Trouble-Makers

The café ran out of their signature green tea. Hua took in a deep breath and internally prayed to every deity she knew of for patience. The café's signature green tea is why she's here in the first place. After a minute of consideration, she chose jasmine tea with a set of mixed desserts, and the waitress went off with her order. She doesn't know how her cousin would react to the different flavor of tea, but Hua knows Jay loves the desserts here. She still had ten minutes until their agreed meeting time, so she opened her iPad and started scanning her eyes over a missing person's file. Ryan Issachar Zallik, aged 37 when he went missing five years ago. He was a math teacher at a private boarding school during the time he went missing. Hua's younger cousin, Jay, also attended that boarding school, and after a little more digging, Hua found out that Jay was one of the victim's students in tenth grade.And that is the reason why the young detective arranged this meeting. Maybe her cousin

"My name is JiJing Devin." Jay introduced herself to the class. "But you can call me Jay.""Devin?" The teacher's voice mumbled. "Sounds familiar." Jay's seat is right in front of his desk, she made sure to choose a seat which will help with her success in buttering up to teachers."You might have met my brother." Jay smiled slightly. "He's in senior year now." "Jake Devin." Mr. Zallik clicked his tongue, his fingers tapping on his chin where his beard seems to be thickest. He's close enough for her to see the timer on his watch, but she didn't mention that. "I see. Next."A girl sitting behind her stood up, she's quite tall. Her bleached hair, which contradicts beautifully with her tanned skin, is neatly tied into a ponytail. Her eyes are a familiar shade of dark blue-almost-black, and Jay immediately recognized it as the same ones as her brother's huge friend whom she bumped into this morning."Elyra Patrikovsky." Her voice is soft but demands attention."Patrikovsky?" The math te

5 years ago...-There's something strange about her homeroom teacher, Jay just couldn't place a finger on it. She felt it around day two or three, his vibe was... Not so good? Also, he usually smiled more at female students. But, that's pretty normal since the male students in her class are a bit of a rowdy bunch. Well, a few of the boys did manage to come in before the bell rings, only to fall asleep before class even starts. She came to class early on a Friday morning. The first session is biology, a subject which Jay kind of enjoys learning, but not really into it. But, still she opened her textbook and started reading about bones, unlike the boy two seats behind her who came in early only to pass out on his desk. Why do they need to study about bones anyways? Not all of them are gonna grow up to be doctors. Sure, they need the basic knowledge for just-in-case situations, but a ten page lesson with four picture diagrams seems to be a bit of an overkill. "Hi." A blur of ginger

Jay is pretty sure that Elyra wants to punch her brother in the face, but the tall girl only clenched her jaw slightly. The older Jay got up from his seat and fixed his tie. He made no move to lower his rolled up sleeves. Oh, the way those sleeves are rolled up bugged Jay in a way that she can't describe, and she wants nothing more than to lower those shirt sleeves and gently roll them back up evenly."Elyra, if you don't wanna go back home for the holidays, just don't go. It's not that hard." His dark blue eyes met his sister's, and both of them held each other glazes for a moment."Okay." Elyra responsed in then tense silence."I'm going to class for real." Jay got off the bench and began walking a few steps down the corridor before she stopped abruptly to look back. "Elyra, are you coming? Class starts soon." Her classmate blinked, her eyes widened in surprise."Go to class, Elyra. Cya, hamster." He turned to the opposite direction, even though Jay knows fully well that the other

One, two, three, four, ...Jay kept count of how many seconds she took to black out a circle. A, A, C, C, B, D, A, A, D, A. There's an alarming amount of As, but Jay is sure her answers are correct. She looked up from her answer sheet up at the clock right above the teacher's desk. Mr. Zallik isn't ask his desk, and there's eight minutes left for her to review her answers. Jay wants to ace this quiz, it's the first quiz of the semester, and she wants to make a statement. She will ace this quiz, and all quizes that comes after it, for the rest of the year. Mr. Zallik is walking down the asile, and this footsteps stopped at the seat right behind Jay. Then, she heard mumbling. "Number three is not what you think it is." His voice casually carried over the class, but he's leaning down at Elyra's desk, as if he's still inspecting her work. It took a moment for Jay to break out of her shock, and quickly her eyes scanned the question of number three, and then its answer. It's exactly w