15

Two months passed and the silver haired young man taught her students many logical and life learning lessons that she had to teach.

Quin stopped her on the way, "Follow me. We have an instructors' meeting today. I forgot to inform you last week due to my busy schedule and I can't keep up with you," he explained as he escorted Chun to the conference room.

In truth, Chun and her students came back from their outdoor lesson last week because these passed weeks she wanted her students to experience the nature of a live case environtment, what meant to be on real pressure and working with a professional investigation team.

Flashback.

TwinCity Continent

Vanette Island City

The seven students and their handler were now on another city, an island city known for the wealthy families' paradise. It is a city within an island, separated from the TwinCity continent but still part of its territory. A hundred miles away from Willow City so Chun and her students travelled three times, by plane, train and lastly by boat. The expenses were taken care by the school because this was a training field trip approved by the headmaster.

The live case that they were about to handle was just a simple suicide case. It may seemed simple but things did not went to normal.

Detective Petrac Link known as Detective Link was a friend of Chun's father and an uncle to Chun. Detective Link allowed the silver haired young man and her students to partake on a suicide case because it was not really labelled as a high confidentiality level.

The suicide case was related to a senior student at Ferto Mari Academia, a prestigious school in Vanette Island City which has an oligarchic system of government. To put it simply, a school ran by the wealthy or by elite families.

Students enrolled here were either famous artists, rich kid millionaires and not ordinary people yet they had scholarships for intelligent and deserving students who weren't on an illustrious family background.

Ferto Mari Academia was a school for the rich and deserving students that wanted to pursue business management, media arts and other vocational educations. But if we compared it to Harconia Institute, the institute was another level higher than them. Revered strategists and martial practitioners were more valued in Xanxia so it's logical to say that Harconia Institute was on a higher status.

Even though bullying the weak cannot be avoided in Harconia Institute, one can say that it's just rare occurence in the institute because martial students were more focused on their cultivation than trivial things but in Ferto Mari Academia, bullying was widespread. Rich likes to bully the poor, mostly the poor and weak students, including the scholars.

Kit Witara, a male scholar senior student was a victim of bullying. The suicide happened three days ago, he jumped off the ten-storey building of the students' dorm.

As Chun and her seven students cooperated with the team of Detective Link. They uncovered a very deep reason why did Kit chose suicide different from his optimistic personality. But is it really suicide? Or was instigated by a third party?

If one rode back to the memory lane, from his dormmate's mouth, Kit Witara has a positive mindset despite the round of everyday bullying, he ignored it and sometimes, he would went back to their dorm limping and had a beaten up face, and his dormmate would asked him if he needed help but he would smile and says, "School's hard but still good."

His dormmate would be worried for him due to that but as it went like a routine to Kit, the worried dormmate settled a bit. The rounds of bullying lasted for a year until the bullies laid off for a bit, losing fun on bullying Kit but after that, the bullies targetted another scholar, ignoring Kit for a bit.

The quiet times of Kit lasted for two months when suddenly he went back on their dorm running while breathing heavily. His dormmate asked him what's wrong but he just smiled it off and said that it's nothing. The dormmate did not bothered to further ask questions 'cause he was used to Kit's attitude.

But many times it happened. The running, the heavy breathing, the hint of worry in his eyes and his scared look. Still he just responded, a reply that was bit odd, "You won't understand."

After that, the suicide occured.

The dormmate of the victim was Luke Gray, a famous solo artist and had a prominent background. The Gray household was one of the elite family and a member of the school's board of directors. Kit was the only true friend of Luke so he worried when Kit was bullied yet Kit stopped him from bothering about it because it was his personal problem. That's the reason why Luke did not involved himself anymore in order to maintain their friendship.

But is it really a mutual friendship or just one-sided? Luke sometimes thought

"It's my fault, I did not try harder to persuade him on telling me his problems. And I thought, he acknowledged me as his friend," Luke said with red eyes due to frustrations and regrets.

"What do you mean?" Detective Link asked.

They were on the interrogation room, while Chun and the seven students with Zen, a criminal psychologist from the team of Detective Link was also present. They were on the observation room dividing the interrogation room through a one-way mirror.

"Before t-two days of his s-suicide. I confronted him," Luke stuttered while his eyes became more teary.

"What happened?"

"I found out that his family was being threatened as well and I wanted to help him yet he brushed me off and said that I'm rich and my family wouldn't allow me to help him," he heaved a breath and continued, "After that he ran off, he got back to our dorm at night with his scared look, and I was worried so I asked him what's wrong but he only said that I won't understand. A-and it h-happened."

Luke trailed off as tears dripped from his eyes. His only friend died and he didn't do anything to prevent it. He's the one who had a more capability on stopping him. As what his father told him before that he was useless, not comparable to his younger brother who pursued business.

On the observation room, the students took note of their observations as they would present it to Chun and Detective Link. Every relevent information was a contribution to the case.

Zen would sometimes gave them a hint on what to write on their notes.

"Bullying is a sad thing," Li Li spoke while hugging her doll.

"Yes. It's sad because sometimes the victims can't let it out on the people that they wanted to know their feelings," Lith replied.

"You're right, bullied people are more prone on hiding their depressed state than making others worry for them. That's why we need to be open to our surroundings, to the people around us in order for us to help them," Terra added.

"Yes. It's not about who's letting it out or who's receiving it, it's about our awareness to our fellow human beings," Chun uttered at her students. She wanted them to have a life lesson on this case.

"Well-said," Zen commented by the side.

After the interrogation, they gathered on the investigation team's working area were they provided their own findings.

This case was not a simple suicide, two witnesses said that when Kit fell off the rooftop of the building, they saw a silhouette of a person standing, looking down and then disappeared, they did not saw the person clearly because they were infront of the dorm building while sitting on a bench.

The police marked this immediately as suicide and closed it because the school did not want any controversies but Luke persuaded his family for opening this case and his grandfather who favored him allowed it.

The other board of directors was against this but they couldn't say no when the Gray household interfered. There's something about the Gray household that made them fearsome and Luke was unaware of it, the important thing was he could help now and lessen his regret if he could lessen it.

So the case about Kit Witara did not committed suicide but was murdered was widespread in Ferto Mari Academia. As the top investigation team currently handled this case, bullying activity lessen and rarely occured now due to being suspected as one of the murderer of Kit. Because Chun and Detective Link concluded that the suspect was a bully, and the Gray Household established a school mandatory rule that whoever would be bullying their fellow schoolmates or individuals, they would be suspended for a month and have cleaning duties on each of the comfort rooms within a month. Even witnesses of bullying couldn't be left off and teachers who accepted bribe and did not take measures upon the bullying activity couldn't be left off, too.

The quiet Gray household suddenly took the matter on their hands and it made Chun a bit curious. It was known that, without a heavy exchange, the Gray's would not intervene on this kind of situations, no persuasion could moved them but what did Luke exchanged for it?

"It's nothing. Just managing the business and so," Luke shrugged off as he replied to the silver haired young man.

"Oh right! From your silver white hair and strange colored eyes, you're a member of Shuho Household right?" The young man suddenly asked.

"Yes. I'm Chun Shuho and you know of my family?" Chun with curiosity uttered.

"Kind of. The head household master of Shuho household and my father were close friends and business partners," Luke explained and left after he bid goodbye to Chun.

The silver haired young man went away, too. Luke suddenly stopped on his feet and read again the crumpled piece of paper from his uniform's blazer pocket.

It says, 'If something happens to me, you know what to do. No matter what you decided to do, I won't blame you. Live well, Luke. - KW'

"Fool," Luke with an indifferent face, whispered as he crumpled again the paper.

End of flashback.