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Alice Sun had been a stickler for the rules for the longest time. She never did have a penchant for being rebellious or anything of the like. Well, for a small while, she did. With everything that happened with Beijing Ghost and her temporary invisibility powers, she had broken a lot of rules and a lot of laws. It was a serious lapse in judgement, but one she could not bring herself to fully regret.
Without it all, Alice would have never gotten close to Henry Li like she did.
Henry would have never been a part of her life like he is now.
Following the incident, Alice had been doing her best to put the past behind her and be a better, law-abiding person, but every so often, she did feel a little bit willing to break some rules. Nothing illegal, she swears.
“Henry, please– Are you sure we won’t get caught?” Alice whispers frantically, a little more aggressively than needed. “The last time I was here I was packing my bags!”
To be frank, Alice is actually terrified.
What if they get caught? What if she’s banned from even nearing the school? What if her current, new school hears about this and kicks her out, too? Full of unrelenting, anxious adrenaline, a dozen more scenarios run through Alice’s mind.
Being back on Airington grounds, sneaking around, trying to do something that was without a doubt against the rules makes Alice much more than a little nervous. The something in her gut that learned to churn uncomfortably from just being near Airington is positively running on overdrive now. She feels vaguely nauseous. Moreover, she knows her hands have been clammy and shaky ever since they began to approach the school. In fact, Alice even feels the pricks of goosebumps covering her arms. Thankfully, Henry has neither made a comment about her nervousness, nor the sweaty hand interlocked with his.
But then Henry—the number one student of Airington, son of a CEO, heir to SYS, her rival of the past five years, and easily the most competitive and pompous person she knows—has the sheer audacity to roll his eyes at her. In the back of her head, she mocks how quickly that ‘prim and proper’ act of his can disappear so quickly.
At times like these, Alice forgets that Henry has long let his guard down around her; that the little moments of laughter, warmth, and comfortability, ones she has partaken in and witnessed so often, were actually actions entitled to her, and only her (and well, Chanel, too, on occasion. But most definitely Alice, and she would not deny that her heart positively melted everytime she thought about it.), that something about herself brings out this side of him that no one else gets the privilege to see. And so she cherishes every bit of it.
“Yes, I’m confident we can pull this off. We pulled off things hundreds of times more difficult than this,” he whispers back, tugging her hand along in his as they neared Mencius Hall. “What’s one night in my dorm, without any roommates, on a weekend?”
The indirect reference to all they went through for Beijing Ghost and to what was basically her expulsion causes another twinge of anxiety to shoot up her spine. But as soon as it came, all that fear and anxiety she was experiencing disappeared, and in came a heated rush of embarrassment.
Alice knows her face is probably about as red as a ripened tomato but she really cannot help herself.
She knows that Henry stating the facts about his lack of roommates and it being the weekend is supposed to be an assurance for her, to reaffirm the reality that the chances of being caught are slim to none, but did he seriously have to say it the way he did?
Alice drags her free hand down her face, and spins around to face her boyfriend.
“Oh my gosh, do you have to say it like that?” she groans in disbelief. “You’re… You’re making it sound like we’re trying to do something… scandalous.”
Henry’s mouth morphs into a smug smile that makes it very difficult for Alice to not smother him with kisses. “Is that not what this is? Imagine the headlines,” he says casually, with a tilt of his head, “‘SYS’s heir sneaks his girlfriend into his dorm. Read below for details!’”
His teasing certainly did not make her situation any better. Was there a limit to how red a person could get? Because surely Alice would reach the limit at some point. The warmth that rushes to her head makes her think that her face must be a bright, vivid, scarlet.
“I– You– We– Ugh, you’re impossible!” Alice stammers, flustered to the point of speechlessness. She snaps her head away and tries to ignore the way her heart skipped a beat at being called his girlfriend.
The next few beats fill with silence as they trudge towards the dormitory, one of them stewing in their embarrassment while the other did their best to cover the laughs threatening to escape. They are seriously lucky there wasn't any security out there in the open to catch them while they were distracted.
