If You Could See the Sun (21)

“And how do they do that?” I ask.

A small, self-satisfied smile spreads over his lips. “I thought about using cash at first—it’s untraceable that way, and it’d simplify the process—but then I came up with something better.” He clicks away from the app for a second and shows me an official-looking email from the bank, addressed to the owners of Beijing Ghost. “I asked a friend at the Bank of China to help set up a private account just for this—under a fake name, of course.”

My head snaps up. “Isn’t that...”

Isn’t that illegal? The question dangles at the tip of my tongue, but then, with a bubble of hysterical laughter, I remember that everything about this is at least a little bit illegal.

Alice Sun: Airington academic scholarship recipient. Honor roll student. Student council representative. And now criminal. Who would’ve thought?

“Isn’t that what?” Henry prompts.

“Nothing. Never mind.” I shake my head. Then I glance up at the app again, with its bright blue logo and sleek, professional interface, and can’t help asking, “How did you get so good at this?”

“I had to design an app on my own to convince my father to let me help out at SYS. He wanted the company culture to be as meritocratic as possible.” He combs back his messy waves with one hand, looking for a moment like the perfect picture of natural genius and nonchalance. “I was only thirteen at the time, so the app was obviously flawed, but it was proof enough that I could do...well, something.”

I hide my surprise. I’d always assumed his father handed out work opportunities and privileges whenever he could, maybe even forced Henry into a high-ranking role at a young age. I’d assumed Henry never had to prove himself to anyone.

I make a vague sound with the back of my throat, and busy myself scrolling through the app. As much as I hate to admit it, Henry’s right—it is easy to use. Not only that, but I can’t find a single discernible fault.

“Well?” Henry leans forward. His dark eyes are alight, his chin angled up a few degrees, the sure, sharp lines of his body tense with something like anticipation. I realize he’s waiting for me to give my opinion—no, for me to compliment him, like some kid proudly holding up his artwork for a class show-and-tell.

My lips twitch. “I didn’t know you had such a praise kink.”

Surprise—maybe even embarrassment—flickers over his face. Then that calm, expressionless mask I’m so used to seeing immediately slides back into place, and I almost regret having spoken. “I do not have a—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” But when I turn and open my mouth to tease him further, I pause.

At this angle, under the fluorescent hallway lights, the fatigue shadowing his features is more noticeable than ever. He must’ve pulled at least two or three all-nighters these past few days just to finish working on the app.

And even though I know he’s only doing it for profit, for his own interests, the words tumble from my lips anyway: “Thank you...for doing all of this. Really. It—it’s even better than I imagined.”

Maybe it’s just a trick of the light, but I swear I see his ears turn pink.

“I’m glad,” he says quietly, holding my gaze for what seems like a second too long.

I clear my throat and look away, feeling strangely self-conscious all of a sudden. “Right. Anyway, um. What do we do next?”

He responds by pulling another shiny new iPhone out from his pocket. “No one at our school knows this number,” he explains, misreading my expression.

“You have two phones?”

“Three, actually,” he says, his voice matter-of-fact. “One for work, one for personal contacts, and one for myself.”

Whatever rush of gratitude I felt toward him just now immediately evaporates. My fingers curl into fists at my sides. I learned not long after I first came to Airington that comparing myself to people like Henry will only make me miserable, but I still can’t help thinking about the battered phone in my own pocket, how Mama had to work overtime during the Spring Festival just to save enough money to buy it.

“All we need now is to get the word out about the app,” Henry’s saying, opening up a few different social media apps with impressive speed: WeChat for the local kids, Facebook Messenger for ABCs, WhatsApp for Malaysians, Kakao for Koreans.

“They’re not going to believe you if you just say there’s someone who can turn invisible,” I point out. “Especially if you’re messaging them from an anonymous number.”

“No,” he agrees. “Which is why I’m leaving that part out completely. All that matters to them is what the app can help them do, not how it’s done.”

Even though all of this is more or less my idea, now that it’s really happening, I can’t fight back the slow creep of doubt. What if everyone dismisses the app as a joke? What if they report it to the teacher? Or what if—

“Don’t worry,” Henry says without even glancing up, as if he can read my mind.

“I’m not worried,” I grumble. I realize I’ve wrung my fingers into knots, and quickly force them to still at my sides. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

He finishes typing out one last message on Kakao, then reaches for his other phone again. “Give it a minute.”