Match one hundred. I keep repeating that number in my head like it means something.
The second month had passed with dozens of small tournaments. Despite continuing my losing streak—I had marked my ninety-ninth loss—I was now losing consciously, able to remember every shot and understand clearly why I failed.
The nine ball sat there at the corner pocket, perfectly lined up. Kien had left me a gift—all I had to do was tap it in and I would finally win one. My first victory after ninety-nine defeats.
I bent over the table, lined up the shot. Easy. Straight in.
The ball rolled toward the pocket, slowed down...
And stopped. Half an inch short.
"Damn it."
But here's the strange part—I wasn't falling apart. Three months ago I would have thrown my cue and stormed out. Tonight I just stood there, staring at that stubborn black ball, losing with clarity for the first time, able to understand exactly what went wrong.
When the match ended, my opponent's eyes looked at me completely differently—no more mockery, transformed into genuine respect.
"Hell of a match," Kien said, walking over with his hand extended. "You almost had me there."
"Yeah, almost." I shook his hand, surprised I wasn't bitter about it.
"You've been practicing. I can tell."
Minh Anh stood up from the hidden corner behind a pillar—the position she always chose when watching me compete. Somehow, she understood I needed my own space, that I still wasn't ready for the crowd's gaze.
"Do you know what happened today?" she said, handing me a steaming cup of black coffee as we left the club. "Someone asked me who you are to me."
"They asked about me?" I was surprised. "Why? To mock the guy who keeps losing?"
Minh Anh shook her head, her long black hair swaying gently in the evening breeze. "They wanted to know who had just nearly defeated Kien 'Iron Bank'—last year's regional champion." She grabbed my elbow, pulling me to a stop. "You didn't recognize who your opponent was?"
My mouth fell open slightly in surprise. Iron Bank? I had seen him online—a formidable player I thought I would never have the chance to face.
"I had no idea who he was," I shook my head.
Minh Anh's laughter rang out. "That's exactly the progress, Dang." She pulled me toward our familiar direction, where we usually met after each match.
"How are you feeling?" she asked as we walked.
"Weird," I said. "Like I lost but didn't really lose."
She handed me the coffee she had been carrying. Black, no sugar—she had figured out how I liked it weeks ago, and somehow she also knew to place it in my left hand, though she had never asked about my left-handedness despite me always holding the cue with my right hand.
We walked to our usual café in comfortable silence. The weather had been building all evening—that heavy, humid feeling you get before a storm in Saigon. We chose our familiar table, tucked away in the corner. Minh Anh sat across from me, her face half-illuminated, the other half lost in shadow.
"You did very well today," she said, her eyes maintaining that warm look—a look that never changed whether I won or lost.
"I still can't win a game," I reminded her, but my voice no longer carried the heavy burden of before. In fact, I almost felt... at peace.
"Scores are just numbers," Minh Anh said, her fingers drawing small circles on the table surface—a nervous habit I had started noticing. "I saw how you kept calm before crucial shots. How you didn't beat yourself up after missed techniques. You sat seriously in the waiting chair, no longer joking around or moving about the table to distract your opponent. The way you respectfully shook hands with your opponent after each match." She paused, looking directly into my eyes. "Those are the real improvements needed to become a professional player."
By the time we reached our corner table, I could hear thunder rumbling in the distance.
"Are you worried?" Minh Anh suddenly asked, her voice soft as a feather. "About your decision to quit work."
I looked down at my hands—hands that no longer belonged to a talented IT engineer, now much more calloused after countless hours holding a cue.
"Every day," I sighed, fingers rotating my coffee cup. "I wake up at three in the morning, not to race against deadlines but to write in my journal. Each page feels like... healing, somehow. Like I'm writing my way back to who I'm supposed to be." I paused, watching the steam rise from my coffee. "Maybe I'll publish it as a book someday. Those healing pages I've recorded—the raw, honest stuff about fear and failure and finding courage in small moments—maybe they could help others who feel as lost as I did."
---
I paused, watching the steam rise from my coffee. "Sometimes I open my banking app and close it again, staring at the numbers that used to define my worth, thinking about the uncertain future ahead. The savings account that's shrinking each month, the investment portfolio I haven't touched, the automatic transfers that no longer make sense." I met her eyes. "Strange... I don't regret it. Not one bit."
