Yan kept glancing at his desk. Kai was gone. Tera was gone. The classroom felt almost empty, leaving him sitting with Sky.

The teacher hadn't shown up either. It was already almost 9:00 a.m., so everyone in the classroom eventually left. They headed to a place that had once again been cordoned off by the police.

Sky followed behind them.

"Why are there police here again?" Yan asked, confused.

Then he spotted Tera's parents there too.

"I heard they're conducting another investigation. Someone reported new evidence," Sky said.

"Our teacher isn't here either," Yan muttered, beginning to feel suspicious.

"That's Tera's parents, right? They're getting involved themselves?"

Sky watched Tera's parents arguing with several people on the stairs. They seemed to be scolding them as well.

"Where's Gama?" Yan suddenly remembered someone who had been absent for quite some time.

****

Dev couldn't sleep.

Kai couldn't calm down either.

The entire family was confused. They hadn't been involved in the investigation, and now they were desperately looking for a way out.

"Because of your carelessness, look at where we are now. What are we supposed to do? I know love can make people blind, but this kind of obsession isn't good either. So what now?" Dev asked angrily.

"I don't know either!" Kai snapped, equally confused.

Things had become even worse now that they could be caught for tampering with and destroying evidence.

"The victim is still alive, right? He only needs a few months, maybe just one month, before he remembers everything. There's no point in defending yourself anymore, Hyung," his younger brother said.

"I can get close to him and make him depend on me. Then I can convince him to withdraw the report."

Kai muttered to himself.

It was the only way.

All he had to do was use his tricks again, right?

"Besides, I'm still underage, aren't I? If I get sent to prison, it'll only be for a short time, right? I should get some privileges because I'm not eighteen yet," Kai said confidently.

"Your father can't even think straight right now. Come here. If this gets out, it'll be difficult for you to find a job if they spread the news on television," Dev explained.

"Don't get yourself involved any further. I'll do what I can to make sure everything gets reduced," he said again.

They were all equally frustrated.

If things had reached this point, even their money couldn't save them.

****

"Why are they arguing?" Yan asked curiously.

Tera's mother was still scolding someone nearby. She was crying in her husband's arms.

The case had been taken over by a different police team, and they had discovered even more irregularities than the previous investigators.

"The door was repaired," Sky muttered, trying to process the information he'd received from his father.

He looked through several messages his father had sent him.

"Huh?!" Yan still couldn't process it.

"They proved that the door hinges were new. There were also footprints and fingerprints on the light switch. The rest of the evidence had been cleaned up. There was dirt leading from the doorway all the way to the stairs. There wasn't just one person inside that room," Sky explained, thinking carefully.

"I don't understand the rest of what you're saying, pabo. Why did you suddenly start explaining things about the door?" Yan snapped irritably. His brain wasn't keeping up with any of it.

"The current suspicion is sexual assault."

Instead of making Yan understand, Sky only made him even more curious.

"Then explain it properly, Sky!"

Sky wasn't sure where to begin.

"Fine, listen. There isn't a classroom above that one. Every classroom up there is covered in dust. There aren't any footprints or anything else inside. If Tera really went into one of those classrooms, there should've been traces of him, and the room shouldn't have been covered in that much dust."

"The dust was almost two centimeters thick. That means the room hadn't been cleaned or stepped in for a very long time."

"Tera was told to go to a special class, right? There was no special class up there. The only room with a clean floor was the storage room, and it looks like the culprit cleaned it specifically to destroy the evidence."

Sky explained again.

He showed Yan a photo his father had sent him.

It was actually confidential information.

"There was a photo of the storage room door after it was damaged. But when the previous police checked it, the door wasn't damaged anymore. That means they replaced it."

"And the previous investigators were careless too. They never checked inside the room."

"Didn't Tera go up to the roof?" Yan asked.

He'd heard the rumors going around.

"Go up to the roof? The roof door was already covered in rust. It looked like it hadn't been opened in ages. The lock was completely corroded," Sky explained.

He moved closer to Yan and guided him to sit down.

"Who did it?" Yan asked curiously.

"The teacher who told Tera to go to that special class. She isn't here today either. For now, she's our main suspect. She was probably working with someone."

"You sound so sure of yourself. How do you know all of this?" Yan asked bluntly.

"The person leading the current investigation is my father."

Yan went silent.

"Oh. Okay."

'Was he the victim of a planned murder?'

'Sexual assault?'

'An attempted kidnapping?'

All kinds of terrible possibilities flooded Yan's mind.

"I'm going to call my aunt. Find out where that teacher is."

"Let's go pick her up."

Yan suddenly grabbed Sky's hand.

Sky smiled faintly, feeling strangely comfortable with the warmth of Yan's grip.

****

There were no more gaps in the case.

All that remained was finding the culprit.

With the new police team handling the investigation, they began involving the students at the school and immediately became suspicious of those who hadn't been there that day—including the teacher.

Gama and Hueningkai became suspects as well.

But the investigators weren't stupid.

During the next round of questioning, they visited the victim.

Gama brought two of Tera's shoes with him for examination.

The investigator could only sigh when he saw the evidence being brought to him instead.

"You took his shoes? You should know those are evidence. Why did you take them?" asked the Choi family investigator, Choi Minhyuk.

"Why are you handing them over now?" the investigator asked, testing him.

But Gama only lowered his head.

"Yeah," Gama answered weakly.

"I don't like seeing him like this. I know who the culprit is, but I don't know the exact sequence of events."

His eyes were red.

He clenched his fists before grabbing the investigator by the collar, making it clear he didn't want any more questions.

"All right. Let's continue," Minhyuk said.

He calmly removed Gama's hand from his collar.

"We still can't question the victim, so we need your help, Gama. He suffered a severe concussion and is still undergoing therapy. Until his body can move properly and he can speak again, we're relying on you."

****

"THIS IS RIDICULOUS! YOU'RE BECOMING A WITNESS HERE?! THE VICTIM HASN'T EVEN GIVEN HIS STATEMENT YET!"

The investigators arrived at Kai's house.

Kai had already packed his clothes into suitcases with his family. They had even booked their plane tickets online to Hawaii, United States.

Kai's hands were handcuffed, and he was forced into the car.

He struggled and shouted as he tried to defend himself.

"I didn't do anything!" he protested.

Kai tried to punch the investigators.

"Then why are you so sure?" the investigator asked.

"BECAUSE HE RAN AWAY ON HIS OWN! I WAS ONLY TRYING TO CATCH HIM AND TAKE HIM HOME!" Kai shouted angrily.

He didn't realize what he'd just admitted.

His mouth snapped shut.

"KAI! WATCH YOUR MOUTH!" his father shouted.

The investigators narrowed their eyes suspiciously.

"Give us the full story. You'll explain everything there, and you'd better not lie."

In the end, Kai was taken away too.

"Tampering with or destroying evidence carries a sentence of nine months in prison or a fine."

Dev swallowed hard when he realized he had been caught too.