Before Adrien knew it, the next semester had started and he found himself back on campus, arriving first thing in the morning and leaving before the majority of the student population had even started their first class of the day. He had let his teachers know that he might have to duck out to avoid disrupting the lesson on the first day of classes, but they already knew about him.

Really, Adrien shouldn't have been as surprised about that as he had been. He- well, Nathalie- had had to reach out to professors for the previous few semesters, first to get permission for the Gorilla to sit in and record things for Adrien, and then to let Adrien take his classes online when normally they wouldn't be offered that way. The entire science department had probably heard about him and his soulmate bond by now, which- well, it was a bit embarrassing, really, to have them bending over backwards to accommodate him, but it certainly made it easier to explain his situation to his professors quickly.

For the first few weeks of the semester, things went smoothly. He hadn't had to step out of his in-person classes at all- clearly his assumption that his soulmate wasn't a morning person was correct (well, unless she was in another time zone entirely, which he supposed was possible). While his photoshoots were still as interrupted as ever, it wasn't any more of a problem than it had been.

And then, halfway through his chemistry lab several weeks into the semester, there was a familiar tickle in his throat. Adrien winced, quickly excused himself, and made a dash for the hallway before he could start singing in class. He had just gotten out to the hallway and gotten the door closed behind him- a little hard, but that couldn't be helped- before a song ripped out of his throat.

"The hills are alive with the sound of music-!" Adrien cringed as several passing students turned to look at him. He tried to muffle it, but the murmured singing only garnered him more odd glances. Ducking his head, Adrien hurried towards the bathroom, hoping that it was empty as he continued his mumbled singing. Thankfully the only person in the men's bathroom was leaving as Adrien dashed in, though he didn't depart without giving Adrien another strange look.

Adrien headed straight into one of the stalls, locking it behind him. It wouldn't keep anyone who came in from hearing his singing- and the singing echoed oddly in the small bathroom, making it sound less than good- but it would shield him from the judging, curious looks.

"I would have thought that she would be more careful with when she sings after you sang at Christmas," Plagg commented as Adrien paused for air between verses. "Now that she knows that she has a soulmate." There was a pause. "Unless your soulmate is an idiot and somehow missed figuring that out."

"I don't know how that would happen, I was singing for close to two hou- my heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds-" Adrien scowled as his voice was ripped away from his control again, a bit irritated even with as pretty as the song was. Plagg sniggered.

"Maybe she was asleep and didn't wake up," Plagg suggested. "I've heard of people sleep-talking before. Maybe she sleep-sang."

Somehow Adrien doubted that. If it had just been one song or part of one song then sure, he could understand that. But he had been singing fairly continuously for two hours, and it hadn't been that late. Unless his soulmate slept like the dead, there was no way she could have missed his singing. It was much more likely that she had just forgotten temporarily about their connection and the singing would stop soon.

It didn't. Several people came into the bathroom briefly, but exited quickly after they heard the singing. Adrien managed to hear several rather uncomplimentary comments about weird people being muttered as the other students headed right back out, slamming the door behind them.

By the time Adrien was sure that he had stopped singing, his lab class was almost over. Sighing, he slunk from the bathroom and back into the classroom, making an apologetic face at his professor as he headed back to his station. His labmates didn't look impressed as he came back.

"Great job skipping a third of class," his labmate Ted said a bit scathingly, barely sparing Adrien a glance as he peered at the beaker in front of him and made a note on his lab paper. "What was so important that you couldn't manage to actually help with the work?"

Adrien cringed. Ted already didn't like him very much- he had noticed that Adrien was never in lectures and had decided that Adrien must just be skipping- and this wasn't going to help. "I'm sorry."

Ted just snorted and turned back to his worksheet.

"Are you feeling ill or something?" Adrien's other labmate Nick asked quietly. He was frowning. "You looked like you were about to throw up or something when you rushed out."

"Kind of yes and kind of no?" Adrien offered. "It's the same reason I have to do my lectures online."

Ted snorted loudly. "Great. Fancy boy gets even more favoritism, just like his father. Must be nice to be rich."

Adrien ducked his head, frustration brewing under his skin. Before he could even try to explain (and did he even want to have to explain himself to someone like Ted?), Ted had finished his paper, gathered up his things, and headed up to the front of the room to turn his lab sheet in.

Nick blinked, startled as they watched their labmate leave. Ted was clearly complaining to their lab instructor about Adrien's absence. Dr. Dubay didn't look at all moved by his complaints.

Adrien wouldn't be surprised if Ted decided to go to the administration or something to complain about the perceived bias. That was just the kind of person he was.

"You don't have to tell us anything if it's a medical issue," Nick assured Adrien, pushing over his completed worksheet for Adrien to read over. "Seriously. Just ignore Ted, he's being an ass on purpose."

"It's not exactly medical," Adrien admitted, figuring that Nick was a pretty nice person and it wouldn't hurt to tell him everything. After all, he didn't want to alienate his friendly lab partner as well. "I just have a really weird soulmate bond. It's called a musical bond- or at least that's what I've been told- so whenever my soulmate sings, I have to sing."

Nick blinked. "Oh. That... is a pain. Oh!" he exclaimed. "Was she singing earlier and you left so you wouldn't be serenading us? Doesn't she know better than to sing during this part of the day? You'd think that you two would be careful about when you sing with that kind of a bond."

