Ficorpio
Chapter 1
After my roommate was rejected by the department beauty, he drugged me, locked me in a room with her, and accused me of sexually harassing her.
The two other roommates who knew the truth simply stood by and watched.
“What do we get out of testifying for you? If that lunatic starts targeting us, we’re the ones who’ll suffer.”
In the end, the entire campus turned against me. I was expelled and branded a sexual predator—the kind of person everyone cursed and despised.
My parents’ hair turned white from the strain, and they died miserable and heartbroken. I wasted half my life carrying the consequences.
Then I opened my eyes again.
I was back on the day I moved into the dorm.
Amid the surrounding noise, Victor Sterling’s impatient voice cut through everything.
“Ethan, are you done yet? Everyone’s waiting for you.”
I had only been inside the convenience store for three minutes.
Before that, we’d waited nearly half an hour for Victor outside the university gates.
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.
Just moments ago, my other two roommates, Marcus Hayes and Dylan Brooks, had been complaining about Victor’s tardiness right in front of me. In the blink of an eye, though, they had turned around and given me the same impatient looks.
I knew exactly what kind of people the three of them were. I had seen them clearly enough in my previous life.
I ignored Victor, took my time buying a bottle of water, and walked out of the store.
When the long-missed sunlight fell across my face, I finally felt the reality of my Rebirth settle in.
I had returned to the beginning of my university life. My good years had only just begun.
This time, there was still time to change everything.
In my Previous Life, those three men had destroyed my life during my freshman year.
Not long after the semester began, Victor started harassing Claire Bennett, the Department Beauty. As expected, she rejected his confession.
Worried that he might do something reckless, I kindly took him for a drive in Ethan Carter’s car.
Victor, however, decided I was deliberately showing off because I owned a car.
He held a grudge.
Then he secretly drugged me. Using my name, he invited Claire to meet him and locked the two of us together while I was barely conscious.
After that, he led a crowd into the room and pretended to “catch us in the act,” accusing me of threatening Claire.
The student body turned against me. They cursed me and drove me out of every social circle on campus. No matter how desperately I tried to explain what had happened, no one believed me.
And when I begged my two roommates for help, they refused to clear my name. They claimed they knew nothing, cutting off the last possible way for me to prove my innocence.
I broke down and demanded to know why they were doing this.
They only shrugged.
Chapter 2
“What’s in it for us if we testify for you? If that lunatic decides to target us afterward, what happens when he comes after both of us?”
No one was willing to speak for me. No one could testify on my behalf.
Under the pressure of the public outcry, the university expelled me.
My parents’ hair turned white. Their health deteriorated under the grief, and they died miserable and broken.
As for me, I spent the first half of my life stumbling forward beneath a label I could never escape.
My once-promising future had been strangled before it could even begin.
Wherever I went, people knew me as a sexual deviant who had harassed a woman. Everyone kept their distance.
But now I had returned.
This time, I would never help Victor Sterling again.
And I would never fall into his trap.
When I rejoined the group of four, we resumed our unhurried walk back to the dorm. Victor’s attention was no longer on me, and Marcus and Dylan started chatting with me as if the unpleasantness from moments ago had never happened.
A short distance farther on, we unexpectedly ran into a girl.
She was dragging a huge suitcase, every step looking like a struggle.
Victor took in her exhausted, breathless state but showed no intention of helping. Instead, he sneered crudely, “You’re breathing pretty hard. Must be because you’ve had plenty of practice, huh? Tsk, tsk. Why don’t you get your sugar daddy to carry your luggage?”
Marcus and Dylan exchanged a glance before laughing along with him.
The girl’s eyes reddened with anger. She lifted her head and glared fiercely at Victor.
When I saw her tearful eyes, a strange sense of familiarity stirred inside me. It felt as though I had seen this scene a lifetime ago.
As that distant memory of my youth slowly came back into focus, I suddenly remembered her name.
The girl struggling with her luggage in front of us was Claire Bennett—the department beauty.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Claire was wearing a hat and a face mask, so no one nearby could see her clearly.
Seeing her so thoroughly disguised, Victor became even more brazen.
“Why are you covered up like that? Don’t tell me you’ve got some kind of disease or something growing on your face.” He clicked his tongue. “I have no idea how a girl with such disgusting morals even got into our university.”
Claire had clearly never encountered such a shameless idiot before. His words left her furious and humiliated, and tears were already gathering in her eyes.
I stepped forward and played the recording I had just made.
The moment Victor heard his own taunting voice, his expression changed.
“Ethan, what the hell do you mean by recording me?” he demanded. “You’re interested in her, aren’t you? You want to sleep with her too?”
I gave him a cold laugh. “Do you really think everyone’s as filthy-minded as you are?”
Chapter 3
“You wanted to know how this student got into our university, didn’t you? I recorded your question for you. She can take this recording to the president’s office and answer it there. Would their answer have enough credibility for you?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Victor roared. “I’m your roommate! You’re seriously going to take an outsider’s side against me?”
Furious, he charged at me, reaching for my phone as he tried to snatch it away and delete the recording.
I sidestepped.
Victor stumbled past me and went down hard, landing face-first on the pavement.
“Fine. You’re really something.” He pushed himself up and glared at me. “You’d better watch yourself from now on. If you ever give me a reason to come after you, I’ll make you regret it!”
Perhaps because he was too embarrassed to keep standing there, he hurried away before he could finish threatening me.
Marcus and Dylan looked at each other. Then they glanced at Victor, glanced back at me, and chose a different path instead of following him. They didn’t wait for me, either.
They had always been opportunistic fence-sitters. They were simply waiting to see who was stronger before choosing a side. Their decision didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Only after all three of them had left did I turn to Claire.
She was looking at me with gratitude.
By then, she had removed her hat and face mask, revealing a beautiful face. Up close, she was breathtaking.
“Thank you for standing up for me,” Claire said, her cheeks flushed. “But won’t this cause trouble with your roommate? Could it make things difficult for you in the dorm later?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “I’m not afraid of him.”
In my Previous Life, I had been too timid and too careful about showing my strength. That was why Victor had been able to trample all over me without restraint, and why those two fence-sitters had betrayed me from within without a second thought.
This time, I intended to establish my authority from the very beginning.
I wanted them to understand immediately who they could—and could not—afford to provoke.
Since things had already reached this point, I simply picked up Claire’s suitcase.
“Which dorm are you staying in? I’ll carry this for you.”
Claire didn’t refuse. Together, we walked slowly across campus toward her dorm.
Along the way, she kept finding things to talk to me about. Whenever I turned my head toward her, her cheeks were faintly pink, and her eyes shone brightly.
Her quiet, lovely smile finally brought a moment of peace to my heart.