“I’m just joking,” Henry says a moment later, voice impossibly soft. He stops in his tracks, nearly causing Alice to stumble into him at the suddenness, and squeezes her still shaking hand once. “I know just being at Airington is already making you uncomfortable and doing this is making you nervous. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I could call my driver now and get you back to your school.”
Alice nudges his arm with her elbow. If she didn’t want to be here, why would she still be following him, holding his hand, instead of running for the hills?
“It’s cute when you worry, but don’t be silly. I do want to spend the night with you,” she asserts.
Despite the darkness of the night sky above them and absence of street lamps, Alice could still pick out the red that tints the tips of his ears from his usual pale complexion.
“…Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” she echoes, smiling.
They creep through the hallways of Meniscus Hall as quietly as they can. The jingle of Henry’s keys as he unlocks his single dorm makes Alice’s fears return briefly, until they get inside and the door is securely shut behind them. As they slip off their shoes at the door, Alice sweeps her gaze around the room, she notices that very little had changed from when she had been in there last.
Henry guides her over to his bed, sitting down on the edge first and patting the space next to him in a silent invitation for her to sit beside him.
She sits, but raises an eyebrow at him. “I feel like it’s nighttime half of the time I’ve been in your dorm.”
“It seems that nighttime is just the most convenient time for us,” Henry smiles at her. “Besides, those times were more situational, while this one is a little more intentional.”
Alice huffs a little at his response, but the fondness in the action is obvious. The other times she had been in his dorm were all prior to their currently established relationship. It was definitely more different now that things were official between them.
She peers down at their ever intertwined hands, and then looks up at Henry. The palpable endearment and affection in his eyes makes her feel shy no matter how many times she has been on the receiving end of it and known it, because who knows how many times he has directed such looks at her before she was aware of them? It always surprises her how unabashedly her boyfriend—and Alice rejoices knowing that was one of the many things he is to her, that she gets to call him hers—is when it comes to loving her and displaying those feelings so easily.
Really, how was anyone able to meet such a look head on? Feeling restless under his gaze, she leans back onto his bed, lying on it, and drapes one arm over her eyes, while keeping her other hand interlocked with his.
“I’m so lucky to have you,” Alice murmurs. She is sure that her voice has gone sappy and fond in the way it often does because of Henry.
Henry mimics her, the bed dipping slightly further as he reclines back.
“No, it was me who got lucky with you,” he assures with full confidence, and Alice gets the feeling he is referencing his words from not so long ago when he affirmed his love for her to Lin Ayi.
Alice thinks to herself that if her heart wasn’t melting before, it had to have been reduced to a puddle now.
She raises her arm to peek at Henry, but the moment her eyes land on him, she realizes that he is already watching her carefully. They maintain eye contact as she gently brings a hand up to cup his face. Henry eyelids flutter shut and he leans into her touch as she caresses his cheek with swipes of her thumb. It’s nice to be able to share moments like these together, she thinks distantly.
Abruptly, Alice sits up and slides herself backwards to lean back against the wall Henry’s bed is pushed up to.
Henry peers curiously at her. “What's the matter?”
“Nothing. Here, lay your head on my shoulder.”
Shifting his position, Henry does as she suggests, leaning on her and resting his head in the crook of her neck. Alice leans her head on top of his. In the silence, Henry begins to hum a small tune to fill the quiet.
Both of them are content to sit there, without speaking a word, to simply just share space together. So, Alice thinks, and falls a little deeper into her thinking. Something comes up from the very back of her mind, words that resurface from what nearly feels like a lifetime ago, and she just has to say it.
“Guess you got your calculations wrong when you told Jake that the probability of you bringing a girl into your dorm was ‘quite low,’ huh?”
Henry groans. “Really? You had to bring that up right now?”
“What’s wrong? It is what you said to him that time,” Alice giggles, delighting in his annoyance.
He rolls his eyes at her for the second time that night. “It’s Jake.”
She taps him on the nose with her index finger. “That’s not very well-mannered, Henry Li.”
He hums again, content. “But what does it matter when it’s you, who knows the me behind that mask of decorum?”
“Real cheesy of you…” Alice mumbles. Henry keeps quiet, closing his eyes and smiling to himself.
