After living in the old boarding house for some time, I decided to leave.
Not because anything special had happened.
My life was simply beginning to change.
My studies were entering a new stage, and I moved to another province—not too far from Saigon, but far enough to begin a different environment.
On the day I left the boarding house, I stood in the familiar corridor for quite a while.
The two doors that once faced each other were still there.
The door to my room.
And the door to his.
But now both of them were closed.
I didn't think too much about it.
I simply pulled my suitcase out of the boarding house and got into the car.
Life is often like that.
People come, and then they leave.
Places that once felt familiar slowly become memories.
The place I moved to was a little livelier.
I began to have more friends.
Friends from my hometown.
New acquaintances.
We went out together, ate together, and spent evenings talking for hours.
Life became busier than before.
I no longer stayed inside a small room all day.
Some days I worked from morning until night.
Some evenings we gathered and talked for a long time.
Gradually, I grew used to this new life.
A life where he was no longer beside me every day.
I no longer thought about him as often as before.
Not because I had forgotten him.
But because life has many things that push people forward.
And he, perhaps, was still busy with his studies in that foreign land.
Sometimes he still called me.
The calls were not as frequent as before.
But every time he called, he still asked the same familiar questions.
"How have you been lately?"
"Is school going well?"
"Are you eating properly?"
One time during one of those calls, I told him,
"I moved."
He sounded slightly surprised.
"You moved?"
"Yes."
"I left that boarding house."
He was silent for a few seconds.
I imagined he might be picturing that place again.
The place where two rooms once faced each other.
He asked,
"Where did you move to?"
I told him.
"I moved to another province."
"It's still close to Saigon."
Then he asked softly,
"Can you tell me where you're living now?"
I didn't think much about it.
I told him everything.
I told him about where I was living.
About my new place.
About my new friends.
About my new life.
He listened for a long time.
He didn't interrupt.
Just like before, when we used to sit in the corridor talking.
After I finished, he only asked one question.
"Are you happy there?"
I thought for a moment.
Then I answered,
"It's good."
He smiled softly on the other end of the line.
"That's good."
Then he added a simple sentence.
"As long as you feel happy and comfortable, that's enough."
When I heard that, my heart felt strangely light.
He didn't ask anything else.
He didn't question why I had left the old place.
He didn't ask why I hadn't told him earlier.
He only cared about one thing.
Whether I was living well.
After that call, I realized something.
The distance between us seemed to be growing wider.
Not because we argued.
Not because anything had happened.
Simply because each of us was living our lives in different places.
He was in a distant country.
I was in another city.
We still kept in touch.
But our relationship had no clear name.
Not lovers.
Not just friends.
Not family either.
Just a quiet thread connecting two lives.
A distance that no one ever named.
Message of Chapter 18
Some relationships cannot be easily defined.
Not simply friendship,
not quite love.
Yet even when two people walk different paths,
an invisible thread may still remain,
quietly keeping them somewhere
within each other's lives.