3: 3

My phone rang. My father's voice came through, wheezing.

"Nathaniel... have you two come yet? The nurse said the shadow in my lung got bigger today. I just can't stop worrying about you two..."

I was standing at the foot of the office tower, rain slanting in, striking the screen of my phone.

"...She'll come tomorrow."

There was a silence on his end, then two coughs.

"Nathaniel, let me ask you one more time. That twenty thousand... it really was a dowry, wasn't it?"

I gripped the phone, my nails digging into my palm.

I opened my mouth, wanting to say something.

He cut me off, his voice very soft. "Your dad knows."

The line went dead.

My social feed refreshed. Wilfred had posted a photo.

Trackside, Kayla leaned against a sports car holding a helmet, and Wilfred sat in the passenger seat flashing a V at the camera.

The caption: 【Racing against a certain someone. No matter what, I can't beat her!】

Hundreds of likes underneath, people egging him on.

【Ms. Vance let you win on purpose! Everyone knows she's taken prizes for racing!】

【The boyfriend's so handsome!】

I swiped the screen away and lifted my head. The rain hit my face, as cold as the iced Americano this morning.

Kayla was right.

Ten years ago I really was selling eggs. My mother had died and my father was gravely ill, and I was eighteen. I had to make money.

She spent twenty thousand and bought ten years of me, dragged me out of that leaking shack,

gave me a place to live, a chance at school, and a way to cover my father's surgery.

She really had saved me from the pit, which is why I clawed my way up so desperately, why I fought so hard to stand at her side.

I wanted to be worthy of the light she'd given me. I wanted her, when she looked back at me, to feel no regret over choosing me.

But in her eyes, I had never once stood up.

I lowered my head, my shoulders trembling faintly, and then the tears wouldn't stop.

I stood in the rain for almost forty minutes.

I looked down at my own face in a puddle, rainwater mixed with the mess of me, my lips drained of color.

Ten years ago, crouched at the roadside of the night market, I'd been just this ragged.

The difference was that back then I'd had loose change gripped in my hand, my mind on buying my father a bowl of hot dumpling soup.

Now I had seven figures in my bank account, and I was standing at the foot of the tallest office tower downtown.

But I felt just as wretched as I had ten years ago.

I turned and went back into the office, sat down at my desk, opened my laptop, and spread the killed proposal out again.

I kept typing until three in the morning. I redid eight versions, reworking every single place Wilfred could possibly nitpick.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up.

Kayla: 【Why aren't you back yet?】

I stared at those words, thrown for a moment.

Ten years, and every time it was me waiting at home, waiting at the door, waiting at the restaurant. She never once asked about anything of mine.

This was the first time she'd ever asked me. I gripped the phone, typing:

【At the office reworking the proposal. Just finished, coming right—】

Before I could finish, the next message popped up:

【Wilfred says his stomach's upset. Pick up a bowl of hangover soup on your way, and the seafood chowder from that porridge place on the south side.】

I stared at those two lines, and suddenly I laughed.

I laughed until the tears rolled down, ran into my mouth, bitter and salty.

Nathaniel, what exactly are you still hoping for?

I pressed the screen dark and didn't reply.

The rain stopped. The edge of the sky turned a gray blue.

I saved the new proposal and sent it to their inbox.

Then I opened the HR system.

【Transfer to a branch office, term of one year, handover can be completed within a week.】

The cursor hovered over "Submit."

I looked at it for a long time.

I thought of that night ten years ago, when I crouched on the ground and looked up to see Kayla holding a bank card between her fingers, saying down at me, "Be my boyfriend."

I'd thought fate had finally decided to cut me a break.

I clicked the left button. A window popped up: 【Submitted, pending approval.】

Outside the window, the city was slowly waking.

And I had finally decided: I would never again live as the thing someone bought for twenty thousand.

4: 4

My new proposal had been picked back up, and the partnership was moving along smoothly.

The celebration dinner was held in the banquet hall, the big screen behind us cycling through this quarter's project results and team photos.

I stood on the stage with the microphone, white suit, everything about me sharp and straight.

"Thanks to the team. This proposal got off the ground because of all of you. This one's to everyone."

The applause was still going when the screen behind me buzzed.

The slides had switched.

A yellowed photo.

A night market, a plastic tent, a boy with short-cropped hair crouched beside a basket of eggs.

His school uniform washed pale, his fingers red with cold, head down as he counted out a customer's change.

In the lower right corner, a line of small watermark text: 【The one bought for twenty thousand.】

The banquet hall went quiet.

Some turned to look at the screen. Some looked at me.

Wilfred stepped out of the crowd, a glass of red wine in hand, grinning wide.

"Surprise! The planning department slipped in a little gratitude segment. 'Thanks to the person who helped me most.'"

He turned to face the room. "Let me make a proper introduction. This is Mr. Nathaniel Stewart. Ten years ago, Kayla brought him back from a night market for twenty thousand. Without her, there'd be no him today. So the person who helped you most has to be Kayla, doesn't it?"

"That's why we picked this particular photo tonight. To thank Kayla, and to thank Nathaniel himself—"

He paused, then added, "After all, not everyone's lucky enough to get bought for twenty thousand. Right?"

The room stayed silent, then the murmurs started.

"So it really was true... I thought it was just a rumor."

"I'd heard before that Ms. Vance was keeping him on her dime. Didn't think they'd actually air it out in public."

"No wonder he made it from little assistant to director. Turns out that's the kind of skill that got him up there."

Somewhere in the corner, someone laughed.

It was Kayla.

She leaned against the bar, a smile at the corner of her mouth, her eyes crossing the crowd to land on me.

Wilfred walked over and hooked his arm through hers. "Kayla, go up and say a few words. This is your masterpiece, after all."

He tugged her up onto the stage. She dipped her head with a small laugh as she took the microphone.

Then she looked up at me.

I stood under the spotlight, the white suit washed pale in the glare, my face just as pale.

"Twenty thousand ten years ago. Still twenty thousand now, I'd say."

Her voice wasn't loud, but under the chandelier everyone heard it.

"I'll pay twenty thousand. Buy a smile from you."

"It's a celebration dinner. Why aren't you smiling? Come on. Give me a smile."

The room erupted.

I stared at her and didn't move.

She frowned.

"You want me to keep going? You want two hundred thousand, fine."

I drew a bank card from my suit pocket and held it out to her between my fingers.

"On this card is every dollar you've spent on me these ten years."

"Tuition, living expenses, clothes, skincare. And back then—"

I paused.

"That twenty thousand. All of it's here, not a cent short. I calculated the interest at the bank's fixed rate. Anything extra, call it my gift to you."

The banquet hall went completely still.

I set the card on the tabletop and pushed it forward.

"The egg-selling boy you bought for twenty thousand ten years ago, I'm officially giving him back to you today."

"He doesn't want it anymore."

"Kayla Vance, from today on you don't owe me, and I don't owe you."