Hey everybody, guess who recently re-watched the Evillustrator episode again and felt ten times more sorry for Nathanaël than before? Please enjoy this bit of angst.
I know I probably shouldn't draw her. I know I would be better off if I were to stop. Maybe if I stopped picking at the same wound the pain would dim after a while, but I just can't.
It's like every part of her is begging me to draw it, she is formed of exquisite lines. There are the sweeping black threads of her dark hair, the arches of the hair ribbons that tie it up in bows, the two perfect streaks of rosy pink that curl into her warm smile. Her skin is as white and smooth as a blank canvas, except for the cute freckles on her cheeks. Her eyes are the most captivating thing about her though; their blue is so intense I feel like I'm drowning in them whenever I look into them, like all the hues of the sea and sky are mirrored in her irises. I could look into them all day, spent hours trying to recreate them with a million different coloured pencils but I know I couldn't do them justice. I would love to stare into them, see myself reflected in those gazing orbs but I know they will never look at me the way I want them to.
I can tell who she's in love with, I'm not stupid. Everyone in the class can see she has the hugest crush on Adrien, everyone but him. He seems oblivious to the way her cheeks go delicately pink whenever he is near her and how she stutters like her words have frozen in her throat when she speaks to him. She waves her arms around like she's dancing with the energy of her own anxiety and it's so adorable and obvious I sometimes want to shake him to see if his brain is connected right. Every day I can see the way she stares at the back of his blond head and her expression is so far away she could be in a dream. The problem is I can't hate the guy, he's far too nice for that, it would be like hating an innocent kitten but it does annoy me that he can't see that the greatest girl I've ever known loves him. I could love her until the end of time and she would never feel the same way yet he could say one word and she would be at his side. Although I don't hate him, it still hurts.
Marinette is one of those people who gets along with everyone (except Chloe but nobody gets along with her). She's always chatting with Alya and looking at stuff on her phone, she giggles with Rose and they examine shades of pink together, she listens to music with Nino and encourages his DJing, plays video games with Max and helps him with strategies, takes Kim on in his dumb challenges and more often than not beats him, discusses horror movies with Juleka and talks about various curses. For a time, she even won Sabrina over to the light side and that is no mean feat. Everyone adores her, she's like the heart of our class and I can't imagine her not being in it. She's like a morning cup of coffee, she wakes you up and makes you feel alive and when she smiles at you and only you, you feel like you could conquer anything.
I still remember the first moment when I realised I had a crush on her. It was a long time ago, before Alya and Adrien joined the school, but the memory is as fresh as if it happened yesterday. We were having an art class and our teacher put us all into pairs and our task was to draw a simple portrait of each other. She paired me up with Marinette which I was pleased with as we were friendly with each other. I've always been interested in art, people often joke that if I could replace my fingers with pencils I would, and she loved fashion so we used to chat about different designs and colours a lot, comparing them with each other and giving advice. I always enjoyed the conversations and I often deliberately left out bits of my artwork where she could see them to start one but I didn't see the signs until I was in way too deep to crawl back out.
She sat opposite me and started to draw and I did likewise, occasionally pausing to look up at her. She was so occupied with her own drawing that she didn't notice when my stares began to linger longer and longer on her face. She didn't notice when I started asking her to angle her head in a certain way so I could look at more of her. She didn't seem to mind when I reached out and positioned her head and she didn't see how my face went as red as my hair and how my fingers felt like they were on fire next to her cool skin. The lesson was over far too quickly and I remember showing her my drawing whilst I held my breath, thinking she would hate it. Instead, she squealed loudly and gave me a hug, making my already red face go completely crimson.
"Oh Nathanaël, I love it!" She had said once she had let me go and I had gotten my senses together. "You are so good at this, you make mine look like a moronosaurus did it."
She was really selling herself short and I told her so; she drew the clothes I was wearing really well, I guess she's more used to drawing them, the only thing was that my face was a little off kilter and at some point she had spilled something on it and made the paper crinkly so it looked like I was squinting. I still kept it though; it was the moment she said I could and I looked into her eyes when it truly hit me that I had completely fallen for her, like Cupid had gunned me down with a machine gun rather than a bow and arrow. And I've been like that ever since.
At first I acted around her almost the way she does around Adrien. I went fire engine red, I stammered over simple greetings, I went to talk to her and bailed out at the last minute. I berated myself over the fact I couldn't talk to her properly but I couldn't help myself; she was so beautiful she sent me into a panic. That was went I started to draw her. It was like my way of getting to know her, maybe I thought it would help get her out of my head. It was first just little doodles in the margins of my schoolbooks of the back of her head in lessons, me tracing the line of her neck and shoulders and how her hair fell down her back in a wave of ebony when she had it loose. Then they started to get more elaborate as I started to put more detail in, drawing her profile from memory. I progressed to drawing in notebooks and that was when I couldn't stop. Everything about her was just too intoxicating and I started making comic strips of me saving her as an alter ego Super Nathan, who would never muck up the way regular Nathanaël would. I knew if anyone were to find them and show them to her, she would probably be really creeped out and never speak to me again but I didn't stop, filling up page after page with my scribbles hoping that day would never come.
