Khoa did not start with Lâm.
He started with Thuận.
"Lê Quý Đôn, right?" he called across the outdoor court.
Several heads turned.
Thuận stood near the court gate with Tân Thành two steps behind him and Tân Phong nowhere obvious. That was Tân Phong's best position. Useful people should become furniture until the room needed them.
Thuận did not answer.
Khoa smiled.
"This is a Trưng Vương and Lương Thế Vinh event. Guests should register."
"We did," Thuận said.
That was news to Lâm.
Khoa blinked once.
Tân Phong appeared beside the registration teacher with three visitor stickers held between two fingers.
"Media support volunteers," he said pleasantly. "Approved by the front desk because your table was overloaded."
The registration teacher looked confused enough to be real.
Good.
Real confusion was harder to edit than fake certainty.
The stickers were ugly yellow rectangles with handwritten initials. They were not official enough to protect anyone. They were official enough to make the first accusation slower.
That was all Tân Phong ever needed.
Bảo Khang watched the stickers and stored them for later.
Khoa did not waste the moment.
"Then support properly," he said. "Your friend looks tense."
He nodded toward Lâm.
Friend.
Not student.
Not recovery representative.
Friend was the first hook.
One Trưng Vương boy bumped Tân Thành's shoulder while pretending to pass.
Tân Thành's jaw flexed.
Thuận lifted two fingers.
No.
Tân Thành smiled instead.
It looked painful.
"Sorry," he said.
The Trưng Vương boy laughed because he thought apology meant fear.
Tân Thành's smile widened.
That was worse.
Khoa clapped once.
"Let's do peer response. Real example. Too many schools talk about safety and bring outside muscle when uncomfortable."
Phones rose.
There it was.
The fight had not started with a punch.
It started with a caption being born.
Khoa turned slightly so the phones caught his clean side and not the boy near the banner frame. He had done this before. Maybe not this exact scene, not with Lâm, not with the same school names, but the body remembered the theater: voice up, hands open, accusation simple enough for strangers to repeat.
Lương Thế Vinh boy brings outside muscle.
Trưng Vương volunteers try to keep order.
Injured student becomes unstable again.
Three captions. Three doors closing.
Lâm felt the old basketball reflex rise, the one that wanted to answer pressure with a drive through the middle. That reflex belonged to games with rules everyone could see.
This court had rules too.
Khoa owned most of them.
Lâm stepped forward.
"I asked him to come."
The court quieted badly.
Thuận's eyes moved to him.
Lâm kept looking at Khoa.
"I sent my location because Bảo Khang used a fake errand last time. If asking for a witness is outside muscle, then write that."
Mai An's camera clicked from under the awning.
Bảo Khang's face lost warmth.
Khoa nodded as if Lâm had given him exactly what he wanted.
"So you admit you prepared people."
"I prepared witnesses."
Khoa's eyes moved under the awning.
Mai An's camera was low, not hidden.
"Media girl too?" he asked, still smiling for the phones. "Careful. A witness who arrives ready starts looking like a participant."
Mai An did not lower the camera.
That was brave.
It was also exactly why people like Khoa learned names.
"Witnesses who fight?"
The Trưng Vương boy near Tân Thành shoved again.
This time harder.
Tân Thành moved.
Not forward.
Sideways.
Thuận had drilled that into him until anger had a new hallway.
The shove passed into empty space. The Trưng Vương boy stumbled into a plastic stool. The stool scraped across wet concrete with a sound ugly enough to pull more eyes.
Tân Thành raised both hands.
"Careful," he said.
He sounded like he hated every letter.
The boy who had shoved him looked back toward Khoa, waiting for the next permission. That one glance told Thuận more than a confession would have. This was not a spontaneous school-pride argument. It was a room with commands disguised as temper.
Khoa's eyes narrowed.
Plan A had wanted Tân Thành first.
Plan B went for Lâm.
Two boys shifted at the edge of the court. Not charging. Closing routes. One near the banner frame. One near the awning pole. Bảo Khang stayed behind the phones.
Lâm saw the shape too late and soon enough.
The boy near the banner frame kicked the lower metal leg outward.
The frame tilted toward Lâm.
Not enough to crush.
Enough to make him catch with the wrong hand.
The rehab specialist's voice returned without permission.
Do not make the injured part prove loyalty.
Lâm turned his shoulder into the frame and let it hit the schoolbag instead.
Metal rang.
Pain ran through his back.
His wrapped hand stayed closed against his chest.
The impact shoved him toward the wet line. A plastic stool scraped behind his heel. The old basketball part of him tried to recover balance with a hop-step, but the rehab part screamed no. Hop-step belonged to a body that trusted its own hand to save the fall.
He no longer had that body.
Khoa stepped in through the sound.
Open palm to sternum.
Lâm lost air.
Wet court under his heel.
He dropped before slipping decided for him.
Good hand down.
Hip back.
Not graceful.
Alive.
Khoa followed, too smooth for a volunteer.
Thuận moved at the gate.
Three Trưng Vương boys moved with him.
The school gang fight began like bad weather: one drop, then the whole ground remembering it could flood.
Thuận lifted two fingers, then opened his hand once.
Not a signal outsiders would understand.
Tân Thành understood and hated it.
Tân Phong understood and moved his phone down instead of up.
Six points.
Gate. Wet line. Banner frame. Awning. Teacher path. Lâm.
Lục Hoa did not teach them to rush the center. It taught them to keep the center from becoming a trap.
A phone flash went off by mistake.
For one white instant, everyone looked guilty.