The Technique

Chapter 6: Aspersion

Mr. David continued to smirk for a long moment before finally asking, "What's interesting there?" 

"I-I'm just..." I tried looking straight at him and then at Greg. 

Greg watched me shiver for a second and looked away, burrowing his brows. I wished he knew why I was looking at the monitoring room, but he didn't seem to care. 

Mr. David leaned into the table. "Do you want to check it?" 

I immediately shook my head in disagreement. There was no reason to check the monitoring room. Why did he even ask me that question? 

"No, I'm good. I'm just not feeling well today." 

"Well..." He looked up to us one by one and stopped at me. "You have to take care of yourself as much as possible. And about what you were asking, unfortunately, the school announced that we pick out the top three students among the first-years. We have to abide by the rule. There's no backing out." I tried to open my mouth to construct a sentence and disagree, but he stood up and smiled at us. "So all you need to do is get along and review for the incoming competition. Greg already knew everything you have to prepare since he's the experienced one. Any questions?" 

"Nothing," the girl beside me answered. And by the look of her glinting eyes, I knew she was excited about it. 

"That's all." The professor sat back to his throne, expecting us to leave the office. 

I never dared look back at the monitoring room again. It was giving me chills. Questions were playing around in my head again. 

I got out of the office with Greg and the girl. We stopped at the front of the office once the door was locked. 

The girl suddenly smiled at me. She looked at me like an evil just earlier, and now she turned to an angel-like expression. "I'm Stella," she introduced. She turned to Greg, and her smile grew wider. "I heard a lot about you. I'm looking forward to working with you. Let's start tomorrow?" 

"Absolutely," Greg answered with a blank face. 

Stella looked back at me with her friendly look and walked in the opposite direction. Greg turned his back on me. Before he walked, I uttered, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" 

He turned around and leaned against the wall, reading the paper in his hand as if he wasn't interested in what I was going to say. "Talk." 

I looked around to see a bunch of students staring at Greg in pleasure. It was as if they were watching their favorite show from afar. "Not here," I said. 

There were no private areas everywhere, so we ended up talking in a vacant restroom. I made sure that nobody was using one of the cubicles before I started speaking. "I think the professor saw us. There were cameras mounted all over the area last night." 

He stared at the tiled floor for a second to think about what I had said. Then he finally looked at me, smirking, as if he understood it. "You're worrying about the cameras?" 

"Greg, I'm serious." I stopped when I realized my voice was getting louder. I tried my best to whisper to lessen the echo, "If he's monitoring last night or anyone who was there, they must've seen us." 

He laughed, his volume down. He put the invitation paper on the sink, and it started to get wet. He leaned his hands against the sink and looked at himself, laughing in the mirror. "Do you think he would invite us to the competition if he caught us?" He turned to his serious self again. "I had everything under control. The school trusts Mr. David so much that they gave him more responsibilities. He's the one monitoring one of the areas of this school. And he also manages the exam papers. Every Tuesday night, before seven PM, he goes out of his office to check the exams, print them out, and distribute them. Basically, he wasn't there when it happened. He's not there everytime it happens."