If You Could See the Sun (34)

“You’re still here?”

I realize he must be talking to Henry. That Henry’s been outside this whole time...doing what? Standing guard? Waiting for me?

Or does he not trust me to get the job done on my own?

“Of course,” Henry says steadily. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“If I’m okay?” Jake echoes, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. “Dude. It was coffee, not poison or some shit.”

When Henry doesn’t reply to that, Jake huffs out a sigh. “Okay, man, I didn’t want it to come to this but... You’ve been hanging around here a lot, you know? Like, I know your room’s nearby and all, but I mean right here, specifically, and way more than normal. So...either you’re trying to steal something from my dorm or you’re like, secretly in love with me.”

I expect Henry to freeze up, maybe deny it or make some bad excuse and leave as soon as possible, but he replies with perfect calm, “Yes.”

There’s a significant pause.

“Y-yes?” Jake stammers, clearly as taken aback as I am. “Um...to what, exactly?”

“Yes to the latter, of course.”

It takes every ounce of willpower in my body not to snort out loud. I wait for Jake to call him out on his bullshit right away, but I’ve clearly underestimated Jake’s confidence in his own charms, because a second later he stammers out:

“O-oh, well... I mean, don’t get me wrong, my man, you’re great and all. Really. And the whole being gay thing, that’s—like, I’m totally cool with it. You know, love is love is love and all that...” He clears his throat. “But I just—I don’t really feel the same way about you.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah... But, like, no hard feelings, right? We good?”

“Certainly.” Henry pauses. “And I do apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable by hanging around here so often. In fact, I’ll be leaving right this minute...”

I know this is my cue to get the hell out of here, but something makes me pause. Scroll through Jake’s photo album again. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for until I come across a video taken of Jake a few months back.

Blood pounds in my ears. Adrenaline and fear and something like excitement shoot through my veins in a dizzying rush.

Could I? Should I?

And I guess it all comes down to this: I don’t know whether it’d be morally right to take matters into my own hands, but I do know that Jake is an asshole. I also know that Rainie’s been worrying herself sick for what must be months now, and that this kind of situation isn’t uncommon at all, yet somehow it’s always the girls who get blamed for it, who are slut shamed and silenced and forced to shoulder the consequences. And I know that Rainie and I aren’t friends, that we’ve barely even spoken to each other apart from our one awkward conversation in the bathroom, but I still can’t help feeling angry on her behalf.

I still can’t resist the urge to teach Jake a lesson.

My fingers fly over the keyboard, almost as if acting on their own accord. For once, I’m grateful rather than embarrassed to have sent my teachers so many homework questions and follow-ups in the past; I’ve got every single one of their emails memorized.

By the time Jake pushes open the door, grumbling something about coffee and having too many people fall in love with him, I’ve done what I need to. I glide past him, swift and silent as a battleship in the night, finally ready to return home after winning an unlikely war.



* * *



We’re in English class when Mr. Chen opens up the email.

I made sure he would. The email subject says nothing but “Class 12C, Jake Nguyen: Urgent—please show in class.” Everyone can see it, too; Mr. Chen loves showing us video analyses of our texts on YouTube, so his laptop is always connected to the projector.

Across the room, Jake’s face goes blank with confusion at the sight of his own name on the screen.

I suppress a smile, feeling almost giddy with anticipation. Finally, I want to sing. Only an hour has passed since I fled from Jake’s dorm room and finished packing for school, but it seems like an entire lifetime ago, with every moment in between spent waiting for the scheduled email to come through.

“Now what’s this?” Mr. Chen muses out loud, his eyebrows raised.

Jake blinks. “I didn’t...”

But the rest of his sentence is drowned out when Mr. Chen clicks onto the attached video. Immediately, a BLACKPINK song blasts through the speakers at full volume, so loud that half the class jump in their seats.

Then the Jake in the video comes into view on the screen. His gelled hair is shorter than it is now, his skin still burnt a dark gold from the summer break, and he’s clearly intoxicated, his cheeks so red they practically glow. His eyes are half-shut as he sings along to the song, flailing his arms about and stamping his feet in an uneven rhythm as if trying to do the choreography as well. Judging from the family portraits and giant porcelain vases in the background, it looks like he’s at someone’s house, but the place has been redecorated to resemble a nightclub. Flashing colored lights dot Jake’s low V-neck top and sweat-coated forehead, and more teenagers hoot and clap and cackle like wild witches in the background.

Someone in the video screams over the music, their words slurring together so they’re just barely comprehensible, “Who d’you reckon’s the hottest girl in the year level?”