She falls back into her thinking for real this time. No more thoughts that would break their blissful moment of peace. But after a while of ruminating, there is something she has wanted to say for a long time, and perhaps this would be a good time to. So she speaks up, yet again.
“I’ve been scared. For a long time.”
“Of what?” Henry asks, tone light, and raising his head from her shoulder to get a better look at her.
“Being alone, invisible even,” Alice answers. She laughs a little at the irony.
“Alice…”
“People only ever saw me as The Study Machine, the girl who won ‘that big award,’ or the one who aced ‘that test’…” she explains as unbothered as she can manage, but she knows there are traces of leftover bitter feelings present in her voice.
In the corner of her vision, Alice sees the way Henry’s face changes. The expression on his face is likely one she has seen several times previously—a combination of crestfallen and anger on her behalf, while ever good-looking despite whatever internal conflict raged inside him—but she had never gotten a clear look of it as she did then. It was truly unfair how attractive he could look no matter what. But she continues to stare off to the side, choosing to look out the window and gaze into the night sky. Alice raises a hand and settles it in his hair, carding through it. His hair is soft, she observes.
Henry says nothing, though she bets he must want to say something, leaving her space to continue if she so chooses to, in which she does. Her heart fills with warmth as she is reminded of how good of a listener he is. It is easily one of Alice’s favorite qualities of his.
“…And I was always so worried about the future.”
“But?” he prompts.
“But… being with you…” she begins, then pauses to collect her words. Alice gently presses her head onto his shoulder. “It makes me feel less afraid.”
Henry holds her hand a little tighter like she could disappear into thin air right then and there, but still loosely like she was delicate.
She takes a deep breath in, readying herself. Honestly, she did not know where she found the sudden bout of bravery, but perhaps it was because of how much she trusted Henry that the words began to pour out of her much like an unrestrained waterfall.
“I don’t feel invisible around you. Instead, I feel seen,” Alice confesses. “I feel lighter, like all I have to do is focus on the present with you, rather than having to think far off into the future and worrying about the unknowns. I feel like I can face anything as long as I have you by my side, as long as you are my anchor to reality.”
Henry lifts her hand up to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me.” She finally looks at him and there is so much adoration in his eyes that she kind of wants to cry. “ I think I feel the same way. Not the exact same, but I’ve felt similarly.”
Alice waits. She thinks she could, and would, wait a millenia for him. She patiently lets him string together what he wants to say.
“I wasn’t invisible, per se, but no one ever tried to get to know me. I suppose being number one made me something like untouchable…”
Internally, she wants to snort a little at the arrogance of the sentence, but she knows that things are much deeper than that, because it is exactly what she experienced too.
“I was Henry Li to everyone, rather than simply Henry. But you– you see me for who I really am—just Henry,” he says slowly, nudging his head on hers. “And while I’ve never quite had to worry about my future, you make me feel secure about it anyway. I don’t have to worry about it because I can already picture you there with me.”
Alice’s hand in his hair pauses at the deep sincerity in his voice. “Do you mean it? You really mean that?” she whispers. The words ring in her head again.
I don’t have to worry about it because I can already picture you there with me.
“Of course, Alice. I mean every word of it,” Henry says softly.
“…Wait, did you just like… indirectly propose to me?” She glances down at the boy laying against her.
When Henry is flustered, he covers it up smoothly, naturally suave. When Henry blushes, it is only ever his ears that reddens, nearly always maintaining perfect composure. When Henry is unsure, he tends to mask it with confidence. When Henry fumbles his words, he finds a way to spin it around to make it seem intentional.
But now, studying her boyfriend, Alice becomes witness to something totally unexpected, something she has never seen before in all her years of knowing him.
There is a deep flush all across his face, spanning beyond his cheeks, turning him a delightful shade of pink. Henry seems to be at a total loss for words, and he brings a hand to his mouth as he stutters out, “Pro– proposing?!”
Alice has never, ever heard Henry say anything but a perfect, proper sentence before.
“You said you could already picture me there with you– in the future,” she says, stumbling a little on her words as well. Gosh, is his flustered state contagious? Alice feels her face warm and suddenly she wants to fan herself with her hand.
