A Bizarre Journey ep 23: Operation Rescue Athena
Author: Nguyen Leon
Thriller;Heartwarming
I’m Loc, and my life had officially entered the ‘everyone is avoiding everyone’ phase.
It had been three days since Quynh and Minh’s fight.
Three days of complete radio silence.
No chaotic good morning messages filled with Greek mythology memes that only Quynh somehow found educational. No emergency phone calls asking me to dress as Hades because she’d “just had the greatest artistic revelation at two in the morning.” No five-minute voice notes explaining why morning traffic was simply the River Styx with better infrastructure.
Just…
nothing.
The silence settled over everything.
The apartment, once loud enough to make the neighbors question our collective sanity, had become strangely careful.
Even our old ceiling fan, which normally sounded like it was losing a fight with gravity, suddenly seemed much louder than usual.
Quan took it the hardest.
He’d somehow transformed into a one-man Greek tragedy.
Most mornings, I’d wake up to find him lying face-down on the living room floor with one arm dramatically stretched toward the ceiling, as though he were waiting for Zeus himself to explain why life had become so unfair.
He refused to eat anything except instant noodles because they were, in his words, “the cuisine of abandoned heroes.”
Every few hours he’d sigh deeply enough to concern the furniture before mumbling things like,
“Ω θεοί…”
Then another sigh.
“…why has Athena withdrawn her Wi-Fi signal from this humble servant?”
Yesterday I’d caught him staring mournfully at the group chat for nearly twenty minutes before changing its name to ‘The Fall of Troy’.
Nobody reacted.
That somehow made him even sadder.
Tram hid it better.
Every time we met, she still teased Quan whenever he became too dramatic. She still rolled her eyes whenever I made a mess out of the laundry.
But every few minutes, almost without realizing it, she’d unlock her phone, glance at the screen, wait half a second longer than she needed to…
…and quietly lock it again.
No new messages.
Not from Quynh.
Not from Minh.
As for me, I was doing what I usually did whenever life became complicated.
Pretending to be a functional adult.
I went to work on time. I managed to do the laundry without flooding the alley for the first time in months. I even remembered to pay the electricity bill before the due date, which honestly felt worthy of national recognition.
None of it helped.
Every quiet moment found its way back to the exhibition hall.
To Quynh standing there with the symbolic crown in her hands.
To the look on Minh’s face just before he walked away.
Three days wasn’t very long.
Somehow…
it felt much longer.
That morning, the three of us ended up meeting at our usual sidewalk café. The owner didn’t even bother asking what we wanted anymore. Three iced coffees appeared on the table almost automatically, along with the familiar clatter of tiny metal spoons against thick glass cups.
Mine had already gone warm.
I hadn’t taken a single sip.
Across from me, Quan was slumped so deeply over the table that he resembled a deflated golden retriever who’d recently received devastating news about tennis balls.
“…Still nothing?” I asked.
He slowly lifted his head, looking like a man delivering a weather forecast at the end of civilization.
“She read my message.”
I waited.
“…And?”
“…She did not spiritually acknowledge it.”
I blinked.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means…” He sighed with Shakespearean commitment. “She left me on Read.”
He dramatically unlocked his phone and showed us the screen.
“I even sent her a drawing of Hermes.”
The picture appeared.
Hermes was wearing sunglasses, holding a bouquet of flowers, and covered in enough glitter to become a traffic hazard.
“I added sparkles,” Quan whispered.
“…Digital sparkles.”
Tram looked at the drawing for a long moment.
“I don’t think the sparkles were the problem.”
Quan lowered his head back onto the table.
“I have failed the gods.”
She let out a quiet sigh and glanced at her own phone again before slipping it back into her pocket.
“She’s shutting everyone out.”
A pause.
“Even Minh hasn’t said anything.”
I stirred my coffee absentmindedly, watching the ice slowly melt into the dark liquid.
Three days.
It wasn’t a long time.
But somehow…
the silence felt heavier than all the chaos Quynh had ever brought into our lives.
Quan suddenly sat bolt upright.
The movement was so violent his plastic chair skidded backward across the sidewalk and nearly tipped into the street.
“I can’t take it anymore!”
Before either of us could stop him, he marched into the middle of the café’s tiny outdoor seating area, planted one foot on an empty stool like a tragic stage actor, and threw both arms toward the morning sky.
“Why, Athena?! Why have you abandoned this humble Hermes?”
Several customers looked up from their breakfasts.
A man quietly lowered his newspaper.
Someone paused halfway through slurping a bowl of hu tieu.
Quan clutched his chest with both hands.
“Was my devotion to knowledge… to friendship… to affordable instant noodles… worth nothing?”
