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There was chaos amongst Aeji Academy's halls, but for once, HONG YERA didn't find peace in it.

She'd always been, as her brother so often said, a tour de force—a sensation within the spy world, even though she was just in grade two at Aeji. Yerim—or Yera, as she preferred—had always been a quintessential pavement artist. She wasn't the best at combat, weaponry, technology, or intelligence. There was only one thing she was good at, but she was damn good at it. And gossip spread mostly from her lips, because Yera knew everything.

Sometimes that was more of a bad thing, though.

She pursed her lips, fingers tangled around the chain of the silver heart locket she always wore. The soft breeze on the highest tower of Aeji Academy blew her hair around her face, but Yera didn't mind the wind. She knew all the nooks and crannies in the academy, and this ledge on the roof was the best one to go to when she wanted to be alone.

There had already been rumors growing when she'd stepped foot onto the campus, so Chimera had to do what Chimera was known for—spread them further. She'd spent hours weaving in between gaggles of girls, cementing her reputation as Aeji's resident gossipmonger. Or gossip-knower. A lot of it she kept close to her chest, after all.

With a sigh, Yera set one of her hands down to grope around beside her for her phone, pulling it up and calling her brother. He picked up on the first ring. "How are things at Dongsun?" she asked drily.

"Principal Cho went over this morning. They should be in your school by now," Yejun answered crisply. Yera laughed. "Yes, shut up, I wasn't invited. Falcon and Kai went."

"You say that like I know who they are," Yera criticized wryly. "It's okay. I'll keep you updated."

Yejun sounded suspicious while he asked. "How are you so certain that they'll want you for the mission?"

Speak of the devil, Yera supposed, because she heard the faint echoes of footsteps from inside the tower after he'd spoken. "Because I already know everything," she said. "Thanks to dad's complete inability to shut up around us. Besides, I'm good."

"You're a narcissist," Yejun said blandly. "Call me."

"Yup," Yera said, hanging up. Her fingers went back to the necklace around her throat. She tucked her phone away into the inner pocket of her Aeji blazer. She'd gone a little more dressier—platformed black pumps instead of the school-issued Oxfords for footwear, along with some tan leg warmers and her silver AirPods wrapped around her neck as always. "That you, Iris?" she called out behind her.

"Chimera," Eom Hyemi greeted, as Yera turned to see three girls crowded by the tower window. "Are you coming back inside, or do you want us to get on the roof with you?"

"I'll come inside," Yera said.

"Can we like, use actual names? It feels a tad surgical to call her Chimera," the shortest girl out of the three complained. She looked youthful—maybe a freshman—and Yera regarded her with a look of surprise. She hadn't expected Headmistress Moon to recruit freshmen. Perhaps there were some things she didn't know after all. "Also, why is Aeji so obsessed with Greek mythology? How do we have an Iris and a Chimera?"

"I picked mine first," Hyemi said almost automatically. "So you can accuse her of copying me."

"Shut up," Yera said with an exaggerated eye roll. The three girls parted to allow her to slip back into the tower, the rush of warm air letting out a soft exhale from Yera's lungs. "Where are we going?"

"Board room two. Can you please explain to me why you know everything already?" The short girl demanded. "It's getting a little weird."

"Um, says the one who shoved herself into the mission because you somehow already knew about Dongsun? Yera, did you know there was a male version of Aeji?" Yera wasn't surprised to see Arina there—wherever Hyemi went, she usually followed—and she just shrugged. "Well, of course you knew, because your brother goes there or something—Hyemi, why were we not told?"

"If it makes you feel any better, none of them know about this place either," Yera said sympathetically. "Except for my brother and the guys who came today, I suppose. Anyway, you'd figure if they had a school for girl spies, they'd have one for boys."

Arina didn't look too pleased about that. "The idea never crossed my mind."

