Let's Kill Her (Book #1)

(ﾒ￣▽￣)︻┳═一(3)

I shift my position on the couch even though I don't need to. "Nighttime."

"Why?" he says, and looks up at me.

"Well," I pause. "Darkness doesn't bother me, and it can be really useful sometimes."

He nods and jots down a note, which by this point in this strange conversation I would really like to see.

"Which of your senses would you say is the strongest?"

"Huh, okay, let me think." When I was little, Appa and I started playing this game where one person was blindfolded and would follow the other through the woods and away from the house for five minutes. The leader would zigzag and go in circles, trying to confuse the blindfold person as much as possible. But if the blindfolded one could find their way back to the house, they won. I always did it by listening and by touching the trees. Appa swore did he did it mostly by scent, which I still think is unbelievable. He started designing outdoor strategy games like the blindfold game after eomma died when I was six. We'd go on camping trips for long weekends and he'd teach me all sorts of tricks - survival skills, I guess is what they really were, though they felt more like puzzles or games back then. He never admitted it, but I think he was trying to find ways to exhaust me physically and mentally and keep me from asking questions about eomma.

Yoo clears his throat. "Next question."

"Wait, I have my answer."

He looks at me pointedly. "I say next question, Suzy."

"Some combination of touch and hearing," I say quickly before he can start talking again, not because I couldn't pass on the question, but because I don't like to be silenced.

He doesn't react. "Would you rather climb a tree, go out to sea, or be pain-free?"

I hesitate. Appa used to give me these kinds of personality tests as a sort of riddle. I always teased him that it was a carry-over from his former life in NIS. But what I want to know now is what going out to sea, my strongest sense, and whether I like day or night have to do with anything.

"It's not a difficult question," Yoo says, and my brain snaps into motion.

Climb a tree probably means you just want to have fun or live in the moment. Go out to sea? Leave where you are, feeling unsatisfied with your current situation. Be pain-free . . . other than the obvious meaning, I'm actually not sure about this one.

Yoo drags a hand down his face and looks between me and the folder as he jots down notes.

"Be pain-free," I say, even though climb a tree is definitely the most accurate for me. However, if there's no thing I get the sense this school doesn't value, it's having carefree fun.

He grunts. "And your capacity for spatial relations?"

"Solid."

"Athletic stamina?"

"I've always played a lot of sports . . . so I would say strong."

"Codes?"

"As in breaking them?" Boy, this guy doesn't spare a word he doesn't have to.

"As in breaking or creating."

I shrug. "No experience."

He looks up at me for a second and I get the sense that he doesn't believe me. "Okay, good. That will give us a starting point at least for class assignment."

Class assignment - I now take it that the classes Kang and Sejeong described aren't just electives, they are the curriculum. Not that I'm sad to give up math and language, but it's also shocking that a prep school wouldn't be more focused on academics.