Hell University-Chapter 39 - 38: Behind the Poison

Zein’s Point of View

"Come on, you might be late for your next class."

"But Supremo, there’s still so much I need to-"

"Just go, Zein. I’ve got it."

I quietly left the SSG Office. I didn’t even know if I was still technically the secretary or what, since Supremo was already taking over my work, even though it was piled high.

Then, a hard slap landed across my face, sending me sprawling to the ground.

My face went numb, but I still managed to lift my eyes to see who had hit me.

"N-Nicky?"

She was utterly terrifying. Her dark, intense eyes were practically glaring into me.

"You’re ruining everything!" she shouted, slapping me again on the other cheek.

At that moment, I couldn’t even lift my face. My whole face felt numb from the hard slaps on both cheeks.

What did I even do to her? Why is she slapping me out of nowhere? Why is she so furious? I’ve done everything to make sure no one could ever hurt me...

A scream tore out of me as she yanked my hair and roughly pulled me to my feet. She held my face up to hers, still gripping my hair so tightly that I could feel my scalp nearly being pulled from my skull.

"What did I do to you?!" I shouted, my voice echoing right in her face.

I almost went weak at the sight of her holding a nail. Her hand was trembling, and I knew she could drive it into me if she wanted.

"You’ve done nothing, and you won’t do anything, except stay away from Supremo."

"Are you insane?! Who are you to tell me wh-"

I went cold when I felt the chill of the nail press against my arm.

Even if she only stabbed me with it lightly, I knew my whole body could shut down from whatever filth and poison might be on that thing.

"Stay away from Supremo... or die," she said with a smile.

"Choose, Zein," she added.

I shook my head hard as I remembered Supremo’s order, that I was not to obey anyone but him. And I had no intention of disobeying him... even if it meant death.

"Go. Kill me now."

I felt strangely calm, even with the nail pointed straight at me.

I don’t know why, but that familiar sense of indifference toward my own life slowly crept back in. I wasn’t afraid of death, again, for the nth time.

"Zein Shion. I don’t want everything to be ruined just because of your stupidity. Yours and Supremo’s," she said. "Go ahead. Get closer to Supremo, and feel the pain when everything comes crashing down."

She let go of me, and I collapsed to the ground, slowly bowing my head. I understood something from what she said, but only a little. Most of it was still unclear.

What exactly were they saying would be ruined because of me? What other secret were they still hiding?

I went to the clinic first to ask for some ice to bring down the swelling on my face from Nicky’s slaps and anger. I was lying on the bed, tending to myself, while Nurse Cha simply watched me.

"Who did that?" she asked.

I wanted to scoff. What business was it of hers, and since when did she ever care? We could be dying and she wouldn’t even treat us, but now, just because of a slap, she suddenly cared?

"What are you to Supremo?"

I paused for a moment, then continued as if nothing happened. What are we, anyway? Nothing.

"Secretary." Right. I’m just his secretary.

She let out a soft laugh, making me raise an eyebrow.

"I know there’s something between you two."

"And so?"

"Just make sure Supremo doesn’t see what happened to your face, or who did it. You’ll just cause trouble again," she said, shaking her head.

"This is the first time I’ve ever seen Supremo like that, the kind where he’s being ordered around by someone beneath him."

That was it. I scoffed outright.

"I’m here for some peace of mind, not to talk to you."

"Why so straightforward? Is that how Supremo wants you to be? Is that what he likes about you? I thought Supremo was picky."

I felt like laughing while raising my middle finger. Did they really have to rub in my face that I wasn’t the one they expected to catch Supremo’s attention? Well, too bad, I was the one Supremo chose, and I couldn’t care less about their opinions. Psh.

Annoyed, I slammed the ice down, about to storm out, when her words stopped me in my tracks.

"Believe it or not, I’ve conducted an investigation into the poison that was mixed into your drink at the last acquaintance party."

