Chapter 38: Stuffy Dinner
The communal dining room of the homestay in Meo Vac was built from po mu wood, with a warm, rustic scent. Dinner was served on a long table, with some Mong specialties still steaming. This should have been the perfect place to end a long day of wandering. But it wasn’t. The air was thick and stuffy, as if someone had just sucked all the oxygen out of it.
Each of them is playing a role.
Minh, as usual, took on the role of the agitator. He laughed heartily, ranting about the slope he almost fell on, about the cloud that looked like some giant’s butt. But his laughter was too loud, his jokes too forced, and his eyes, instead of sparkling with mischief, kept glancing at Quan like a small animal examining a larger predator.
Tung was a ghost. He sat close to Ngan, an instinctive and somewhat childish territoriality, but his whole body seemed to shrink. He ate intently, his back slightly hunched, not saying a word. The large, steady hand that had once lifted Ngan up the cliff now looked clumsy when holding the chopsticks. He only nodded when Ngan asked, a curt nod.
Ngan was the perfect hostess. “Minh, have another piece of this meat, it’s chewy but sweet.” “Tung, why are you eating so little?” She smiled, picking up food, pouring wine, maintaining a thin flow of conversation, preventing the silence from overwhelming everything. But her smile didn’t reach her eyes. It was a finely crafted mask.
And Quan. He was the cause of it all. He sat there, in his crisp white linen shirt, a stark contrast to the grime of the other three. He ate slowly, his manners elegant, occasionally asking polite questions perfectly. But the eyes behind his glasses were restless. They observed. They scanned the way Tung sat next to Ngan, noted Minh’s exaggerated laughter, and stopped on Ngan’s slightly tired smile. He didn’t judge. He simply collected data.
“Are you here alone, Mr. Quan?” Minh tried to start a conversation, his voice still loud. “Probably to find inspiration for a detective story, right? A murder scene like this would be perfect.”
Quan put down his chopsticks, slowly picked up a napkin and dabbed the corner of his mouth. He smiled, a small smile with no clear meaning. His voice was calm, but each word was like a needle piercing their fake bubble.
“You could call it that,” he said, his eyes sweeping over the three of them. “I’m learning about complicated relationships.”
*Cough. Cough!*
Tung suddenly coughed and his face turned red. The chicken in his mouth turned to ice. Minh’s laughter stopped.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ngan responded almost immediately. She turned around, her hand patting Tung’s broad back repeatedly. A gesture so natural, so intimate.
Quan silently observed the action. His eyes narrowed slightly. Another piece of data was stored in his memory.
Tung, after swallowing the unfortunate meal, just shook his head, not daring to look at anyone. He took a big gulp of water and then bowed his head to his bowl of rice, as if there was a whole universe there to hide in. Dinner suddenly fell into silence. This time, no one tried to salvage it. The attempt to act normal had completely failed. Quan’s presence was like a flat mirror, without a ripple, clearly reflecting the distortion and abnormality in the relationship of three people trying to act out a bad play. And they, when looking into that mirror, saw only their own confusion.
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After dinner, they moved into the common area. A large stone fireplace burned, the flames licking at the dry logs, crackling. The smell of smoke and pine mingled, creating an air of false warmth.
The arrangement of the body happened unconsciously, like a habit ingrained in the blood. Ngan sat down on the large sofa covered with rough fabric. Almost immediately, Tung also sat down on the floor, right at her feet, his broad back against her knees, searching for a familiar physical connection. Minh, after a while of pacing back and forth, finally landed on the armrest of the sofa next to her, like a restless bird not knowing whether to fly away or stay. They formed a cluster, a small island of flesh and memory, a reenactment of their chaotic nest last night.
But it was just a faulty reenactment. There was no naked laughter. There was no Minh’s idle hand running through Ngan’s hair, not knowing what to do. There was no Tung’s suggestive foot rubbing under the table. They sat there, so close they could smell each other, yet worlds apart.
Because Quan did not participate.
He did not sit with her. He went to the corner of the room, where there was an old, worn leather armchair. He took a book from his bag. He sat down, crossed his legs, opened the book, and began to read. He was completely silent.
Quan’s silence and detachment carried more weight than any judgment. He said nothing, did not look at them, but his very presence, his chilling calm, turned the room into a courtroom. He was the judge. He was the scientist observing a herd of animals recently taken from the wild and confined in a glass cage. And the three of them, under that invisible gaze, suddenly felt naked and ridiculous.
Their wildness can only exist without an audience.
Minh tried to break the silence. “This fireplace is really warm… Do you feel warm, Ngan?”
“Warm,” Ngan replied, her voice even.
Tung said nothing, just moved slightly, making his head rub lightly against Ngan’s thigh. A gesture that just twenty-four hours ago would have made her laugh and pat his head, now made them both stiffen.
Ngan could feel the impasse clearly. *Damn.* She cursed in her mind. *His presence had ruined everything. Minh and Tung didn’t dare do anything. They were afraid of being judged. Their wild ‘tribe’… had been tamed with just a book and a pair of glasses.*
*Cup.*
The sound of Quan turning the pages of his book rang out, dry and sharp, in the air. It was like the blow of a judge’s gavel, banging on the table and declaring: “Order.”
The fun couldn’t begin. The intimacy couldn’t happen. The three of them were paralyzed in silence, frozen under the invisible gaze of the judge who was leisurely reading a book in the corner of the room.