Contract Marriage: The Replacement Groom

441 Search him yourself

The two-hour nap time was over and the class teacher returned from the meeting she had attended with the other staff. There was no need for her to wake the kids because the school alarm already did. 1 She waited for about thirty minutes for them to get a hold of themselves before she started calling the monthly register.

The school, although documents everything on the system, is still adept at using traditional registers monthly to track the number of times their students appeared in class in a month.

Their reason for doing so was that, a few years back, a student was caught hacking his class' system and making sure he always marked himself present, whereas he skips school almost every day. The reason that the junior high schooler wasted so much money to get a hacker was because his grandfather promised to pass on his company to the boy's younger brother if he skips-class again.

The issue caused a lot of trouble for the school, so because of that, they settled for book registers.

Presently, Valen's class teacher was calling registers and nothing seemed to be wrong until he got to Valen's name.

She looked up from the Register to see Valen reading a book.

"Valen Lu!"

The young child raised his gaze and looked at her.

"Come out here," she instructed, pointing to the space in front of her.

Valen got up and trudged to stand in front of her.

"Do you

hate to be in school so much?" the class teacher asked.

"I don't hate to be in school, but hate to be in this class," he responded.

"So for that, you took things into your own hands?"

Valen had no idea what she was talking about so he stayed silent.

"Answer me, boy!"

"Answer what? You haven't told me what I've done wrong." Valen stood his ground.

"This-" the lady grabbed the register and pointed at a spot where a black marker was used to erase the column. "This is what you've done wrong!"

"How could you conclude that's my doing?"

"Isn't it?" She looked at the register and pointed. "Number 35, isn't that your number?!"

"I didn't say that wasn't my name. You're accusing me without proof and it's wrong!"

The teacher was stunned as she looked at the child, whose hands were inside his pocket. His bangs that were covering one eye wouldn't give her access to see the wild look in his eyes.

"Good. If I find out you are responsible, I'll make your punishment double. But if I wrongly accused you, then I'll apologize," she said.

"Fair enough, but I don't need an apology. Whoever did it should be transferred to class B. I can't share the same class with troublemakers anymore."

The teacher looked at him and nodded. "Fine." She stood up and yelled, "All of you, bring out your bags and leave them on your desks!"

The teacher went around the classroom, searching their school bags to find a black marker. After searching the whole 50 students, she couldn't find a black marker. She went back to her desk and said to Valen, "Go bring your bag for me,

Without words said, Valen went to get his bag. Fatty was all smiles as he watched from his seat. He believed that Valen would be caught red-handed and disciplined for breaking school rules. Mia bit her lower lip and clenched her uniform. She didn't want Valen to be punished like the teacher

said.

The teacher gently placed Valen's books on her desk and brought out a black marker. She searched all the smaller parts of the bag but couldn't find anything.

The woman got angry and slapped the table. She stood up and faced the class. "After the count of three if you don't come out here, I'll ask for the CCTV footage!" Fart immediately got up and pointed at Valen, "He did it!"

"You mustn't lay false accusations."

"I know because we saw him. Right, everyone?" he asked his friends and they all chorused.

"Yes, we saw him writing in that book with that black permanent Marker he is holding."

"Permanent marker?" The teacher looked at Valen with a frown. Ever since he came into this class, the boy had been finding ways to get suspended, which is why she can't trust him fully.

"Valen?" she called.

The child didn't argue and just grabbed his teacher's hand. He pulled her sleeve up and wrote with the marker on her arm. The teacher was startled for a moment that she missed the time to react before

the black ink stained her skin.

"What are you doing?" The child ignored her and waited a little for the ink to dry before cleaning the drawing off her arm. Unlike permanent, the drawing was wiped off. Although there was a little stain, it was apparent that the child wasn't holding a permanent Marker.

"As you can see, it's not a permanent marker," Valen said and capped his marker before grabbing his bag.

"Lie! I saw you! You used a permanent tattoo marker to make those things on the register while everyone was sleeping!”

"Good for you, vigilante." Valen rolled his

eyes.

"Zack, how did you know it was a tattoo marker?" the teacher narrowed her eyes on him.

"Because because I saw it written on the marker!"

"Or because you did it and you are just trying to frame me?" Valen snorted.

"Zack?!" The teacher yelled when he was about to retort.

"I'm innocent. My friends and I were sleeping, you can ask them."

"Ma'am, how about you search him yourself? He might be hiding the maker with his friends." With

Valen saying this, the teacher went down to search. Lo and behold, she found a black marker, almost

identical to Valen's, under Zack's desk.

"That's not mine!" He yelled.

"It's not mine either," Valen shrugged.

"You two, if you don't start talking, I'll be forced to take you to the principal's office!" The teacher raised her voice while looking between Valen and Zack. The two kids are the only ones openly giving her trouble in this class.