chapter three

the trouble starts here. just keep cutting along the dotting line. -detecive lu.

        “So Woohyun, you ready for your first class with Nefarious Nitkin?” Minseok asked the following morning as he, Lay, and I made our descent to the basement classroom where senior History class was held. At dinner the night before they had given me a rundown of all my teachers, but no one had mentioned this guy.

“Nefarious Nitkin?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“Minseok came up with that one,” Lay said with a laugh. “It’s so perfect.”

“What? Is he really evil or something?”

“You’ll see, I would have told you about him, but no one could ever do Nitkin justice,” Minseok told me, running a hand through his hair.

Within seconds I understood why. Mr. Nitkin was a skinny little man with angular features and a dark mustache that gave him a serious Hilteresque vibe. Judging by the pursed expression on his face as he watched us fill the room, he also had a distinct dislike of all teenagers. When I approached him with my schedule, he eyed me with disdain and gave me a curt welcome.

“Take any empty chair,” he said, waving his arm about. That was when I caught a whiff of his cologne or aftershave or whatever it was. Ugh, someone seriously needed to tone down on the smells. It was so noisome I almost heaved up my nutritious Hereford breakfast.

That was one thing I had to give this place. My first teacher may have been odious, but so far the food was beyond reproach. At the least, something that I could actually give kudos to this stinkin’ filthy rich school. And after that morning’s yummy oatmeal, fresh fruit, and endless supply of cereal, I actually couldn’t wait to see what the chefs whipped up for lunch. Wow, something to look forward to.

Minseok and Lay took seats at the front of the room, saving an empty desk for me right between them. No good. If I sat up front I’d never be able to scan the rest of the classroom and see if either of the other suspects were there. Unfortunately, Minseok was waving at me giddily, and I couldn’t ignore him. He was so obviously ecstatic to have someone new to sit with. Poor kid. I sighed, resigning myself to a class period with nothing to absorb expect historical facts. Ones I probably already knew.

“Good luck. You’re probably gonna need it,” Lay said, leaning towards me.

“What, you think I can’t handle this class?” I responded.

“It’s not a commentary on you,” he said with a grin, “None of us can handle this class.”

I smiled. After spending dinner and breakfast with Yixing —or Lay, whatever— I was having a hard time believing this kid could be a drug dealer. He was just so sweet, funny, and smart. He couldn’t be the type of person who would get involved with something like that. Could he?

“Did you hear about Park Kyung?” a girl behind me whispered to her friend. “His parents are sending him off to some school in Korea.”

“That’s what happens when you flunk the urine test,” the other girl said, snorting a laugh.

Minseok and Lay exchanged a loaded look. “Who’s Park Kyung?” I asked innocently.

“Just some moron who got busted for E,” Lay replied as he opened a notebook. “There were, like, five kids booted from here last week. If you get a Big Brother vibe around here, it’s probably because everyone’s watching us like hawks now.”

Interesting. Would Lay talk about the situation so easily if he were the drug dealer?

“Bet your parents wouldn’t have sent you here if they knew it was Ecstasy central,” the girl behind me said snottily.

On the contrary, I thought. That’s why I was sent here.

“Alright class!” Mr. Nitkin slapped his hands together the moment the bell rang, and everyone fell into their seats. “Let’s see who among you has actually done the reading.”

A general groan went up among the students, and I felt a little wave of nerves run through me. A pop quiz? I wasn’t prepared!

Then I realized that it didn’t matter if I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t a student here. I no longer had to maintain my straight-A average. Luhan had never failed a quiz in his life, but maybe Kim Woohyun did it all the time!

Or not, I thought, the very idea of Fs was causing goosebumps start growing on my skin. I mean, a person couldn’t go from perfectionist to delinquent that fast. It could give you whiplash.

All my obsessing turned out to be pointless anyway. Nefarious Nitkin wasn’t handing out papers. He was simply standing at the front of the classroom eyeing us like we were the slush he’s kicked off his boots. Meanwhile, all the kids around me were practically trembling.

“Revere!” Nitkin barked, causing an obese kid to my left to flinch. “In what year was the Battle of the Bulge fought?”

Revere, whose first name I later was to learn was actually Paul—cruel parents—blanched. “Uh… end of 1994 into 1945?”

“That is correct,” Mr. Nitkin nodded, making a mark in his leather-bound notebook. “Although you should know by now that I do not award full points to a person who begins his answer with ‘uh’ ”

Paul sank a bit lower in his seat as Nitkin paced the front of the room.

“Fisher!” he blurted out, making the said student jump.

“Y-yes?”