Minh Anh's expression softened, like sunlight breaking through clouds. "Not strange at all," she said, her voice carrying a warmth that seemed to wrap around me. "That's exactly how you know you chose correctly. Worry is just survival instinct—it keeps us alert, keeps us moving. But regret? Regret is the sign of a mistake, a wrong turn. And you..." She reached across the table, her fingers briefly touching mine. "You don't have any regret in your voice."
I took a sip of coffee, letting the familiar bitterness spread—familiar bitterness but without the bitter taste of disappointment.
"I've been thinking about this and haven't had a chance to tell you," I said, my finger drawing the number nine on the wooden table surface. "In billiards, you can't make the final nine-ball shot without first pocketing the one-ball, right?"
"Basic rule," Minh Anh nodded, her eyes curious.
"I think life is the same way," I continued, feeling this idea becoming clearer. "I tried to build a career, success, money... but I made a mistake—I never started with ball number one first."
"Are you speaking metaphorically?" Minh Anh smiled.
"I'm serious," I replied, suddenly feeling everything strangely clear. "I spent fifteen years trying to hit the nine-ball."
Minh Anh fell silent, looking deeply into me as if seeing a sentiment I didn't recognize in myself. The silence stretched, not awkward but contemplative.
"Do you know the first thing Master Long taught me?" she finally spoke, her voice deeper. "'Don't rush to hit the ball. First understand the ball.'"
She placed her hand on mine, her small hand warm like a young bird that had just landed. Her fingers lightly touched my wrist, each delicate movement creating ripples that spread along my arm like small waves on a still lake.
"What do you want to do, if not your current job?" she asked, her voice gentle but containing a deep urging.
"That's the scariest part," I didn't pull my hand back despite the intimacy making my heart beat faster. "I don't know. I know clearly what I don't want."
I laughed, a laugh with the bitter taste of truth. "When I still had what was called a stable job, I only knew that every night working until dawn, I asked myself where my life was drifting. But at the billiards table, even losing the hundredth match, I still feel like I'm living—not existing, but living, with every heartbeat and every breath."
A subtle change occurred in Minh Anh's eyes. Her whole being seemed to become softer, as if my words had just touched a deep emotional chord within her. She leaned forward, close enough that I could count each long curved eyelash above her eyes, could recognize the small bright spots in her chestnut-colored pupils.
"Maybe that's exactly your ball number one," she whispered, her warm breath brushing my cheek like a gentle summer breeze. "Finding the place where you're present, whether winning or losing. The place where every moment is complete, not because of results, but because of the process itself."
The thunder grew closer now, and the first drops of rain began to tap against the café windows. Other customers started glancing outside nervously, but neither of us moved.
"Why did you choose billiards?" I suddenly changed the subject, part of me yearning to understand more about the girl who had turned my life upside down through just messages.
Minh Anh's eyes swept over the raindrops gathering on the window before returning to look at me. A flash of melancholy passed through her eyes—an old wound not completely healed.
"Because billiards doesn't lie," she said simply, then paused as if she herself was surprised by her frank answer.
I waited, sensing there was more.
"The cue ball always goes in its exact direction, hits the exact target, no more, no less," she said, her voice dropping but firm. "No empty promises, no flowery words with 'but' or 'maybe.' The cue ball is white, the numbered balls have their numbers—everything is clear, transparent, without deception. You can see exactly what you're dealing with from the moment you approach the table."
Her hand unconsciously touched the thin silver ring on her ring finger—where perhaps there had once been a different ring. The gesture was so brief I almost missed it, but it spoke volumes.
I didn't ask more, but I understood. A piece of Minh Anh's puzzle had just been revealed—she hadn't chosen billiards just for passion, but also because of some untold pain. Someone had lied to her, broken promises, left her searching for something honest and true.
"When I first started, I didn't have money to pay for table time," Minh Anh continued, her voice growing lighter as she moved away from whatever memory had clouded her features. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with practiced grace, the movement revealing delicate silver earrings that caught the café's warm light. The simple gesture was somehow mesmerizing—the way her fingertips lingered against her temple, the soft curve of her neck now visible.