"I'm sure it just slipped her mind." Adrien skimmed Nick's paper, trying to follow along with the experiment on his paper as he filled in the parts that he hadn't been able to be there for on his own paper. "Or she's got some sort of theater class and couldn't get out of singing. I'm hoping she just forgot, because if she has to sing more really often during this lab then I'll have to switch lab sections. I don't want to be missing out on helping with experiments."

"Well, don't worry too much about it," Nick assured him, patting Adrien's shoulder. "Ted might switch to a different group, but I don't mind it if you have to step out sometimes. Or if you have to, like, hum your way through an experiment." He paused. "Uh, does the same thing happen when she hums, too, or...?"

"Unfortunately, yeah. Anything musical- unless she plays a musical instrument, I guess." Nothing that he or Max had turned up had said anything about musical instruments somehow transmitting through their bond, which was good. He still played the piano on a regular basis and enjoyed it, and he would hate to think that it was disrupting his soulmate at all.

"You could sing, like, a really obnoxious song back so your soulmate will remember not to sing again during lab- no?" Nick asked when he saw the look on Adrien's face. He cringed slightly. "Yeah, okay, I suppose that would be mean."

"She must be in some sort of musical theater program," Adrien told him. "If she's forgotten about our bond or somehow missed the fact that there is a bond, I don't want her worried that she'll burst out in a really bad song while she's on stage or something. If she quits doing the musicals, then there's no way I'll be able to find her."

"Ooh, fair point." Nick watched Adrien as he wrote a few more things down. "Hey, do you want me to explain any of those steps in more detail so you understand what happened better?"

"Would you? That would be great."


Normally Adrien didn't mind photoshoots. It was easy enough to paste a just-real-enough smile onto his face and pose, his limbs falling easily right into place. He didn't mind the prodding, the makeup, the sometimes constricting clothes, the frequently stressful atmosphere.

Of course, normally Adrien was in a better mood and normally, his father was not there and critiquing his work. Just-real-enough didn't cut it anymore, and Adrien was feeling down enough after his disastrous laboratory class that it was difficult to pull out his best expressions.

"No, no, that's just not right," Mr. Agreste snapped, hovering behind the frazzled photographer's shoulder. "He should not look so gloomy and wooden. Adrien, chin up and smile on your face! No, not any teeth. Smile with the lips and the eyes, I shouldn't have to tell you that at this point in your career!"

Adrien hid his wince and tried to think of happy things. The next picture met his father's approval, and Adrien did three more poses before he had to go change clothes. As soon as Adrien's dressing room door shut behind him, he let himself slump against it for a moment. His eyes closed for a long moment as he tried to keep a hold on his professional attitude.

Photoshoots were always just that much more difficult when his father was there. Had he had to be here personally today? Why did his father always have such awful timing?

Pasting a neutral expression on his face, Adrien quickly changed clothes and headed back out. He would do his best to finish this photoshoot without further angering his father, and then maybe he could escape the nearly inevitable lecture on professionalism.

Of course, Adrien's bad luck could only stay away for so long. Three outfits from the end, the tickle built up in his throat. The photographer groaned, recognizing Adrien's expression immediately. Mr. Agreste frowned.

"Is there a problem?"

"It's his soulmate bond," Pierre explained to Mr. Agreste as Adrien tried to sing as quietly as possible, barely moving his lips. His father's frown deepened as he watched him. "When his soulmate sings, he has to sing along, you know. She doesn't really have a schedule."

Mr. Agreste scowled impatiently. "She's still doing that? You've made no progress with finding out who she is and demanding that she stops? I thought you were working on that! It's been months. That is unacceptable."

"I...I've been trying to track her down, Father, but she might not even be in France," Adrien blurted as soon as he had control of his vocal cords again. His father didn't look particularly impressed, especially as Adrien was forced into singing another song. He turned to Pierre with a clearly displeased expression.

"Does this happen often?"

Pierre shrugged, looking a bit worried as he shot a glance over at Adrien. "Every other photo shoot, maybe? Sometimes it's only one song, sometimes it's a whole slew. We have learned to work around it, but it is a bit disruptive."

"This has gone on long enough. I'm going to hire a professional detective to track the girl down and get her to cut it out." Gabriel ignored Adrien's frantic head-shaking. "You've had your chance to play detective. I will not have this disrupting my photo shoots and it's far past time you start doing runway shows. Now stop shaking your head like that, it'll mess up your hair and then we'll have to waste even more time fixing it before we can go on."

Adrien froze immediately, snapping back into pose.

The rest of the photoshoot went much the same. Adrien winced as his soulmate interrupted it twice more, each time just singing one song before tapering off again. His father's expression grew more displeased with every interruption, and by the end his face was pinched. He spent the ride home on the phone with a detective, setting up a meeting for early the next day.

Adrien slumped into his bed as soon as they got home, staring blankly at the ceiling. He didn't want his soulmate to have to stop singing. She must enjoy it to do it so much, and he would make an awful soulmate if he told her to stop it completely, which he knew was exactly what his father's detective would order if he found her first. She would hate him then, before he even had the chance to meet her.

They might be soulmates, but that didn't mean she had to like him. Adrien was terrified of that happening. What if she just gave him the kiss he needed to not be compelled to sing whenever she did and then just waved him off forever?

"Raindrops on roses on and whiskers on kittens," Adrien sang quietly to himself, remembering the words to his soulmate's current favorite song. Maybe singing would cheer him up. "Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Brown paper packages tied up in string. These are a few of my favorite things..."

He would just have to find her first.