Suddenly, memories from a few months ago flashed through my mind. I approached Nurse Cha.

"Tell me everything," I said, almost without thinking.

She motioned for me to sit, and I did. She grew serious, and I didn’t know whether I could trust her, but a part of me desperately wanted to know what she had discovered.

"It wasn’t a banned drug that you drank... It is a poison."

"Poison?" I echoed, my voice barely a whisper.

Nurse Cha walked over to a drawer and took something out. She showed me a black liquid. Just looking at it, it seemed incredibly potent.

"That’s a poison that can stop your heart within ten hours."

"Ten hours?" I asked, confused. "What kind of idiot would want us dead and choose a poison that takes ten hours to work? Isn’t that way too long? They could’ve used something stronger, something that would kill in a minute," I said, clearly baffled.

Why did they decide to make it last ten hours? I know there are poisons that can kill in just a minute, or even seconds, so why drag it out?

"Unless their real intention wasn’t to kill you," Nurse Cha said.

I furrowed my brows at her words. That could be their intention... but why?

"Why did the poison affect me so strongly? I only had a little, while Dave drank a lot more," I asked next.

That was the strange part. The effect on Dave, who had way more, was mild, while just a few sips nearly knocked me out.

"Because the poison wasn’t mixed in the liquor. It was in the ice." She showed me a glass with an ice cube in it and stirred it.

"You drank your drink after the ice had already melted and spread through the liquor, while Dave took each sip quickly, swallowing immediately," she explained.

I suddenly remembered that I had gulped my drink straight down and had let it sit empty, even after the ice had melted.

"That explains why, even though you drank less, you were the most affected."

I just nodded. I knew she was telling the truth, so I couldn’t help but smile.

"Why did you tell me?" I asked.

She swallowed hard and went pale, but then she suddenly started crying, furrowing her brow.

"I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you. I promised I would help anyone who needed me... but they scared me. I’m sorry," she sobbed.

I stayed silent, my eyes fixed on her. I knew they had a hold over Nurse Cha somehow, that’s why she was doing this. I couldn’t help feeling sad, thinking about what kind of threats they must have made to force her to obey.

"Please forgive me. But I promise I’ll help you from now on. I’m sick of being obedient to them."

She gave a bitter smile as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I know that in the end... I’ll die anyway," she added.

"What if you get hurt because you’re going against them?" I couldn’t help but ask.

"I told you, they’ll kill me once they finish the formula," she said. "If they’re going to kill me, then so be it. At least I’ll leave them with a mark of revenge." Her fists clenched.

"I’ll make them pay for what they did to my sibling," she added, her voice heavy with bitterness.

"Oh, right, before I forget," she added. "Someone asked me for that poison before the incident," she said, referring to the substance mixed into the drinks.

"W-Who?" I asked.

"I can’t remember," she replied. "Wait, let me get the logbook." She motioned, and I nodded. She went back to the drawer and rummaged through it.

Who? Who would do something like that to us?

I flinched when Nurse Cha sat down beside me, and together we scanned the logbook by date.

"This is the date," she said, so we went through the names signed in the logbook one by one.

Her finger stopped on a name that was painfully familiar to me. My heart slammed against my chest, and I bit down hard on my lip.

"He-"

"No!" I hurled the logbook across the clinic without even knowing why. "You’re wrong! It’s not him!" I insisted.

I didn’t want to accept that he could do something like that to me. I would never accept that he was the one behind the poisoning.

"But he’s the one who took the poison."

I angrily threw a pillow at Nurse Cha. She just took it without reacting. I was seething with rage, not knowing where to even begin pouring it all out. I didn’t know how to answer the countless questions screaming inside my head.

"M-Maybe you’re mistaken. He wouldn’t do that," I said weakly before collapsing onto the bed.

Out of all the people in this hell, there were many who could’ve tried to kill us, but not him. Anyone else would’ve been easier to accept. But if it was him? I didn’t know how I was supposed to deal with that.

