- You are teasing me again.

Maybe you don't know, the moment I caught your eyes looking up at me, suddenly there was a very light shower in my heart, it watered my heart that had been in the sunny season for a long time.

She is seven years younger than me, we grew up together in the bustling, crowded city. Our families have been neighbors for a long time. Even the fathers of our two families were friends during the war. And her brother was also my close friend and classmate. I still remember that day before Tet, when my mother cleaned up a bit to go to the hospital to visit the newborn neighbor, the moment I looked into that child's eyes, my heart was a little moved. Those were very clear brown eyes. Usually, the color of eyes would lean towards black or if you looked closely, you could see another color, but the brown in her eyes was visible at a glance. And as she grew older, that brown color became darker and clearer.

- Why are you absent-minded?

- I suddenly remember the first time I saw you.

- That was twenty-two years ago, sir.

- Back then, I was quiet, didn't cry, and was very obedient, not like now...

She pretended to be fierce and hit me again and strangely, the rain shower from earlier was gone, only a very fierce sun burned me, making me want to say what was on my mind to the person in front of me. Is love such a strange emotion?

Our two families are quite close, since we were little, every time Tet comes, we often go back to our hometown together and then go back to the city. There are years when we are too busy with work, so we often have to meet in the countryside. I still remember when I went back to my hometown when I was little, my favorite thing to do was to catch grasshoppers to fry and eat with rice, and to pick peanuts to eat when my grandmother made banh duc. When I was little, I was also naughty, Tet season is often close to harvest season, so the harvest results often decide whether that year's Tet will be full or not. While adults will take advantage of the days before Tet to be busy with farm work, every early morning, we children will carry baskets to the fields. At that time, the grasshoppers still have wet wings and cannot fly because of the dew, we can catch them with a wave of our hands. When we estimate there is enough, we will glean the rice floating on the water, sometimes we can get a whole basket. At that time, she was only seven years old, and often ran after her two older brothers and their friends to the fields early. At that time, I was naughty and impulsive, so I often left her far behind because I was too busy playing. I still remember her diligent and slow movements following us.

- I still remember the fried grasshoppers that day, it went well with rice, but at first I hated it and couldn't eat it, he was so angry.

- I just want you to sleep a little more, but you're stubborn and keep asking to come along.

- Because I want to go with you.

Every time Tet comes, my grandmother often cooks peanut rice cakes for the whole family to eat, the rice cakes are thick, opaque and fragrant with the smell of new rice. She said that in the old days of war, there was nothing to eat on Tet, so my grandfather often cooked rice cakes for her to eat, went to the field to catch some crabs, poured some hot and fragrant rieu on top, and felt full. Now he has passed away, but every spring, my grandmother remembers him, remembers the times when he worked hard in the kitchen just to give her a delicious rice cake, so she often cooks this dish to offer to him so that her grandchildren can eat it out of gratitude. I love the moment when my big family gathers in the yard, each person doing their own thing, some guarding the pot of rice cakes, some decorating the garden, and us kids gather around my grandmother's rice cake pot watching her stir the cakes. Sometimes we secretly eat the peanuts she adds to the cakes, making her pretend to scream: "Damn you..."

- I remember one time you made salty rice cake.

- The crispy rice cake with peanut filling that my grandmother makes with fermented soybean paste is delicious, but it's hard to find in the city. So that Tet holiday, I came back to study with my grandmother and she taught me this savory filling.

There was a year when both families could not return to their hometowns because of the pandemic, and that year's Tet holiday became sad. I suddenly missed my grandmother and the rice cakes she used to make, and suddenly that year the little girl showed off her cooking skills. The rice cakes she made had shrimp and meat filling, and when she wanted to eat them, she cut them into square pieces, just enough to eat with the delicious, rich and fragrant shredded carrot fish sauce.

When I failed the university entrance exam, I tried to hide myself in a corner because of shame and disappointment with myself. At that time, I don't know why, but at that moment of uncertainty about the future, there was a little girl wearing a dirty dress, probably because she had stumbled many times while looking for me. I only suddenly remembered the moment when I just raised my head and saw a small head tilted down to look at me and a familiar smile with big round brown eyes suddenly curved like a crescent moon:

- I found you, do you want to play hide and seek with me again?

The following year I was determined to retake the exam and passed a university near home, her brother went to school far away so I gradually took his place in her. I often took the opportunity to take her to school and pick her up, our memories slowly grew little by little. When I graduated from university she also started high school, we started to have less time together, except for meeting each other every night because we were neighbors, because I was busy struggling with life and she started studying hard at a specialized school. At first, there were some complications at work that sometimes made me tired and irritable, but when she was free she would ask me to tell her. Actually, at that time I rarely told her because she had just entered high school, and I had entered adulthood, the age difference made me feel like I was complaining to a child. Until I saw her sad and angry and said to me:

- I tried very hard to get into a specialized school, so that at least you would see that I'm not as childish as I am, so that you would trust me when talking to me like an adult. Isn't that enough?

After that time, I suddenly felt that I had nameless prejudices against her, especially about age. In fact, she always tried to narrow the gap with me with advice, encouragement and even confidences beyond her age. From then on, little by little, we entered each other's lives like before... When I was twenty-five, I first introduced my lover to my family during Tet, she had just come to my house and met my lover for the first time. Her brown eyes became sad, after that day she suddenly told her whole family and me that she wanted to study abroad...

You left for three years, and suddenly, distances began to form between you and me. The day you told me, there was only a week left until you left. You didn’t even give me a chance to ask why and didn’t give me a chance to understand how sad that spring had become. I continued to go about my life with a busy job, and also broke up with the love I had found in a hurry to try to confirm my feelings for you. You seemed to be living very well in that faraway land, as your mother told my mother and your brother occasionally hinted about it.

- Why didn't you tell her how you really felt, instead of introducing her to someone else, and now she's gone without you telling her.

I just laughed at my best friend's words. Since I gradually formed my feelings for her, at first I was afraid that it was a mistake from the years of being close together. When everything gradually "ripe" over time, I couldn't hide my feelings and my best friend also realized, but I strictly forbade him from telling her. I wanted to wait for her to grow up and wait for her to have the same feelings as me, but I didn't know that she had left before I could express my feelings and everything became unfinished. During the three years she went to study abroad, I only talked to her occasionally, because when she left I thought that maybe she and I didn't have the same love story. And maybe in a new environment, she would find someone new and better.

That Tet, she came back. After three years, I finally got to see her again. As soon as I saw her walk through the door, everything seemed to suddenly come back to life like a storm of emotions rushing into my mind. She was still the same, starting each moment with a smile, easily creating sympathy with the person opposite. Her short, shoulder-length hair was a smoky gray color that matched her fair skin. And especially her brown eyes still stared at me and suddenly smiled. She brought a lot of gifts for my family and also intimately replied to my mother that this time she had finished school and was back for good. She suddenly asked me to take her to the familiar cafe where we often sat during Tet to watch the people passing by.

- Are you married?

- Do you have a boyfriend?

And we both laughed at that question, the first thing the two of us said to each other was about the other person’s condition. As soon as I heard the word “not yet”, suddenly I heard someone’s voice in the wind, very light, bringing back the spring:

- Me neither. Am I mature enough for you to look at me once?

Le Hua Huyen Tran