The rest of the first week of school passed with little incident. Adrien accepted Marinette's story about being held up at the end of the first day, apologizing himself that his busy schedule had made it difficult for him to wait around after class. In truth, he had gotten in a fair amount of trouble with Nathalie when he didn't show up at the corner to be picked up in the limo. He had still made it to his first after-school activity on time, but had to make up a story about taking the train, since he couldn't very well tell her that he had been off fighting the Minimizer as Cat Noir.
The Ladyblog was receiving more attention than ever since the recent fight. Even though Alya and Nino had both been shrunk shortly after arriving on the scene, they hadn't stopped recording the action. The perspective of the footage was a little strange, since they had only been a few inches tall at the time, but the quality didn't suffer for it. Nino's camera work was nothing short of professional, as usual, and Alya provided the commentary of a seasoned reporter. Theirs was some of the only footage of the incident that was usable, since most of the professional news teams had panicked and fled after being shrunk. The lack of decent footage from any other source effectively made the fight against the Minimizer a Ladyblog exclusive.
With the first day's introductions complete, classes at ESMOD picked up their pace immediately, though Marinette found herself a little disappointed. Since she had been working as an amateur fashion designer for so long, she found the work fairly simple. She shouldn't have been surprised, she realized, the first year courses were designed for people with little to no actual experience after all. They hadn't started any major projects, of course, mainly focusing on the foundations of fashion design; shapes of collars and necklines, shapes and lengths of sleeves, shapes and lengths of skirts, not to mention color. Marinette simply worked through the days using all of the knowledge and experience at her disposal, and quickly impressed every one of her professors.
Adrien was doing equally well in his classes, though with far less enthusiasm. He couldn't get his mind off Ladybug. Of course, his thoughts also spent a lot of time on Hawk Moth; even more mysterious than his disappearance over two years ago, his sudden return raised a lot of questions to which Adrien had no answers. But it always came back to Ladybug. For over two years Adrien had lived with the regret that he had never managed to properly tell her how he felt about her. When Hawk Moth disappeared, taking Ladybug and Cat Noir with him, Adrien had given up hope of ever getting the chance.
"Thank goodness it's Friday Tikki," Marinette said as she washed her hands in the bathroom between classes. The first four days of classes had been a breeze, but the professors at ESMOD seemed to be making up for it now. So far she had received more homework for the weekend than she had received during the previous days combined. Before Monday she had to complete no fewer than eight full-color sketches, three sewing patterns, and two essays. "This is more like what I was expecting from a school like ESMOD, but all this homework isn't going to leave me much free time."
"And now that Hawk Moth is back," Tikki reminded, "you will probably be busier than ever."
Marinette groaned, "yes, let's not forget about that. Why is he back Tikki? And where did he go in the first place?"
"I don't know Marinette," Tikki replied. "His disappearance was so sudden, there's no way to know why he left. As for why he's back, that should be obvious."
"Of course," Marinette's eyes studied the plain black earrings in the mirror over the sink. "He never got his hands on the Ladybug Miraculous. His work isn't finished."
"That's right. And he won't stop until he gets it and the Cat Miraculous both." Tikki's small voice was filled with fear. "We can't let that happen, no matter what."
Just then, the bathroom door opened and two girls entered. Tikki darted out of sight into Marinette's jacket. Marinette dried her hands and left to attend her remaining class of the day.
"It just doesn't make any sense Plagg," Adrien said, sitting in the back of the limo with the sound-proofed divider between himself and his driver. His last class on Friday was a free period, but that didn't mean he had free time in the afternoon. He was on his way to fencing, but Nathalie was not with him because she was working with Gabriel that afternoon instead. "Hawk Moth was gone, wasn't he? I mean, he completely dropped off the map. Not one sign of him for over two years, and now he's just suddenly back?"
"Relax kid," the small black kwami replied between bites of foul-smelling Camembert. "You're over-thinking this. He probably just needed a break for a while, right? I mean, you and Ladybug did beat him over and over again. That would take the fight out of anyone, wouldn't it?"
Adrien grimaced at Plagg's lack of helpfulness and turned to stare out the window. Where is she right now? He wondered, asking himself for about the millionth time, who is Ladybug? He had always suspected that Ladybug might be someone he knew, but he just couldn't say who. They were certainly around the same age, weren't they? It had always seemed that way before, and they seemed to have aged the same amount in the past few years. A blush warmed Adrien's face as he remembered seeing the older Ladybug in the fight against Minimizer. Her suit had always been form-fitting, but now she had so much more form for it to fit to.
Adrien shook his head to clear it, now was not the time for such thoughts. He had to focus, and figure out exactly what he was going to say to Ladybug when he finally saw her again.