Henry mumbles something that she doesn’t quite catch, despite how close in distance they are.
“What?”
He mumbles only slightly louder.
“Henry, really, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
Finally, he gazes up at her shyly.
The Henry she knew was never shy. Alice hopes she can continue to discover all the sides of Henry she has still yet to see, and in turn, show him all the sides of her he has yet to meet as well.
“Only if you’ll have me, that is.”
Alice gapes a little at him. Scratch that, she is actually looking at him with her jaw dropped open in surprise. Did he just say what she thinks she heard him say?
“Me? You want– you want to marry me?” she stumbles through her words.. “Why? When? How?”
“What do you mean? You’re Alice Sun. You are amazing. You’re intelligent, talented, passionate, dedicated, determined, resilient, caring, and so much more,” Henry proclaims, finding his courage. “I’m not sure how I lived without you before. I want to be there for you. I want to support you in whatever you do. I want to not only see you flourish, but to grow alongside you.”
As a finishing touch, he leaves a feather light kiss on her cheek, but the impact is no less pronounced. It leaves Alice to go red all over again from both his words and gesture.
“I– Henry… Don’t you think we’re getting ahead of ourselves? I mean, the future is far away…”
“Sorry, was that too much? I’m really sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Henry blushes furiously once more, definitely rivaling her own redness. He leans a back from her, almost like he was worried she would push him out of her arms for all he said. In actuality, it was the opposite. Alice wanted to hold onto him and never let go.
“No, no, not at all,” she rushes to say. “I was really just surprised. I would have never thought I would receive such a heartfelt declaration… and I wouldn’t have ever imagined it would be you giving it. But I swear I wouldn’t want it any other way either.” Alice presses a kiss on his forehead. “Of course I’ll have you,”
Henry absolutely slumps in relief against her. “You have no idea how worried I was for a moment there.”
She giggles, her laugh ringing out gently. Leave it to Henry to be shy one moment, bold the next, and then shy all over again. Alice would be a hypocrite if she claimed she wasn’t the same way, though.
Since he just proposed to her, it wasn’t too weird if she dropped some big words right? Like, he just dropped the biggest words, what more could it be if she says something of similar weight?
“I love you. I’m so, so in love with you,” Alice says, wrapping both her arms around him to bring him even closer to her.
“What?”
“I love you, Henry. That’s what.”
“Really?” He reciprocates her hug and holds her just as tightly, if not more. “I love you, too.”
“We would probably sound crazy to other people, declaring love and marriage like this when we’re so young,” Alice chuckles, feeling self-conscious.
“Is it really crazy when it feels right?”
She pauses at that. It’s true. Why would anyone else’s opinion matter? Their love for each other wasn’t a secret to the other whatsoever. It wasn’t like they were eloping right at that instant. So what if they are just two eighteen year olds with large hopes for the future? They have time, plenty of it.
“You’re right,” Alice admits, and begins to pepper his face with kisses like she has been wanting to all day. Though Henry claims to not be ticklish, he fights back giggles as her palms hold him on each side of his head.
In the morning, Henry will call his driver and get her back to her school with none the wiser. In the year ahead, they will be graduating. In the years after that, they will be going to post-secondary school.
But right now, none of it matters. They are simply Alice and Henry—two teenagers who have each fallen head over heels for the other. Hours of chatter between the two of them go by.
Henry has fallen silent and his breathing slow, telltale signs that he has drifted asleep. Alice doesn’t blame him; their situation is pretty comfortable after all, leaned against each other. She gazes at him with affection as he dozes. With sleep, Henry looks truly relaxed and young. Unreachable, like nothing could bother him. His long, dark lashes flutter every now and then, and his mouth releases soft puffs of air as he breathes out.
With the comforting weight of Henry’s head on her shoulder, Alice thinks to herself, there really is no place she would rather be than right there with him.
Eventually, the silence pulls her into a peaceful sleep too—one free of anxieties, expectations, and looming events from the upcoming future. Not like any of those things would have mattered anyway, not when they were together, side by side, to guide each other forward.