“A 46-year-old man was found dead in his house this Sunday evening,” the article read. “The victim taught mathematics at a local high school. The police are investigating the case.”

Inserted at the bottom of the article was a picture of the victim. Noémie was right ; it was Jean Demasse.

I needed a moment. I never expected that someone I knew would be killed like that. Plus, why would anyone kill a random math teacher ? It made no sense. And it scared me, to be honest ; who was next ?

I did the only thing my confused mind thought of doing at the time, and texted Aoki the news article and my fears.

“Don’t worry,” he replied almost instantly, “I won’t let this kind of thing happen to you.”

I wasn’t as reassured as I’d hoped to be. I wished my parents were with me. Realizing I wouldn’t be able to calm down, no matter what I did, I decided to go to bed early, hoping I’d feel better the next day.

I didn’t. That is, until I exited my house and saw none other than Aoki waiting for me right next to the front door.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised.

Before answering, he hugged me tightly.

“When I say something, I mean it, Pauline,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you. So I thought I’d just stay by your side all the time, that way I can scare away any murderer!”

He held up his hands as if he had claws and growled. He looked really stupid, but that made me feel better. He even got a smile out of me.

“By the way, I brought croissants,” he added, taking out a small paper bag out of his backpack.

Wait, a backpack ?

“Are you coming to school today?” I questioned.

“How else am I supposed to keep you safe ? The killer could be in the school for all we know.”

He had a point. I took one of his croissants, he took my hand, and we walked together to school.

We arrived there at the same time as Noémie, who was pale as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Hi, guys,” she simply said, her usual cheer completely absent.

Aoki stayed back, trying not to rub salt into the wound by his presence.

“Are you okay?” I asked despite knowing the answer.

“Honestly, no. We saw him almost every day, and now he’s gone forever. And we don’t even know who did it…”

I hugged her to try and comfort her, although I had no idea what to say.

The day went as normally as it could, given the circumstances. Aoki was given a stern talking-to by nearly every teacher for his repeated, unjustified absences, but he didn’t even pretend to care. I had no idea why he’d even bothered to bring a backpack, as he’d just set it on the floor at the beginning of every class without taking anything out of it. But at least, he was there. True to his word, I was never out of his sight, and that made me feel a lot safer.

We were told we wouldn’t have math class for the foreseeable future, until they found a replacement teacher. They probably wouldn’t manage to find one before the end of the year.

At the end of the day, I decided to spend the night at Noémie’s house, because I could see she was clearly not okay. Aoki looked a little disappointed when I said so, but he walked with us in spite of his feelings.

“Stay safe, both of you,” he said when we arrived. “If you need to go anywhere, just text me and I’ll go with you ; you really should not go out alone until things have settled.”

He hugged me goodbye and left.

I went inside with Noémie. Her parents gave me a warm welcome.

“It’s nice of you to come when she’s feeling so low,” they said.

We immediately went upstairs to her room, and she closed the door.

“Okay, Pauline, we need to solve this case,” she declared.

“What?” I replied, confused.

“Look, things won’t get better until the guy who did this is behind bars, and I don’t trust the police to take care of it.”

“We can’t solve a case by ourselves, Noémie,” I retorted. “This isn’t one of your crime novels. We’re high schoolers!”

“I don’t care. I can use a computer better than the police can.”

“There’s more to a murder investigation than computers.”

“That’s why I need your help.”

“We can’t even access the crime scene, what are we supposed to do?”

“That’s what you think.”

She sat on her bed and opened her laptop. I wished she hadn’t done what I thought she had.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “So I infiltrated the police’s internal network.”

But she had done it.

“You do realize you will get arrested if they find you out, right?”

She ignored me and started quoting a report.

“A single stab wound in the back of the neck. Severe brain stem damage. Cause of death : asphyxia. Estimated time of death : 3 p.m. No signs of struggle, no signs of intrusion. Murder weapon not found.”

I started feeling sick.

“Don’t you think it’s odd?” she asked. “It’s like the killer knew what he was doing. How do you even damage someone’s brain stem?”

I didn’t want to think about it.

“Pauline!” she called. “Are you with me? You look pale.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Then go to the toilet, we’re not done here.”

I went to the bathroom and returned my lunch to Mother Nature. I stayed there a little longer than was necessary ; I didn’t want to go back. What had gotten into Noémie? I had never seen her like this. Then again, if she really hadn’t had any sleep the night before, it made at least some sense. When I came back, I was determined to talk some sense into her.

“We need to draw up a list of suspects…” she started.

“Listen, Noémie,” I cut her off. “You’re sleep-deprived. You should go to bed, you’re not thinking straight…”

“You’re right,” she said.

Was it really that easy ?

“I won’t be able to solve this if I don’t sleep,” she clarified.

Of course it wasn’t.

“No, I mean—you should stop, this isn’t healthy,” I tried.

“You know what else isn’t healthy ? Being stabbed in the back of your neck! I don’t want this to happen to me!” she snapped.

“This won’t happen to you…”

“It won’t happen to you, that’s for sure, with your little guard dog following you around!”

“Stop being so jealous!”

“I’m not!” she shouted.

Tears began to roll down her face. I sat down on her bed, next to her, and put my arm around her shoulders.

“It will be fine, I promise,” I whispered, rubbing her arm.

“Please stay with me tonight, Pauline,” she begged.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I helped her to bed, and laid down next to her.

“If you’re there, maybe I can finally sleep,” she said.

And right as she closed her eyes, she started snoring softly. I followed soon after.