He slowly sank to one knee.
“Quynh…”
His voice cracked with heartbreaking sincerity.
“…my goddess of the rice cooker…”
A dramatic pause.
“…where have you gone?”
Silence settled over the café.
Then came the unmistakable scrape of plastic chairs.
I closed my eyes.
Nearby, Ms. Lan—our downstairs’ neighbor—was sitting with three other women from our apartment building, each armed with a cup of iced coffee and the collective investigative instincts of an intelligence agency.
At thirty-four, Ms. Lan was technically the youngest person at the table.
That never stopped the others from treating her like the neighborhood representative.
She looked from Quan to me, thoroughly confused.
“…Is your brother all right?”
Before I could answer, one auntie leaned forward with the unmistakable excitement of someone who had just discovered fresh gossip.
“Oh dear. He got dumped.”
Another auntie nodded with absolute confidence.
“You can always tell by the posture.”
“The kneeling?”
“No.”
“The poetry.”
A third auntie had already abandoned her coffee entirely.
She stood up, waved enthusiastically at Quan, and called across the sidewalk.
“Come here, son!”
Quan actually looked.
“Tell Auntie everything.”
“We’ll fix her.”
“If she’s unreasonable, we’ll scold her.”
“If she’s reasonable…”
She thought about it.
“…we’ll still scold her a little.”
Tram had quietly buried her face behind her menu.
Her shoulders were shaking.
She wasn’t crying.
She was trying very, very hard not to laugh.
Unfortunately, Quan interpreted the invitation as emotional support.
He walked toward the aunties with tears—actual tears—genuinely forming in his eyes.
“My soul,” he whispered, “has become an abandoned temple…”
I was already on my feet.
“Nope.”
I grabbed him by the shoulder before he could finish whatever catastrophe he was about to declare.
“Your tragedy has reached today’s word limit.”
I gently steered him back toward our table while the aunties collectively protested.
“Let the poor boy speak!”
“He needs closure!”
“Someone buy him flowers!”
“No,” another corrected. “Girls want fruit.”
“Which fruit?”
“I don’t know. Romantic fruit.”
Quan looked as though he was genuinely considering asking them for recommendations.
That was the moment I gave up.
I let out a long sigh and looked at Tram.
“We’re done waiting.”
She lowered the menu and immediately understood.
“Finally.”
I turned to Quan.
“We’re going to find Quynh.”
His entire posture changed.
Like someone had plugged his soul back into a power outlet. He sprang to his feet, pointed dramatically toward absolutely nowhere, and declared,
“Operation Rescue Athena begins now!”
I rubbed my forehead.
It wasn’t even nine in the morning.
Already, the day was becoming a Quynh story again.
~~~•••~~~
Our first stop was Minh’s apartment.
I’d heard him call it his “laboratory” often enough that I was expecting something between a workshop and a mad scientist’s basement.
Honestly…
…I wasn’t that far off.
The apartment sat on the third floor of an aging building whose staircase creaked like it regretted every visitor. The moment the door opened, the smell of solder, instant noodles, and energy drinks hit us all at once.
The place looked as though sleep had never been invented there.
Loose wires hung from the ceiling. Circuit boards covered the dining table. Half-finished gadgets occupied every available surface, while empty noodle cups had somehow evolved into their own geological formation in one corner of the room.
Normally, I imagined the place would’ve felt strangely alive.
Today, it didn’t.
Two men in dark shirts were quietly wrapping inventions in bubble wrap and placing them into cardboard boxes. Neither spoke. The only sounds came from the tearing of packing tape and the occasional clink of metal disappearing into another box.
Standing among them was Mr. Luat. Minh’s and Quynh’s dad.
He didn’t look surprised to see us.
If anything, he looked as though he’d expected us eventually.
For a brief second, nobody moved.
Then Quan gave the smallest, most painfully awkward wave I’d ever seen.
“…Good morning, sir.”
Mr. Luat inclined his head just enough to acknowledge that he’d heard him.
“Good morning.”
The silence returned.
I cleared my throat.
“We… came to see Minh.”
“So I assumed.”
His voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
His eyes moved across the four of us with slow precision, lingering on each face just long enough to make me wonder what conclusion he’d already reached.
When they stopped on Tram, they stayed there.
She didn’t look away.
Neither did he.
After several seconds, he gave a faint nod.
“You are Tram.”
It was more of a quiet recognition than a question. He clearly still remembered her from the last dinner.
Tram answered with the same calmness she’d used when facing the security guard three nights ago.
“Good morning, sir.”
Another pause.
“You seem sensible,” Mr. Luat said at last. “Sharp enough to recognize the difference between a dream and a distraction.”
