Su and Shi were twins, cousins of a family friend.

“In banking? Both?” I asked.

“Uh huh. What’s your major?” Shi asked.

I hesitated for a brief second. “Literature,” I said, and giggled out of embarrassment.

“Ok. You must be very good at English. What about him?” Shi said, looking at my brother. Then he turned to my cousins, Tin and Na, too.

“A wide range,” Shi said after hearing all of our answers.

Shi sat next to me during xì dách, and we only talked when we were confused whether the card on the floor was mine or his. I was confident being the dealer because I’d won two lô tô games before. But after three rounds, I passed my hand to Na.

“I’m broke,” I said to Shi, lifting my wallet for him to see a 20000 đồng bill underneath.

The next round, I bet 20000 đồng, and Shi put in 20000 more. I turned to look at him, but he told me to focus on the game.

“I trust you,” he whispered into my ear.

Over the next rounds, I won and lost, and Shi kept raising my bet. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t the luckiest person in the room. But it was the third day of Tết, so I tried not to call myself unlucky. I looked at Shi’s wallet and saw a thick stack of bills underneath. He was winning a lot; I guessed he was trying to make more from my hand.

Shi whispered into my ear the whole time we were there — mostly telling me how to play the cards. When he laughed, he buried his face in my shirt. Occasionally, he put his hand on my thigh. I could feel our knees touch, but I didn’t move, so as not to make it awkward. Compared to me, Shi seemed grounded.

The host ended the night with a round of baccarat, and my wallet stayed the same. When we were walking towards the door, Shi nudged me to say goodbye to the host when I had already done so. At the door, as I was getting on my brother’s bike, I looked at him getting on the bike with Su. None of us said goodbye to each other. A week later, Na asked me if I knew which twin was older.

“Su, I think,” I said.

“I thought the one sitting next to you was the older one,” she said.

“Su-shi so I guess it makes sense that Su is the older one.”

I took a sip of my tea.

Na said, “Shi kept buffing you. A lot.”