“Negative.” Mr. Nitkin tsked, marking something down before continuing, “Kim Minseok!”

I was happy to see that Minseok was not intimidated. He started back at him, his hands folded on his desk, his expression impassive. “Who was the Allied General in charge of the Normandy Campaign?”

“General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mr. Nitkin,” Minseok replied nonchalantly.

“Very good,” Nitkin said with a smirk. I could tell that he liked Minseok, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If someone clearly evil likes you, there must be something wrong.

Just kidding.

“Kim Jongin!”

Everyone turned around as my heart leaped into my throat. Kim Jongin, suspect number two, was sitting at the back of the classroom, his chair tipped onto its back legs and his arms draped over two more chairs that he had pulled closer to him. He lifted his chin at Nitkin and smiled the same cocky smile I’d noticed in his picture. Unlike most of the kids in the room, he was unabashed by Nitkin’s attack.

“It’s Kai.” he corrected with another sly smirk.

I instantly disliked him and all his little friends. They reminded me all too much of the so-called “popular kids” at my high school-the ones who thought they were so cool and that everyone loved them, even though everyone hated them for being such egotistical jerks. Ironic how the kids who are called “popular” are usually only friends with a very small group of people.

“Kim, name the United States’ primary Allies in World War II,” Nitkin said, completely ignoring his response.

Easy question.

“Iraq and Iran?” Jongin said, his grin widening. A group of kids around him laughed and slapped hands, and a pretty but way-too-dolled-up girl in front of him rolled her eyes and smiled.

Nitkin’s face hardened, “I suppose you think you’re funny, Mr. Kim,” he said. “But you get zero points for the day.” He made a note in his book and resumed with the rapacious questioning. I continued to stare at Jongin far as long as I could without drawing attention to myself. He wasn’t even remotely ruffled by zero he’d just earned. As an overachiever by nature, I just couldn’t understand people like that. Besides, wasn’t this kid on scholarship? How could he afford to pull a stunt like that?

The class period dragged on endlessly. Nitkin spent the entire hour quizzing us incessantly. He ever threw a couple of queries my way, but I answered them all correctly, much to his obvious exasperation. He seemed determined to prove that wherever I had come from, my education had been substandard. But like to think I debunked that theory. Still, by the end of the class I was exhausted from trying to remember all the facts I’d learned the year before. And then Nitkin assigned a ten-page paper. I couldn’t believe it. In all my excitement to go undercover, I’d neglected to realize that this job was going to require actual homework of the precollege variety.

Now I had yet another motivation to solve this case quickly. I had to get the heck out of there before that paper was due!

Even though Jongin and his friends were sitting at the back of the room, they were the first ones out the door when the bell rang. I grabbed my stuff and raced after them, hoping Lay and Minseok wouldn’t want to chat and detain my from my mission. I was too fast for them, though, and the second I hit the hallway, I called out Kai’s name.

Every single person in our vicinity stopped and gaped at me. Not that I could blame them. How dare the new guy deign to speak to this exalted popular one?

I have to admit, I felt pretty cool. If this were last year I probably would have been intimidated by this crowd, but it was like my mission had sparked some kind of previously untapped well of audacity within me.

I turned beet red as Jongin turned to face me, a question in his eyes. He was indeed gorgeous. Arrogant, but gorgeous.

My heart pounded nervously and I hated it. I wasn’t supposed to be nervous! He was in high school! What should I be afraid of?

“Who’re you?” he asked, shoving one hand into the front pocket of his jeans and squaring his shoulders, a maneuver that only made him seem more imposing. The pretty girl from the class reached out and clasped his free hand, glaring at me as I approached.

Jeez. Possessive, aren’t we?

“Kim Woohyun,” I introduced myself quickly, “I hear you’re the person to talk to about the karate program.”

Kai and the guys around him laughed, but the girl’s face took on a wicked gleam.

“Oh, you’re the poor thing who got stuck rooming with Minseok, aren’t you?” she said with calculated fake sympathy. She made a face as if the name tasted rancid on her tongue. “I feel sorry for you.”

“Well don’t,” I said. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from lashing out with the rest of the caustic comebacks that were bouncing around inside my head. If I was going to investigate Jongin, I had to infiltrate this crowd.The last thing I need was to implant myself at the top of his girlfriend’s list of enemies.

“Sorry, new kid,” Jongin said with a sneer. “We don’t have any pretty boys on our team. Looking as weak as you.” He smirked slightly, matching the wicked glare from his girlfriend. Oh boy, how much I wanted to smack off that little grin…

Ugh, he was so puerile, I wasn’t surprised he w