Awkward chapter is awkward. Tried to do an edit/rewrite after finishing this and that made a lot of inconsistencies in the flow. Whoops. Originally, this chapter was going to be very different but...
Moral of the story: Never let me rewrite a chapter I've already completed.
Marinette chewed on the inside of her cheek, her previous irritation quickly melting back into nervousness as she stepped into her room and lightly placing a hand on her pink shoulder bag where Tikki hid, gently letting the kwami know to stay hidden for now as well as reassuring herself that the kwami was there. She knew that if Tikki were the kind to say "I told you so" then she would have been sure to hear it later on.
Marinette grimaced. Nice or not, Tikki would be certain to at least chide her after this. It was her own fault that she let this drag out so long in the first place. The kwami had briefly warned her when she went to the bathroom during lunch that she should talk to Nathaniel, but she'd ignored Tikki, saying that she'd take care of it later in the week. A part of her knew that she was just trying to ignore the problem, that maybe if she ignored it long enough that it would solve itself. But deep down, she knew that rarely anything worked that way. And now she was going to pay for that.
She heard Nathaniel enter after her, a little more hesitantly than she did. Plopping into her usual pink office chair, she turned to face Nathaniel who stood awkwardly in front of the trapdoor. She felt oddly like a school teacher scolding a student but pushed the feeling aside.
She nodded at the door. "You can close that."
Nathaniel hesitated but complied. "Marinette…"
"How long have you known?"
Nathaniel looked down, his bangs falling over his eyes. "A few days after I became Evillustrator," he mumbled. "I began drawing Ladybug art after that day and since I used to, um, draw you, I began noticing how similar you two were. It was easy after that. You two were never in the same place at the same time and 'Marinette' always disappeared a few minutes before 'Ladybug' appeared."
"But that…" Marinette furrowed her eyebrows as she quickly counted back the days. "That was over a month ago!"
"I didn't tell anyone!" Nathaniel quickly reassured. "I knew that you didn't want anyone to know so I kept quiet about it ever since. I would never betray you like that. You as Ladybug—that's perfect! You're perfect. I didn't know how to talk to you about it since I thought that you wouldn't like that but seeing you with Adrien, I couldn't…" Nathaniel's voice trailed off, his face bright red.
"I…" Marinette's face grew warm. "Do you still...like me?"
Refusing to meet her gaze, Nathaniel instead mumbled something under his breath. Before Marinette could speak again, the boy swallowed dryly and spoke up.
"I liked you before I was akumatized. After that, um, incident, I liked Ladybug who turned out to be you so…"
"So...yes?"
He remained silent, but that was all the confirmation she needed.
Marinette bit the corner of her lip, chewing nervously. She was flattered, of course, and she had nothing against the boy (except for maybe how much stress he caused the past few days) but she just didn't feel that way about Nathaniel. He was a nice enough guy and, she had to admit, that arty side of him was kind of attractive especially since very few guys of their age were even remotely interested in any kind of art. He wasn't by any means ugly, although certainly nowhere near as attractive as Adrien. She'd simply only seen him as a classmate. Not even quite on the friend level yet.
"Nathaniel, thank you, but I'm sorry," Marinette said gently, her voice growing soft. "I don't like you like that."
"Because you like Adrien." Nathaniel's voice was surprisingly bitter, a tone uncharacteristic for the artist. "Right?"
This time, it was Marinette's turn to stay silent.
"Right." Nathaniel laughed humorlessly. "Of course you like Adrien. Everyone knows that. It shouldn't surprise me that even Ladybug has fallen for that perfect model."
"Nathaniel, I—"
"I have everything that he has to offer—besides money. And we have more in common. We both draw, we're both into art, and—"
"Nathaniel, do you know why I like Adrien?" Marinette asked gently. Nathaniel immediately stopped his tirade and flushed with embarrassment at having gotten angry. He didn't get angry often. Annoyed, yes, but he was used to stifling his words. In fact, he was always secretly proud of keeping his temper in check most of the time, even if it was more from his lack of confidence to speak than anything else.
