Under her bead laid a box, full of letters never sent, notes jotted down, poems scrawled messily over any available space, and yet none of it became something that she'd ever wanted to share with anyone.
She idly played with a letter with a poem scrawled across the very bottom and tried to take a deep breath; Nathanael was so sweet and yet she couldn't quite face him now.
"Juleka, there's nothing wrong with liking your best friend." Nathanael shifted, and Juleka looked up to see that one eye was hidden behind his bangs, and that his other held unshed tears; he wasn't the sort who should be worried about this at all or at least Juleka figured he shouldn't.
"She's dating a prince, Nathanael. She has someone that she exchanges love letters with, and Rose is a, she's a girl, and she doesn't like me like that." Juleka shrugged as she slumped on the bed.
"I'm not the sort to say to give up all hope." Nathanael frowned as he stared down at his hands, "But I really like two people, and it's a mess. Well technically, three, but I'm not going to count it." He shrugged.
"Two? Three?" Juleka found her mind as blank as could be; the thought that anyone could like more than one person had never occurred to her, and Nathanael never said anything about liking someone other than Marinette a few months back to Ladybug usually now. Did he like them both?
"I-," Nathanael cut off, "A secret for a secret, right?" He swallowed, and the heavy sound made Juleka almost want to hug him. Their combined nerves mingled in the air like nothing else.
"Yeah, y-yeah, that's okay." Juleka shrugged though she hoped beyond all hope that her brother or her mother wouldn't enter the room any time soon.
"Okay, I've never told anyone before, not even my parents." Nathanael was the sort of kid who was awkward and uncomfortable around new people yet felt most at ease with his family, "I-I, like Adrien Agreste and Ladybug." His face flamed up, and Juleka sort of wanted to reach out towards him entirely. She was kind of scared of what that would mean; a secret for a secret was unbelievable, nearly.
"O-Okay..?" Juleka took a deep breath, "You do?"
"Yeah, the worst thing is that I never quite moved on from Marinette. I-It's just that something about Adrien gives me hope and inspiration. Even though, he probably doesn't swing that way, I think that he inspires me more than anyone sometimes." He pulled his notebook out of his bag that lay half turned over by her bed, and he handed it to her with the nerves inside him making his fingers bounce and shake. Juleka could understand the feeling.
She flipped open the page and gasped; Adrien and Nathanael were being saved by Ladybug who like a wisp of golden light kissed them. The comic shown the three of them and their lives, how Akuma were frustrating, how their lives went in wonderful directions, and she almost wanted to giggle though it wasn't funny, just cute, that a few pages later, three baby names were circled. Names that Juleka was pretty sure that he'd overheard Marinette mention in passing or that Alya or someone else accidentally let it slip.
The boy was in love, hard. Emma, Louis, and Hugo, Dupain-Cheng-Agreste-Kurtzburg or Agreste-Kurtzberg. "I didn't know how she'd want our last names." Nathanael trailed off, and Juleka realized that the names were definitely overheard somewhere, somehow.
"Oh, Agreste-Kurtzberg has a nice ring to it." She tried to be supportive; it wasn't quite the mouthful that Dupain-Cheng-Agreste-Kurtzberg was after all.
"I'd drop my last name for her if she ever asked me to. Dupain-Cheng-Agreste." There was such a sweet tone of voice to those hyphened names that Juleka felt the childish urge to coo.
"What if it was just Agreste or just Dupain-Cheng?" Juleka asked even though she really shouldn't.
"Nathanael Agreste." He took a deep breath, "Nathanael Dupain-Cheng. Marinette Agreste, or Adrien Dupain-Cheng. They'd all be wonderful." He sent a nervous smile her way, and Juleka really did want to hug him; he was such a cute kid sometimes.
"Adrien Kurtzberg." Juleka tried, smiling at the blush that took over Nathanael's features, "Marinette Kurtzberg."
"That's more than I can ever hope for." Nathanael leaned against her side, "Rose Couffaine."
Juleka would be ashamed to admit later that she cried at just hearing that name.
"Or Juleka Lavillant." Nathanael finally spoke, voice soft, and yet Juleka could hear it loud and clear.
"I love her too much." Juleka cried against Nathanael's side, "She'd just break me."
"Adrien and Marinette will break me, because Cat Noir and Ladybug are destined for each other, Adrien and Marinette will fall for each other. I-I'm not a part of that." Nathanael smiled, but it was absolutely broken; Juleka just wondered why Cat Noir and Ladybug would be a part of that statement. May be his feelings for Ladybug were bleeding through.
"We'll go down together." Juleka took his hand in hers, "That's what friends do, right?"
"Thank you, Juleka." His hand tightened over hers, and she realized that she'd found a best friend that would not judge her or leave her alone to handle his pain. He'd be the sort to show up with ice cream and cuddles, the sort to encourage her hopes and dreams; he' d probably even help her bounce off ideas for her novels, and she'd help out with his art. That's all the friendship that she'd ever felt she needed.