REGISTRATION WAS USUALLY a time of peace. The teacher read out our names and we responded. A few simple announcements would be made, and then we'd be off back in our rooms until it was time to hand in our devices.

Tonight, though, something was wrong.

It wasn't just the fact that there were more than one teacher in the room. It was in the way they were scanning us. It was in the way there were Upper Sixths outside our common room, as if keeping us in. It was in the way the atmosphere felt so tense and suffocating.

My brows creased. I turned to meet Yunji's eyes, who shook her head.

Analise, though, looked a lot more grim. "You don't have anything bad in your room, I hope?"

I narrowed my eyes, starting to realise what was going on. "Nothing to get me in trouble, no."

"That's good," she said. "That's good."

And then I knew. Someone had fucked up. We were getting room searched.

None were conducted last year, but I remembered that this was something that was written down in our school handbook. In the case when a teacher thought you were possessing items in your room that were against the school rules, they had the right to go search it—while you were there, of course.

And considering what I knew about these guys? Adelina included?

They were all fucked.

Registration went on as normal. But at the end, when we were all preparing to head off, or praying that we would be, Ms Royce called out, "Everyone please stay behind."

And so we did, dread on all our faces.

"It has come to our attention," Ms Royce announced, "that some of you have been keeping things in your room that you shouldn't be. And thus, we're going to be searching some of your rooms. Marissa, Adelina, Kate..."

The names went on. I wasn't one of them, probably because I was living in a single and teachers knew I probably wouldn't have any contraband in my room anyways. But all our hearts were pounding in our chests as the few of us who hadn't been told to stay behind—which were few—left the common room.

Besides me, Oliana whispered, "Holy fuck, they're screwed."

"No kidding," Yunji said. "They are so fucked."

"How many of them, do you think?" I asked, glancing sideways to see them.

"Almost every single one. Except like, one or two people."

And I had an idea who those special ones were.

"I have never been more glad I never got into vaping," Oliana said, blinking furiously. "Their parents are going to kill them."

"Nah," Yunji rebuffed. "Their parents don't care that much. Some of them would be mad, probably, but most of them wouldn't really care about it. You really think their parents have no idea what they get up to at school and at those parties they're at every weekend?"

Analisse let out a snort. "You have to remember. They're not Asian."

Oliana rolled her eyes. "Neither am I."

"Ah," Analisse smiled, "but you're not white either, are you? Thus, our parents and their ideas cannot be compared."

"Fair enough," Oliana huffed. "Let's head back, let's head back, we don't want to be caught standing here discussing all this."

And so we did.

There was a double room beside me, and the walls were thin enough that I could hear what was going on there if I kept quiet. It was around fifteen minutes after we were sent back, but the sound of sniffling and crying started soon after the slamming of the doors, alongside the exasperated voice of Ms Royce.

Well. They were fucked. But the whole incident had started worrying me too for some reason, and I started brainstorming if I had anything that wasn't allowed in school in my dorm. My answer was nothing except some Chinese medicine, and even the teachers found it, they wouldn't know what it was anyways, since it looked like snacks and treats.

I was going to be fine. Perfectly fine. They weren't searching my room anyways. And as much as I knew that they had this coming, I couldn't help but feel bad. I wasn't that close to any of them, but we still got along. They'd never done anything to me, and we coexisted perfectly in this house. If they were all upset, I'd be influenced and affected too.

Part of me wished that they hadn't done this right now, right between our mocks and our actual JCMs. It wasn't very good timing, and could very easily affect our moods during our exams. But I suppose it was exactly because there weren't any exams yet within this period that they'd chosen it. They would have wanted to clean this mess up before the actual JCM exams to prevent any influence on our grades, but they hadn't wanted to do it earlier because of mocks. Or because they hadn't realised, which I highly doubted.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what these people did when they thought no one was watching.

But someone was always watching. People like me, like Yunji, those people that they ignored and never quite saw.

I was willing to beat one of us had snitched. Perhaps not in our year, but definitely one of us who were outsiders in this house. We were one of the few people who'd have the motive and the opportunity to snitch like this. If the teachers had found out by themselves, they'd say it.

But I didn't really feel like speculating. It had freaked me out. Really freaked me out.

But most of all I was thinking about Adelina, who had been one of the people told to stay behind. And from what the other girls said, it seemed she most definitely had some degree of "contraband" in her room. And I knew she went to parties. A lot.

What was going to happen to her?

Not much, probably, since she was rich and if they expelled every kid who vaped at this school it would become very empty very quickly, but it was still a bit worrying.

(Also, if they were all given multiple Saturday detentions, they'd stay behind every Friday night. Which was annoying, because I rather liked it when Friday evenings were quiet and filled with familiar languages and people from home.)

Either way.

I could only wait and see what happened next.

