"WHEN THE WORLD AROUND YOU IS BURNING, LOOK AT THE STARS."
Transfer student Minni Lee has a premonition. Not all is right at Newhurst University. Between a hateful blog post and the strange death of campus mean girl, Somin, exists a tangled mystery...
(tw: very brief mention of suicide, please read safely)
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THEY HAD SOMETHING TO HIDE.
They all did, but Minni mentally marked The Night as the reason she found herself skipping her statistics lecture, nursing a lukewarm coffee and a growing migraine.
The investigator across the table drummed his fingers on the clipboard. He wore a long beige coat, a crisp button-down peeking through underneath. His collar was stiff and tidy, a red tie looped around his neck. The gentleness in his eyes had faded with each question.
Seonghwa was as cold and straightforward as when he first came to the Cape years ago. He was not here to talk to an old friend. He was seeking answers from a potential witness. Or maybe he thought her a suspect.
Every now and then his eyes would fall to her stained fingers, pensive and unnerving as ever, but he said nothing. He just tapped his pen distractedly, chin resting on his palm.
He didn't have to say it.
He was perceptive enough to detect the way her mouth twitched every time he asked her a question that danced a little too close to the truth. He had been a detective for a few years, then a police officer, and finally, a self-employed private investigator. Meaning, though Min may be a good liar, good wasn't enough to fool him.
He had asked about the Gamma Iota party, the blog, and Somin's supposed suicide-as the Newhurst Police Department had called it a few weeks prior. Min repeatedly insisted on never having met Somin or knowing anything about the blog posts. She swore not to say anything revealing at all, not to react, not to care.
Until he mentioned Lucas Correia.
"I'm sorry, who?" she asked, blinking rapidly. She must have misheard. For all she knew, Jisoo's former fling had nothing to do with The Night, and certainly not Somin.
Seonghwa perked up at her sudden interest, dropping his arm from its comfortable position. He wrote something in the margins of his notes before repeating: "Lucas Correia. Did you ever see him and your classmate Somin interact? Or even in the same space?"
Puzzle pieces assembled in the fabric of her mind, but they were all misplaced and different sizes, jumbled together by force with nowhere to go. Lucas and Somin came from two completely different backgrounds. Their circles did not overlap in the slightest.
Lucas was a Brazilian exchange student in the mathematics club, and Somin was Somin. Their only commonality was the GI party, but mentioning that was strictly off limits. If she could, she would scrub herself clean of that night.