His gaze drifted briefly toward the boxes stacked around the room.
“I would’ve thought someone like you might encourage the others to recognize it as well.”
The words sounded almost complimentary.
Somehow they felt like criticism.
Tram opened her mouth, but he continued before she could speak.
“Minh isn’t here.”
One of the movers sealed another box with a long strip of tape.
The sharp ripping sound filled the room.
“He’s taking care of a few arrangements.”
Mr. Luat rested a hand lightly on one of the packed boxes.
“For the first time in quite a while, he’s agreed to put certain things aside.”
His fingers tapped the cardboard once.
“They’ve occupied enough of his life.”
Something about the way he said it made me glance toward the inventions being packed away.
Not sold.
Not thrown out.
Just…
removed.
“He made that decision himself?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Mr. Luat looked at me.
For the first time, there was the faintest trace of a smile. Buf it never reached his eyes.
“At some point,” he said evenly, “everyone realizes that choices have prices.”
The room fell quiet again.
Quan stared at the inventions disappearing into cardboard as though he were watching someone dismantle an old friend.
Even the ridiculous gadgets suddenly looked smaller.
Less impossible.
Mr. Luat folded his hands behind his back.
“I imagine you’re worried about Quynh.”
It wasn’t really a question either.
“I appreciate your concern.” His eyes settled on us once more as he spoke. “But sometimes.. the kindest thing friends can do is step aside before they make difficult decisions even harder.”
There was no anger in his voice.
No accusation.
Just quiet certainty.
Which somehow weighed more than shouting ever could.
No one argued.
Not because we agreed.
Because none of us could find words sharp enough to cut through his.
After a long silence, Tram gave a small nod.
“Thank you for your time.”
Mr. Luat returned the gesture with the same measured politeness.
The conversation was over.
We walked back into the hallway without another word.
Only after the apartment door closed behind us did any of us breathe again.
Quan looked back at it one last time.
“…He’s packing away his whole life.”
“We have to tell Quynh about this.” Tram breathed out, voice barely above a whisper—yet it carried a quiet urgency that none of us could protest.
~~~•••~~~
By the time we reached Quynh’s university, the campus was already alive with the usual noon rhythm. Students hurried between lecture halls balancing stacks of books and iced coffees, clubs were setting up colorful booths along the main walkway, and somewhere across the courtyard, a music class was unsuccessfully trying to stay in the same key.
It felt like every other school day.
Only…
without Quynh, the place somehow seemed quieter.
She had always walked through campus as if every corner was secretly waiting to become part of one of her stories. The courtyard would’ve become Mount Olympus. The cafeteria would’ve somehow turned into the Underworld. Even a broken vending machine would’ve earned a tragic backstory.
Now it was just…
a campus.
We started asking around her department.
Most people recognized her immediately.
“Oh, Quynh?” a girl with round glasses said, adjusting the stack of books in her arms. “She hasn’t shown up for a few days.”
“The last time I saw her,” another teammate added, “she looked exhausted. She kept talking about changing the whole project into something… safer.”
She hesitated.
“…Honestly, I thought it was a shame.”
“The original version was way more interesting.”
Someone nearby nodded in agreement.
For the first time all day, the knot in my chest loosened a little.
At least someone had seen how much it meant to her.
Unfortunately…
not everyone had.
A few meters away, three students leaning against the department notice board had been listening to the conversation with growing amusement.
“So she gained consciousness just now?”
“She would never.” Another shrugged. “I heard her dad finally made her revise the whole Greek catastrophe.”
They never mentioned her name, but we all understood those mocking was aiming at Quynh.
“About time,” someone added. “That project was dragging everyone else down. Honestly, watching people run around pretending to be Greek gods was embarrassing.”
Quan stopped so abruptly I almost walked into him.
“…Embarrassing?”
He turned slowly toward the group, studying them with genuine curiosity.
“I’m sorry. I just want to make sure I heard that correctly.”
The first boy shrugged.
“You did.”
Quan nodded thoughtfully.
“So mythology is where you draw the line.”
He squinted at the boy’s face.
“Interesting. From over here, I thought your beard was a failed group project.”
The boy instinctively touched his chin.
“What?”
“You heard him,” I joined without knowing it. “It looks like three different facial hairstyles reached a compromise.”
The girl let out a laugh before quickly covering her mouth.
The boy frowned.
“This is how you start a debate? By insulting people?”
“No,” Quan replied. “I’m establishing the artistic standard.”
He gestured toward the campus.
“Your project won the department competition, right?”
“It did.”
“So did boiled vegetables at my elementary school cafeteria.”
He shrugged.
“Winning doesn’t automatically make people remember you.”
The second student folded his arms.
