Lan did not ask Minh about the phone again.
She only stood beside the bathroom door, still clutching the blue handkerchief, looking at him as if he were a stranger who had just walked into the house.
“Do you know who Hung is now?”
The question fell between them.
Minh felt his throat go dry.
“I don’t know anyone named Hung.”
Lan lowered her eyes to the handkerchief. The brown stain had faded after being washed, but it had not disappeared. An old-colored streak lay across the fabric, like the handprint of someone who had tried to cling to it before being dragged out of some dark place.
“Then why did you ask me about that rainy night?”
Minh did not answer.
Outside, rain pounded against the corrugated-metal roof. The sound tugged a fragment of memory from somewhere deep, but it appeared and immediately closed again: a motorbike that had stalled by the roadside, its headlight wavering, the sound of a man laughing in the dark.
Hung.
The name surfaced in his mind before he could remember the face.
Minh took a step back, gripping the bedframe.
“You remember now,” Lan said.
“I remember the name.”
“That’s enough.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Minh looked at the scar on her wrist. It ran from near her palm to her elbow, thin but long, pale beneath the light. For ten years, Lan had always worn long sleeves to bed. He had thought it was a habit. He had never asked.
Maybe because he was afraid of the answer.
The phone in Minh’s hand vibrated.
A message from his own number.
“Don’t ask Lan. Go to the old repair shop on the river road. Third drawer.”
Minh read it again and again.
Lan saw the words too.
“He’s still texting you?” she asked.
“You know who he is?”
Lan tightened her grip on the handkerchief.
“I know who’s trying to make you remember.”
“Hung?”
She fell silent.
That silence had the shape of a confession.
Minh put on his jacket. Lan did not stop him. She only said, before he opened the door:
“If you go there, you won’t be able to pretend you don’t remember anything anymore.”
“Did I kill Hung?”
Lan looked at him for a long time.
“You’ve asked me that before.”
The door closed before Minh could hear the rest.
The old repair shop stood beneath the bridge, abandoned for many years. Two letters had fallen from the sign, and a large section of the corrugated-metal roof was full of holes. Rainwater streamed across the concrete floor, carrying dead leaves and rusted scraps of metal with it.
Minh stood in front of the door, not understanding why he knew this place.
Then he saw the blue paint on the pillar.
A crooked, hand-painted H lay beneath the dust.
The memory opened.
Ten years earlier, Minh was not yet married to Lan. He worked as a construction laborer during the day and drove deliveries at night. Hung was the only person who knew Minh was in debt. They had grown up in the same rental neighborhood, once sharing a baguette and a torn raincoat.
Hung had a hot temper, but he had never left Minh behind.
That night, Hung called him close to midnight.
“Come to the river road. Something happened with that girl.”
That girl was Lan.
Minh had met Lan a few hours earlier at a bus stop. She stood beneath the awning, her dress soaked to the knees, a blue cloth bag clutched in her arms. She had no money to get home. Minh had given her a ride.
He remembered Lan’s first smile.
But after that, his mind held nothing but blank spaces.
Minh stepped into the repair shop.
The third drawer was beneath a rotting wooden table. He tried pulling it open. It was stuck fast. Minh yanked with both hands until the drawer burst open, bringing with it a bitter wave of cold, wet-earth smell.
Inside were only an old phone and a yellowed photograph.
Minh picked up the photograph.
Three people stood in front of the repair shop.
Hung was on the left, younger, with short-cropped hair. Lan stood in the middle, her face pale. Minh was on the right, one hand resting on Lan’s shoulder.
Behind them was Hung’s motorbike.
A thin red streak marked the surface of the photograph.
Minh turned it over.
Written in blue ink were the words:
“Minh must not remember what happened after this picture was taken.”
His hand began to tremble.
Footsteps sounded outside the door.
Minh turned around.
Lan stood in the rain without an umbrella.
Water streamed from her hair down both sides of her face, making her look as if she had just been crying.
“I knew you would come.”
“Then where is Hung?”
Lan looked at the photograph in his hand.
“He’s right behind you.”
Minh spun around.
There was no one in the shop.
Only the old phone in the drawer suddenly lit up.
A recording began playing on its own.
The sound of rain came first. Then Minh’s voice from ten years ago, broken and frantic:
“Lan, stay right there. Don’t run.”
Another man’s voice growled:
“You promised you wouldn’t touch her, Minh.”
It was Hung.
The sounds of a struggle rang out. A heavy impact. Then Lan screamed, her voice hoarse:
“Minh, put the knife down!”
The recording stopped.
Minh stood motionless.
In his mind, the river road came into sharper focus. Rain blurred everything white. Hung was shielding Lan. One of Minh’s hands gripped Hung by the collar. The blue handkerchief lay on the ground.
And in Minh’s hand—
A knife.
“That’s impossible.”
Lan stepped closer to him.
“You didn’t kill Hung.”
Minh looked at her.
“Then where is he?”
Lan did not answer right away.
The old phone vibrated again.
A new message appeared on the screen:
“She’s lying. Hung never disappeared.”
Minh looked up.
Lan stared at the words, her eyes suddenly empty.
Outside, beneath the rain-blurred yellow streetlights, a man stood on the other side of the bridge. He wore a dark jacket, one hand braced against the railing.
When a truck passed, its headlights swept across his face.
Minh recognized the man in the photograph.
Hung.
He was still alive.
And he was staring straight at Lan.