❛𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐄❜ ━ 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘈𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘺

━━ 27

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON here?!”

They'd never seen Madame Bustier look so furious, and she hadn't even stopped there. “First of all, I get a complaint that apparently, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was insulting people while you were having lunch!” And after that one sentence, the teacher glared at Marinette.

Marinette couldn't help clenching her hands and curling her toes in anger that even the teacher had believed that. But then of course, how couldn't she have? The entire class all thought it was her, so if all of them told her it'd been Marinette who'd said all those words, Madame Bustier was sure to believe it as well.

“And now this!” She wavered over at Ninette, who was still not over the slap, and Chloe, who was still breathing in anger at the reminder. “I knew it was going to be hard teaching teenagers, but I never knew it was going to get this rough. I've taught in many other schools and never have I ever experienced anything as bad as this mess! What did I say about getting along?! What did I say about getting along?! You're going to be having a match against another class, which they are, by the way, superb, but how are you going to do it if you can't even work together? We need to fix this, and we're fixing it now! Marinette, on your feet!”

And now all eyes went on her when the teacher said those words. Marinette groaned silently, but stood up nevertheless, feeling like a huge fool, which was embarrassing. It now all of a sudden felt like she was the villain of this class.

“If it'd been just a few people who reported this to me, I would have handled it privately. But the fact that the entire class said that you did this, Marinette. . . I am very disappointed with what I heard about you. Insulting your own classmates is not the way to go. You're only just going to fall downhill, and falling downhill is not what we came to do in this academy.” The glare on Madame Bustier's face faded off, but the stern look was still plastered on there. “I think you know what you have to do, Marinette. Turn around and apologize for the rude words you used over lunchtime!”

She didn't.

She wouldn't.

“Marinette, I don't want to have to repeat myself. Turn around—”

“I didn't do it!” Talking back to the teacher was not something she'd ever thought she would be doing in the academy, but Marinette could not wipe off the determination boiling inside of her, therefore she couldn't stop herself from saying all these words out loud. “I don't care what you guys think, but it wasn't me. Apologizing for something I didn't even do will make it look as if I did do it, and I'm not just going to step down, admitting to something that wasn't even my fault.”

“Marinette—”

“You know what? Screw this! I—I can't believe it. I didn't even do anything wrong. I didn't harm anyone. What did I ever do to deserve being treated like this?!” The girl walked towards the door, and despite Madame Bustier demanding for her to go back to her seat, Marinette left the classroom, closing the door behind her.

She was heading towards the bathroom when she heard her name being called from behind, and instantly recognizing the voice, she stopped and turned around.

Kagami reached over to where she was, no doubt feeling guilty that someone was being accused of doing something she didn't even do. “I can see what you did back there, not telling anyone that it'd been Lila, or even showing you knew it was Lila. Right, everyone would just think you're making up a fake story just to cover up your lies, which is why proving to them would be the best choice as of now.” She smiled as she placed a hand on Marinette's shoulder.