Chapter 46: Echoes of the Herd
A week after the Ha Giang trip, the real world rushed in like a flash flood, tearing the four of them apart and throwing each of them into a different corner. Ngan returned to the fake tranquility of her luxury apartment in Hanoi. Tung rushed into the noisy, sweaty gym. Minh was thrown back to Saigon, among the gorgeous and fake rooftop bars. Quan hid in his quiet, book-filled office. Four different worlds, but all of them felt a restlessness, an uncomfortable feeling of “wrong”. They were like animals that had just tasted the wild, now locked in invisible cages. The only remaining link was a Zalo group chat that had just been renamed: “Wild Tribe”.
Ngan was meditating on the balcony, trying to find peace in the scent of chamomile tea, but her mind was constantly stirred by the vibrations of her phone. She was trying to lock the beast inside, but it kept scratching to come out. In another corner of the city, Tung was roaring, pushing a record weight. He was turning his gnawing nostalgia and restlessness into muscular strength. Every time he pushed the weight up, he imagined the weight of Ngan’s body wrapped around him. More than a thousand kilometers away, Minh sat in the middle of a noisy crowd, one arm around the shoulder of a long-legged hot girl, the other holding a cocktail, but his eyes were glued to the phone screen. He laughed loudly, but the smile did not reach his eyes. As for Quan, he was reading a book on criminal psychology, but his mind was analyzing a much more interesting “case study”: his own “tribe”.
The group’s phones vibrated at the same time. Minh was the one who threw the first stone into the still lake. He sent a photo to the group. In the photo, he was sitting at a fancy rooftop bar, grinning, his arm around a beautiful girl’s shoulder. But his eyes were looking straight into the lens, a challenging look. He wrote: “There will be trouble in Saigon tonight! Brothers in the North, bear with it! ;)”
In his office, Quan looked at the photo and smiled. “A performance,” he thought. “The more people around him, the lonelier he felt. That smile was just a mask.”
A few minutes later, Tung responded. Not in words. He sent a 15-second video. The video was a close-up of his sweaty, bare back. He was doing pull-ups. Every muscle in his back, shoulders, and biceps bulged with each pull. The dry, metallic clank of the exercise machine clanged against each other. The video ended with him tensing his entire back, looking like a bear just woken up. No caption.
Immediately after that, Quan spoke up, as a commentary for both performances.
“@Minh, asserting one’s self-worth through the attention of others is a rudimentary psychological defense mechanism. @Tung, showing off physical strength is a much more primitive and honest form of communication.”
Minh immediately bristled.
“Fuck the analyst! If you’re jealous, then tell me! Or are you angry because you don’t have abs like Tung?”
Ngan, who had read it all, smiled. She saw clearly Minh’s pitiful childishness, Tung’s naked honesty, and Quan’s annoying sharpness. Watching Tung’s video, she swallowed unconsciously. A burning sensation spread from her lower abdomen. She remembered the feeling of his back against hers, remembered every muscle that contracted as he lifted her up the cliff.
She didn’t answer anyone. She turned off her phone, but a few minutes later, she turned it back on. Her fingers flicked, and she sent a single emoticon.
A black cat was slowly, slowly licking its lips.
That icon caused the bustling group chat to suddenly fall silent. Three men, in three different places, froze at the same time.
Minh looked at the cat and felt exposed. “Damn! She’s teasing me. She knows I’m acting. This cat is mocking my hypocrisy.”
Tung looked at the cat, and his chest heaved. “She… likes my videos. She’s ‘hungry’. This cat is a compliment.”
Jun looked at the cat and laughed out loud. “Interesting. She didn’t choose sides. She was simply acting on instinct. The cat didn’t care about the dog fight. All she cared about was when her next meal would come. Perfect move.”
Ngan’s silence, after a gesture so full of hidden meaning, had put an end to their childish fight. It stirred the entire “tribe”, not with reason, but with a primal echo. The seed of hunger had begun to be sown.