Chapter 29: Heavy Silence
The first day after returning from Quy Nhon. The virtual space of Zalo group chat and private messages, where the atmosphere was initially awkward, trying to break the ice, but quickly fell into a cold, scary silence.
Minh tried to act normal, wanting to use the daily noise to erase the events of the night before. Tung was immersed in guilt and brokenness. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. Ngan had returned to her apartment. She wasn’t panicking. She was cold. She had built an invisible, impenetrable wall. Minh and Tung’s goal was to gauge Ngan’s reaction, looking for a sign, a word of forgiveness or a condemnation. Ngan punished them, and also punished herself, with absolute silence. The conflict was their eagerness for answers versus Ngan’s wall of silence.
In the group, Minh sent a sticker of a bear waving.
Minh: “Arrived home safely, guys. What a fun trip! @Bao Ngan Sister Nuoi must have been the most tired, right?”
Tung, in a private message to Ngan, he typed, then deleted, then typed again. In the end, he sent only a short, tormented message.
Tung: “Sister… Are you okay?”
Minh, seeing that Ngan did not reply, also sent a private message.
Minh: “Are you angry with me, Nuoi? About last night…”
Ngan lay on the bed, reading each message. Group messages. Private messages from Tung. Private messages from Minh. She did not reply. She only let the two words “Seen” appear in blue under each message line, like a silent verdict.
For Tung and Minh, those two words “Seen” were more cruel than any curse. It was an admission that she had received the message, and an affirmation that they did not deserve a response. The wall had been erected, solid and cold.
The second day of silence. The embarrassment had turned to panic, an invisible fear was suffocating. The air was thick with despair, like a curse.
Minh’s confidence was gone. He started spamming messages, both in groups and private messages, like someone lost in a maze.
Minh: “@Bao Ngan! Where are you?”
Minh: “Hey, why is no one saying anything? Answer me!”
Minh: “At least curse me once!”
He called. It rang. No one answered.
Tung’s torment deepened. His messages were full of pleading and remorse.
Tung: “Sister, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. Don’t be silent like that.”
Tung: “I just want to know if you’re okay.”
He called too. Subscriber. She had blocked his number.
Quan, the analyst, remained silent in the group. He sent Ngan a single private message, a sharp question that pierced straight to the heart.
Quan: “Do you need space? Or are you enjoying punishing them?”
Ngan read Quan’s message. And she just said “Seen”, a silent verdict.
All three men were pushed to the limit of their powerlessness. Ngan’s silence had turned into a torture prison, and all three of them were trapped inside, with no way out.
Ngan’s apartment, once an oasis of peace, had become a cocoon, a self-imposed prison. The curtains were drawn, and there was no natural light. The air was stagnant, eerily still, a reminder of her loneliness.
Ngan did nothing. She did not eat, did not sleep, did not work. She just existed, like a shadow. Sometimes she lay in the bathtub for hours, the water was cold, but she still did not want to get out. Sometimes she sat on the sofa, staring at the TV screen that was turned off, her eyes lifeless. Her goal was to face the monster inside herself, a psychological civil war that was going on.
She stood under the shower, the cold water pouring down her body, the sound of the water pouring echoed in the bathroom. She scrubbed until her skin was red, as if she wanted to peel off each layer of her skin. She wanted to wash away the memory of that night, the memory of Tung’s skin, of Minh’s skin, their smell, their sounds. She felt dirty, disgusted with her own body, a disgust that surged and swirled.
But when she closed her eyes, other images appeared, not of humiliation, but of sensory overload, of being filled by Tung, his cock plowing inside, while her mouth and breasts were tormented by Minh, the sucking, the rough squeezing. A shiver ran down her spine, not of fear, but of the aftertaste of pleasure, a betrayal of her body. Her gasps mingled with the ringing in her ears.
She realized a horrible truth. She loathed what had happened, but some dark part of her couldn’t stop thinking about that feeling of losing control. She was both scared and curious about the beast inside her, the beast that had roared in her convulsions that night.
She sat in the darkness, her phone constantly lighting up with missed calls and messages. She looked at them with a strange look. The war of the men outside was no longer important. She was busy fighting a much more dangerous enemy: herself, the monster inside the cocoon.
Private Zalo group chat of 4 people: “Skip Work Weekend – 4you”. The third day of silence turned into despair, and despair turned into anger. The atmosphere in the group was filled with hostility, like a virtual battlefield.
Minh, the instigator, couldn’t take it anymore. He needed someone to blame, someone to vent his anger on.
Minh: “@Tung Are you satisfied? She’s been making a face since the airport. Now she’s scared and running away. It’s all your fault!”
Minh’s accusation was the last straw. Tung, who was drowning in guilt and torment, exploded.
Tung: “It’s your fault! You’re a pervert! If you hadn’t forced her, none of this would have happened!”
They started a heated argument over text messages, with harsh words being thrown without restraint.
Minh: “I’m sick? You’re awesome! When you saw us on the sofa, did you leave or did you close the door? You hypocrite!”
Tung: “I will kill you, you bastard!”
Quan, the analyst, tried to intervene.
Quan: “Come on, you two. This won’t be solved by arguing. It’ll only make things worse.”
But no one listened to Quan. Their fight became more and more personal and vicious, like two beasts tearing at each other. Ngan, in her cocoon, read each line. Her face was expressionless, like a goddess watching her puppets destroy themselves.