The next morning was spent on explanations and teary-eyed sobs as we all gathered together in the common room. I was rather certain that it was the only time all of us had been together voluntarily in one room.

"And they just came in," Kate was gaping, "went through all our stuff while I sat right there, found my vape liquid and just took it away."

"They found my fake phone," Marissa moaned. "I'm so fucked when they tell my parents. They're going to kill me."

I decided not to remind them that they could very easily have used a camouflage spell to hide it, which was what I did with my iPad. But saying that would only reveal the fact that I never handed my iPad in, and who knew who was listening? There was a snitch among us, definitely, and I wanted to avoid trouble at all cost.

"Who told them?" Queenie demanded. "Someone has to have told them. They knew exactly whose rooms to go for."

I also decided not to point out that it didn't really require a lot of thinking to realise who was more likely to have stuff like that and who wasn't. It wasn't as if Yunji was going to be hiding vape liquid in her room any time soon. Most of us full boarding students were from Asia, where it had been drilled in our minds since our earliest days that smoking, drinking and drugs were bad, and that we should never touch it. Lest our parents beat us up.

Besides, I had no interest in any of the three. I didn't even ever want to try alcohol, though I knew it would be inevitable.

I just didn't like the idea of it. I treated it like I did dating. It was just ingrained in my head that it was bad, and that I shouldn't even be thinking about it, much less try it. And it was a part of myself I actually quite liked, because it meant I never ever got into trouble. Which was always enjoyable.

I was, simply put, a very obedient Asian child. That was the nicest way to describe it. I listened to my parents and I stayed away from everything deemed bad and inappropriate. It was part of the reason why my parents agreed to send me abroad despite knowing very well what some of the kids in the west got up to.

It felt nice to be so trusted. But at the same time, it sometimes felt a bit odd.

"Someone definitely snitched," Marissa agreed. "Unless one of the cleaners found something while in our rooms? I always hide my stuff when I'm away..."

"Someone might have left it out one day," Kate suggested. "I don't think any of us would snitch." I didn't know about that.

Adelina's eyes were screwed shut. "I'm in so much fucking shit. I was already in hot water with my parents and now they're going to absolutely hate me. Just fucking great."

I glanced at her. I'd somewhat expected that. Adelina's parents did have quite high standards for her from what I'd seen—there was little reason for her to react to her failures the way she did otherwise. And she'd most definitely be in trouble.

I asked, carefully, "What did they find in your room?"

Adelina glanced up at me glumly. "My vape. They found it in my bedside table. I don't even use it! I should have brought it back home, I don't know why I kept it here." Probably because if it had been at home, there'd have been an even higher chance of her parents finding it, for which she'd land in trouble anyways.

"Damn," I murmured. "That's bad. What are they going to do?"

"I'm probably getting grounded for the rest of the term," Adelina sighed, throwing her head back. "I hate this. I hate this so much."

Analisse met my eyes. I raised my brow as well. There wasn't much for us full boarding girls to add to this conversation without seeming like we blamed them or were bitchy. Or have suspicions turn to us for the snitch.

I supposed it was a good reason to explain why we mostly kept to ourselves or found other people to hang out with rather than these guys. The lack of similarities, the inability to join into any conversation without feeling as if we were intruding upon something we should have no part in, and the way they often nonchalantly treated anything we say.

It fucked with our self-worth at first, and by the time it stopped, most of us were too tired to even try. Different cultures meant it would always be difficult to mash. No matter what. That was just how life worked. And it wasn't as if we were the only ones struggling with this. Everyone else was too.

"I'm sure you'll be okay, they'll understand," Kate said sympathetically. Her parents were, from what I heard, relatively lax with her, and she'd probably be okay off this. The same couldn't be said for everyone else, of course, but it would still be a tolerable consequence. And they should have expected it the moment they started doing those things.

"No they won't," Adelina moaned. "My brothers never got into trouble at school." And she'd said at the start of the school year that her goal was to get no more detentions. She'd succeeded so far, but it was not going to go her way from now on. She was at least getting two or three Saturday detentions for this. If she didn't get a suspension altogether.

I doubted the latter, though, because there were simply far too many people involved in this one situation. And I had a feeling that after the example of Lok House, the other houses would do the same thing too. That would not go well. That would become a year-wide disaster.

The girls kept on whining, and Analisse, Yunji, Oliana and I slowly made our escape from the common room as we headed to breakfast, murmuring about it between us.

"None of them actually feel sorry," Yunji pointed out shrewdly. "They're just sad they got caught."

"None of them think they did anything wrong," Analisse snorted, "because in their view they didn't. I get that, but I also find that really funny."

I refrained from commenting. Just in case anyone was listening. We already shared a strained relationship, we didn't need to add anymore onto that. My reputation at school was already fairly negative (mostly because of the Sebastian situation), I really didn't need to add anymore into that.