"It didn't cross mine either," Hyemi said, though it sounded like she was more trying to reassure Arina rather than anything else. Yera stifled a laugh. "Okay. Downstairs, then? I think we have some time to kill before we regroup. Care to tell us anything else?"

"Can the little one introduce herself first?" Yera asked, nodding at the short one. "I don't know you."

"I thought you knew everyone," the girl said blandly. "Madeleine Park. Thorn?"

Oh, that clicked. Yera had heard of Thorn—Ms. Zhou's prodigy weapons art student, obsessed with knives or guns of any kind. Yera herself wasn't one for anything that did real damage—her wits and mouth could talk her way out of combat, and she didn't prefer it—but from what she heard, Thorn was even more impressive than some upperclassmen. For a freshman, she was phenomenal.

"You're the one with the temper," Yera said.

Madeleine looked offended. "What temper?"

"Maddie," Hyemi said sympathetically, "Didn't you blow up at Madam Chang last semester because she caught you stealing knives in Dissimulation?" She paused. "Wait, can I call you Maddie?" she asked as an afterthought.

"Yes, you can call me Maddie," Madeleine said, but after that statement was through she was opening her mouth again, letting much more combative words out from between her lips. "And in my defense, Ms. Zhou says it's always best a girl be prepared—"

"Dissimulation is literally about information gathering and acting," Arina said critically. "We're supposed to learn how to be, well, spies there? Not fight?" She gave Madeleine a look, and Madeleine glared right back, though Yera could tell neither of them were being too serious about it.

Hyemi looked relieved at the teasing; like she was worried the team wouldn't get along, and this exchange just cemented it. "I'm glad you're liking each other," she murmured, confirming Yera's thoughts.

"Ugh, did you hear Professor Kim, though?" Madeleine demanded, making a face. "SOUR GRAPES is going to be joining the team."

Yera nodded. That made sense—probably the smartest person in the entirety of Aeji (save the faculty), SOUR GRAPES was whip-smart and a genius of incomparable levels. Yera had seen the articles from America, the girl's home country, talking about the genius daughter. But Aeji had wiped all those records when she'd started attending the school.

"What's wrong with SOUR GRAPES?" Arina asked with an arched brow.

"Well, she does have that reputation," Hyemi murmured, bumping Arina in the shoulder as they started their descent down the tower stairs. "She's kind of... icy. I haven't talked much to her. Have you, Yera?"

Yera glanced up, whip-quick to jump back into the conversation. "No, not really," she said smoothly. "She prefers to stick to herself, from what I've seen. Is it just going to be us five, then?"

"Watanabe Asuka, I think. She hacked into the Aeji mainframe. Either she's going to get in trouble or she's going to join the cause," Maddie informed her brightly. "And I think they also mentioned THE DREAMING. She made this cool multi-tool once, but it was like five weapons in one. The headmistress confiscated it, though."

Arina winced. "Please don't call it the cause. That makes it sound like we're fighting an illness."

"We don't know what we're fighting. It's classified. We could be trying to help South Korea cover up a leak of a life threatening virus, who knows?" Maddie said brightly. Yera winced. "Well, Yera knows, but—" She paused. "Do you know?"

Everyone stopped walking then, their steps slowing as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. Yera hesitated as all eyes turned on her, a waiting-room smile on her face as she formulated something to say. "I don't know everything," she started—the right words, it seemed, because everyone seemed instantly soothed. Better they think of her as part of the team than with the adults, after all. "Like I said, just some stuff from my brother and my dad. And I'm prone to eavesdropping. From what I've heard..."

She started walking then, and the other three girls flocked around her, even as Yera dropped her voice. "An agent went rogue," she whispered. "I don't know who, or how high clearance they had, or what it was they did, exactly. But they were a teacher at the Dongsun Institute. That's all that my father was told and that I've heard."

"And that's everything you know?" Hyemi asked. Yera nodded. "Why would they need us on a mission about a rogue agent? It doesn't have anything to do with Aeji?"

