Rain had been falling since morning.
The sky above Zenith Warriors was gray, as if the sun had deliberately hidden behind the thick clouds. Raindrops kept striking the windows of the main building, creating a monotonous sound that somehow made the school feel even quieter.
The field, usually packed with students, was slick with rain. Puddles had begun forming in several places. The basketball court, normally a gathering place for students during break, was empty.
Most students chose to stay inside their classrooms.
That day was supposed to be ordinary.
But after what had happened in the archive room the day before, Raka's mind was far from calm.
Adrian Mahesa's name kept crossing his mind.
He didn't know who Adrian was.
He didn't know what connection Adrian had to Zenith Warriors, either.
But Raka knew that Arman Pradipta was looking for something related to that student.
What made him even more curious was the way Arman was hiding it.
The new teacher wasn't stupid.
At least now, Raka was certain of that.
Since morning, Raka had watched Arman from a distance several times.
Arman continued playing his usual role.
He brought the wrong books.
Called the wrong rooms by name.
He had even asked a student where the teachers' room was, despite already having been there that morning.
Some students thought he was funny.
Some had even started to feel comfortable around him.
But Raka wasn't fooled.
Whenever no one was watching, Arman's expression changed.
His gaze grew more serious.
His movements became more deliberate.
And most importantly, he was always paying attention to his surroundings.
As if he were memorizing something.
Raka sat near the classroom window.
His hand propped up his chin.
His eyes were fixed on the rain.
"What a weird new teacher."
That was the conclusion that kept circling through his mind.
But Raka still didn't know what Arman was really looking for.
And he had no intention of asking him directly.
The break bell finally rang.
The sound of chairs scraping across the floor came almost simultaneously.
Several students stood at once.
Some headed to the cafeteria.
Some went to the restroom.
Others stayed in class.
Raka didn't move.
He remained in his seat.
Through the window, he could see the back of the school grounds.
An old building stood there.
It was different from the main building.
Its paint was more faded.
Some of its windows were no longer in use.
The building was technically still part of Zenith Warriors, but it was almost never used for student activities.
Rumor had it that some of its rooms had once been classrooms.
But after the new building was constructed, most activities were moved elsewhere.
Now only the lower floor was occasionally used to store old items.
The upper floors, meanwhile, were almost never visited.
Raka watched the old building.
Then something caught his attention.
Someone came out of the main building.
Arman.
The new teacher was walking alone.
He carried a thin folder.
But he wasn't heading toward the teachers' room.
Or the cafeteria.
Or any classroom.
He was walking toward the back of the school.
Toward the old building.
Raka frowned.
He watched Arman's steps.
They weren't hurried.
But they were clearly purposeful.
Arman didn't look like someone who was lost, either.
Raka stood.
He didn't follow right away.
He only watched from the window.
Arman crossed the rain-soaked courtyard.
Then disappeared behind the old building.
Raka fell silent.
Yesterday, Arman had been in the archive room.
Today, he was heading to the old building.
There was a chance the two things were connected.
But Raka didn't know how.
Meanwhile, Arman kept walking.
The rain made the air cold.
He climbed several steps toward the old building's entrance.
The door wasn't locked.
Arman opened it slowly.
The sound of the hinges rang loudly through the silence.
He stepped inside.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
The sound of the rain became more muffled.
The hallway inside the building was quite dark.
Several lights were out.
The walls were covered in traces of old paint.
Several bulletin boards had long since fallen out of use.
Arman closed the door behind him.
Then he looked around.
There were no students.
No teachers.
No one at all.
He headed for the stairs.
The first staircase.
He climbed it.
One floor.
Then two.
The higher he went, the quieter it became.
There were no student voices.
No teachers' voices.
Only the sound of rain occasionally filtering through the old windows.
Arman kept climbing.
One floor.
Two floors.
Three floors.
Until finally, he reached the top floor.
He stopped.
A long hallway stretched out before him.
At the end stood a large, dark-colored door.
It looked different from the others.
Most of the doors in the old building were worn and dull.
Some had peeling paint.
Some had rusty handles.
But not this one.
This door looked clean.
Well maintained.
As if someone still took care of it regularly.
Arman stood there for a moment.
His gaze remained fixed on the door.
Then he looked behind him.
Empty.
There was no one there.
Arman approached.
His hand touched the doorknob.
But he didn't open it right away.
He listened.
There was no sound.
Arman drew a breath.
Then opened the door a crack.
A narrow gap appeared.
Arman peeked inside.
The room beyond the door was completely different from the rest of the school.
Arman opened the door wider.
His eyes swept across the entire room.
It was clean.
Extremely clean.
There wasn't a speck of dust on the floor.
A sofa stood along one wall.
A long table occupied the center of the room.
Bookshelves covered part of the walls.
On the other side was a large window overlooking nearly the entire Zenith Warriors campus.
From there, someone could see the field.
The main building.
The gymnasium.
Part of the parking lot.
Even sections of the back grounds.
Arman stood still.
The room didn't look like an ordinary school room.
There were no student desks.
No blackboard.
No filing cabinets like the ones in the teachers' room.
It looked more like a private room.
