“What on earth—what happened here!”
Eileen screamed.
They’d left the studio unattended for only a brief moment.
Not even thirty minutes had passed while they went out to buy lunch…
Clara’s dress had been slashed to pieces.
It had been cut so deeply that the hem hung in miserable tatters.
Clara was so stunned she couldn’t speak.
The first dress she had poured her heart into in this world—turned into rags like this.
“It must be Loveless’s doing.”
Eileen’s face flushed scarlet with rage.
“She can’t match you on skill, so she stoops to something this filthy… No, this won’t do. Clara, I’m going to tell the president!”
“…But we don’t have proof.”
“Who else would do something like this if not her!”
Eileen stamped her feet, beside herself.
“If we jump out front without evidence, it could blow back on us.”
Clara forced her voice to stay calm.
Clara also suspected Lindsey, of course.
But she couldn’t act rashly.
Her opponent’s piece had been ruined—it would be obvious she’d be suspected.
Lindsey would certainly have prepared for that, and if they moved on emotion, they’d be walking straight into her trap.
Nor would Lindsey do something like this purely on impulse.
“Then what do we do? There’s no time to make another! The showcase is tomorrow!”
Eileen looked on the verge of tears, as if it were her own problem.
“Don’t worry, Eileen. I’m not going to just sit here and take it. We don’t have proof—but we do have a witness.”
Clara smiled.
“Who? Who saw it?!”
“Wang!”
Cookie, who had been lying quietly under the desk waiting for them, sprang out with a wag of the tail.
“That’s right, Cookie was here! Cookie, who was it? Who shredded Clara’s dress like that?”
Eileen crouched down to meet Cookie’s eyes.
“Wang! Wang!”
“I think Cookie wants to tell us something. Haa… if only Cookie could speak human.”
While Eileen pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed,
Cookie and Clara exchanged a look.
When Clara silently formed the word “Lindsey?” with her lips,
Cookie glanced at Eileen, then gave a tiny nod.
“Cookie says the culprit is Lindsey Loveless.”
“…Clara, are you serious?”
“Mm, I am. Right, Cookie?”
“Wang!”
“He saw everything that happened and says he can explain it in detail.”
“If only Cookie could testify in front of people…”
Eileen let out a deep sigh.
“No, wait—Cookie, why didn’t you just bite Lindsey Loveless the moment you saw her? I would’ve risked my life to defend you in court.”
“Awoo…”
For some reason, Cookie looked aggrieved. As if wanting to say something, he spun in a little circle and led Clara back under the desk.
Clara bent down—and her eyebrows shot up.
Under the desk lay a familiar-looking button.
Strands of thread dangled from it as if it had been torn off.
“Huh? That’s one of our atelier apron buttons.”
Eileen, who had followed her, spoke up.
Just as she said, identical buttons were sewn onto the aprons Clara and Eileen were wearing.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Clara picked up the button.
“Let’s hit back.”
The long-awaited showcase day arrived.
With nerves taut, the staff gathered in President Fluorite’s office.
Clara’s fellow apprentices were all praying she would win and Lindsey would be expelled.
There wasn’t a single one among them who hadn’t suffered under Lindsey’s tyranny.
She treated them like maids—errands were the bare minimum—and she cherry-picked the more capable juniors to ghostwork her own pieces and then stole the credit.
“Clara, bad news. No one saw Lindsey Loveless enter your studio.”
Eileen whispered in Clara’s ear.
“It’s fine. Cookie saw her. I’ve heard exactly what happened.”
“You’re still saying that? Why do I feel more anxious than you do…”
Eileen thumped her chest in frustration.
“Thanks for worrying.”
“Make sure you win, Clara.”
Eileen squeezed Clara’s shoulders a few times in encouragement, then stepped back.
Lindsey, who had long since dressed her mannequin, wore an unbroken smile.
In the end, she’d managed to force her dress into something roughly presentable.
She’d even secretly begged help from a staffer at Lady Hudwood’s atelier.
By comparison, Clara, unable to remake her dress, seemed to be reusing the existing one.
