniforms with twelfth-grade class badges. They gathered in groups, chatting comfortably like people who had known each other since the previous year.
The arrival of the three eleventh-grade students immediately drew a few curious looks. It made sense. There was plenty for these students to be curious about.
"Eleventh graders," an older boy sitting at the front desk said, nudging the friend beside him.
Nhat Ha wasn't used to being stared at, so she quickly hunched her neck and edged a little behind Tuan. The three of them soon moved to the last row and chose a hidden corner beside the window. Ha sat on the outside, right next to the aisle between the two rows of desks. She lowered her head onto her arms and was about to yawn when the steady thump of footsteps sounded in the hallway outside.
At exactly two o'clock, Mr. Khang walked in. He was over fifty, thin and bony, with reading glasses slipping down his nose and a thick stack of documents always in his hand. The moment everyone saw him, the room fell completely silent.
"Class president, take attendance and see if everyone is here." Mr. Khang dropped the stack of documents onto the teacher's desk.
The boy with the thick glasses sitting at the front stood up, ran his eyes down the list, and said, "Duy isn't here yet, sir."
At the mention of Duy's name, the wrinkles on Mr. Khang's forehead drew together. He gave a cold snort. "Where did he run off to this time? It's his final year, and he's still acting like a goofball. That kid has the brains, but when it comes to slacking off, nobody can beat him."
"Duy texted me earlier..." A young man sitting in the middle row timidly raised his hand. "The Robotics lab is testing the circuit for the city's competition model this afternoon. He's the team captain, so the teacher in charge made him stay. Duy asked permission to be fifteen minutes late."
Mr. Khang clicked his tongue. "He doesn't care about math, but he's obsessed with piles of scrap metal. When he gets here, tell him to come up and solve the last problem from the previous test on the board."
Then he waved for the three eleventh graders to stand and introduce themselves. He couldn't resist adding fuel to the fire by warning the twelfth graders to be careful in case these three kids overtook them. Nhat Ha forced a smile, wishing she could turn invisible.
"All right. Team leader, hand out the beginning-of-year assessment."
A stack of pristine white papers, fragrant with the smell of fresh ink, was passed around. Nhat Ha took a test sheet and lowered her eyes to skim it. Six written-response problems. She had barely finished reading the first one when her scalp began to tingle. The test was insanely difficult; just looking at it made her dizzy.
The entire room sank into absolute silence, broken only by the soft scratch of pen nibs against paper. Nhat Ha swept her long hair behind her back, bit the end of her pen, and furrowed her brows tightly, completely absorbed in the numbers.
About fifteen minutes later, the back door of the classroom quietly opened.
A tall figure slipped through the gap as silently as possible. He wore a white school uniform shirt, the sleeves rolled above his elbows to reveal strong, toned forearms. He carried with him the heat of autumn from the schoolyard and the faint, slightly acrid smell of rosin from soldering electronic circuits, mingled with the cool scent of fabric softener.
He moved quietly toward the last row, where the only three eleventh graders were hunched over their papers.
At that moment, Nhat Ha was scribbling so densely that her face was nearly pressed against the desk. She only vaguely sensed someone pulling out the chair at the empty desk beside the aisle, just an arm's length away. A breeze drifted past, and the tall figure's shadow blocked part of the light from the ceiling fixture.
"Duy." Mr. Khang was patrolling the front of the room when he glanced toward the corner and spoke in an even voice. "Finished fixing that pile of scrap metal of yours?"
"Hi, sir. It's the school's science project. You can't really call it scrap metal." The male voice carried a lazy smile, deep, warm, and slightly resonant.
Nhat Ha was stuck on the geometry problem. At the sound right beside her, the tip of her pen paused slightly. She glanced sideways. From her low vantage point, she only caught sight of a pair of black-and-white basketball shoes beneath the desk on the other side, and a long, slender hand with sharply defined knuckles reaching out to take the test from the student at the desk in front.
"No arguing. Get up there and solve the last problem from last week's test for me." Mr. Khang jerked his chin toward the board.
The boy named Duy let out a quiet sigh and pushed back his chair. As he walked behind Nhat Ha toward the front, the hem of his shirt accidentally stirred a light breeze that sent the soft strands of hair at her temples fluttering.
The boy moved with quick, easy steps, completely unaware that the last row had a few new faces today. His entire focus was on solving the problem on the board quickly enough to keep Mr. Khang from nagging him.
Nhat Ha looked up and watched the older boy's broad back and perfectly straight shoulders. He was tall and well-built without being overly muscular, with a handsome frame and broad shoulders that gave him the healthy look of an athlete. He picked up a piece of white chalk and didn't even bother to look back at the old test, immediately writing the solution steps across the blackboard in firm, carefree strokes.
Hoang Duy Nguyen of Class 12A4.
Khoi, sitting on the inside, lightly nudged Nhat Ha's arm with his elbow and whispered admiringly, "This guy is insanely good."
Nhat Ha turned slightly. "I heard he has national-level achievements?"
"Yeah. He's incredible." Khoi replied, then dropped his head back down. "Now do your work."
Nhat Ha pressed her lips together, spun her pen, and sank once more into the world of numbers.