"Because he's cute," he said glumly. His temper died as quickly as it had flared, his usual demeanor taking over. He had returned his gaze to the floor once more, his bangs hiding his eyes once again.
"That's definitely part of the reason now," Marinette admitted. "but no. It's because he's a really kind person."
Nathaniel bit his lip at her words. Marinette, noticing this, quickly continued.
"And you're a really nice person too. You were the only person who've I seen resist Hawk Moth's commands while akumatized, even if only a little."
At this Nathaniel let out a smile. It was a small smile, one that was barely visible, but it was a start. "Really?"
"You did," Marinette confirmed. "You probably didn't hear much of what went on since the only real witnesses who saw what mostly happened other than Ladybug and Chat Noir were Chloe and me, and Chloe knew nothing of the date."
Nathaniel frowned. "What date?"
"Anyways, the point is that I don't think that you're not nice. I just don't like you like that."
"Did I...go on a date?" Nathaniel looked at her, his face red. "With you?"
"Well...yes," Marinette admitted. "but I wouldn't call it an actual date."
Nathaniel only stared at her in disbelief. He had a feeling that there was more to what happened that day than what Chloe had said but most people had no idea what had happened outside of Chloe's recount of the fight in the room and at the school and he certainly didn't think that his alter ego was so...forward. A small part of him missed that confidence.
"I asked you on a date."
"You also tried to kill me at the end," Marinette said dryly with a smile. "Death by drowning."
"I did what?" Nathaniel asked incredulously. Okay, maybe being Evillustrator made him a bit too forward. And maybe a tad...unstable. Did he really try to drown her?
"I escaped, of course," Marinette said hastily. "And it's common for akumatized people to try to kill me so don't worry about it."
"I see…" Nathaniel rubbed the back of his neck. "Was the date any good?"
Sensing the conversation veering back into awkward territory again, Marinette quickly replied, "It was the only real date I've been on so far so I can't tell. I mean, there was the thing with Nino but that turned out to be a misunderstanding. But we're getting off topic."
"Right...the whole, um, Ladybug thing." Nathaniel made a mental note to ask more on the whole date thing and straightened up. "I won't tell anyone about you being Ladybug. I don't know how I can prove this to you; you'll just have to believe me. I'm sorry for being so...forward these past few days."
"A-Ah, I should be the one to apologize," Marinette said hurriedly, waving her hands frantically. "I shouldn't have ignored you like that. I was too focused on, ah, other stuff and I didn't know or want to talk to you about things so...I'm sorry. I should have listened to Tikki."
"Tikki?"
"My…" Marinette hesitated. She'd never introduced Tikki to anyone before; not even to Chat. They knew that they each had their own kwami, but they'd never met the other's kwami.
"My friend," Marinette finally lamely. Nathaniel, picking up on the hesitation, didn't pursue the matter.
"Cookies, anyone?" The trapdoor opened behind Nathaniel to reveal Sabine, one hand propping up the door and a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies in her other. Nathaniel, startled at the sudden intrusion, automatically took a step away, nearly tripping as he did so.
"Thanks, mom," Marinette got up, taking the plate of sweets from Sabine. Her mother smiled briefly before frowning, her gaze darting to Nathaniel before speaking in Chinese, her tone disapproving.
Marinette sighed. "I know, I will."
Sabine gave her daughter one last stern look before disappearing back downstairs, closing the door after her. Marinette offered the plate to Nathaniel, who took a cookie and took a small bite. It was still warm; nearly all the sweets were fresh in this house and these were no exception.
"I didn't know you could speak Chinese."
"Only a little. I don't really speak much of it; I was more fluent when I was younger," Marinette confessed.
Nathaniel smiled. "At least you can understand it. All those Chinese classes didn't help me in the slightest, apparently."
