THE PERFECT MURDER.

04

        I THINK THE REASON WHY THE IT girls like me is because of the food at Lalisa's. I have to admit, the milkshakes are one of a kind, very sweet and colorful. While the girls mainly stick around for the food — and sometimes to partake in conversations with my very cool older sister — the boys come mostly to try and gain her attention. However, high schools boys don't really catch her eye, Lalisa already has a fair share of guys her age which pine for her attention. And one happens to be a good friend, I believe the two had grown up together, BamBam. He's also a cop.

"Hey Mai." The older boy greets when he notices me grabbing my milkshake from the counter. It seems that he just entered the diner, and he smiles at me. I return it, taking a sip of my drink. "Hey Bam, how's it going?"

"Hm. Did your sister pay you to be nice to me today?" Over the years, he's become a master at dealing with my unfriendliness. Most the time he does stop by to talk to me, I am in unrelenting mood, and overtime he has learnt best how to deal with them. Lisa used to yell at me for always being rude to him, considering he is a cop. I don't care if he is a cop, if he's homeless, or if he's her husband. Since he shares similarities with Lalisa, I've learnt to find him very vexatious.

I scowl at him. "Oh quit it. I can be in a good mood sometimes."

"I don't think I will ever get used to you being nice, Mai." Bambam pauses when he notices Lisa's presence at the restaurant. She looks at him pointedly.

"Don't you have work?"

"I'm starving." He glances around. "You have anything good?"

"You ask this as if you don't come here every day." She grumbles, tapping at her tablet screen, probably entering in his order. "Your usual?"

"Sure." His gaze returns back to me. "So your school started?"

I scowl again, elbowing him. "Why do you even care?" At my bitter choice of words, Lisa glances up to shoot me a glare.

"Mai, I don't get why you're so rude to everyone."

I smirk. "At least everyone's aware of my true personality." Her eyes narrow more at my response, but like always, she says nothing. The clear the silence, the bells of the front doors chime loudly, and in steps another costumer. Lisa's irritated expression fades, and her golden front returns once again, polished hands gripping the counter gently.

"Yeonjun! I'm glad to see you're back. How was your first day at school?"

I whirl around when I recognize the name, then glance between him and my sister. Since when were they buddy-buddy? I look at Bambam incredulously, and he shrugs. His face almost seems to mock me teasingly, as if to say you know she's friends with many people. I roll my eyes at him. I don't know what he sees in her.

"It was okay." Yeonjun shrugs. "Kind of boring, to be honest." Then he looks at me and nods. "Hey Mai."

I furrow my brows. "Hey?" I did not recall a time where he had approached me before. The only type of interaction we had ever carried was when I had made eye contact with him briefly in the halls, and when he had looked at me in class. The fact that he spoke to me so boldly, is weird. No one's done that before, not even Doyeon, who has been my friend for a while.

Lisa slides over a small box of fries, which Yeonjun takes before walking down the diner. I watch him retreat without wavering, only stopping when my older sister clears her throat.

"Why do you do that to everyone?"

"Do what?"

"Look like you hate them."

I laugh. "It's called judgment, sister. They need to know that I'm trying to figure out what to make of them." I sip at my straw. "Besides, how do you even know him?"

It's her turn to chuckle. "Oh come on sister. Just because he's from the other side of town doesn't mean I don't know who he is."

🥀

WHEN I'M AT HOME BY MYSELF, which is actually pretty often considering Lisa stays at her diner late, I try to brainstorm ideas for my writing project by thinking aloud. It's a weird technique, but it's worked in the past, putting all my ideas into auditory space for me to play around with.

"What if I wrote a story..." I roll over into my stomach, staring at my laptop screen. "about the popular life at a notorious school for rich children? Each one of them has a secret which they don't want to be exposed, and they get thrown into a texting warfare in which their harasser gets them to hurt the people they love through blackmail texts?"

After a moment, I sigh, deleting that synopsis. "It's too boring. I read those kind of stories everywhere, it reminds me too much of Sara Shepard." The problem with finding a plot idea that was unique enough meant that you had to let it come to you. Which was the worst in my opinion, because I didn't know how much time I had until this grand idea struck me. This is a time-sensitive project, I only have until the end of the school year to finish.

"Maybe, I could do a story about an entire school getting locked down?" My hands hover over the keyboard. "And there's a serial killer who lurks outside of their doors, waiting for someone to slip up and come out?"

Then, I groan. This is too hard. "That wouldn't work though, would it? There's absolutely zero mystery involving that. No motive, no secret method of killing. It's just a horror story."

Trying to literally wrack my brain of its ideas, I roll over onto my back once again, staring up at the light pink ceiling. Over the years, my room has become far too feminine and suburbain for my taste. When I had been younger, the innocence of my room intrigued me, made me believe I was in some sort of fictional fantasy, like a perfect Winnie Cooper. But my story is not one that lies on white picket fences, and pink rose bushes.

No, this is Thistlethorn. Roses are beautiful, but they have dangerous thorns which lie underneath the blossoms, thorns ready to prick and make you bleed.

Getting up, I take a seat at the ledge nearest to my bedroom window. The nice thing about where my room is positioned in this house is that I have an amazing view of the town. I can see many things. I have a great view of Lalisa's, up the hill behind it is the Thistlethorn Writing Academy which I attend...I can see everyone.

It's this concept which seems to give me an idea then. Watching the diner closely, I notice my tall sister lock the shop doors. Outside standing a couple feet from here is Bambam himself. To others the two are an absolute match made in heaven. I like him, he's a great guy, but I always wonder why he's stuck by Lisa's side so relentlessly.

That's it then. That's what I'll write about. I snap my fingers together, grinning brightly before pulling my curtains together to hide my bedroom view from the rest of the world. The idea is actually so simple, I had completely overlooked it. And to think, Doyeon had been nudging me at it this entire time.

Why not write a mystery novel based on the dark and gnarled roots of this town? Because by the looks of it, the way we operated, so tightly knitted...it was hard to breathe. Soon, someone would die from suffocation and just...snap.

With that would come a well overdue reckoning of the town. And maybe that is exactly what my story needed.

A reckoning, and the perfect murder.