---
The silver ring on Minh Anh's finger caught the café light as she absently twisted it—a nervous habit I'd started to notice whenever our conversations turned personal.
"You want to know why I really understand what you're going through?" she said, not waiting for my answer. Her voice carried something I'd never heard before—not the confident tone of the Queen of Nine-Ball, but something rawer, more vulnerable.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture revealing a weariness she usually kept hidden.
"I was a lawyer, Dang. Corporate law."
I nearly choked on my coffee. "You were a lawyer?"
"Five years," she nodded, her voice taking on a tone I'd never heard before—professional, precise, nothing like the gentle girl who watched my matches. "Had my own office, company car, and a future mapped out to the smallest detail. Everything was safe, prestigious, exactly what my parents had sacrificed everything to give me."
The rain was falling harder now, drumming against the windows with increasing intensity. The café felt like a warm cocoon against the storm building outside.
"Each day that passed, I felt a part of my soul disappearing into those confining business suits," she said, her hand unconsciously touching the small callus on her index finger—marks from thousands of hours of practice with a cue stick that seemed impossible in someone who'd once held million-dollar contracts. "Like I was watching myself slowly vanish, replaced by a perfect but unfamiliar version."
She paused, taking a breath as if gathering strength to reveal the most difficult part.
"When I decided to quit law to pursue professional billiards, my family didn't speak to me for six months straight. They saw it as a betrayal of everything they had sacrificed to get me that position."
"Six months?" I tried to imagine the isolation, the weight of that disappointment.
"My father called it 'throwing away my brain for a stick and some balls,'" she said with a bitter laugh that didn't reach her eyes. "He said I was spitting on their sacrifices, that I'd become selfish and ungrateful. My mother..." her voice broke slightly, "my mother cried every time she saw me. They thought I'd lost my mind."
The storm outside seemed to be reaching its peak, lightning illuminating the café windows in brief, brilliant flashes. But inside, our conversation had created its own intimate atmosphere.
"The worst part wasn't the anger," she continued, her fingers now tracing the rim of her coffee cup. "It was the disappointment. The way they looked at me like I'd become a stranger. Like the daughter they'd raised had died and been replaced by someone they didn't recognize."
I watched her face in the flickering candlelight—the determined set of her jaw, the way her eyes focused on something beyond the present moment. This wasn't the confident champion I'd seen in videos. This was someone who had faced the same doubts, the same fears that kept me awake at night.
"How did you survive it? The isolation?"
Her smile was genuine but tinged with sadness. "Barely. There were nights I'd sit in my tiny apartment, eating instant noodles, wondering if they were right. If I'd thrown away everything meaningful for a childish dream."
She looked directly at me then, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "But you know what kept me going? The same thing that keeps you going. That feeling of being alive at the table. Of every moment mattering, not because of success or failure, but because it was real. It was mine."
The lights flickered as thunder rolled overhead, and several customers checked their phones nervously.
"What changed? With your family?"
"My mother was the first to come around," her voice grew stronger, more animated. "She came to watch me play in a regional tournament—didn't tell me she was coming, just showed up. I spotted her in the crowd during my semi-final match."
She paused, lost in the memory. "After I won, she came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, 'I've never seen you look so alive. In all those years in your law office, I never saw you smile the way you smiled at that table.'"
"And your father?"
"He's still... adjusting," she said diplomatically. "But he stopped calling it a waste of my education. Now he just says I'm 'following an unconventional path.' For him, that's practically a standing ovation."
As if summoned by our conversation, a particularly loud crack of thunder made half the café jump. The lights flickered momentarily, and I noticed how the storm had emptied the streets outside. We were going to be here for a while.
"I have a confession," Minh Anh said suddenly, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. "When I first saw your comments online, it wasn't your technical analysis that caught my attention."
"No?"
"It was the longing in your words. The way you wrote about billiards like someone who understood it deeply but had never been allowed to really play. You reminded me of myself in those corporate conference rooms—knowing there was somewhere else I belonged but too afraid to go there."
The admission hung between us, heavy with implication. All this time, I'd thought she was interested in my potential as a player. But she'd seen something deeper—a kindred spirit trapped in the wrong life.
