THE PERFECT MURDER.

13

MY SCHEDULE HAS RETURNED TO some form of normality, I find myself sitting across from Doyeon in our usual booth at Lisa's early the next morning. My eyes stare absentmindedly at the TV behind her, news reporting something about a loose robber. I shift back to Doyeon, who doesn't seem that interested in her food. She's picking at it idly, which is strange, because she really likes Lisa's food. Always compliments the older girl about it whenever they leave for school.

"Is something bothering you Do?"

She sits up more, caught off guard by my words. "Oh. Uh, no. No I'm fine, just not that hungry."

I nod slowly. "Uh huh. And I'm assuming your loss of appetite has to do with that meeting you had with the principal?" Doyeon stills when I say this, then sighs.

"You saw that?"

"Kind of hard not to." I admit. "You're hiding something."

Doyeon looks like she is having an internal argument, whether she should tell me what's been beating her up for the past couple days. It has to be something pretty important regarding the case. I'm not certain on whether this evidence would make her seem more as the culprit or not, but it probably will sway the investigation to some extent.

"You can tell me Doyeon." I lean back. "I have reasons to want this investigation solved too, so if we could be on the same side...that would be really nice."

"Mai, you're the only person I trust with this information." She bites her lip. "Well, you're not the only one who knows. Soojin does, but that's because Seulgi is the one who told us this."

"Told you? When?"

"Ah, I don't know. It was sometime back, maybe a couple months ago, right before summer break. We always had this moral code between us three. Most of our parents are pretty strict about boyfriends. No sleepovers unless it's with girls only. Seulgi wanted a way to bend around that rule so we came up with a plan a couple years ago, we would meet up to have a sleepover, but then the said person who has a boyfriend would leave around an hour into the party to go meet up with their boyfriend to spend the night with them. That way, our parents would never get suspicious. We were known to usually hang out until the following evening, and then only come home, so it gave us a lot of time to come back and re-situate."

"The thing which was weird was that before summer started, Seulgi made us promise to keep up this rule. She hadn't had a boyfriend for a while, not after her weird on-and-off fling with Lucas. I just assumed maybe she was seeing this older dude out of town and wanted to keep it on the low. So I didn't think much of it." Doyeon taps her heel against the floor. "The weirdest thing though? The festival. The three of us were planning on having a sleepover together. But Seulgi disappeared like halfway through the dance. And there's so many things about her murder which don't add up."

"Like...?"

"The only reason I covered for her was because I got a text the following morning that she wanted me to remember our rule. That's why when her mom called me asking where Seulgi was...I lied and said she was with me. I didn't even know she was dead! Which makes zero sense, because why would she text me, if she was already dead?"

I frown. "Doyeon do you think maybe whoever she was seeing wanted her dead?"

"Maybe. I...I don't know to be honest. She never mentioned them after that day."

"Well, considering how everyone liked her here, that has to be our only option." I give her a reassuring nod. "But on a brighter note, I think it would be great if you could help me. You know her better than anyone else in school, so your perspective is already pretty useful."