"He’s one of your friends, isn’t he?"

"Shut up!"

I stood up and left that place. My steps were quick, restless, I didn’t have a destination, but I had no intention of stopping. Not until my pace slowly began to slow down on its own.

"Hey!"

I almost jumped out of my skin when someone suddenly startled me. Even without seeing a smile, I smiled at him.

This wasn’t the kind of person who would betray us. He wasn’t that type. And even if he were... I was sure there had to be a reason.

A reason. Everything has a reason. And I was done acting on impulse. I had already made that mistake once, accusing Matt without knowing the whole story. I would never repeat that mistake again.

"Why are you just staring? Are you okay?"

"Can we talk?"

"I’m a little nervous... okay."

We walked quietly toward the dorm, and there was no one else around.

He sat on the sofa, legs crossed in an Indian style. Just seeing his smile, I knew he wouldn’t do something like that, and I was ready to hear his reason.

"Why did you do that?" I asked Jerome directly.

The sweet smile disappeared, replaced by a bitter one.

"You already know?" he asked.

I sat across from him, staring him in the eyes.

"You’re the one who poisoned Dave and me at the acquaintance party. Why-"

I stopped mid-sentence when I heard something fall.

I swallowed hard when I saw our four friends standing at the doorway. Just by looking at their faces, I knew they’d heard what I said. Good, it was better for all of us to realize the truth at the same time.

"Y-You? Jerome?" Mia asked, disbelief in her voice.

I screamed when Matt suddenly swung a punch at Jerome’s face, sending him sprawling onto the sofa. Not satisfied, Matt kept punching him while Jerome just endured the pain.

"Fuck you! You idiot!"

"Matt!" I shouted, trying to stop him, but Matt didn’t back down. I looked at Dave, who had frozen in shock, but he snapped out of it and restrained Matt.

"Let go of me, Dave! That idiot is a traitor!" Matt yelled, but Dave had wrapped his arms around him, blocking his fists so he couldn’t get free.

I glanced at Vanessa, who was just staring at Jerome with a serious, almost stunned expression. I knew she was the most affected by all this, and there was nothing I could do to calm her down.

Jerome straightened up and just wiped the corner of his split lip.

"Yes. I poisoned you," he admitted.

Vanessa slapped him hard, and I quickly pulled her away from him.

"Calm down, both of you!" I shouted, frustrated.

"Calm down?! He’s a traitor!" Matt shouted, still held back by Dave.

"Explain yourself, Jerome. Clear your name to us," Vanessa said, her voice flat and emotionless.

I knew Vanessa and I were thinking the same thing. We knew Jerome, a playboy, joker, arrogant, but we also knew he was a true friend. If Nurse Cha’s suspicion was right, and they never actually wanted to kill us, then what was the reason behind all this?

"Explain your side. Just make sure your reason is acceptable," Matt said to Jerome, his tone carrying a hint of threat.

I noticed Dave was quiet too, just like Mia and Vanessa.

"Yes. I poisoned both of you," he began, looking straight at me and Dave.

I saw Matt subtly clench his fists, so I grabbed his arm. I knew he wasn’t really angry, just like us, he was shocked and worried.

I know Matt. When he’s truly angry, he ignores you completely. Even if you bump into him, you’re just air to him. But he punched Jerome, that only meant he cared. He was worried, he had feelings about this, and I knew my friends could see that too.

"I did it, on purpose." He swallowed hard and discreetly wiped the blood from his lip. "I did it to save us," he added.

My brows furrowed, a flood of questions threatening to spill out, but I chose to stay quiet instead. I wanted to understand what he meant by saving us.

"You already know what kind of poison I asked from Nurse Cha, Zein," he said.

All eyes were on me, and I guess it was my turn to explain.