However, it soon did. Last week Chloe found the notebook and made fun of me in front of the whole class for it and yet somehow I ended up being the one sent to the principal's office. I remember being so angry and upset, then dropping my pencil…and that's really it. The next thing I knew, I was in a strange apartment and it was late at night, plus Ladybug and Chat Noir were right in front of me. I know what happened though, it was all over the news so I could hardly avoid it. I was turned into an evil version of the superhero I had created called the Evillustrator. I first went after Chloe and attacked her and then-and this is what made me feel truly sick-I went after Marinette. I went to her home, took her out on the Seine on a strange sort of forced date and when she tried to stop me by taking my pencil, I tried to drown her and probably would have if Chat Noir haven't been there helping her all the time. When I heard the story I was horrified. How many times had I imagined taking her on a romantic moonlit cruise with music playing…and I had but in my evil form. I felt so mortified at what I must have put her through and I wondered how I could ever face her again. How could I when she knew those deep dark desires were inside of me?
I was convinced she would hate me, I was convinced she would never want anything to do with me again and I was never going to get a chance to be with her. The next day of school, I walked in with a heart like lead and when I saw her, I could feel it drop to my feet. I felt so ashamed and I wanted to run and hide but she didn't turn away when she saw me. Instead, the first thing she did was to wrap me in a hug that nearly made me fall over in shock.
"I'm…I'm really sorry Marinette," I managed to say after I hugged her back. "What I did…I didn't mean…I didn't want to hurt you…You must hate me…"
"You didn't hurt me," She said in a voice so firm and confident it was hard not to listen to her. "And of course I don't hate you. It wasn't you doing those things, it was the akuma. You were being controlled Nathanaël, it wasn't your fault. I could never hate you."
I believed her, I know she doesn't have a bit of malice in her body. She could never truly hate anyone, not even Chloe and that gave me some comfort. Lots of our class had been akumatised, it was something we all had in common and in a way it brought us all closer. None of us were proud of the things we had done and even Chloe and Sabrina knew not to bring it up. But I had been right about one thing; that incident made sure Marinette would never be mine.
It was earlier today when it happened. I left school late after a catch up science class I have to take since I'm failing the subject and the place was empty of other students. It was getting late in the day, that time where it's still bright but the shadows are long and there's a slight bite of cold in the air that hints at the coming of night. I love this time as the shadows are perfect for drawing, so I decided to take the long route home through the park. It was a beautiful evening and I walked slowly as I tried to drink it all in and then splash it back onto the pages of my sketchbook. I was so engrossed in my art work that I didn't notice the statue of Ladybug and Chat Noir until I walked straight into it. I fell backwards with a startled cry and dropped my pencil and sketchbook, sending the loose papers flying out across the ground like autumn leaves. I was just scooping them up and praying nobody saw me when I heard her voice calling my name.
"Hey Nathanaël!"
I looked up and saw she was on the other side of the street waving at me with a friendly smile. I went red and waved back shyly with my arms still full of paper, hoping that she hadn't seen me walking into a statue. She didn't comment on it and after I had waved, she crossed the road and started walking down the street away from me. I breathed a sigh of relief, almost dropping the paper again. I was just tucking them all back into my sketchbook when something black flickered in the corner of my vision. I spun around sharply trying to see where it had come from but there was nothing around me. I then scanned the rooftops of the nearby buildings, looking along the row of houses for anything moving. At first I saw nothing but then a sharp movement caught my eye and I ran to get a closer look at it.
It dived behind a chimney and I couldn't make out what it was until his face peered out from the shadows. My mouth hung open when I recognised him instantly as Chat Noir (how could I not? I had literally just crashed into his statue). I watched him silently as he snuck across the rooftops, his wide green eyes behind the black leather mask focused intently on something in the street below. I looked up the street to try and figure out what he was staring at and my heart sank. It was Marinette, it could only be, she was the only one walking down the street. Her ponytails were bouncing slightly on her shoulders as she confidently strode down the street and the fading sunlight was almost making her skin glow. I looked back up at Chat Noir and I must have made some noise as in that same moment he looked down at me. Our eyes met for a few seconds and I saw the look in his eyes that went through me like a jolt of electricity. I recognised it because I knew I had the same look in my eyes every time I saw her. It was a look of pure longing and adoration; he had fallen for her too.
He was the one to break the stare as he looked back up the street at her and sprinted along the rooftops to catch back up with her. I stared after them as she rounded the corner and he followed. It took me a while to drag myself away from the spot and make my way home. It was in that moment when I realised I had lost her forever. Chat Noir was in love with her and what chance do I have against the saviour of Paris? I knew Adrien was tough to compete with but Chat Noir himself is a whole other league. And the ironic thing, the knife that twists in my heart when I think of it, is that if I had never become the Evillustrator he would have never needed to come to her rescue and they would never have met. In a strange way, I brought about my own downfall.
That is why I should stop drawing her. I know I would be better off if I were to stop. Maybe if I stopped picking at the same wound the pain would dim after a while.
But I can't.