“What should we do with you? Sunny, I can’t believe you. From top 5 student, you become like this!”

As Taeyeon approached closer, it was Mr. Lim that was with Sunny. “Do not do anything.” Taeyeon said as she turned around the corner.

“Get back to class, or you…” Mr. Lim’s face turned even more irritable when he noticed that it was Taeyeon who interrupted them. “Taeyoon, please, can you not cause any trouble for ONE day. It’s your second day for god’s sake, aren’t you writing an exam?”

“I am finished.”

“That’s impossible, top students have not finished. You? Finish 50 minutes ahead of time?” Mr. Lim looked skeptically at her. “Young lady, this has nothing to do with you. Now, behave and go back to your classroom.” Mr. Lim warned her.

“If I go back right now, what’s going to happen to Sunny?” She asked.

“Taeyoon!” Frustrated, the supervising teacher turned towards the office. “Come to my office. And you too, Sunny.”

Taeyeon saw that Sunny is too shaken by Mr. Lim’s lecture, and did not believe that talking to the same teacher will resolve anything.

“Let’s go to the principal’s office.” She suggested.

Mr. Lim looked at Taeyeon like if she was crazy, but he had no reason not to take the matter to the principal.

…

At the office, the principal looked at the visitors and sighed. “Haven’t I told you to handle this situation, Mr. Lim?”

“I do not believe she made the post.” Taeyeon stated but felt a firm tug on her uniform. Sunny was shaking her head desperately for Taeyeon not to continue. Her fear that Taeyeon might be dragged into this and furthermore, become Jessica’s enemy, more so than she is now.

Taeyeon placed her hands over Sunny’s and pried them off of her.

The principal squinted his eyes at the young girl who just talked back to him. “And who are you? I have never seen such rude student in my school.” He said sternly.

The principal studied her for awhile with his small but observing eyes.

“Sir, please pay Taeyoon no mind, she is still new to the school. She is not familiar with the school yet. Let alone, Sunny’s situation.” Mr. Lim told the principal.

“Is that so? Taeyoon, please let the adults handle this business. I understand you are looking out for your classmate, but if she has done something wrong, she should be punished accordingly.”

“As I said, I did not believe it’s fair. Don’t you adults need evidence?” Taeyeon pressed for an answer.

“We do. And it was clear that Sunny was the culprit. There is no mistake to it.”

“What make you so confident? May I see it?” Taeyeon requested it doubting everything about whatever evidence they may have.

“Taeyoon, I am warning you. If you can’t find anything wrong, we can’t help but punish you too as an accomplice.”

Whatever you say old man. Taeyeon thought to herself and asked again, “What did Sunny post?”

Mr. Lim shook his head in disappointment and navigated to Sunny’s post on the school’s forum. Then he turned the computer monitor towards Taeyeon.

Taeyeon read through Sunny’s post. It indeed was under Sunny’s name and student id, but there was something odd about it.

“Did you investigate this?”

“What is there to investigate? It clearly printed her name on the post and her student ID and email matches. Taeyoon, the school would not wrongly punish students if we did not have reason to do so.”

Taeyeon grabbed Mr. Lim’s keyboard and turned it over to her side. She tried to write a post.

“What are you doing, Taeyoon?” The principal studied the computer screen, trying to see what Taeyeon is trying to do.

Taeyeon did not reply but focused on finding whatever flaw their school’s forum system may have.

The principal sighed at the girl’s arrogant behaviour and looked at the screen more closely.

“Taeyoon, get to the point. It clearly was Sunny’s name and ID in that post.” Mr. Lim interrupted impatiently.

“Are you guys pretending to be blind? Your school’s website never asks for a student verification…anyone can post on this website.” Taeyeon confidently commented on what she had discovered from a mere 5-minute investigation.

“That still does not prove that it was not Sunny who posted it. Who else would post under Sunny’s ID? Why would someone post by using another’s id? And you need to verify your email before you can post. This is ridiculous.”

“Wow, you know all the questions you need to ask, but you never thought to investigate further.” Taeyeon looked at her teacher and principal, her eyes betrayed a look of disappointment. She continued like a parent lecturing their children, earning strange looks from the two adults. “You have never even investigated the case and you start going through the punishment. As a school of this status, you can’t be this…simple.”

“The evidence and the reason was there. It’s obvious that Sunny wrote it to get back to the class for Eunhaeng’s case. And Sunny.” Mr. Lim turned to the silent girl, who is staring at her feet.

