The fury of the previous day was a low, simmering ember in Yuhon's chest, but he banked it carefully.
His parents' words echoed in his mind: "The world isn't as neat as your textbooks."
He couldn't storm into school looking like he wanted to incinerate the world. He had to be Yuhon. Normal, slightly-bored-with-agriculture-class Yuhon.
Stepping through the school gates felt like entering a different dimension.
The air wasn't thick with the scent of betrayal and death; it was thick with the smell of cheap cafeteria food and adolescent anxiety.
The loudest arguments weren't about territorial disputes between criminal syndicates, but about who copied whose math homework.
He found Mei and Jin at their usual spot under the tree.
Jin was frantically scribbling on a worksheet, while Mei was watching him with an expression of profound disappointment.
"No, no, no, Jin!" Mei sighed, snatching the paper from him.
"You can't just say the Treaty of Nanjing was 'a big oopsie for the Qing dynasty.' You need historical analysis, not a YouTube comment!"
"But it was a big oopsie!" Jin whined, running a hand through his hair.
"They lost a war and had to give up Hong Kong! That's, like, the definition of an oopsie!"
Yuhon dropped his backpack and slid down next to them. "I'm with Jin on this one. Major oopsie."
Mei fixed him with a deadpan stare. "Don't encourage him. His essay reads like it was written by a meme page."
She glanced at Yuhon, her sharp eyes missing nothing. "You look… less intense today. Everything okay? You kinda vanished yesterday."
"Just had a lot to think about," Yuhon said, leaning back against the tree.
"Farm stuff. You wouldn't believe the aphid problem we're having this year. Real scourge."
Jin, grateful for the distraction, latched onto the new topic.
"Aphids? Dude, my mom's roses are getting destroyed! She's tried everything! Soapy water, neem oil, ladybugs… she even played classical music for them because she read online that aphids hate Bach!"
Mei raised an eyebrow. "And did the aphids develop a sudden appreciation for baroque counterpoint and leave?"
"No," Jin admitted glumly. "I think they liked it. They multiplied."
Yuhon chuckled. "My dad says the only thing that really works is a focused application of thumb and forefinger."
Jin looked horrified. "That's so… manual!"
"It's honest work," Yuhon said with a shrug, echoing his father's favorite phrase.
The bell rang, saving them from further agricultural debate.
History was followed by mathematics, a subject so laughably simple for Yuhon that he spent the period discreetly sketching designs for a more heat-resistant Fox mask in the margins of his notebook.
Lunch brought the main event.
The cafeteria was its usual chaotic symphony of clattering trays and shouted conversations.
The trio had just sat down with their questionable food when their classmate, a boy named Leo known for his… dramatic interpretations of events, slammed his tray down next to them, his eyes wide with excitement.
"Guys. Guys. You are not going to believe what happened to me last night," Leo announced, puffing out his chest.
"Did you finally beat that impossible level in Dragon Sword XIV?" Jin asked through a mouthful of mystery meat.
"Better!" Leo said, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
"I was walking home from the arcade, right? And I took that shortcut through the old industrial park."
Mei immediately frowned. "Leo, that's not a shortcut, that's a great way to get mugged by the Iron Serpents."
"They're not there anymore!" Leo said, waving a dismissive hand.
"Anyway, I'm walking, and I hear this noise. Like a… a scuffle. So I peek around a corner, and what do I see?"
He paused for dramatic effect. Jin leaned in, captivated. Mei looked skeptical. Yuhon took a slow sip of his water.
"I see him! The Grinning Fox! He was there! He had these two guys from the Xenoh group cornered! And he was all…" Leo jumped up,
striking a pose that was probably meant to be intimidating but looked more like he was trying to swat a bee. "'Your criminal enterprise ends tonight, evildoers!'"
Yuhon choked on his water. He had said no such thing.
"He said that?" Jin breathed, his eyes like saucers.
"Well, not exactly those words," Leo backtracked.
"But it was something super cool and heroic like that! And then—and this is the best part—he made this hand sign, and blue fire shot out and… and melted their shoes to the pavement!"
Yuhon coughed, trying to hide his laughter. He'd used a simple joint lock and a light frost spell to make the ground slippery.
Mei pinched the bridge of her nose. "Leo, the news said those men died of an overdose miles away from the industrial park."
"A cover-up!" Leo insisted, undeterred. "The Fox obviously… uh… used his psychic powers to make them overdose later as a warning to others! It was so cool!"
Yuhon couldn't help himself. "Psychic overdose powers? Really, Leo?"
"You wouldn't get it, Yuhon," Leo said, with the supreme confidence of someone who has crafted a perfect, unfalsifiable narrative.
"You're a farm kid. This is big-city hero stuff. It's complex."
The sheer, glorious absurdity of it was the perfect antidote to Yuhon's dark mood. He exchanged a look with Mei, who was fighting a losing battle against a smile.
"You're right, Leo," Yuhon said, his face utterly serious.
"It's very complex. I'm just glad you made it out alive to tell the tale. His psychic aura didn't accidentally give you a craving for broccoli or anything, did it?"
Leo looked thoughtful for a moment. "Now that you mention it, my mom's steamed broccoli did taste really good this morning… oh my god."
He wandered away, a new theory already forming in his mind.
Jin turned to Yuhon and Mei, his expression earnest. "Do you think he actually saw him?"
"I think Leo once told us he'd befriended a talking squirrel that taught him the secrets of the universe," Mei said dryly. "So, no."
The rest of the day passed in a blur of normalcy.
There was a hilarious incident in chemistry where a kid who'd spent too much time watching the Disaster Duo footage tried to replicate the Abyssal Witch's lightning to speed up a reaction and nearly fused a beaker to the lab table.
The teacher, Mr. Bao, a man with the patience of a saint and the expression of a disappointed walrus, just sighed and wrote him a detention slip.
"Mr. Higgins," Mr. Bao said in his tired monotone. "While I appreciate your enthusiasm for interdisciplinary studies, this is a chemistry lab, not the Obsidian Syndicate headquarters. Please use the Bunsen burner like a civilized person."
The class erupted in laughter. Yuhon laughed along with them, the sound feeling foreign and wonderful in his throat.
After school, as they walked out together, Jin was still buzzing. "A talking squirrel, though. That would be pretty cool."
"It would be a national security threat, Jin," Mei said. "Imagine the secrets it could overhear."
"It could be our mascot!" Jin insisted. "The Grinning Fox and the Talking Squirrel! They could fight crime together!"
Yuhon shook his head, a genuine, easy smile on his face. The weight was still there, the knowledge of the Grey Fog's cold brutality a stain on his conscience.
But for today, it was buried under the glorious, ridiculous, and utterly necessary chaos of a normal day at school.