[CONTENTID1]

thirty-three: dramatic interlude

[/CONTENTID1][CONTENTID2]

[Where's Juyeon?"]

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"What happened?" Chanyeol blurted out, nearly spraying Sehun with a mouthful of half-chewed rice.

"I'm telling you, it was another attack," Suho said, while beside him Sehun caused Chanyeol's fish soup to form a miniature tornado and splash into his face. Chanyeol spluttered violently, but Suho continued on like nothing had happened. "That branch was almost perfectly split, it wasn't broken naturally. Juyeon swore she saw a person, too."

"Was it that Taehyuk guy?" D.O asked, eyebrows knitting together thoughtfully. "Trying to hurt Juyeon again?"

"It could be," Baekhyun said, and there was a dark look in his eyes. "Messing with both Suho AND Juyeon? This guy must have a death wish."

The others all nodded, a murderous vibe radiating off them in waves. Seoyeon and Minjun both scooted a little farther away.

"No literal death wishes, right?" Juyeon said testily.

Baekhyun just smiled and patted her shoulder. "Of course, Yeonie. Of course."

"I don't appreciate that patronizing tone, kid."

"What patronizing tone?"

"THAT patronizing tone." Juyeon gave him her best evil eye. "You better not be serious."

"I'm joking," Baekhyun said, a little too quickly. Juyeon rolled her eyes. It was probably easier to give up.

"So, lunch, then?" Chanyeol suggested. "We'll find him at lunch."

"I can do that," D.O said.

"Me, too," Suho added with a scowl. "Now I've got a personal vendetta against him. Bastard could've broken my neck trying to get at Juyeon."

"For Yeonie and hyung, then," Kai said with an excited grin. "Now things're getting interesting!"

"Hold up," Sehun said, directing his surly look towards the front of the hall. "They're making their specialty tofu soup and duck for lunch."

There was silence. Someone's stomach growled.

"After lunch, then?" Chanyeol asked sheepishly.

"We can hunt him down after therapy," Suho said.

"I'm down for that," said Juyeon, nodding in agreement. Nobody missed specialty tofu soup days in High Class.

~*~

Class put a bit of a gloom into their determined minds, what with Strange taking a sadistic glee in springing a pop quiz onto them.

The window had been repaired, and the excitement over the rock incident had faded into indifference for most of the class. However, many were curious about Exo and Juyeon's investigations.

Key was especially amused. "It keeps Exo busy, I guess. Busy Exo are happy Exo."

"Yeah, no kidding," Juyeon said with a snort. She had been driven crazy by her friends' constant theories and guesses about the mystery, trying to link everything together in different ridiculous ways, until she couldn't handle it anymore. She ditched them at first opportunity for the other side of the room, and joined Key and his friends Minho and Taemin for Terror's chemistry assignment (many of the structures they were writing about were suspiciously reactive and highly dangerous. Terror had promised they were chemicals the class would be using in the future).

Juyeon had been wary at first, only being really familiar with their other friend Onew (who was, to her utter shock, actually an upperclassman — you wouldn't have known seeing how much Key bossed him around). But they seemed just as easygoing as Key, and to her great relief they weren't all that bad.

"Driving you up the wall, huh? That's why you came to work with us, right?" Taemin said, chewing thoughtfully on the rubber eraser of his pencil. At the look of embarrassment on Juyeon's face, he quickly said, "Not that I mean — I wasn't suspecting you of — I wasn't trying to imply that you're being selfish or anything! It's just, we all know you work with Exo for everything. It's nice to work with you, though, you're smart. Uh, what did you get for question seven?"

Juyeon showed him her paper. "Well, thanks