CHAPTER 19: Cheating
"Dude," Nino said to Adrien as they walked into their classroom, "I still can't believe your father let you go to the Jagged Stone concert!"
Adrien had on the sunniest of sunshine smiles as he took a seat at his desk. "I know, right? I didn't expect him to be so lenient with a last-minute schedule change like that, especially something like a concert. Luckily, both my bodyguard and Nathalie were willing to accommodate the change."
"Well, dude, I hope your luck holds and we can do stuff like that more often!"
"Same Nino, same."
Nino reached down for his bag to get out a pencil for the period, only to look up as the girls strode into the classroom giggling. Alya was leaning into Marinette, whispering something into the bluenette's ear.
"Alya! You can't say stuff like that!" Marinette accused her friend, turning beet red as they made their ways to their desks. Alya only laughed as she took a seat, winking at Nino.
Hey, DJ. You ready for the test today?
Nino raised an eyebrow at her. You're in a good mood.
Just having fun teasing my girl. Sometimes it's just too easy. She snickered and looked over at Marinette, who had laid her head on her desk in a failing attempt to hide her blushing. Such an innocent child, she cooed.
Well, I hope you're not distracting her from the test.
The blogger shook her head. Nah, she'll be fine. She studied so hard for this; a little teasing won't shake her. She's been working hard to make up for all those absences she's had recently. Alya turned to glance at her best friend again, only to do a double take as Marinette squinted at her with a suspicious glare.
"Why do I have the feeling you guys are talking about me?" the pig-tailed girl questioned.
"Talking? We weren't talking," Alya pretended, even putting up her hands in mock-surrender as she grinned.
"Oh, come on," Adrien interrupted, already turned in his seat and looking back at her with a smirk. "Anyone could tell you guys were using telepathy. It's not like you to be silent, Alya."
Nino snorted. "He's got you there."
Alya did the only mature thing she could think of in response- she stuck out her tongue at Adrien. "I hope you're ready for the test, Sunshine."
"Don't worry, Alya, I'll do fine," Adrien replied in a sugar sweet voice. "Thank you for your concern, though." He fluttered his eyelashes at her ridiculously, causing Nino to guffaw and Marinette to squeak out a giggle. Alya merely rolled her eyes at Adrien's acting.
The bell rang, and Ms. Mendeleiev walked in with a thick stack of papers in her hand. "Alright class, I'm sure you haven't forgotten about your math exam today. I'll be handing out the test, and I'd like you to keep them face down until I tell you to start."
The teacher quickly finished passing out the papers and urged her students to start working. Half the period passed by before Nino got stuck on a problem.
Hmm, how am I supposed to find x? You can't factor this…
Oh, on that one I used the quadratic formula, Alya commented in his head, trying to ease his frustration.
He perked up in relief, twirled his pencil in his hand, and went back to work. Oh, yeah! Thanks.
Of course.
They both continued the test, not realizing that they had started helping each other out through their shared telepathy. Sometimes it was subtle, both of them just giving a nudge in the right direction at times, but by the end of the test, they were fully working together to try and solve the hardest problem.
So, I managed to factor it to here by taking out the 3 and the x, Alya said, sending him a mental image. Did you get this too?
Yeah, but what are we supposed to do next? You can't factor the x^2 part. The factors of 8 will never add up to be 5…
Ugh, stupid polynomials. Too bad we can't use the quadratic formula on it.
Wait, Nino started, grasping onto an idea. I think I remember the teacher doing one problem like this in class.
Go on, Alya affirmed him, excitedly nodding.
We've already factored it as much as we can, right? So, we do the thing where we set each of the factors equal to zero, which means for this one x=0 and for this one, it turns into x^2-5x+8=0.
And we can do the quadradic formula on that!
They both separately did their work for a minute before frowning with disappointment. Did you get a negative under the square root? Alya asked.
Yeah. They both agreed to re-check their work, just to make sure they didn't miss any negatives.
Ms. Mendeleiev said to put Non-Real Answer if we got a negative, right?
Yeah, but we have x=0 from the 3x factor, so we still have that as an answer, Nino reassured.
Okay, but I'll be mad if this is wrong.
They both finished writing down their final answer and individually double checked their work on the previous questions while they waited for the bell to ring.
The class released and everyone hurried off to lunch, most people discussing the test and the hard questions they struggled to answer. Marinette and Alya were no different as they waved goodbye to the boys.
"What did you get for that last one?" Marinette inquired mournfully. "I didn't know what to do all!"
"Oh, yeah, that one. Me and Nino figured out that once you factored out the 3x, you just had to use the quadratic formula on the leftover x^2 part."
Marinette stopped in the middle of the hallway, an even more worried expression on her face. "You and Nino? Alya, you do realize that was a test, right? You're not supposed to, uh, collaborate?"
Alya stood still with shock, her mouth dropping open as she realized what she had inadvertently done. She turned around to search for her soulmate, who had just gone off with Adrien the opposite way down the hallway. Nino!
She immediately spotted him from his hat, and he turned around, sensing her freak out. She ran to him, ignoring Marinette's protests behind her.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Nino wondered, holding her shoulders steady as she just barely stopped herself from crashing into him. Adrien hovered hesitantly to the side.
"Nino," she whispered, "Did we just…" cheat on the test? She finished over their telepathy.
His eyes widened before he closed them, cursing under his breath.
"Oh my god, we totally did!" She leaned her head on his shoulder as she hysterically burst out into laughter.
"It's not funny, Alya!" Nino protested.