Marinette returned home at the end of the day, stopping behind the counter to give Tom a kiss on the cheek. The Bakery would be open for another hour or so before closing for the day, but Marinette needed to get started on her homework. She had agreed to meet Alya and Nino later that evening, but didn't want to leave all of her homework until the last minute. She went to her room and emptied her bag onto the desk. Quickly sorting everything into piles, she tried to decide where to start. The essays would take too much time and concentrated effort, so she set those aside for the time being. She could get started on the sketches, but decided to leave those for Saturday afternoon, when she'd have more time to just relax and let her creativity flow. That left the sewing patterns.
The sewing patterns were a fairly basic assignment, and something that Marinette had been doing herself for years anyways. The instructor had given them all of the measurements and design specifications they needed, so all that the students were required to do was make the patterns themselves. Marinette laid out a large sheet of pattern paper on her work table and set out her tools next to it; pens, ruler, measuring tape, and scissors. She checked the details of her assignments and got to work.
Working with the skill and efficiency of a professional, Marinette measured, marked, and cut out her perfect patterns. In total, doing three of them took about two hours, and Marinette was very pleased with the results. She carefully packed them up and set them aside, happy that she had gotten them out of the way. She then turned her attention to herself. She was meeting up with Alya and Nino because Alya had an easy assignment for one of her journalism courses that required her to review a restaurant or bar. Alya had decided that she didn't want to do this alone, nor as a date alone with Nino, so she had invited Marinette along to hang out as friends.
As she was considering her wardrobe choices, Marinette's phone buzzed with a message from Alya. "Hey girl, Nino and I might be a little late picking you up, we gotta make a stop along the way. ;)"
"No problem, still getting ready, take your time. :)" Marinette replied to the message, and turned again to her wardrobe.
Another message came in. "Make sure you dress nice, this place is super swanky!"
Marinette frowned a little at that. Alya hadn't mentioned anything about the restaurant being fancy when they had discussed the trip earlier in the week. Maybe she just forgot to mention it, Marinette shrugged it off. At least that narrows down my choices. She examined several articles at length, discarding some, and setting others aside for further consideration. Tikki flew around, commenting every so often, but mostly just watching.
Marinette finally settled on a dress that she had designed and made, but never worn. It was one of three dresses that she referred to as her "finalists". The finalists were three dresses she had designed and made during her last semester of high school as options to wear to her senior prom. She and Alya had spent a long and agonizing afternoon picking one of the three for Marinette to wear to the event, but that still left two that she had never worn in public. The dress she chose was one of those two. It was a long evening dress made of deep red silk chiffon. She had ultimately decided against wearing it to the prom because it was sleeveless, with only one shoulder, and she had felt self-conscious about wearing around her classmates. She had spent hours embroidering fine details into the bodice with gold thread.
She felt a little strange as she changed into it, since she had only ever worn it while trying it on in front of Alya. Possibly the strangest part about it was the fact that, with only one shoulder, it required wearing a strapless bra, which she was not accustomed to at all. Once Marinette was dressed, and wearing her best heels, the dress nearly reached the floor, with a slit that came halfway up her left thigh. She took out her pigtails and tied her hair up in a simple knot instead, using a few small clips to hold it in place. Finally, she tackled her makeup, choosing much darker tones than she usually would for day to day wear. Red for her lips, to match the dress, black eyeliner, and dark eye shadow completed the look.
"Wow, you look beautiful Marinette." Tikki said with awe.
"Thank you Tikki," Marinette replied, "but I feel a little ridiculous. I'd much rather wear my regular clothes. Oh well, if the place is really as fancy as Alya says, at least I'll fit in." She picked up a red, beaded clutch purse from her vanity, and snapped it open. "Sorry Tikki, it's a lot smaller than my regular purse, but there's really nowhere else for you to hide in this outfit."
"It's fine Marinette," Tikki giggled. "I don't take up that much space."
The kwami darted into the purse and, sure enough, she fit just fine. Just then, Marinette's phone buzzed again. "We're here. Get down here girl." Marinette breathed deeply, tucked the phone into the clutch with Tikki, and wrapped a thin black shawl around herself, just in case of a chill. She descended from her room, and had to spend a minute or two suffering her parents' admiration before she was finally able to leave. Nino's car, a blue Peugeot, was parked in front of the Bakery, with Nino himself behind the wheel.
She had just opened the rear door and bent over to get in when she froze in horror, staring across the backseat at another passenger. He was dressed in dark gray suit, obviously custom-made, his golden hair and brilliant smile just as beautiful as ever.
"A..A..Adrien?" Marinette stammered as her cheeks darkened to match her dress.