That, and apparently I had a massive resting bitch face. Some of the weeklies had accidentally mentioned it in my face one time. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I supposed.

It kept the nasty people away. And there were plenty of people at this school I wanted to keep interactions to a minimum with.

Not that they had any interest in talking to me in the first place.

It was quite sad to think about it that way.

But it was also the truth. The nasty people were more often than not the most popular people. And those were also the people who wanted the least to do with me.

The day went on as normal. I went to classes, went to meals, went back to my dorm after lessons—and that was when things started feeling strange.

It started when no one said hi to me after I walked into the common room for toast. But I didn't think anything about it then. It wasn't usual, but they could have very well just been too busy. I ignored that and kept on with my day.

It was at dinner I realised something was very much wrong.

People were staring at me. I could feel it. People were glancing at me and then turning away, murmuring. I raised a brow at Audrey, Gwen and Louisa. "Is it just me, or am I suddenly the centre of attention?"

"Ignore them," Audrey advised. "There's probably some rumours going around or something. It'll die down. That's how shit always works."

So I did.

But when I went back to my dorm, I suddenly got a message from Audrey.

They're saying you snitched

Immediately, I typed back question marks.

Idk, I just heard someone talking about it, they think you snitched about the vape thing. Our headmaster just got a few of the weeklies out and they came back crying

???????? What the fuck how could i have snitched

I'd expected people to start speculating who'd snitched.

I hadn't expected them to think that it was me.

I should have.

Out of all four of us full boarding girls, I was the only one who really seemed to care about them. Analisse didn't. Oliana didn't. Yunji had always been invisible. I was the only one with some semblance of relevance, with a motive to have snitched.

Or so they thought.

Except I didn't.

I didn't snitch. I knew I didn't snitch. I was very certain of it, thank you very much.

I was nowhere bored enough to snitch on them, and them vaping had never precisely affected me either. But in their views I might have been annoyed at Adelina not befriending me anymore, or for them never having really befriended me in the first place. Or something along those lines. I didn't know.

Audrey's reply came a second later. Just heard Nadia & Collette talking about it idfk. I trust you.

Wait who got in trouble in Sorren House?

Audrey sent back, Nadia, Annabel, Marcella, Maria and Lara

My mind was more or less blank. Is Annabel the blonde one?

They're all blonde.

That's great, isn't it

How could I have snitched when I didn't even know who half of them were? It made no sense. But if this was the case, it explained why everyone seemed to be avoiding me.

I made my way to Yunji's room, pushing it open. "Yunji. Do people think I snitched on them for vaping?"

Yunji turned to me, blinking. "Wait. Did you not?"

And that was when my mind turned blank. That was the moment when it felt as if I'd been a blind idiot an entire time, that no one in this fucking school knew or understand me. They all thought I'd snitched. Even Luo Yunji, arguably still one of my best friends in this entire school even though we weren't really close anymore, thought I'd snitched.

Yunji read my expression, and hers turned as well. "Oh. You didn't."

"Of course I didn't!" I shrieked. "Why the fuck would I snitch?"

I didn't care if I was being loud, or if the walls were thin enough that everyone in the rooms around could hear me. Let them. Let them hear me. At least that might be proof of my innocence. If there was one thing I absolutely hated in the world it was being blamed for something I didn't even do. And that was exactly what was going on right now.

And I wanted to scream.

"I mean," Yunji looked perplexed, "You don't really like them, and like, they're always vaping and you've complained about it before—"

"So have you!"

Hypocrites. That was what they all were. They were all hypocrites, that's all. I'd never wanted to hit someone or something more than at that moment. But I couldn't. I had to control myself, restrain myself, because I was in school and I'd probably get expelled if I did anything extreme.

So I held it in.

Once again, I held it in.

I knew I shouldn't, I knew that it was a mistake, but I held it in again.

"Yeah, but like..." Yunji didn't continue on. Instead, she swallowed, standing up and walking towards me.

"Are you feeling alright?"

I raised my chin. "Do I look like I'm feeling alright, Yunji?"

She shut her mouth.

I shook my head. "I just can't believe that this is what you people think of me."

"Honoria..."

"Shut up. Literally just shut up. I treated you as my best friend and this is what I get in return. Oh my god, how didn't I see this coming?" I could feel the tears rushing up to my eyes. I kept them in. For the first time in my life I wanted to cry and I stopped myself from doing so.

Being emotional wouldn't help me here.

I needed to be the level-headed one. The logical one. The one who knew what she was doing. The one who knew what was the right course of action.

I sucked in a huge breath.

"Honoria..."

"I just can't believe this."

"I'm sorry."

But I just shook my head. "It's a bit too late for that now, isn't it? I have a reputation to salvage, Luo Yunji."