"That's why I challenged you to prove yourself," she continued. "Not because I thought you were good at billiards, but because I recognized the cage you were living in. The same cage I'd escaped from."
I stared at her, understanding flooding through me like a warm tide. "You were trying to save me."
"I was trying to save both of us," she whispered. "Because helping you find your courage reminded me why I'd found mine."
---
The confession hung between us like a held breath, neither of us quite sure what to do with it.
Then the sky opened up.
Lightning split the night in half, followed by thunder so violent it shook the café windows. The lights flickered once, twice, then died completely, plunging us into darkness lit only by the few candles scattered across tables and the occasional flash from outside.
"Well," Minh Anh said softly, "I guess we're not going anywhere for a while."
Around us, other customers fumbled for their phones, creating a constellation of blue screens in the darkness. Someone near the counter was asking the owner about the power, but his voice was drowned out by another crash of thunder.
"The whole district's out," the owner announced. "This storm's not letting up anytime soon."
In the candlelight, Minh Anh's features seemed softer, more vulnerable than I'd ever seen them. The confident Queen of Nine-Ball had been stripped away by the storm, leaving just a girl who'd taken the same terrifying leap I had.
"You know," she said quietly, "helping you reminded me why I fell in love with billiards in the first place. It wasn't about winning or losing—it was about finding something real in a world full of pretense."
Her hand found mine across the table, warm and steady in the chaos.
"That's what you gave me," she continued. "A reminder that some risks are worth taking."
The rain continued its assault on the windows, each drop sounding like small stones against the glass. Other customers had given up on leaving, settling in with their phones and hushed conversations.
"I think," I said carefully, "we're both running toward something we can't quite name yet."
"Maybe that's okay," she replied. "Maybe not knowing is part of it."
The power suddenly flickered back on, flooding the café with harsh fluorescent light. Around us, people blinked and squinted, gathering their things as they realized the worst of the storm had passed.
"The rain's getting lighter," Minh Anh observed, checking her phone. "We should probably try to get home before it starts up again."
Outside, the storm was just beginning to weaken, but the rain still fell in steady sheets. We made our way to her motorbike, both of us soaked before we'd taken ten steps.
"Come on," she called over the sound of the rain, "there's a convenience store with an awning!"
We ran through the downpour, our footsteps splashing through puddles that had formed in the uneven pavement. The 7-Eleven's lights were off, but its small awning provided shelter from the worst of the rain.
Minh Anh pulled off her helmet, water cascading from her long black hair. Her face was flushed from the cold, her breath creating thin white wisps in the air. She stood close to me, our shoulders touching—not because of the cramped space, but because of some invisible force that seemed to pull us closer together.
"That night at Sky Club, when you ran away?" she said quietly, her voice barely audible over the rain. "I was there."
My stomach dropped. "You were there?"
"I came to watch. To see if the person behind those thoughtful comments could actually play." She paused, studying my face in the dim streetlight. "I saw you freeze up at the break, saw you run out looking like you wanted to disappear into the ground."
The embarrassment hit me fresh, as raw as it had been that night. "And you still wanted to help me?"
"Especially then," she said. "Because I recognized that look. I'd worn it myself in a hundred boardrooms, behind a hundred fake smiles at corporate events. The look of someone drowning in plain sight."
A flash of lightning illuminated her face, and I saw something I'd never noticed before—complete understanding.
"I've always wondered," she continued, her voice so quiet I had to lean down to hear her clearly. "What made you keep going? After that first failure?"
I looked straight into her eyes, the small raindrops still clinging to her eyelashes making them sparkle under the streetlight. My heart was beating so hard I wondered if she could hear it.
"It was you," I said without hesitation. Those three simple words contained all my meaning: "Even when I no longer had enough faith in myself, you were the reason, the anchor for me to continue."
The rain kept falling, but we were no longer in a hurry. There were moments of silence after that, looking intently at each other. For me, "you" are exactly ball number two—the incredibly important ball, truly necessary for me to continue toward my final goal.
The rain began to lighten, and I could see her smile even in the dim streetlight.
"You know what you are to me?" she asked, echoing my words from earlier.
"What?"
"You're my nine-ball, Dang. The one I've been aiming for all along.