Sunflower Day.

I started helping my grandmother run the family’s bakery, looking after customers and selling fresh loaves every day. Life drifted by calmly — one quiet day after another.

When I entered high school, I began attending the only school in town.

After classes, I’d help my grandmother at the shop, talking with regular customers. Every day felt like a slow breath, allowing me to fully soak in the rhythm of this place.

Then came a Monday morning, when the sun was still lazily tucked behind a blanket of mist and mountains, yet the town was already awake and bustling. In that hazy moment, I suddenly remembered — this was my first day of high school in this remote countryside.

I stood waiting for the bus, a school I could hardly picture in my head. As the bus pulled in, people gave me puzzled glances — a city kid in a rural town? Their eyes brimmed with questions: “Why would someone from the city come all the way out here?”

Only I truly knew why.

The bus rolled past the bakery, the church, and down toward the harbor.

When I stepped off at the school, I was taken aback. Instead of the run-down campus I had expected, I found a beautiful, modern building — in some ways, it felt more upscale than my old city school.

This place felt like a dream. As the bell rang, upperclassmen guided me and a few other newcomers through the campus. Among them was an Asian girl — a rare sight in this quiet town. She had brown hair, soft coral-pink lipstick, and a star-shaped earring that gave her a bold, captivating flair.

The guides spoke of classrooms and the old clock tower, where a ghostly figure of a schoolgirl was said to glide across its corridors at midnight.

Then, she spoke aloud — in Vietnamese:

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

I was shocked. Never had I expected to find another Vietnamese person in such a secluded place. I smiled and replied softly,

“Yeah, it really is strange.”

Her eyes widened as she turned to me.

“Wait — you speak Vietnamese too? But you have blue eyes, fair skin…?”

I met her gaze and said calmly,

“Yeah… I’m mixed.”

The upperclassmen fell silent, staring at us as if we spoke a language they didn’t understand. But in that moment, she and I felt an unexpected thread — a quiet, rare connection in this remote town.

After the tour, we promised to meet up in the cafeteria for a chat. She shared that she had also moved here just a month ago, slightly earlier than me. We exchanged contact information, and she invited me to visit her family’s café sometime.

I gladly accepted. After school, we found ourselves sharing a table.

That evening, when I came home, my grandmother and mother asked how my first day had gone. I smiled, unable to contain the warmth bubbling inside:

“It was wonderful, truly wonderful.”

That night, back in my room, I felt a strange, quiet warmth settle in my chest. The phone in my hand felt almost magnetic.

I opened our chat and started talking to her.

The conversation stretched on — from school and the café, to favorite songs, forgotten dreams, and the sting of leaving a big city behind.

We texted until late into the night, sharing pieces of ourselves as if two strangers had suddenly found a safe harbor.

As the first light of dawn crept through my window and I smiled down at the screen, I felt it clearly: tomorrow would be a very different day.

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