At this, Marinette chuckled, taking a seat once again. She gestured for Nathaniel to take a seat on the chaise, an offer which Nathaniel gladly accepted. "That's probably because you learned Mandarin. That's the official Chinese dialect so that's the one that most classes teach. My family uses Cantonese. Well, my mom knows both but she only taught me Cantonese. They're called dialects but really, you can't understand Cantonese if you only know Mandarin and vice versa."
"A-Ah," Nathaniel said, feeling a little stupid now. He blushed. Now that she mentioned it, his Chinese teacher had mentioned the various dialects at one point, but he had been too engrossed in a doodle at the time. "Why didn't your mom teach you Mandarin?"
"She tried. I was never very good at it," she admitted, placing the plate of cookies on her desk. Nathaniel noticed that she took none for herself. "She said that my grandma wanted me to learn Cantonese. The tones for Cantonese are supposedly harder to learn, but I just can't seem to pick up Mandarin. My mom's family is from Canton so that was their main language. Her parents wanted to find a better future so they moved out of Canton. My grandma took her sons to Beijing and my grandpa took my mom to France where his older brother was, just to see if there was a better future out of China. They decided China was better eventually, but my mom later came back to France when she was older."
Marinette pulled a face. "My uncles know more Mandarin than Cantonese now though. Beijing uses mainly Mandarin and spending most of their lives there had an effect. I can't understand a lick of what they're saying when my mom video calls them."
"I see," Nathaniel said slowly, feeling more than a little lost. Deciding to turn the conversation back to a more familiar subject, he said, "Does your mom know about you being...Ladybug?"
Marinette shook her head quickly. "No one else knows other than you...well, I don't think anyone else knows."
"Not even Chat Noir?"
"Not even Chat," she confirmed, although a small part of her felt bad about Chat not being the first to know. She briefly considered telling Chat about her identity later, if only to rid herself of the guilt, but shook off the idea as soon as it came; it would do no good to compromise her secret any further.
Nathaniel looked surprised; he didn't expect to be the only person to know. He felt...honored.
"And I want to keep it that way," Marinette hinted. Nathaniel nodded quickly.
"I won't tell another soul. I promise."
Sabine wiped the counter absentmindedly, a slight frown on her face. Her husband, Tom, glanced over in worry. He'd noticed her worry a little while ago when he saw her wiping the same spot for two minutes straight but stayed silent. Experience had told him that no amount of pestering would make her say what was bothering her until she was ready to tell.
His patience paid off; it was only a minute later that Sabine let out a small sigh and placed the towel aside behind the register. Sensing an opportunity, Tom walked up to his wife and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Is something wrong?"
Sabine smiled at him, although worry still slightly showed on her face. "Did you ever feel like Marinette is keeping a secret from us?"
Tom frowned. "Why, is she dating that Nathaniel kid?"
She smiled in amusement and almost rolled her eyes. "No, no. It's nothing like that."
"Oh." Tom's shoulder's relaxed at the news. "Then what's wrong?"
"I just overheard something troubling earlier, is all."
Author's Note
I've always liked Marinette since she's also half Chinese. I asked my mom for the information in this chapter. My grandparents moved out of Canton for a better future so I have relatives worldwide (I actually have Chinese relatives in Paris too! Their French sound so beautiful ;_;) I was hoping someone would notice the dialect thing in the last chapter so I'm glad a lovely reviewer mentioned it; I really enjoyed that particular episode :)
Not all dialects are so vastly different that you can't understand each of them. That would be a nightmare. Many of my Chinese friends have parents who speak a different dialect than Cantonese and Mandarin but the dialects are similar enough to Cantonese that I can guess what they're saying (usually) so it's all good; I don't know the name of the dialect in English but for my Cantonese readers, I'm talking about toisanwah (dunno proper pinyin)
As always, thank you for reading and reviewing!
