"Truth is never quiet. It waits in silence, then screams when it has your full attention."
The north courtyard at midnight wasn't exactly welcoming.
A single flickering lamppost cast long shadows across the wet stone floor. The rain had stopped, but the sky still hung heavy, thick with the scent of storm and tension.
Aska arrived first.
He stood near the bench under the gnarled banyan tree, his hoodie pulled low, one hand gripping the USB Ara had told him to bring. His breath misted in the cold air.
Then came Ara — punctual, as always, but tonight her usual sharpness was dulled, like a blade too long left in battle.
Said appeared moments later, stepping out from the darkness in silence.
The three stood in a triangle.
Then finally, Aluna arrived, late and cautious. Her eyes scanned each of them, as if trying to guess who might be the first to shatter.
They didn't speak at first.
Because some silences are heavier than words.
Then Ara broke it.
"I know what we all thought," she said, voice calm, almost rehearsed. "That Said leaked the file. That he copied the exams. That he was the one who started this."
She turned to him. "But I've seen the footage again. I found angles they didn't scrub clean. You weren't alone that night. Someone else was in that lab."
Said's jaw clenched, but he didn't argue.
He simply said, "I didn't send the file."
Aska nodded. "We know. We think it came from higher up. Possibly the scholarship office."
That got Aluna's attention. "What? Why would they leak it?"
"Control," Aska answered. "They knew someone had broken the rules. But instead of punishing quietly, they decided to let us implode. The perfect pressure test."
Ara pulled out the flash drive she'd shown Aluna. "This was planted in my drawer. We're being framed. Maybe all of us. Maybe just one. But someone — either here, or outside — is setting the pieces."
Said took a step forward. "Then we fight back. We expose them first. We tell the truth."
Silence.
Then Aluna said, "What truth?"
Said blinked.
She continued, her voice breaking. "That we cheated? That we accessed private files? That we stole grades? We're not clean, Said. None of us are."
Ara added, "Even if we didn't leak it, we still committed the original crime. We're all guilty."
"But not all of us deserve to burn for it," Aska murmured.
A long pause.
Then Ara looked at all three of them. "One of us is lying about something deeper. I can feel it."
She pulled out a printout from her coat — security log timestamps. "These show someone accessed the scholarship admin system using Aska's credentials."
Aska's head snapped up. "That wasn't me!"
"I believe you," Ara said. "Because the access came from a tablet registered to Professor Darmawan. And guess what? He reported that device stolen two days later. But that theft was never investigated."
"So someone used his device to frame me," Aska muttered, piecing it together.
Said narrowed his eyes. "It was a setup. All of this."
Aluna stepped back, her face pale. "If they wanted us to turn on each other, it's working."
Ara looked around. "Then let's stop playing their game."
She placed her flash drive and Aska's USB on the bench between them.
"Everything we have — we upload it. Together. Not anonymously. Not in pieces. The whole story. A digital confession and exposure."
Said's voice was low. "If we do that… we lose everything."
Ara looked him dead in the eyes. "Or we keep hiding, and lose ourselves."
Aluna was trembling. "They'll revoke the scholarship. We'll be expelled."
"Or worse," Said added. "They'll charge us."
Aska took a long breath.
"I'd rather fall clean than live dirty."
One by one, they looked at each other. Years of ambition. Of pressure. Of fear.
But also of guilt.
And now — a choice.
"I'm in," Ara said.
"Me too," Aska echoed.
Aluna didn't speak, just nodded.
Then all eyes turned to Said.
He hesitated.
Then…
"I'm in."
"When secrets rot, they don't vanish — they spread. And the only cure is to drag them into the light."
---
Somewhere across campus, a system admin watched them through a remote feed — eyes narrowing.
"They know too much," he whispered.
He reached for his phone.
And dialed.
---