The final bell cut through the halls, and I was gone before anyone could stop me.
Room 722 felt colder than yesterday. I dropped my bag in the corner and paced once around the room.
Old mystery novels lined the shelves. Christie beside Doyle beside Keigo Higashino, jammed together with no system. On the back wall hung a faded poster, torn nearly in half:
MYSTERY CLUB NEVER DIE.
I winced at the grammar. One corner had been ripped clean off.
This room used to matter. But there were no journals. No photos. No records of past members. Someone hadn't just shut the club down. They'd scrubbed it.
On the bottom shelf sat a box: 5,000-piece landscape jigsaw. Pale sky. Dark treeline. The kind of puzzle that dared you to waste your life.
I opened it anyway, dumped the pieces across the table, and started sorting edges.
The border was half done when the door creaked.
Hanni slipped in, cheeks red from the September wind, two cans of Zero Cola in her hands. She tossed one my way. I caught it without looking.
"Didn't think you'd be here early," she said, dropping onto the sofa beside the table.
"I like it here," I said. "Nobody bothers us."
She smiled. "Avoiding people again. Mind if I take the sky pieces?"
I slid a pile toward her. Our fingers brushed for half a second. We both ignored it.
For a while, there was only the soft clack of pieces and the hiss of cans opening.
"You know the vending machine on the second floor?" Hanni said. "Kick the bottom left corner twice. It spits out two cans."
I glanced at the extra drink. "So that's why you brought spares."
"Caught." She snapped a piece into place. "Three times last week."
She studied the puzzle. "Remember the huge one we built as kids? The one that collapsed on your cat?"
"He didn't forgive us."
She laughed. "I still have the photo."
I didn't answer right away. It felt too much like before.
"You're still doing the hard parts," she said, eyes on the table. "I just pretend to help."
"You build from the bottom up," I said. "Same as always."
She slid another piece into the lowest row. "It works."
---
The door slammed open hard enough to rattle the windows.
Minji stormed in, clutching a shredded poster. "We're official," she said. Her voice was sharp, but it wavered underneath. "SAO approved us this morning. We need a faculty advisor and five members by the end of the term. Or we're dead again."
She pinned the remains of the poster to the wall. Someone had scrawled over the club name in black marker:
U3HH83 I8J
Hanni tilted her head. "That's not even pretending to be random."
Minji laughed once, brittle. "Second incident this week. First the padlock, now this."
Hanni looked at her. "Padlock?"
"Nothing," Minji said too fast. "Not important."
The weight of the six-digit combination lock pressed against my blazer pocket.
Minji went on. "I put up five posters yesterday at five p.m. By six-thirty this morning, every one of them had that exact string."
I stopped sorting pieces.
I took a photo with my phone and stared at it.
Not a riddle.
Old cipher, maybe. Something simple.
The longer I looked, the more wrong it felt.
---
Three sharp knocks cut through the room.
The door opened before anyone answered.
A tall freshman stood there, backpack slung low, eyes wide.
She glanced at Hanni and me, then back to Minji.
"Minji-senpai… I need help."
Minji's shoulders loosened. "Hyein-chan. Come in."
The girl stepped inside, stiff with nerves. For a split second, her fingers tapped a quick rhythm against her bag strap before she stopped herself.
"I'm Hyein Lee," she said, bowing slightly. "Freshman. I heard the Mystery Club was back."
Hanni leaned toward me. "So much for 'nobody bothers us.'"
Hyein pulled eleven cards from her bag and laid them out on the table. They looked like license plates, printed in neat typewriter font.
L 17 NWO
E 10 HSR
E 7 EBM
H 4 UNE
Y 10 HTY
E 9 BRE
I 1 TTE
N 17 LHC
I 6 AEE
L 2 CNA
Y 8 VDA
"They've been appearing in my locker," she said. "One every morning. Eleven days."
She tapped the first column. "That part I figured out. L-E-E-H-Y-E-I-N-I-L-Y. 'Lee Hyein, I love you.'"
Her hands shook. When she looked down at the cards, a flicker of something almost pleased crossed her face before vanishing.
"It was kind of sweet at first," she said quietly. "Then the last one came with a pressed flower. And a photo."
Hanni leaned closer. "What kind of photo?"
"Me asleep in the library. Taken from behind."
That killed the room.
"It's not romantic," Hyein said. "It's obsessive. I need it to stop."
I glanced at the puzzle on the table. The bottom rows were finished, locked in place. Hanni always started from the ground up.
The cards were lined the same way.
Low to high.
The thought slid into place so cleanly it almost annoyed me.
I turned back to the puzzle. "It's a small case."
Hyein stiffened. "I can't afford distractions. If I lose focus and drop out of the elite section—"
Hanni cut in, calm but firm. "Eiji"
She looked straight at me. "No case is too small if someone's desperate enough to ask."
Minji smirked. "She's right. Plus, a padlock and some vandal don't get to decide what this club is."
She faced Hyein. "We'll take it. First official case."
Hyein's eyes sharpened for a split second before softening again.
I exhaled through my nose. "Fine."
I glanced at the cards once more. "Then start by asking Collin Jeong to stop."
The room went silent.