In front of Mrs. Willette, Oscar lowered his head with that classic scammer face—sad, pitiful, acting like he was the most wronged one in the world.
Seeing his acting, I felt like throwing up.
What was he doing?!
If I weren't holding myself back, my right hand would've already smacked the back of his head.
My sanity snapped back when I heard the whispers circling the room, none of them in my favor. I also heard snorts and scoffs thrown at me.
I didn't flinch.
With steady steps, I approached Mrs. Willette's desk.
"You called for me, Mrs. Willette?" I asked politely.
Oscar and Mrs. Willette turned around.
Oscar showed no expression, but I caught the twitch on his lips. He was on the verge of laughing, probably thinking he had successfully turned everyone against me.
But Mrs. Willette didn't look at me with suspicion like the others did. "Clarissa, let me ex—"
"Why did you plagiarize your classmate's work?!" A teacher from another class cut her off with a sharp tone.
He was Fina's homeroom teacher, the same teacher who had admitted Fina was at fault before… and then seemed to get into trouble with Fina's father afterward.
So that was it. He'd been waiting for a chance to take it out on me.
"Young lady, stealing someone else's invention is the same as committing a crime," another teacher chimed in. "This is a serious offense."
"From what I know, your grades are high. Were those all from cheating too?" Baseless accusations kept flying one after another.
And again, Oscar's lips twitched. He was thoroughly enjoying seeing me turned into a punching bag.
"Everyone, silence please!" Suddenly Mrs. Willette's firm voice cut through the noise.
Some teachers clicked their tongues, whispering that she didn't know right from wrong. But she ignored them completely.
Her gaze refocused on me.
"The Rookie Ae-Engineer Competition committee sent word that two students from this academy submitted identical devices. Not only in appearance, but also in the usage instructions."
My eyes immediately snapped to Oscar.
He—he actually dared to copy my work and then accuse me of copying?!
My fists clenched tight.
My blood boiled all the way to my head.
I didn't even know what kind of expression I was giving Oscar anymore.
I was furious. Beyond furious.
I had been kind enough to help him before. I even gave him a chance that should've been mine.
Now?
He was beyond forgiveness.
"Clarissa, staring at me like that won't help. The fact is, you plagiarized my work," Oscar said smoothly, as if lying was second nature to him.
How audacious!
"Oscar, your fake-sad acting is pointless. The fact is, you plagiarized my work." I threw his own words back at him.
He wiped imaginary tears—yes, imaginary, because there were none. "I'm not acting."
My hand was itching so badly to greet his hypocritical face.
Before I ran out of patience, I needed to straighten this out quickly.
Proving my innocence was easy.
I knew details that weren't listed in the instructions submitted to the committee. "I can prov—"
"Clarissa, I know you always want to beat me. But this device, The Shifter's Aide, there's no way someone like you could create it," Oscar said confidently.
"What do you mean?" I asked, brows furrowing.
"How could someone who has never shifted, someone whose inner wolf hasn't awakened, create a device meant to reduce the pain of shifting?" he asked proudly, chin raised.
The murmurs began again.
"So she's a second-year whose inner wolf still hasn't awakened, the defective omega?"
"Is she even really a werewolf?"
"I heard she's just a mutation. Her parents were criminals who gave her werewolf blood."
I almost laughed. So that was either a new rumor or an old rumor gone wild.
But I was immune to gossip about my birth parents by now. I knew they weren't the criminals, though.
What mattered right now was the plagiarism accusation. Several students loudly agreed with Oscar.
I snorted.
Ha! So that was why he was so confident.
"I'm not trying to insult your background, Clarissa," Oscar continued. "But someone like you would never know, much less think, to create this device. You've never awakened, and you have no parents, no family. Without people close to you, how would you ever learn anything about shifting?"
Has your brain turned into shrimp paste or what?! I almost shouted it in his face.
He really said that nonsense.
The students, and even some teachers who agreed with him, were no less foolish.
Thankfully, Mrs. Willette stepped in again.
"Oscar, information about the pain and process of shifting is available in public articles. Clarissa could have learned from those."
"But—"
Before he could continue his nonsense, I cut in.
"It's true I've never experienced shifting. And I don't have parents to ask about it. But…"
"I have many siblings who aren't related by blood. Friends who also grew up without parents. I watched them struggle during their first shift. As fellow orphans, I don't want any of us to suffer like that again.
"So I studied. I searched for anything that could reduce the pain. And what I found was that the only thing that eases shifting pain is having parents who can share that pain.
"I don't have parents. So what—should I and every orphan just accept that suffering?
"The Shifter's Aide was born from my deepest wish. To help myself—and others like me."
Silence.
The students who had mocked me, and the teachers who had pressured me, fell quiet.
Some teachers got up and left the room. I heard the footsteps of students shuffling away too.
Their pride was too big to acknowledge the words of a defective omega who was also an orphan. So they left instead.
Oscar panicked. His face shifted from confidence to fear.
He really thought he could claim my invention as his just with that ridiculous argument?
"Oscar, earlier you accused me of plagiarizing you, right?" I looked at him with a sharp, challenging gaze. "Well, I'm accusing you of plagiarizing me too."
"No!" he shouted, desperate.
"Oh, so if you say no, that makes it true?" I clicked my tongue. "Then answer this. If you really made that device, you must know which research studies it was based on, right?"
Oscar's face drained of color.
He clearly hadn't expected me to ask something technical.
Oscar really forgot that the 'smart class monitor' image he always flaunted… was something he gained because I helped him.
…