“My mother is still in the emergency room, her life uncertain, and you still have time to propose to another woman?”
Co Thanh Da’s expression stiffened.
“Giang Van was joking.”
“Then the ring?”
He was silent.
“The kneeling?”
Still silent.
“And ‘as long as it’s you, I’m willing’?”
His jaw tightened.
“You don’t understand the situation.”
I suddenly laughed.
Seven years.
Whenever I needed an explanation, there was always a situation I didn’t understand.
Whenever I needed him, there was always something more urgent.
Whenever I wanted a future, there was always tomorrow.
So I nodded.
“Fine. I don’t need to understand anymore.”
The next morning, I submitted my transfer request.
When Thanh Da discovered it, he came directly to headquarters.
“You requested the border?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Indefinitely.”
He stared at me.
“Withdraw it.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“This isn’t the time to throw a tantrum.”
I looked at him for several seconds.
Then I asked:
“When will it be the right time?”
He froze.
I smiled.
“You’ve been telling me to wait for seven years. I’m finished.”
Three weeks later, my transfer was approved.
I left without saying goodbye.
And for five years, I never looked back.
Until now.
Until Co Thanh Da appeared outside my border station.
I ignored him for two hours.
At sunset, one of the younger officers finally knocked on my office door.
“Captain, that man is still outside.”
“I know.”
“It’s getting cold.”
“He’s special forces. He’ll survive.”
The officer struggled not to smile.
I continued reading my report.
At nine, rain started.
At ten, he was still there.
At eleven, I finally walked outside.
Co Thanh Da stood beneath the security light.
Five years had changed him.
There was a scar beside his eyebrow.
His shoulders seemed heavier.
But his eyes were exactly the same.
When he saw me, his breathing stopped.
“Lin Yue.”
I hadn’t heard him say my name in five years.
“What important matter?”
He stared at me.
Then he said:
“The proposal was fake.”
I almost turned around.
He stepped forward.
“Wait.”
That word stopped me.
Not because I wanted to obey.
Because suddenly I found it funny.
I turned.
“Do you know that’s still the first thing you say?”
His face changed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You came five years later to tell me about a proposal I stopped caring about five years ago?”
“No.”
He reached into his jacket.
There was no ring.
Only an old envelope.
“My reassignment orders.”
I didn’t take them.
He continued.
“Our units are conducting a joint exercise for three months. I volunteered.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“That was stupid.”
“I know.”
That answer surprised me.
The old Thanh Da never admitted he was wrong.
He always explained.
Justified.
Dismissed.
Now he simply stood in the rain.
“The proposal to Giang Van was part of a staged morale video she wanted to send to her grandfather before surgery,” he said. “The photograph was taken out of context.”
“And your comment?”
His face tightened.
“That wasn’t part of it.”
Exactly.
“I knew she had feelings for me. I knew how the comment would look. I still wrote it.”
“Why?”
He looked away.
“Because I liked being needed.”
That was more truthful than anything he had told me five years ago.
“Giang Van admired me. She treated every word I said as important.”
His voice became quieter.
“You had been with me so long that you expected me to behave like a partner.”
“As I should have.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“And I resented you for expecting things from me while enjoying being worshipped by someone who expected nothing.”
I felt no jealousy.
Only exhaustion for the woman I used to be.
“What happened after I left?”
He laughed bitterly.
“Nothing happened with Giang Van.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“That’s the problem.”
For five years, he had apparently imagined this conversation.
For me, it had ended long ago.
“I came because there’s something else.”
He finally handed me the envelope.
Inside was an old bank receipt.
The date was from the night my mother had been hospitalized.
The transfer he had sent too late.
On the back, in his handwriting, were three words:
Marriage application approved.
I looked at him.
He explained.
“That day, my commander finally approved my marriage report. I had been planning to take you to register as soon as your mother recovered.”
I handed it back.
“You’re telling me you were finally ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because you left.”
“No.”
My voice remained calm.
“You still don’t understand.”
I stepped closer.
“I didn’t leave because you failed to marry me.”
His eyes reddened.
“I left because when my mother could have died, you told me to wait until tomorrow.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“When I was injured, I waited.”
“I know.”
“When I needed money, I waited.”
“I know.”
“When I asked about marriage, I waited.”
His hands slowly clenched.
“I know.”
“And when another woman said she wanted a proposal, you didn’t make her wait at all.”
That finally broke him.
For a long time, only the rain spoke between us.
Then he whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded.
“I believe you.”
His head lifted.
Hope appeared in his eyes.
I extinguished it gently.
“But forgiveness isn’t reconciliation.”
The following three months were strange.
Our units trained together.
Thanh Da never cornered me again.
He never sent flowers.
Never pressured me.
Never asked mutual friends to persuade me.
For perhaps the first time since I had known him, he respected my answer.
Then, during the final exercise, an accident happened.
A vehicle overturned near the mountain road.
I was coordinating medical evacuation when someone shouted that an officer was trapped.
It was Thanh Da.
Five years earlier, I would have forgotten everything and run to him as the woman who loved him.
This time, I ran as an officer.
We stabilized him.
Got him onto the helicopter.
At the field hospital, he woke several hours later.
I was checking the casualty list when he saw me.
“You stayed?”
“No.”
I showed him the clipboard.
“I have twelve injured personnel.”
He actually laughed.
Then winced from the pain.
“Right.”
I turned to leave.
“Lin Yue.”
I stopped.
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Thank you.”
No confession.
No request.
No “wait.”
Just thank you.
I smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
That was our final conversation.
A week later, the joint exercise ended.
Thanh Da returned south.
I stayed at the border.
Months afterward, I heard that he had refused another promotion that would have kept him constantly deployed.
Perhaps he had changed.
I hoped so.
But his change was no longer my reward to collect.
Two years later, I became engaged.
Not to prove anything.
Not because someone better had appeared to punish Thanh Da.
I married a military doctor I had met during an emergency response.
The first time my mother became ill after we started dating, I called him.
He was in surgery.
His assistant answered.
“Doctor Chen can’t speak right now, but he asked me to tell you an ambulance has already been arranged. He’ll come directly when he finishes.”
Twenty minutes later, everything was handled.
That night, sitting beside my mother’s bed, I suddenly cried.
My fiancé panicked.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I wiped my face.
I had simply realized how little I had once asked for.
I had mistaken waiting for devotion.
Patience for loyalty.
Neglect for sacrifice.
On my wedding day, I received one message from an unfamiliar number.
There was no name.
Only a photograph.
The same sunset over the Kinh Bac training ground.
Under it were five words:
“I won’t ask you to wait.”
I stared at it for several seconds.
Then deleted it.
Outside, my husband was waiting for me.
For once, that word meant something beautiful.
Because he wasn’t asking me to wait for him.
He was waiting for me.
I walked toward him.
And somewhere far behind me remained seven years of loving Co Thanh Da, five years of healing, and one lesson I had needed two different lives to understand:
The person who truly wants a future with you may sometimes ask for patience.
But they will never make waiting the only future they offer.