"Yes, it wasn’t actually a prohibited drug, it was a kind of poison mixed into the ice," I began. "It was in the ice, which explains why I was more affected than Dave, even though he drank more than I did. The ice with the poison had already melted by the time I drank it, so the poison mixed into the liquor. Dave, on the other hand, gulped his drink straight down before the ice had a chance to melt."

They seemed satisfied with my explanation. I could see it on their faces, they finally understood.

"That poison could freeze your heart... within ten hours," Jerome said quietly.

"Ten hours?" Matt snapped, still clearly irritated, though he had calmed down a bit. "You could’ve used a poison that kills in minutes, seconds, even. Was that stupidity, or were you planning something?"

That was my question too, the very reason this interrogation with Jerome was happening. I wanted to know his reason.

"No," Jerome answered, sitting up straighter. "We did that on purpose."

"Why?" Vanessa asked coldly, causing Jerome to pause for a moment.

"I overheard their conversation, Madame Violet and... well, the strange man, back when we didn’t even know she was the Vice President of HU yet. They planned to poison all six of us," Jerome explained.

"So you just poisoned us yourself so they wouldn’t have to bother?" Matt asked sarcastically.

"Not exactly, but... yeah, kind of," Jerome replied. "I was going to tell you the plan Madame Violet had, but a woman stopped me," he added.

"A woman? Who?" I asked.

"She didn’t introduce herself, but she explained to me that if you found out Madame Violet’s plan, everything would become more complicated. That’s why we took action," Jerome said.

"You trusted someone you didn’t even know?" Vanessa asked, disbelief clear in her voice.

"I had no choice. I understood what she wanted us to do, so we swapped the ice cubes that were meant for us," he replied.

"How did you even know those were the ones being served at our table?" Matt asked next.

"We followed the people sent by Madame Violet and Francisco. We noticed an ice cube container set apart from the others. They had poured some kind of liquid into it. We didn’t know what kind of poison it was, but I knew it could kill in just one minute."

I swallowed hard. They were animals. Absolutely heartless.

"We waited for the people they sent to leave before we acted. We dumped the contents of the ice box and replaced it with fresh ice. Then we poured in the poison Nurse Cha gave us. Unlike the poison they put in, the poison we used took longer to work, but before we did it, we made sure we had an antidote ready to counter it."

He looked at each of us in turn, as if checking that we understood.

"And that’s how the plan started. The woman who helped us that night at the clinic, that woman was my accomplice," he added.

I couldn’t help but smile. Trusting him had been the right decision. I knew he would never put us in real danger. We owed him our lives.

"You did that?" Vanessa asked, disbelief now evident in her voice, but at least she was now smiling.

Jerome nodded weakly, finally able to breathe a little easier.

"Was the woman who helped you also the one who threw the antidote out the window?" Dave asked, smiling now as well.

Jerome chuckled.

Then we were all surprised when Matt suddenly slapped Jerome.

"You idiot! I told you, you wouldn’t be able to betray us like that!" Matt said, laughing.

Vanessa and Dave quickly went over to Jerome to help him and tend to the wound Matt had just given him.

"Why did you even have to make it obvious that Madame Violet’s plan had succeeded?" I asked.

"If I had not done that and nothing unfortunate had happened to some of us, they might have done something far worse to us that night."

"I clearly saw Madame Violet smiling as she watched us fall into chaos. They thought they had succeeded. What they did not know was that there was a man who dared to take action to save his friends from certain doom," Vanessa said, referring to Jerome.

"Why didn’t you drink?" Matt asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"If I drank, who would help us? We would die," he replied with a laugh.

I breathed a sigh of relief and admitted that my trust in my friends had doubled, yet the thorn in my throat remained, as I pondered the many unresolved mysteries.

All the mysteries that were about to be revealed. Even the mystery that Nicky had mentioned.

What are they hiding? Even Celine, how did she die? Was it really BBG who did it? But why?

What did Celine have in her possession back then, and why did she seem to tremble in fear?