Got my first driving lesson in a few, gotta hurry bye!
Enjoy regardless~
Alya's shoulders lightly slumped as she watched Marinette walking up the stairs to sit on her seat in the back again. She had hoped that the bluenette maybe wanted to sit beside her again.
Nino came up behind her, placing his hand on her shoulder as Marinette sat down, pulling out her tablet and pen.
"Hey Al.", he smiled as she turned to him to give him a half-hearted smile, "She still needs this. C'mon, let's sit down."
He gently tossed his bag to the spot where Marinette had last been months ago and squeezed Alya's shoulder.
"Give her some time."
"What about Adrien?", Alya asked as she hesitantly slid on the bench, her usual spot on the outer seat.
Nino sat on the table and lifted his feet over her lap to get to the seat beside her while responding.
"I don't think he'll make it on time today and he said it was fine with him if I sat with you from time to time. There, uhm-… There was a minor Akuma attack last night, a really weak one. He wrote me he'll try not to be too late."
Alya furrowed her eyebrows and watched as Nino propped himself up beside him to turn around and sit down on the bench beside her before turning to face her again.
"There-… There was an Akuma attack? Why didn't I get a notification on the Ladyblog?"
Nino merely shrugged, pulling out his tablet and pen to place it on the table.
"Dunno but apparently it was a really small one. As the last few over the past weeks. I think Hawkmoth is getting weaker, he's put quantity over quality lately."
Alya looked down to grab her own tablet and sighed.
"You think so? I dunno… Feels more like he's getting desperate to send out as many as he can to retrieve Chat's Miraculous. I mean-… Keeping someone on edge is way more exhausting than trying to wear him out through multiple strong Akumas which're taking place days apart."
Nino stilled, softly fiddling with the little charm Adrien had given him for Christmas last year, a little note hanging from his pen.
"Hm…", he prompted, his gaze flowing over the teacher's desk and the board behind it, "I just-… I dunno, somehow it feels really foul to me. Hawkmoth's been even more covered than before, he's just-… Not even the Akumas are saying anything about Mari anymore since she tried, well-…"
Alya slowly nodded, shooting a quick glance to the back, where Mari had laid down her head on the desk, apparently relaxing a bit.
"I know… It does seem a bit weird. Hawkmoth should've absolutely jumped on that to weaken A-… Chat Noir."
Nino leant back and took her hand, brushing over the back of her hand with his thumb. A nice shiver went down her spine and she automatically had to relax.
"Especially since he knows, well… That Mari is-…"
Alya just silently nodded, now resting her head on his shoulder to let him understand she knew what he meant.
"Yeah… Oh man, that really creeps me out that Hawkmoth knows. How Mari told me it had to be horrifying…", she shivered not in a completely unpleasant way, unconsciously sliding closer to Nino, "… It's so unfair… We somehow have to find a way to get the earrings back…"
Nino slightly stiffened but then she felt him nod and turn his head towards her to nuzzle his nose into her hair.
"I know, Al. I know. But we shouldn't overchallenge Marinette, she needs time an-"
Alya abruptly sat up at Chloé entering the classroom, effectively cutting off Nino's sentence. The blonde's gaze went up to where Marinette sat and her mouth turned to a scowl. Meanwhile, Alya was ready to pounce.
Nino already squeezed her hand tighter, willing her to see what would happen, begging her to stay calm. At the same time his eyes were fixated on the blonde as well, closely observing if she would do anything.
Chloé just sat down on her seat next to Sabrina after making brief eye contact with Nino and Alya, put down her bag and crossed her arms, causing Nino to slowly relax. He leant back and breathed through, just as Kim and Max entered the classroom. Kim laughed about something, drawing Nino's and Alya's attention to him. The brief window was enough for Chloé to slip from her spot up the stairs.
"What-", Marinette's slightly panicked question, broken off, immediately let everyone's head snap up. When Nino turned, Alya's hand was already out of his and climbed over his lap to follow her. In the few moments Chloé had walked up the stairs and grabbed Marinette's hand everyone had been distracted by something else. She had planned this.
The brunette dashed up the stairs and immediately broke the contact between Marinette and Chloé by tightly squeezing the wrist of the blonde and prying her hand away. Marinette immediately pulled back and cradled her arm with tears in her eyes.
To Nino's horror it was the arm on which she had so horribly cut herself back on that day. He jumped up and ran up to her bench, quickly wrapping his arms around her and cradling her arm with his, holding it safely until the pain would subside. Much to his relief she leant against him, letting him comfort her. She didn't pull away, didn't try to run.
