Fog rolled in from the coast, thick and heavy. It hid the red roofs of New Oak High and turned everything gray. The air smelled like salt and rain. September meant back to school at this so-called global academy. Posters everywhere bragged about the new elite classes and beating world rankings. I moved through the crowd without anyone noticing me. That's exactly how I wanted it.
Puzzles kept people away. My fingers worked the Rubik's cube in my pocket like always—something I'd done since I was little to calm my head when things got loud inside.
Click. Clack.
Most days I solved it without looking. Today the cube felt heavier than usual, like it knew something was coming.
The sophomore shuffle turned everything upside down. Just when the school year felt settled, they launched two new elite classes, pulling top students out of regular rooms. Now the halls buzzed with talk of "international rankings," "college scouts," and "big PR move."
I always kept my grades just high enough to blend in. So landing in Elite Section 1 caught me off guard. ES1. They called it a promotion. To me, it felt like a trap.
The ES1 room shone under bright lights. Polished desks. High windows clouded with fog. The teacher's eyes scanned us like we were already on trial.
Ms. Song let the silence stretch. "Welcome to the elite," she said. "Monthly rankings go up for everyone to see. Drop below the curve and you're out—back to regular classes, perks gone. You know what's at stake."
Her words hung there. A guy up front smirked loud enough for the whole room. "Finally. VIP labs. College scouts. About time they cut the dead weight." His grin turned my stomach. I twisted the cube harder and slid into the back row to disappear.
Then I saw her. Hanni Pham. Second-to-last row. Her long dark hair fell over her notebook. She was drawing fast: a huge sunflower with thick petals and a face-like center, almost like it was smiling at something only she knew. My feet stopped. The cube froze in my hand.
We used to sit under a big acacia tree in our old neighborhood, trading riddles and puzzles. Then the city got rezoned. Her family moved across the bay. New school. New life. We promised to stay friends, but distance killed it. We became strangers.
Seeing her now felt like an old puzzle I never finished.
Roll call broke the moment. Our eyes met. Hers widened—she looked shocked, like I was a ghost. Her leaf-shaped pen slipped and hit the floor. As she reached for it, a small folded paper fell out. It was the same sunflower she'd just drawn: big petals, smiling center. It slid right to my shoe.
I could have picked it up. Could have said something. But I didn't. She left once. People leave. Puzzles don't.
She grabbed the paper fast, face red, folded it, and hid it in her notebook. I sat down. The cube started turning again in my hand.
Click. Clack.
Why her? Why now? The shuffle dragged the top students into ES1 and ES2, but I'd kept my grades just high enough to skate under radar. So how did I end up here? The school's ranking boost felt too neat, like they'd cherry‑picked us for more than grades.
The morning blurred into calculus. Even with the challenge, my focus slipped. Ms. Song's warning sat on my shoulders. Every mistake felt like a step toward getting exposed.
In poetry class, Hanni answered a question about rhythm. She started strong, then her voice cracked in the middle, like she was hiding something heavy.
It pulled me straight back to the day I found her stuck in that acacia tree during hide-and-seek, laughing so hard she couldn't climb down.
The memory shook me. I hated that. I started doodling random patterns in the margin and twisted the cube under the desk.
No one noticed. Good.
By lunch, the fog thinned under weak sun. I grabbed my bag and hit my locker in the east wing. Beat‑up metal door in all that shiny marble. I spun the dial and popped it open. Books shifted. On top sat a folded note. Not mine. I opened it. Crisp paper. Bold black type:
"Petals Around the Rose. Room 722."
At the bottom, neat handwriting. Minji.
Minji Kim—still listed as sophomore like me and Hanni, even though she's a year ahead—ran with the student council crowd, always two moves ahead. Why slip this into my locker?
"Petals Around the Rose."
A clue? A riddle? My fingers ran over the words. The cube felt restless in my pocket. This note was meant for me. It had to be connected to all this elite class pressure.
Was the program hiding something bad? My mind started racing. If I ignored it, I'd think about it all day. If I went, I'd get pulled in.
The hallway was empty now. I could hear faint laughs from the cafeteria. Room 722 was upstairs in the old humanities wing—dusty, forgotten.
I stuffed the note in my pocket. It rustled against the cube.
Outside, the fog got thicker, pressing against the windows. If I skipped this, the rest of the day would feel boring: classes, homework, nothing.
Curiosity won. I had to know.
Petals. Rose. 722.
---
When the final bell rang to end the day, I grabbed my bag and cut for the humanities wing, chasing whatever answers waited there. Halls emptied fast—buses, clubs, noise falling away.
As I rounded the corner, I almost ran into her. Hanni. She stopped short, fingers crushing the note, eyes wide.
"Jin?" Her voice was soft, unsure, like I might vanish if she blinked. She glanced toward 722, then back at me, shadows under her eyes hinting at rough nights.
My gut tightened. Hanni, of all people? We hadn't talked since before the rezoning, promises that faded with distance. Seeing her here with the same note felt too neat, like fate had a twisted sense of humor—or someone's plan.
"You got one too," I said, not asking. We were caught in the same pull.