“At least ours looked professional.”
Tram finally stepped in.
“What does ‘professional’ mean?”
“It means people don’t laugh at it.”
“I see.”
Her voice remained perfectly even.
“So art succeeds by being forgettable.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No. You said its job is to avoid laughter.”
She held his gaze.
“Quynh’s project was about family pressure, identity, and mythology. Which part failed to communicate?”
Silence.
The first boy finally muttered,
“It just looked childish.”
I couldn’t help smiling.
“Immature is mocking someone who’s not even here to defend herself.”
“We’re just saying she needed to grow up.”
“Oh, she did.”
I nodded.
“She grew up enough to spend weeks building something she loved.”
I looked them over.
“You, meanwhile, have spent the last five minutes reviewing a project nobody asked you to judge.”
A few students nearby chuckled.
The second boy’s face reddened.
“You don’t even know us.”
“I know you’re discussing someone who’s been gone for three days instead of your own work.”
I tilted my head.
“That’s either obsession…”
“…or your project is just too boring.”
A few snickers rippled through the circle. Someone muttered, “Can they just leave already?” Another student rolled their eyes so hard it looked painful.
The amused expressions from earlier were gone, replaced by the exhausted look of people who had expected a quick interruption and instead found themselves trapped in an argument that refused to die.
Even the first boy pinched the bridge of his nose, as if trying to decide whether we were genuinely insane or simply impossible to reason with. When he looked up again, whatever restraint he’d been holding onto had disappeared.
“You know what?”
He let out a dry laugh.
“Maybe her father was right all along.”
The courtyard seemed to quiet.
“If your biggest achievement is convincing weird strangers to play Greek gods, maybe someone should’ve stopped encouraging her delusions years ago.”
He glanced at us with a shrug.
“Honestly, Minh leaving was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to her.”
Tram’s head snapped up.
“What did you just say?”
The boy didn’t hesitate.
“Someone had to say it.”
He looked toward Quynh’s department building.
“She dragged him into all this fantasy nonsense, and now she’s surprised people think she’s immature.”
He scoffed.
“Some people mistake being weird for being talented.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Watch your mouth.”
“Why?”
He folded his arms.
“She’s not here to hear it anyway.”
That sentence hit harder than it should have.
Even Tram, who almost never lost her composure, took a step forward.
“You don’t know anything about her.”
“I know enough.”
He shrugged again.
“I know she wasted everyone’s time playing dress-up instead of acting like a university student.”
He glanced around at the growing crowd.
“And if she’s hiding because people criticized her project…”
He smirked.
“…maybe she’s finally realized it wasn’t art.”
“It was just attention-seeking.”
Silence.
I felt my hands clench.
Beside me, Tram’s voice turned dangerously quiet.
“Take that back.”
“No.”
The boy met her eyes without flinching.
“Somebody should’ve told her years ago.”
“Not every childish obsession deserves applause.”
Before either of us could answer, a plastic chair scraped loudly across the pavement.
Everyone turned.
Quan calmly carried it into the middle of the courtyard, climbed onto it, and inhaled deeply.
I closed my eyes.
“…No.”
Tram pinched the bridge of her nose.
“He’s doing it.”
Quan raised one hand toward the sky with absolute conviction.
“Hear me, mortals!”
Half the courtyard instinctively looked over.
“I shall now recite the recently rediscovered Greek poem that historians were too cowardly to preserve!”
I sighed.
“…Here we go.”
“When Athena misplaced her wisdom,
she found it inside a broken rice cooker.
When Zeus demanded seriousness,
the pigeons laughed first.
For marble statues never dreamed,
but cracked flowerpots imagined Olympus every afternoon.
Blessed are the fools who mistake cardboard for kingdoms,
for they inherit worlds that sensible people never notice.
And cursed are those who polish every stone
until nothing strange remains upon it.
If your heart still invents impossible stories,
the gods have not abandoned you.
They are simply waiting
for you to stop apologizing.”
When he finished, the courtyard fell completely silent.
Not an inspired silence.
A painfully second-hand one.
Someone quietly picked up their backpack and walked away.
A student at a nearby booth slowly lowered the flyer they had been holding.
The first boy stared at Quan for several seconds before rubbing his forehead.
“…I’m leaving.”
His friends nodded immediately.
None of them looked at us again.
They simply walked away with the unmistakable urgency of people who had accidentally attended experimental street theatre.
Quan stepped down from the chair.
“…I think that went well.”
Tram looked at him.
“I cannot explain why…”
“…but somehow you made everyone too embarrassed to continue arguing.”
I nodded.
“The only thing stronger than cruelty…”
I glanced at the retreating students.
“…is overwhelming cringe.”