Like a place where someone could sit for hours while watching over the entire school.
Arman stepped inside.
The door closed slowly behind him.
He walked toward the table.
There was nothing on it.
He inspected the bookshelves.
Most of the books looked ordinary.
But several sections of the shelves were empty.
Arman then looked toward the corner of the room.
A cabinet stood there.
It was dark-colored.
And fairly large.
Arman stared at it.
Something told him that this was what he had been looking for.
He approached.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
His hand rose.
His fingers were almost touching the cabinet handle.
But—
"Mr. Arman?"
Arman froze.
His hand stopped in midair.
For a fraction of a second, his expression changed.
He hadn't expected anyone to be there.
Arman slowly turned around.
Someone stood in the doorway.
Alexander Gavin Wibawa.
His uniform was still neat.
His hair wasn't even disheveled, despite the rain outside.
His face was calm.
His gaze was impossible to read.
Alexander stood without moving.
He only watched Arman.
Arman quickly lowered his hand.
The serious expression vanished from his face.
In an instant, he became the innocent-looking new teacher again.
"Oh!"
He gave a small laugh.
"Sorry."
Arman scratched the back of his head.
"I walked into the wrong room."
Alexander didn't answer.
His gaze remained fixed on Arman.
Arman tried to smile.
"What room is this, anyway?"
Alexander finally stepped inside.
The door behind him remained open.
"A room the new teacher shouldn't have entered by accident."
Arman laughed nervously.
"Wow..."
He looked around.
"Then I was way off."
Alexander continued walking.
His steps were calm.
Unhurried.
He stopped a few steps in front of Arman.
"You were."
Arman swallowed.
Alexander pointed toward the door.
"The classrooms are downstairs."
Arman nodded quickly.
"Yeah, I know."
Alexander looked at him.
"Then why are you here?"
The question sounded simple.
But Arman knew Alexander was actually testing him.
Arman smiled.
"I..."
He thought for a moment.
"I got lost."
Alexander gave a faint smile.
"In a building that's barely even used?"
Arman didn't answer.
For several seconds, the only sound was the rain.
Raindrops struck the window.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Alexander continued staring at him.
Arman tried to maintain his innocent expression.
But inside, he began calculating the possibilities.
Alexander knew about this room.
He didn't merely know about it.
He looked like someone who had an actual connection to the place.
Arman glanced around.
"I was actually looking for a storage room."
"On the top floor?"
Arman gave a small laugh.
"Yeah..."
He nodded.
"Maybe I'm just really bad at finding rooms."
Alexander didn't laugh.
He only watched him.
"New teachers usually ask a lot of questions."
Arman smiled.
"I do ask a lot of questions."
"And new teachers usually don't come straight up here."
Arman fell silent.
The words sounded like a warning.
Not a question.
Arman pointed toward the door.
"Then I'll head back downstairs."
He stepped past Alexander.
But just as Arman was about to leave, Alexander spoke.
"Mr. Arman."
Arman stopped.
He didn't turn around right away.
"Yes?"
Alexander stood behind him.
"If you really are lost..."
Arman slowly turned.
Alexander gave a faint smile.
"...you should try not to get lost in places like this too often."
Their gazes met.
Arman smiled.
It was the same innocent smile he'd worn when he first entered the classroom.
"Okay."
He nodded.
Then left.
Arman's footsteps echoed down the stairs.
Alexander remained standing in the doorway.
He didn't chase after him.
He didn't call out.
He simply watched until the footsteps grew more distant.
After Arman disappeared down the stairs, Alexander's faint smile vanished.
He closed the door.
Then looked at the cabinet in the corner.
Arman had been standing right in front of it.
Alexander knew the new teacher had almost opened it.
And that meant one thing.
Arman hadn't come here because he was lost.
Alexander walked toward the window.
He stood there.
From the top floor, all of Zenith Warriors was clearly visible.
The field.
The main building.
The gymnasium.
The road leading to the gate.
Everything could be seen from that room.
Alexander stood silently.
Then looked toward the stairs.
"The new teacher..."
He murmured softly.
There was something unusual about Arman.
Ever since he first arrived, the teacher had asked too many questions.
About the school.
About the students.
About certain places.
And now he had managed to find a room that wasn't easy to locate in the first place.
Alexander didn't like coincidences like that.
Meanwhile, Arman had reached the lower floor.
He stopped near the stairs.
His innocent expression slowly disappeared.
He looked up.
Alexander was still up there.
Arman drew a breath.
"So he knows."
Arman hadn't expected to run into Alexander so soon.
He also hadn't expected the room to still be in use.
But one thing only made him more curious.
If the room was truly unimportant, why was Alexander guarding it?
And why was its door so much better maintained than the rest of the building?
Arman looked at his palm.
His hand had almost touched the cabinet.
He'd been so close.
He didn't know what was inside.
But he was certain there was something in it.
Something connected to the history of Zenith Warriors.
Maybe documents.
Maybe photographs.
Maybe records.
Or something even more important.
Arman didn't know.
But now he had one problem.
Alexander.
The new teacher then walked out of the building.
The rain was still falling.