"I know. I know." She took a deep breath before bringing her head back up from his shoulder. "I just can't believe we didn't notice!"
"What is going on?" Adrien cut in, glancing over at Marinette.
"We just accidentally cheated on the test," Alya admitted quietly.
"What?!"
Nino immediately covered Adrien's mouth and shh'd him. Adrien glared briefly at his best friend as Nino removed his hand, and then asked the question both he and Marinette had on their minds. "How do you 'accidentally' cheat?"
"So, Nino and I have been working on homework a lot together recently," Alya explained. "And during those times, we like to practice our telepathy and hearing each other's thoughts."
"Why would you need to practice?" Marinette questioned.
The soulmates looked at each other a bit sheepishly before Nino responded. "Let's just say there were some communication issues, and things got sent that weren't meant to be sent."
"Yes," Alya cut in again, "so we've been practicing at letting each other in to feel emotions and saying things with intent, instead of unintentionally broadcasting stuff to each other."
Marinette and Adrien nodded, seeming to follow their explanation so far.
"Anyway," she continued, "doing our homework together lets us practice while also helping us get our schoolwork done on time. And, I guess we've been communicating through telepathy so much recently for school that it's just become sort of natural. We didn't even realize we were doing it on the test."
"That's a good way to put it," Nino reasoned, thinking about it from his end.
"Yeah. For the most part, I would say we didn't exactly cheat, but just nudged each other in the right direction when we needed help. It was really only the last problem that we actually worked on together."
"Alya," Marinette admonished as she crossed her arms. "You still cheated."
"Yeah, but what am I supposed to do about it? It was an accident!"
"Well for starters, you could tell Ms. Mendeleiev about it after school today," Adrien suggested, frowning at them.
"Yeah," Nino conceded. "That would be the right thing to do, no matter how much we want to just forget about it. Right, Alya?"
She sighed, but acquiesced. "Alright. Looks like you and me have got a date after school today."
"Wow," Nino said sarcastically, "I never thought I would ever experience not looking forward to a date with my soulmate."
The group chuckled at the joke, but the atmosphere remained a bit tense.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving, and my bodyguard is probably waiting for me out front," Adrien informed, hitching a thumb over his shoulder.
"Alright, dude, I'll come with, so we can finish our conversation. See you girls later."
Nino and Adrien waved goodbye, and the four of them went their separate ways to enjoy lunch.
After school, Marinette waited for Alya and Nino outside of Ms. Mendeleiev's class. Shortly after they had gone in to talk to her, Mr. Damocles had come by, likely called in to discuss their punishment for cheating. Marinette sat on the floor next to the door and sketched while she waited for the verdict.
She was startled when the door opened, looking up to see Mr. Damocles with Nino and Alya trailing behind him. The principal continued to walk towards his office, while the two students stopped when they saw Marinette waiting for them.
The designer quickly hopped up and started putting her stuff away. "So, what'd they say?"
"Well, because we admitted to cheating, we have detention during free period tomorrow, but they didn't give us more punishment than that," Alya reported. "From now on, whenever we have a test, one of us has to go take it in Mr. Damocles' office. And he's going to tell the teachers to try and give us different test versions whenever possible, to lessen the chances of us helping each other on accident."
Marinette tilted her head as she considered those rules. "I suppose that's only fair," she approved.
"Yeah. Mr. Damocles said that while they don't necessarily have a standard for this, it's happened a few other times in his years working here, so it's not abnormal. What's funny is that neither of them knew that we were soulmates. Like seriously!" Alya threw her hands up in disbelief. "I get Mr. Damocles, since we don't see him a lot, but I feel like Ms. Mendeleiev should've caught us by now."
Marinette chuckled along with her best friend. "Yeah, when you guys talk over telepathy, it's super obvious. But I guess they would've already implemented the test thing sooner if they had known."
"That's true," Nino hummed, nodding.
"Oh! Speaking of tests, will you have to retake the one from today?"
"Well," Alya shrugged, "we explained that we only really worked together on the last question, and just gave hints to each other on the other ones. Ms. Mendeleiev gave us a look like she wasn't quite sure she believed us, but I don't think she wanted to use up her time making us retake it. So, she's going to give both of us zero points on the last question, since we individually couldn't do the work."
"Well, it doesn't seem like you guys got it too bad."
Nino scoffed and put a hand on his chest. "Yeah, tell that to my heart, dude. I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life!"
Marinette giggled at his theatrics. "Well, it's done and over with, so no worries! Now, I believe Alya and I had plans to hang out at my house today. Would you like to join us, Nino?"
"Sure, I'll come for a bit," he replied. "But I gotta be home soon to watch Chris."
"Well then, let's go!" And with that, the three friends made their way arm-in-arm to the bakery.
A/N: I thought I was done with DJWifi, but then this chapter magically appeared!
ALSO HI! I'M BACK! I got a few more chapters written and ready to drop in the near future. :D
However, I recently just started a new job after being unemployed for a few months, so that cuts down my writing time quite a bit. But I spent a large part of my time unemployed completely redoing my entire outline for this story, brainstorming a ton of ideas, and writing a fair amount! Overall, I just feel pretty good about life right now, and I feel more motivated than ever to keep writing this story! #WINNING
FUN FACT: Today is the 2 year anniversary of me publishing this story, and it's crazy that it's already been that long! Part of me is disappointed that I don't have this story done yet, but the other (larger) part of me is just happy that I've even written as much as I have and continued to persevere! It's also been a blessing to hear your feedback about this story, so thank you!
I would love to hear what you think about this new chapter!
Starlin's Ghost