Lâm watched the tutoring center through three screens.
Not from the street.
Not from the fight.
From a convenience store two blocks away, sitting beneath a buzzing light with a bottle of water he had not opened.
His hand ached in its brace.
Good.
Pain gave him something to count besides fear.
Tân Phong had patched him into the outside feed because Lâm knew the Thälmann boys' movement better than anyone wanted to admit. Basketball had taught him how teams lied with spacing. Injury had taught him how cruelty did the same.
Khánh near stairs.
Hùng near alley.
Quân central, not leading.
"They're not attacking yet," Lâm said.
Through the earpiece, Minh's breath came controlled and too loud.
"I know."
"No, you don't. Khánh wants you angry. Hùng wants you close. Quân wants you to make the decision he couldn't."
Silence.
Lâm leaned forward.
"Listen to me."
"I am."
"If you go because I bleed, you lose."
The words came steadier than his hand felt.
On screen, Minh's shoulders shifted.
Not much.
Enough.
"Then why do I go?" Minh asked.
Lâm looked at the tournament poster folded beside him, its back covered with route notes.
His old future had become a map.
That should have made him laugh. It did not.
"Because Hạ Yên is missing," Lâm said. "Because they'll take someone else. Because you choose it after breathing, not because I hurt."
The convenience store auntie glanced at him, probably wondering why a boy spoke like that to bottled water.
Lâm ignored her.
"And Minh?"
"Yeah."
"I want them hurt."
He had to say it.
If he hid the truth, it would leak into Minh anyway.
"I know."
"Good. Now don't obey that part of me."
On the feed, Minh opened his hands.
No fists.
No monster.
Lâm exhaled.
Outside the store window, rain blurred the road. Somewhere beyond it, his friend walked toward the boys who had broken his dream.
Lâm stayed seated.
It felt like cowardice.
It felt like control.
He hated that sometimes they wore the same shirt.
Lâm had chosen the convenience store because it was ugly with visibility.
Bright lights. Camera near the cashier. Camera above the drink fridge. Aunties moving in and out. A bored guard outside smoking under the awning. No one could drag him away quietly without becoming a public problem, and public problems were the only kind Huyền Kha seemed willing to avoid.
He sat by the window with three screens open: Tân Phong's borrowed feed, a map of the block, and the clinic schedule he had turned into a timeline of lies.
His right hand ached from doing almost nothing.
That was the new insult. Pain no longer required effort. It arrived for free, as if the body had become generous with humiliation.
When Minh appeared beneath the pharmacy awning, Lâm nearly stood.
The movement failed halfway because he remembered his own rule. Do not enter the fight. Do not become the hook again. Do not make Minh split himself between rescuing Hạ Yên and protecting a friend who had walked into danger to feel less useless.
So Lâm stayed seated.
It was one of the hardest things he had ever done.
"Left service lane has two blind spots," he said into the call. His voice sounded flatter than he felt. "But the second blind spot is too convenient. He wants you to think it's safe."
Minh did not answer immediately.
Then: "I hear you."
Lâm closed his eyes.
Not thank you. Not sorry. Just enough trust to make staying away feel like action instead of cowardice.
Every few minutes, Lâm looked toward the door of the convenience store as if his body might disobey and leave without him. He kept one hand around a cold water bottle, not to drink, but because the plastic crumpled before his restraint did.
The cashier asked if he wanted a straw. Lâm stared at her for a second too long before saying no. Ordinary questions felt unreal during traps. That was why he needed them.
Lâm saw Quân's glance and knew he had been found.
For three seconds, his body prepared to run.
Not away. Toward. That was the worst part. The old athlete in him still believed distance was something to close when the play broke open. His knees shifted under the table. His injured hand pressed flat against the cold bottle as if pain could pin him down.
The convenience-store door chimed.
Two girls entered, shaking rain from their sleeves and complaining about homework. They stood between Lâm and the exit, ordinary and alive and completely unaware that their presence was helping save him from himself.
He sat back.
On the feed, Minh did not look toward him. Good. Looking would confirm Lâm mattered to the room. Not looking was trust sharpened into technique.
Tân Phong's voice crackled. "Outer cameras show one unknown near the delivery bike. Could be observer."
"Don't approach," Lâm said immediately.
"I know."
"You like approaching."
"I like documenting. Different addiction."
The small exchange steadied him. Humor worked only when terror had not eaten everything yet.
Lâm marked the delivery bike on the map and drew a line from it to the service lane. If he had been on court, he would have called it a weak-side cutter: not the person with the ball, the person the defense forgot because the ball was loud.
Tonight, Huyền Kha was the coach of every loud thing.
The two girls bought snacks and left, and Lâm suddenly missed them. Their ordinary noise had been a guardrail. Without it, the convenience store felt too bright and too empty. He moved seats so the cashier remained in his peripheral vision. Survival, he was learning, could look embarrassingly like needing witnesses.
Lâm kept one eye on the cashier and one on the feed, splitting attention until a headache formed behind his eyes. Basketball had taught him peripheral vision; trauma had made it cruel. Now he could see too much and still not enough.