The stupid life of the awkward people

Detective Jae and the dating conspiracy

Jae's first area of investigation was English. She waited outside the classroom with her hands in her pockets, playing with the weird strings at the bottom of them. Soon, her first suspect arrived: Samantha Cheshire.

"Hi, Jae."

"Hey, quick question. How did you find out about uhh... you know, Kurtis and Martha?"

"It was on Snapchat." Samantha shrugged nonchalantly. "Did you not see it?"

"I did actually. What I meant to ask was who first posted it?"

Samantha paused for a second to think. "I... actually don't know. I screenshot it from Tyrese's snap and he got it from someone else. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just curious, that's all!" Jae have a fake smile, thinking about how long it would take to solve this.

"You know it's everywhere on Snap. It's all screenshots by now."

That pretty much confirmed it was almost unsolvable. Jae let out a small, disappointed chuckle and ran her fingers through her hair. Even if she wanted to ask Tyrese, he was in Kurtis's class. She figured she'd wait until media to tell Kurtis.

English isn't very eventful in Jae's set. Occasionally, Callum would make a very dark joke or the "hot" year 8 English teacher would come in but it was very boring. The last big thing that happened was Mr Bram reading out the n-word in To Kill A Mockingbird with no hesitation or stammering.

It was finally time for media. Jae had narrowed down her suspects quite quickly with the help of Samantha asking around. But then again, that just made it slightly worse. At this point she thought to herself she couldn't fix this.

"Hello."

Jae turned to see Kurtis next to her. He didn't seem as bothered as before, mostly because the actual nice people have defended him such as Steve and Justine.

"Hi. How's your day so far?"

"Meh. Getting used to it." He sighed, still maintaining his exhausted mood. "I'm now getting stared at more than usual."

"Well that happens. As long as you don't have actual feelings for her, you're fine."

"I guess so."

"So who do you think started all this?" Jae leaned slightly closer, trying to keep their conversation a bit more quiet. Kurtis thought for a bit before sighing in annoyance.

"Nobody comes to mind. Except Claudia did mention it could be from Linda. I mean, Linda barely tolerates me. If something ruins my image, she'd likely jump right on it. But then again, doing something like this would possibly ruin any positive relationship with Ma-" He was suddenly interrupted by a loud shout from a few yards behind the two.

"Aye bruv, that's Kenny! Wagwan, my guy!" Exclaimed the large Romanian Male before slapping the unsuspecting Kurtis on his back, sending the poor boy flying a whole step. Jae just had to laugh. This large person is Ryan Tuderache and the short guy next to him is his best friend Pharrell Johnson. They're sort of the year group clowns.

"Morning-"

"Bruv what you saying? It's 12:30, tapped yute."

"That explains everything about my lessons."

Jae decided to walk on ahead, catching a small glimpse of Linda. She speed walked in her direction, catching up to her just outside the classroom.

"Linda!"

"Oh hi, Jae!" Linda responded enthusiastically as always, flashing a happy smile.

"So uhh you know the whole thing about Kurtis and Martha?"

"Yuh?"

"Yeah, who started it?"

"Ohh yeah that was me." Linda casually confirmed, almost startling Jae. "Please don't tell anyone, pleeeaaase?"

"Uhh.." Jae was absolutely dumbfounded and shocked. She went through a whole ordeal of checking screenshots and asking questions only for Linda to admit it so casually and freely, then for her to ask to keep this crime a secret. In all honesty, she sort of didn't like Linda right now. Not only did she think her intolerance of Kurtis was uncalled for but sharing a picture taken out of context and starting a false rumour was at the least incompetent. "Hold on, why?"

"Well, it started as a joke but I didn't expect it to spread so quickly."

"Well you've sort of ruined Kurtis's life."

"Well... whoops, I guess? It shouldn't really be a bad thing. Martha's really pretty."

"Linda, that's not a whoops!" Jae hid her annoyance with a tone of amusement. She shook her head as they walked into the classroom. Kurtis walked in a few seconds later, to which half the boys let out a cheerful "wa-hey!" at his arrival.

"I'm going to kill whoever started this."