The old man smiled. He pointed to the dusty monitor. "That channel is terrible. Lots of ads. But it taught me that the most important data is the unsaid. Mr. Nguyễn, when can you start?"

He had practiced this answer. Loyalty. Growth. Synergy. But the words felt like stones in his mouth.

Then, the man on the left, who had not spoken yet, cleared his throat. He leaned forward and, in heavily accented but perfectly understandable Vietnamese, said: "Cô ấy không hiểu tiếng Việt. Nhưng tôi thì có. Tôi đã xem 'Interview Vietsub' được ba năm rồi."

He almost laughed. It was an advertisement. A ghost channel. But in that moment, his brain, exhausted from translation, simply stopped.

He walked in. Three faces behind a long mahogany table. The middle one, a woman with sharp glasses and sharper silence, was the head of the department. She gestured to a single chair in the center of the room. It felt like a stage.

The fluorescent lights of the waiting room hummed a flat, anxious note. Minh straightened his tie for the tenth time, the starched collar of his white shirt a tight noose around his throat. In his hand, a manila folder held his resume, his certificates, and the ghost of his father’s hopes.

"Mr. Nguyễn? The panel is ready."

He looked back at her. The sharp glasses. The silent colleagues. The mahogany table that separated "them" from "him."

"Thưa cô," he said, switching to Vietnamese. It was a risk. A firing squad offense. But the subtitle in his head kept running. "Dear Madam."

He took a breath. He stopped translating his soul into foreign sounds.

Tôi... tôi không muốn rời đi. Tôi sợ.