He took a long breath before putting his innocent expression back on.
As he crossed the courtyard, several students sheltering from the rain spotted him.
"Mr. Arman!"
Arman turned.
"Yeah?"
"What were you doing in the back?"
Arman smiled.
"I got lost."
The student laughed.
"Again, Mr. Arman?"
Arman laughed along.
"Yeah."
Then he walked away.
No one suspected him.
No one thought that only minutes earlier, he'd been on the top floor of the old building.
No one knew he'd almost opened a cabinet that seemed to have something to hide.
But someone was watching him.
Raka stood by the classroom window.
He'd been watching the old building the entire time.
He saw Arman go in.
He saw Arman come out.
But what made him even more curious was what happened afterward.
A few minutes later, Alexander also came out of the building.
Raka watched them both.
Arman walked out first.
Alexander followed a little while later.
They weren't very close together.
But they were close enough for Raka to realize they'd just been in the same place.
Raka hadn't heard their conversation.
He didn't know what had happened inside.
But something felt wrong.
There was no way Arman had reached the top floor by accident.
Not even as a new teacher.
The building was rarely used.
There was no reason for him to be there.
And Alexander...
Raka watched Alexander walking out.
Alexander wasn't the kind of person who would simply let someone enter a certain place.
Especially if that place contained something that needed to be hidden.
Raka looked at the old building.
His gaze stopped on the top floor.
"What exactly are they keeping up there?"
The question surfaced on its own.
Raka then looked at Alexander.
At that moment, Alexander stopped in the middle of the courtyard.
He turned around.
Their gazes met from a distance.
Raka fell silent.
Alexander didn't move, either.
There were no words.
No hand gestures.
Only a look.
For several seconds.
Then Alexander gave a faint smile.
Not a friendly smile.
More like the smile of someone who had just realized he was being watched.
Raka answered with a flat stare.
He didn't smile.
Alexander then continued walking.
Raka remained by the window.
His thoughts grew more tangled.
Yesterday, he'd found Arman in the archive room.
Today, Arman was in the old building.
And now Alexander had emerged from the same place.
Two incidents.
Two people.
One school.
Raka was beginning to feel that everything was connected.
He remembered what he'd heard from the archive room the day before.
Adrian Mahesa's name.
A student who had died.
A case whose report was incomplete.
Arman was investigating it.
Now Arman was searching another place.
Maybe he was looking for something connected to Adrian.
Raka exhaled.
But he didn't want to jump to conclusions.
He knew Zenith Warriors had plenty of secrets.
And perhaps the room on the top floor was one of them.
The class bell rang.
Students began returning to their classrooms.
Raka stood there for a few more seconds before finally turning around.
He walked back to his seat.
But his thoughts remained behind in the old building.
Meanwhile, on the top floor, Alexander was still standing inside the room.
He looked at the cabinet in the corner again.
His hand touched its surface.
He didn't open it.
He only stood there.
Alexander knew Arman's arrival hadn't been a coincidence.
The teacher was looking for something.
And if Arman continued searching, he would most likely discover more than he was supposed to.
Alexander walked back to the window.
His gaze settled on Raka, who had already returned to class.
Now there were two people who had caught his attention.
Arman.
And Raka.
They were different.
But they shared one thing.
They were both paying far too much attention to things they should have left alone.
Alexander smiled faintly.
"Interesting."
Then he turned around.
He left the room.
The large door closed again.
The lock turned.
The room fell silent once more.
No one knew what was stored inside the cabinet.
No one knew who owned the room.
And no one knew why a room that had gone unused for so long was being kept in such perfect condition.
But Raka now knew one thing.
The old building wasn't just an empty building.
And the top floor wasn't simply an unused floor.
There was something up there.
Something that had brought Arman there.
Something that made Alexander guard the place.
And perhaps something connected to the secrets of Zenith Warriors.
That day, Raka realized he wasn't the only person looking for answers.
Arman had already made his move.
Alexander was watching, too.
And now they were beginning to watch one another.
Raka didn't know what would happen next.
He only knew that the more he investigated Zenith Warriors, the more doors opened.
And every door led to new questions.
About Adrian Mahesa.
About Arman Pradipta.
About Alexander Gavin Wibawa.
And now—
about the room on the top floor.
The rain was still falling when the bell rang for class again.
Inside the classroom, the teacher resumed the lesson.
The students went back to taking notes.
Everything looked normal.
As if nothing had happened.
As if no teacher had just slipped into the old building.
As if no student was guarding a hidden room.
And as if no one was watching the two of them from afar.
But beneath Zenith Warriors' calm surface, something had begun to move.
Arman wouldn't stop searching.
Raka wouldn't stop watching.
And Alexander had realized that the two of them were beginning to approach something that was supposed to remain hidden.
That day marked the beginning of a far more complicated game.
They didn't yet know who could be trusted.
They didn't know who was lying.
And they didn't know that the answers they were seeking might be much closer than they imagined.
For the time being, everything returned to normal.
But on the top floor of the old building, a secret remained hidden.
Waiting for someone to open the cabinet.
And when the time came, what was found inside might change the way Raka saw Zenith Warriors forever.