# Chapter 5
## The Name That Belongs to No One
Minh An returned just as dawn broke.
Tung was waiting outside the restoration room, holding two cups of coffee that had gone cold. He didn't ask where Minh An had been. He only looked at the mud-caked shoes, the wet ticket stub in his hand, and the jacket dripping onto the floor.
“Can't you come up with a more convincing lie?”
Minh An set the ticket stub on the table.
“Have you ever heard of the white point?”
Tung looked at the words printed on the ticket.
“Sounds like the name of an expensive coffee shop.”
“It isn't.”
“Then what is it?”
Minh An was about to answer, but the sound of dripping water cut him off.
Drops fell from the ceiling onto the metal tray beside the scanner. The restoration room wasn't leaking. Tung had fixed the roof the month before, even sending Minh An pictures to prove it.
The dripping continued.
On the opposite wall, a damp stain spread outward. It formed a rectangle exactly the size of a door.
Tung stepped back.
“Minh An.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you see—”
“I do.”
The damp stain began to glow.
A door appeared without a handle. Beyond the frosted glass was a room lit by yellow light. A wooden table, a file cabinet, and the silhouette of someone standing with their back turned.
Lam.
Minh An stepped forward.
Tung grabbed his arm.
“Don't.”
“She’s in there.”
“You don't know who that is.”
“I do.”
“You've never met her.”
Minh An looked at Tung's hand on his arm. A hollow feeling suddenly passed through him. He remembered Tung holding him like this once before, in another place, on another day. Tung had been crying and said that if Minh An stepped through the door, neither of them would ever find a way back.
But Tung didn't remember.
He didn't even know why he was trembling.
Minh An pulled his friend's hand away.
“This time, I have to go.”
“Where?”
“To her.”
He reached out and touched the glass.
The room on the other side changed.
Lam turned around. Her face was deathly pale. Behind her, the file cabinets were fading one by one, as if being erased from a painting.
She saw Minh An.
Not through a phone. Not in a dream.
She looked straight at him.
“You called my name.”
“Lam.”
A deep rumble sounded beneath the floor.
The table behind her disappeared.
Lam stumbled back, panic on her face.
“Don't call me again!”
“Lam.”
A file cabinet disappeared.
The folders fell into empty space but never touched the ground. They crumbled into white scraps that flew backward toward the ceiling.
Tung shouted:
“Minh An, stop!”
He couldn't stop.
That name had been inside him for far too long. It wasn't like a call. It was like a door locked from the inside. Each time it escaped him, he remembered a little more: her hand cold in the water, the blue umbrella tilted toward him, her laughter when the train was late, and a promise that had never been fulfilled.
“Lam.”
The room on the other side lurched.
A section of wall vanished, revealing a rainy sky behind it. Lam stood in the empty space, her cream-colored dress moving even though there was no wind.
She pressed her hand against the glass.
“Do you want me to disappear?”
Minh An went still.
“No.”
“Then don't call me.”
“But if I don't, how will I know you're still there?”
Lam looked at him. The sadness in her eyes softened, which only made it hurt more.
“Some people still exist even when no one calls their name.”
“You don't exist in my world.”
“Neither do you.”
The instant she finished speaking, an explosion rang out.
The glass between them cracked.
The cracks spread like white branches. Tung pulled Minh An back, but he kept staring at Lam.
On the other side, she was crying.
“You have to remember this,” Lam said. “My name belongs to no world.”
“Then where does it belong?”
Lam rested her forehead against the glass.
“To the person who still remembers.”
The glass shattered.
No shards fell. Only a stream of cold air swept through the room, carrying the smell of wet earth and the sound of trains running beneath the city.
The door disappeared.
The wall returned to normal, leaving behind only a wing-shaped damp stain.
Tung dropped heavily to the floor. He was breathing hard, looking at Minh An as if he were someone who had just returned from a place he should never have gone.
“How many times did you call her name?”
Minh An didn't answer.
On the floor, a cream-colored button lay beside the train ticket stub. He picked it up. A crack ran across its surface.
Tung looked toward the wall.
“Minh An, was there someone in there?”
“Lam.”
Tung closed his eyes.
After a long while, he asked:
“Who is Lam?”
Minh An clenched the button in his hand.
Outside the window, the sign of a shop across the street suddenly went dark. The shop's name vanished from the sign, leaving behind a clean white space.
A new message appeared on Minh An's phone.
Don't call my name again.
A second line appeared beneath it, sent from the phone number itself—the one with no digits.
If you still remember, find the room with no door.
Minh An looked up at the wall in front of him.
In the middle of the white paint, a thin outline was slowly appearing.
This time, Lam wasn't inside.
Only a man in a black jacket stood among countless file cabinets, holding an old photograph of Minh An.
The man raised his head.
Though a wall stood between them, Minh An could still hear his voice clearly:
“At last, you remember her.”