THE PERFECT MURDER.

24

        NOT SURE HOW THE IDEA SLIPPED Mai's head, I am the first to suggest it during lunch with the two other girls. "How about checking the surveillance footage of Mr. Kim's classroom? We can find out who it was who stole your copy." She blinks after I say it, probably surprised she had not thought of it. I, on the other hand, feel good to be at least one step ahead of the smarter girl.

"Yeah that's a good idea." Doyeon agrees. "I still think it is incredibly weird that Doyoung happened to have a copy of your paper and is conveniently MIA right now."

Mai shakes her head. "I don't think it's him, as suspicious as it seems. Bam said it could be something within the family, which actually could make a lot of sense. I suspected maybe it was a past lover, but we really don't know anything about Seulgi's family life. The person who would know most is you, Doyeon."

"She never brought them up." Doyeon responds.

And the other girl nods. "Yeah like she refused to talk about them. Perhaps they were all hiding something too, I don't think we should cross that off the list yet."

The three of us give each other a glance. Yeah, it's a given to keep it between the table. "After school ends this week?" I ask.

"Dinner." Mai corrects. "After dinner on Friday. Meet at the school."

Doyeon sighs. "You guys are so badass. Plotting schemes together, it's so cute."

When Mai rolls her eyes, I laugh. Clearly this isn't the first time Kim has pointed it out due to Mai's upfront indifference. Then I shrug. "We did actually break into the school once."

"I cannot tell who the bad influence is here."

"That's the point." Mai states. "We're both bad."

🥀

DAYS LATER, I RETURN BACK TO the red room. According to my draft plans, the storyline had extended past the climax. Things are starting to settle down by a mild fraction, though the murder has yet to be solved. But along the way, I get sidetracked. There's a momentary lapse of creativity it seems, my own miseries of the world were slowly fading, I smiled a lot more now which was honestly a relief, but with that my ability to pour out my sadness into something beautiful like writing was diminishing. A little concerning, I hadn't had the thought to worry about it yet.

I'm reading Sara Shepard — yes it's gotten to that — trying to get some element of eeriness into the current scene I had deliberately tried (and failed) to capture. Just as I get to flip the page, a small rustle from outside the window catches my attention. I turn to the side. Surely it was just an animal.

Then the window cracks open, allowing for a skinny leg to climb inside. Horrified, I jump back from my chair, grabbing the closest thing to me — happens to be that cursed Shepard book — before swinging the hardback cover directly at my assailant.

There's a loud yelp, before he crashes to the ground. Peering over the book, I take one curious look at the boy on the ground, before letting out a loud guffaw.

"Do not sneak up on me again." I laugh again. "You actually made me jump in my own skin."

"Jump in your own skin?" Yeonjun scowls at me from the ground. "You sent me to another planet with that force." He takes my hand when I help him up. It's only after that I realize he's wearing his branded jacket from earlier.

"Oh, were you at..." I hesitate. "A party? Meeting? Excursion?"

"Ceremony." He corrects. "Initiation one." My lips purse into an 'o', nodding slowly. "I have to complete a certain amount of oaths to be sworn in."

"So it's official now?"

"I think so."

"Interesting." I place the book back down. "Was my sister there?"

"No. From what I heard, she usually doesn't come to these kind of things. She's higher up, as you know. Just takes care of the official business."

I shrug. It seems typical of her for sure.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" I respond. "Trying to work on my draft. The deadline is coming up in a couple months, so I really need to finish it up." I pull my hair loose from its tie. "I doubt I'm gonna' get much done, may as well head home."

On the way back I ask him how he knew I had been here.

"I checked the diner. You weren't there. So, then I went to your house, the lights were off."

"You're so creepy." I nudge him. "Really should put that restraining order on you." He laughs loudly.

"Hey I've been meaning to ask."

"Hm?"

Yeonjun glances up at the sky. "Do you ever think Seulgi saw you as competition?"

"Competition?" I frown, shaking my head. "Don't think so. We never really talked enough to be competition. I wasn't close like that with them, always considered the black sheep."

"Not like I hated it though. I was fine being separate, but I don't believe there was any sort of feud between us. My title as an IT girl was solely because I was smart. Seulgi is an all-rounder I suppose, but she wasn't at my level."

"You sound so conceited." Yeonjun snorts. "But I have a feeling you're right about that."

"Why?" I look at him for a moment. "It's an odd question, does this have to do with her murder?"

He nods. "I have a slight theory, but I need to see the footage of Mr. Kim's room. And I think I might be right about who stole your paper."

"Ooh, look at you Nate the Great. Finally started sleuthing?"

"You're an influence Mai. Every time I'm with you we talk about one mystery or another. It just kinda' happened."

I laugh again. "That's cute." Again this feels so different from my past relationship. It's something I think about so much nowadays, just how different Yeonjun is from whatever I thought I had deserved back then.

"I'll call you?" I ask, leaning backwards to take one step up the porch. Yeonjun gives me a toothless smile.

"Sure."

Reaching, I hook an arm around him. He smells nice, like pine needles and campfire smoke. Taking in an inhale, my chin rests in the crook of his shoulder.

"Thanks." It's not really for anything specific, maybe he picks up on that.

"Yeah." When I retract to officially head up the stairs, he calls out. "It kinda' goes both ways." Maybe this narrative doesn't do justice of just how exactly I feel whenever I'm around him now, but perhaps it's not an emotion one can simply write down. It's too complex, too beautiful, that there isn't a word great enough to describe it's depth.

And whatever that complicated thing is, that is exactly how I feel right now.