Yera just shrugged. "I don't know." She had a few ideas mulling around in the back of her skull, but none that were thought out enough to bother mentioning. "We'll have to wait to find out, I guess. What do you think they'll tell the rest of the students?"

"Probably that everything's fine and we've been selected for some special class trip," Arina said with a roll of her eyes. "If it's so high-level, they probably won't even tell them about the incident, right? The gossip will die down soon enough."

Yera nodded, but privately, she wasn't so sure. She knew rumors better than anyone else; secrets, information, perceptions. A school full of teenage girls wasn't about to drop the most interesting gossip they'd had in probably centuries. "We'll see," she said carefully. "Were there any representatives from Dongsun? My brother said his headmaster came over. Principal Cho."

"That's probably tweed-suit guy," Hyemi started, a thoughtful look mulling over her face. "Which, by the way—"

"A tweed suit? God," Yera muttered.

"Right?" Arina demanded. "There's two other kids with them, though. One looks about my and Hyemster's age, maybe eighteen. The other one was just sleeping the entire time. Probably younger. I don't like either of them."

"Okay," Yera said. Maybe in another life, she would've questioned it—but Aeji girls stuck together. And if one of them didn't like them, nobody did. "My brother said their code names were Falcon and Kai."

"Oh, the younger one had a wrist cuff on. Flashing. Like a house arrest bracelet," Madeleine piped up. "No idea why. Nobody seemed to like him very much, not even his principal. The older guy seemed kinda protective of him though."

Yera nodded. "Okay. Are we supposed to get SOUR GRAPES, or...?"

"I think Professor Kim's doing that," Hyemi said with a shake of her head. She was already the assigned leader of the mission, and Yera wasn't surprised. "I'd rather get to the meeting room and scope out what we have to deal with. If we're lucky, only a few of the faculty and the Dongsun boys will be there. Likely only Headmistress Moon and a few other teachers will end up coming because everyone still has to prepare for evening assembly."

"Aye aye, Miss Eom," Madeleine said with a little salute, and Hyemi choked.

"Don't call me that."

"Sorry, Miss Eom," Madeleine chirped. She looked like she was about to start moving, and then stopped. "Does anyone know where board room two even is?"

"Oh my God," Yera muttered. "First floor. This way." She motioned with her head, starting towards the elevators.

"Why did you have to hide at the highest peak in Aeji? I've been running around this stupid building way too much today," Arina muttered, though there was no real bite behind her words. Yera just shrugged. The rest of their journey was more or less silent—they didn't speak to any of the classmates they passed.

Sure enough, just as Hyemi had guessed, the only patrons of the board room were the two Dongsun boys. The Aeji girls filed in, taking seats at the table inside. The younger boy was still sleeping.

"Are you the one related to one of us?" the awake boy said, turning to Yera. He had a steel expression on his face, no emotions passing through. God, spies were so annoying to be around sometimes—but Yera could detect the little twitches underneath his mask; frustration at the situation, something bitter about his teacher, irritation at not knowing about Aeji's existence. "Who?"

Yera just smirked, a soft smile curling up one side of her mouth. "Wouldn't you like to know," she purred, and his scowl grew deeper. Just for kicks, Yera decided to push his buttons just a little more— "Falcon, right?"

"How did you—" Falcon sucked in a breath, soothing his muscles into one of indifference in just a moment. A moment too late, though. All of the girls had already caught the expression, and Yera had to hide her smile of victory. "Whatever. The faculty should be coming back soon. None of you even know what's going on yet." He shot them a look of irritation. Nobody bothered answering.

"This is going to be fun," Arina muttered. And Yera couldn't help but agree.

WELCOME TO GIRLS, HONG YERA

EBBIE'S NOTES: aaand i'm back from my hiatus to announce the newest member of GIRLS! yera is my oc, i hope you guys like her <33 sorry this chapter was a little short, but we're almost at the plot! just need one more girl and then we're all set.