The notification on Minh’s phone flickered: Download Complete: V L Ng Tr Ch Ch I Bi Masew X Khoi Vu.

By the time the track faded out into a soft piano outro, the stars were beginning to peek through the clouds. Minh tucked his phone into his pocket. The song was a bridge—one that let him visit the past for three minutes and forty-two seconds, before crossing back into the present.

He turned away from the gates, the melody still looping in his head, feeling a little lighter than when the download first started.

He pressed play. The familiar, rhythmic crackle of a production filled his headphones, mixing with the low hum of the evening train. As the first melodic lines from Khôi Vũ drifted in, the city outside the window began to blur. Minh wasn’t just going home; he was going back.

The song (Back to the Old School) by Masew and Khôi Vũ is a nostalgic track that blends modern Lo-fi beats with the bittersweet feeling of visiting one's alma mater.

As the song’s beat dropped, Minh closed his eyes. He could almost see his younger self sitting under the ancient flamboyant tree, a pair of shared earbuds connecting him to someone who was no longer in his contacts list. They used to talk about "someday" as if it were a far-off country. Now, he was living in that "someday," and it was much quieter than he had imagined.