"I can't believe I actually managed to manipulate this kid."
Kala chuckled to himself as he read the message that had just arrived on his phone.
As they had discussed yesterday, Darel had asked the members of Kaze to gather at their basecamp to discuss the evidence they had found.
Kala was supposed to bring the torn letter that had also become additional evidence today, but luckily, he had managed to trick Yoan into taking the letter yesterday. That meant Kala didn't have to go through the trouble of putting the pieces back together himself.
"Are you sane, Kal?" Kayn asked, currently sitting in the seat beside him.
The two of them were riding the bus to school together.
"I'm perfectly sane. Why are you so worried your friend's crazy?" Kala replied.
"Of course I am. Who wants to be friends with a crazy person?"
"I'm not crazy. I'm just laughing because I managed to mess with someone."
"Who did you mess with?"
"Someone."
"People have names, you know."
"Yoan. You know that kid's really smart."
"Yoan, your gangmate? Yoanero Dewangga, the guy who ranks first in the entire grade?"
"Obviously. Who else?"
"Definitely looking for trouble. As far as I know, he's kind of cold."
"He's not cold. He's just serious. He's also really nosy and always wants to know everything."
"Oh, no wonder he gets such good grades. So he's just really curious, huh?"
"Pretty much."
The bus stopped at a stop near the school, and the two of them got off and continued on foot.
Once they arrived at school, they went to their respective classrooms.
Kala checked his phone again to confirm that his friends had already arrived at the basecamp.
When he got there, he was greeted by the sight of his friends sitting around with extremely serious expressions.
"So, what did I miss?" Kala asked.
"The letter, Kal. The one you found yesterday." Yoan pointed at the pieces of paper he had already assembled on the table.
"Apparently, it's an invitation to meet someone. It's probably from Hadi's girlfriend," Darel explained.
"So we need to investigate Lia?"
"That's where the problem is. Some people say Lia is already his ex, and Hadi's current girlfriend is Ana."
"Even if she's his ex, that doesn't rule out the possibility that she was the one who gave Hadi the letter."
"Why did they even have to use a letter? It makes it so hard to track," Melvin complained.
"That's exactly the point, Vin. Using a letter makes it difficult to trace. It's like sending a message through a phone—the message can still be traced even after it's deleted."
"But there's something stupid about it too. Why would they throw the letter away somewhere on school grounds?"
"Probably because they were in a hurry," Melvin said.
"Back to the main point. I think we should tail those two girls, because one of them is probably the culprit," Darel said.
"Yep. We still haven't gotten the test results for the metal pipe from yesterday, so we have to wait. We can't rush to get Ghe out of the police station yet."
"But guys, have you seen the new piece of evidence the police released?"
"The broken pen," Kala answered.
"Doesn't that pen look similar to the recording pens your dad usually makes, Yoga?" Yoan asked.
"Yeah, kind of," Hasta agreed.
"Yeah, it does. No wonder it looked familiar," Darel added.
Melvin immediately turned toward Yoga in surprise.
"D-Don't tell me you left a pen there."
Yoga stared back at him blankly.
"You think I knew someone was going to die there?"
"ACHOO!"
Everyone instinctively looked at Kala, who was rubbing his itchy nose.
"Sorry, guys. Some dust just flew past me."
"You're not coming down with the flu, are you? You're sneezing like that."
"No, I'm fine." Kala smiled, even though he was grumbling internally.
Damn, I really feel called out by what Yoga just said.
"If it wasn't you, then who do you think might have left that pen on the rooftop?" Darel asked.
"Maybe one of the delinquents? Someone who wanted to frame their own friend," Hasta suggested.
"We don't know that for sure yet. That pen must have been connected to some device to turn it on or off, right?" Yoan asked.
"Oh, right. We can find out what device it was connected to. I'll also ask my dad which students from our school bought those pens," Yoga said.
That immediately made Kala nervous.
I'm screwed. And I don't even know Yoga's dad.
"Oh, you can actually do that? I thought once the pen was destroyed, it couldn't be tracked anymore," Kala said.
"As long as the components are intact, its IP address can still be tracked," Hasta explained.
"My dad usually puts a special registered number in them, so he can track them using that. Basically, it's like buying a SIM card for a phone."
Damn.
Kala almost breathed a sigh of relief when he remembered that Agantha had already destroyed the pen.
Unfortunately, Kala's unusually tense reaction was caught by the corner of Yoan's eye.
"Oh yeah, Kal. If I remember correctly, you were looking for Ghe yesterday."
Before Kala could even calm down, the overly curious boy had noticed that too.
"Oh, right. I was collecting a debt from him."
"Since when does that kid owe people money?"
"How would I know?"
"Is it possible that you were the one who left that pen there? You seemed like you were in a hurry to go to the rooftop this morning. Maybe you went there to check on it."
"Wait, why are you suddenly accusing me?"
"That's not an accusation. There's evidence that you went upstairs while the school was still practically empty."
"I went to my friend's classroom. His classroom just happens to be on the upper floor."
"Your friend came that early?"
"Yeah. He's in the student council." Kala remembered that Kayn's friend was indeed a student council member, so he simply blurted it out.
"Don't student council members usually go straight to the student council room when they arrive? The student council room is clearly on the first floor."
"That's his business. I don't need to know why he went straight to his classroom." Kala was starting to get annoyed.
"Look, Kal. First, if you wanted to collect a debt from Agantha, you're in the same class, so you could've done it there. Second, your behavior was really suspicious when you went upstairs. It looked like you had something you needed to do, which is why you were rushing and eventually slipped."
"All of that is just your opinion, Yoan. None of it is what actually happened. What are you, a psychic? How do you supposedly know everything I did?"
Kala was already too irritated and finally decided to leave the room.
After walking a few steps, he glanced back to make sure none of his friends were following him.
Hmph. Is this karma for messing with him yesterday? Whatever.
Kala continued walking without looking back.
He still had to figure out a way to get Asta's tablet, because he definitely intended to upload the recording from the pen to Kaze's social media account.
I'll hang around at school for a while and wait until everyone else has gone home.