“I understand your family is not going through a good time right now, and Eunhaeng was your only friend. Things have been hard for you. If you have frustrations, you should talk it out with one of your teachers or even your family. What would your mom think if she hears about this? You need to communicate if you are feeling unwell, you know, find someone to talk it out and not let it out on your fellow classmates. I think you may need some time off to have a good talk with your family to see where your goals lie.”

“I am sorry…I…” Sunny muttered quietly, her voice quavered.

“Talk to her family? How can her mom help her with something she had never done in the first place? Are we teaching kids how to get therapy?” Taeyeon sniggered at them on how little they knew about their students, and more specifically at this schools’ ignorance. “Just because a student’s family is not doing well and her friend got kicked out, she is for sure the one to post nasty comments?”

When she heard no reply, she continued.

“If you don’t investigate, the problem will never be solved. If you don’t have the will to investigate, you will only investigate the surface and risk punishing the innocent. The most basic task you can do to help your students is to conduct a proper investigation.” Taeyeon spoke out breathlessly, letting out some frustration and looked at the principal. “If a principal can be fooled so easily and punish a student simply based on a text on a school forum, then I don’t believe anyone would want to attend this school.”

Mr. Lim and the principal were surprised by this young student’s perseverance.

“Taeyoon! Who told you to be this arrogant? Are you insulting the principal!?” Mr. Lim scolded loudly at her.

“I find her words have meaning. She has a point. I think we may have overlooked a lot of aspects of this case.” The principal sighed heavily after thinking for a while. “But Taeyoon, what evidence do we have that proves Sunny’s innocence?”

“What meaning can there be??” Mr. Lim looked at the principal, flabbergasted. However, the principal asked him to keep quiet.

Taeyeon calmly told the two adults what she had found. It ended up being a fake email address and a deceivingly spelt name.

Everyone was quiet for a while trying to make out the new evidence and the principal had a noticeable look of disappointment on his face, then the bell rang indicating lunch time.

Mr. Lim took another moment to collect himself. “Who did this then? Sunny who would do such thing to you?”

“I think that’s enough for now.” The principal announced. “I will fix the report. As we have evidence or the lack of it, Sunny’s punishment shall be waived for now.”

“But sir, we haven’t found the real culprit.”

“I don’t think we can anymore, it’s very hard to track these online things down. Even if Sunny were to give us a name, we still won’t have evidence to investigate further.” The principal stated sadly. “We have to watch out for things like this in the future. Meanwhile let’s disable student postings for now and learn from this experience.”

“You two are dismissed. I will tell Mrs. Oum to inform the class about Sunny’s situation. And thank you, Taeyoon.”

———

On the way to lunch, Sunny kept her head down, still looking guilty despite having her name cleared.

“You can sit with me.” Taeyeon said, feeling quite satisfied with herself having successfully convinced the two adults.

Sunny simply nodded.

The two sat at a table beside the window, Taeyeon thought it could help make their mood better.

I wish Yoona had lunch the same time as me. Taeyeon thought looking out the window.

“Thank you.” Sunny said after she took a few bites of her food.

“Hmm?” Taeyeon looked up from her plate her spoon. 

Sunny then pushed her empty tray away from her and rested her head on the desk. Her empty eyes stared at the other side of the cafeteria and thought about everything that had happened to her. The more she thought about it, the more it made her feel useless and disheartened. Maybe if she had done more, her friend would still be by her side. Maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation, getting pushed around by Jessica and her group. And now, Taeyeon is being dragged into her problems as well.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing…what if Jessica bothers you because of me?”

“Then I will feel bad and go cry it off.” Taeyeon mindlessly joked. Having never interacted with many people of her age, Taeyeon tend to be oblivious of others’ feelings, especially in situations like this. Although her intent wasn’t to make people feel bad, but her words or actions sometimes hinted the opposite.

Sunny raised her head back up looking dejected. “Then I shouldn’t bother you…”

“Sunny, relax. I was just teasing. Here, have a mushroom. Anyway, why is Jessica picking on you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sunny yah! Tell me.”

“I really don’t know!” Sunny whined. “I did everything she asked, but she always keep coming back.”

Taeyeon sighed. “Then why did she make a fake post with your ID?” She didn’t bring it up to the teacher and principal because she didn’t have proof that Jessica did it. However, it was obvious that only Jessica dared to pull such stunt. Who else have the guts to do it anyway besides Jessica?

“…”

“Sunny! Just tell me!”

“It’s because…she wants her and her friends to be in the top rank together.” Sunny mumbled fidgeting with her fingers. “So, she asked me to not score so well or they…” The more she thought about it the more depressed she felt. There was no reasoning with Jessica and her gang of bullies. Although she agreed to not score past them, Jessica still did her dirty and made a laugh out of her.

“What??? People really d