Adrien woke up to the sun peeking through the curtains of his room. Yawning, he stands up and crosses into the on-suite bathroom to make himself presentable before going down to breakfast, already hearing life bustling about downstairs.
Halfway downstairs, Adrien fully wakes up and runs back to his room, a smile on his face. Closing the door and sitting back on his bed, he pulls out his phone a video-calls Marinette. While the phone rings, Plagg flutters lazily around Adrien's head, sad that there was no Camembert anywhere in the house.
The boy's eyes light up when Marinette answers the call and her face appears on the screen.
"Good morning, Marinette! Or, I guess, good afternoon for you!" Adrien exclaims awkwardly, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment at the small slip-up.
He stops, however, when the beautiful sound of Marinette's laughter grace his ears and he looks back at the screen, smiling now.
"Good morning! How's the jetlag?"
"I slept like a rock for almost 12 hours."
They both laugh again before Adrien hears a muffled voice in the background on Marinette's end. She looks to her side until the voice stops and looks sad.
"Sorry, Adrien, I have to go. Lunch rush."
"Oh...okay. Talk to you later?"
"Definitely."
"I love you, Buginette."
"Love you too, kitty."
She hangs up, and Adrien is left staring at his own sad face before he turns his phone off and leans back to lay down on the bed with his legs hanging off.
"Cheer up, kid! You'll be back soon enough! Besides, I doubt she'd want you to be so gloom while on vacation!" Plagg reasons.
"Heh...you're probably right. Come on, I think everyone else is already up now."
Adrien opens his shirt and the kwami flies inside before they leave the room again. Breakfast is already on the table with everyone seated, eating and talking. Adrien sits next to Nino and Alya at the end of the table before digging in.
Once all the food is gone, the teens rush back to their room to put on their bathing suits. Adrien was a close second after Kim to reach the back deck to spray on body sunscreen and rub in some for their faces. One by one, the others join them as they wait for everyone before hitting the beach. Nathalie checks to make sure everyone has thoroughly applied sunscreen as Rose and Juleka finally step outside, the latter looking slightly uncomfortable in the sun.
When they are all given the 'ok', the teens each grab a rolled towel from Gorilla before running down the boardwalk onto the beach. Chloe, Sabrina, and Lila lay down in lounge chairs, Nathaniel and Max begin working on a sandcastle, Juleka, Rose, and Mylene slowly enter the water as Alix, Kim, and Ivan run in, already screaming and laughing as they toss a beach ball back and forth between each other. Adrien looked around at everyone, making sure they were having a good time before going into the ocean when he notices Alya and Nino walking and talking along the edge of the sea, making a pang of envy rush through Adrien. Shaking the feeling from his head, he sprints into the waves to join whatever game the others were playing with the ball.
Meanwhile, back in Paris, Ladybug swung across the rooftops, patrolling the streets on her small break from helping in the bakery.
"It's just not the same without Chat here with me," she mumbles aloud.
She had considered asking Fu to lend her a miraculous to give to someone while Chat was gone, but her options were with Chat halfway on the other side of the world. Besides, she was sure Master Fu wouldn't allow her to risk it just because she was lonely.
Running across the rooftops parallel to the river, Ladybug glances down and notices Luka and Juleka's houseboat docked near the bridge. The heroine considers swinging down to see how Luka's doing, but decides against it at the last minute, choosing instead to just go ahead and return home.
With five minutes left on her break, she lands on her balcony and drops her transformation. Engulfed in a pink light, Ladybug defuses into Tikki and Marinette, whom then descend into the bedroom below, landing on the bed.
"What's on your mind, Marinette? Something's clearly been bothering you."
"I don't know, Tikki. I guess everything has been changing and I'm just slow about it."
"What do you mean?" the kwami asks, fluttering over to rest on the teen's head.
"Chat Noir and I know each other's identities, I'm dating Adrien, but secretly, I feel like I've been disloyal to Luka even though I never said that I liked him back after his love confession, and everything in general just seems more complicated than it was a few weeks ago."
"Change can be stressful. Maybe you should talk to Adrien and even Luka about how you've been feeling."
"Maybe...but not right now. Mom and Dad need me back down in the bakery," Marinette says, tying her discarded apron back around her waist.
Heading downstairs, Tikki flies into the pocket at the front of the apron, and Marinette enters the back of the bakery, getting straight to work on making some bread from scratch with Tom.
The afternoon is long and grueling, and Marinette collapses in a chair when Sabine finally flips the door sign to read 'Closed' from the outside.
"Good work today, team!" Mr. Dupain exclaims triumphantly with his fists planted on his hips.
"Yay," Marinette jokingly says half heartedly, swirling her fist in the air lazily and earning a laugh from her parents.
"Why don't you go wash up dear while we make dinner?" her mother suggests, resting a hand on her daughter's shoulder.
"Okay, Maman," Marinette replies with a smile before heading upstairs, discreetly grabbing a chocolate-chip cookie that hadn't sold.
Closing the trap door behind her, she takes off her apron, allowing the kwami to fly out before tossing it along with the rest of her clothes onto the floor to be dealt with later. She leaves Tikki to munch on her cookie while the girl takes a quick shower.
When she gets out, she towels off before putting on pyjamas and combing her fingers through her wet hair.
"I'm gonna call Adrien before heading down to dinner," Marinette says, grabbing her phone off her desk.
Scrolling through her phone, she finds Adrien's contact and begins a video chat. It rings several times before he picks up, breathing heavily.
"Hey!"
"Are you okay?" she asked worriedly.
"Huh? Oh, yeah! I just came from the dining room to my room. Nathalie was in there."
"I still feel really bad about having to hide this from everyone. It's been killing me to not tell my parents and Alya."
"Me too, and I'm hoping that things will turn around soon. If I could just prove to my father that there's nothing to worry about with us, then I could proudly tell the whole world that I'm the luckiest boy ever," Adrien says, flashing his Chat Noir grin.
Marinette's sad expression is erased as she uses her free hand to cover her mouth while she laughs.
"That was so corny, Kitty!"
"What can I say? Old habits die hard, m'lady."
"It's so weird hearing what Chat would say come out of Adrien's mouth."
"Has there been any trouble today?"
"In Paris? No. In the bakery? All. Day. Long," Marinette explains, putting emphasis on the last three words.
It's Adrien's turn to laugh, and Marinette's smile grows wider as she flashbacks to when she first fell in love. Adrien's face and laugh now match when his umbrella had closed in on her after he offered it in the rain. She glances to the corner of the room, where the umbrella still leans against the wall.
"How has your first day at the beach been?" she asks, returning her attention to the video chat.
"It's been awesome! At one point, half the class decided that we really needed to dig a hole, so my bodyguard got a bunch of shovels!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah! Then Nino fell in it and we buried him up to his head!"
"That's awesome!" Marinette says through giggles.
"Adrien? Who are you talking to?" she hears Nathalie say from somewhere beyond the camera's view.
"Oh, Nathalie, I'm just talking to Marinette."
"Your father wants to talk to you as well," the assistant says.
"Okay, I'll call him in a minute."
Marinette heard a door shut, and Adrien looks back to her, his expression sad.
"I miss you."
"I miss you, too. But you'll be back the day after tomorrow!" Marinette points out reassuringly.
"Right, well, I better go. Best not to keep Father waiting."
"I love you."
"Love you too," Adrien says quietly before hanging up.
Marinette turns her phone off and plugs it in before putting it on her desk. Smelling the delicious aroma of dinner, Marinette's smile returns and she pets Tikki, who has finally finished the large cookie for the kwami, on the head before heading downstairs to eat with her parents and maybe even play some video games before bed.