She had draped a cloth over her mannequin as if to stall for time—it looked laughable.
She could hardly wait to see everyone’s faces when they laid eyes on Clara’s dress!
Just imagining it made her giddy.
“My, my. Why the cloth over your mannequin? Are you trying to shock us with a dress so amazing you have to hide it?”
Lindsey curled her lip and taunted in a sneering tone.
“Oh, senior Lindsey. Don’t you know the saying—the star appears last? This probably isn’t the time for you to be thinking about me.”
Clara replied with a pleasant smile.
“You should be practicing how to leave the atelier with as little embarrassment as possible after losing to me.”
“What did you just—? This brat doesn’t know how to speak to her senior…!”
“Oh my, everyone, sorry I’m late. Looks like it’s time.”
Right then, President Fluorite entered with the head designer, Barbara.
“Is everything ready? Then let’s start with Lindsey.”
“Yes, President.”
Lindsey, who had used every underhanded trick in the book, answered shamelessly.
Her dress was made entirely from pink fabric. It was a calculated choice, picked to contrast deliberately with the duchess’s eye color so it would stand out even more.
“Hoh…”
Fluorite tapped her folded fan against her wrist—tak, tak—out of habit as she circled Lindsey’s dress once.
A large bow sat at the center of the chest, and below it, lavish, trailing lace ran in abundance to the sleeve ends and the hem.
Every button on the bodice was a diamond.
“As expected, well done, Lindsey. You certainly have a sense for design. You’ve highlighted our atelier’s signature while staying close to the styles the duchess has worn before, so it won’t feel off-putting. I look forward to your future.”
Fluorite smiled gently.
In other words, though it lacked novelty, it cleared the bar.
“Thank you, President. Compared to you I still have a long way to go. I’ll work even harder.”
Lindsey’s mouth split wide with the praise.
‘This isn’t good…’
The apprentices exchanged disappointed looks.
“Next! Clara—oh my, what’s with the cloth?”
“If I don’t keep it covered, I think ‘someone’ might take another run at it. I wanted to unveil it properly only in front of you, President.”
The moment Clara whisked the cloth away to reveal the dress—
Lindsey’s face twisted.
“Oh my! Goodness.”
“I’ve never seen a dress like that!”
“It’s gorgeous. How did she make it?”
Cries of admiration erupted from all around the staff.
“That’s impossible! It can’t be!”
The only one screaming in shock was Lindsey.
But President Fluorite and the staff were so absorbed in Clara’s dress they didn’t even hear Lindsey’s voice.
Things were not going the way Lindsey had imagined.
‘Why… why is the dress intact?!’
She had torn it to shreds with her own hands. She could still feel the vivid sensation of the scissors biting down as she slashed straight through.
Not only was Clara’s dress in one piece, it now had a distinctive flair it hadn’t possessed before.
Rather than sloppily stitching the shredded hem back together, she had left the cut edges as they were.
Instead, she bound the edges with fine lace so the finish looked clean—as if it had been designed that way.
And beneath, she added another skirt layer so that with every movement, a pink lining and inner lace would peek through.
It was a design inspired by the divided skirts of hanbok.
If someone twirled again and again in this dress—how lovely the wearer would look!
Fluorite gaped wordlessly.
She kept lifting and dropping Clara’s skirt, over and over.
“Th… this is…”
It was clearly disorderly—and yet there was order within it.
In other words, it was a new design they could sell!
“Fresh! Utterly original! This—this is what I’ve been waiting for! Clara, excellently done!”
Fluorite clapped her hands.
Opinion follows the president.
“As expected, we can’t keep up with the freshness of the newcomers’ ideas, President. You truly chose well.”
Barbara quickly chimed in, fawning.
“Compared to Clara’s, Lindsey’s—looking again… mm, never mind the design being ordinary, what is this quality?”
Fluorite shook her head from side to side.
“I didn’t notice before, but up close the stitching is a mess. It screams lack of fundamentals. Lindsey, given your experience, this is a bit… disappointing.”
Lindsey’s face went deathly pale.
“There’s no need to vote on the result. The winner is…”