He rested his head on hers while she pressed her face into his shoulder and looked up to see Alya standing right in front of the desk, her narrowed eyes watching Chloé.
"Never again-…", Alya growled, her fists working, "… You'll never again touch her. Or look at her. Or do anything at all."
Chloé huffed and crossed her arms, staring Alya down on her own accord.
"I just wanted to see.", she replied. Nino recoiled and held on tighter to Marinette as Alya exploded.
"FUCK OFF!", she yelled, making even Chloé jump. The whole school seemed to pull up their shoulders as Alya stomped her foot, taking an angry step towards the blonde, "Marinette hasn't given you the permission to and if she doesn't want to show you, you will FUCK OFF!"
"Wow.", Chloé seemed to find her voice again. Even if it lightly shook at the base, "No need to throw a tantrum, Césaire."
That was enough. Alya knew how tantrums felt. She had more than often dealt with a tantrum when her little sisters were behaving badly. She had often enough thrown a tantrum herself.
This was no tantrum.
This was pure, burning, seething hate.
"Shut the fuck up, Bourgeois! Just shut the fuck up! You have no idea what Marinette went through because of you! You think you're just as innocent as the Akuma victims but you're wrong, you're so fucking wrong! You're causing them and you even continue attacking them after their akumatization! What?! What should Marinette do, huh?! Take a swan dive off the school?! Grab a knife again?!", she took another step towards Chloé and lifted her hands. Everyone recoiled and Nino jumped up but before he could say anything, Alya had already pushed Chloé.
The girl had to stumble a step back and everyone stopped moving, in the fear of being asked if that had just happened. Did Alya just touch-… The Mayor's daughter?!
"What should she do?! Go on, tell me, you know the law so well since your father is the fucking mayor! What, what does he say, is he commanding the police to arrest Marinette?! Huh?! Is he sentencing her to die?! Is he fucking doing that?!"
Chloé was actually dumbstruck. She didn't say anything when Alya pushed her a second time, forcing her down a step.
"Go on, run to your daddy, tell him what I did! Tell him I protected Ladybug's murderer, tell him I pushed you! But you know what I'll tell him?! You're an accessory to failed murder, that's what I'm gonna tell him! His daughter is a fucking egoistic cunt who'd do anything, anything to kill another girl. That his little precious spoiled rotten princess of a daughter is so very fucking ugly inside and no make-up will cover that."
"Alya-"
"DO NOT 'ALYA' ME, LAHIFFE!", she screamed, now completely in rage because how dare he interrupt her while she's doing the right thing. He bravely stood his ground, his thigh tightly pressed against Marinette's side, but didn't try opening his mouth again.
"Come on, say something! What happened, swallowing too hard on the truth?! What's up, Bourgeois?! Scared?"
Chloé tried opening her mouth but Alya just continued, going over her weak try to protest.
"Or are you trying to cope with your guilt, huh?! I'd doubt that, you'd need a heart for this. And this here-", she clenched a fist and punched against Chloé's ribcage, not hard enough to hurt her but significant enough to let her stumble back another two steps, "… That's empty. Useless. Completely filled with a dark, slimy, disgusting thing called ugliness. Dirt to my feet."
Everyone swallowed, now looking up to Nino who had wrapped his arms around Marinette again, kneeling on the bench to be fast should Alya lash out even more. But they knew they couldn't stop her anymore. If she brought out her fire once, nobody wanted to be in her way.
"Oh no, I just insulted you! I just called you useless! How's that FUCKING FEEL, HUH?! How does it feel, being called useless, dirt to my feet?! How does it feel, being called a disgrace?!", she could've spat the next words and it wouldn't have come out differently. Her voice had gone from screaming to hissing in an instant and she talked through her teeth. Somehow, this was worse than screaming, "Being told that you're just pitied by your friends. That you don't mean anything to anyone you loved."
Something flashed in Chloé's eyes and her face fell. She didn't even try to hold up her posture as Alya pushed her another time, forcing her further down the stairs. She just stared at the girl in front of her, raging, burning, seething.
"What does it feel like?!", she now raised her voice again, her eyes burning more intense than before, "Oh, what, feel the hate rising in your throat?! Feel the anger warming your ears?! Feel the sadness weighing your chest down?! Then you have a snippet of how Marinette felt back then, back when you akumatized her!"
Nino slowly straightened up again, loosening his embrace around his friend and slowly edging around the bench to eventually stop Alya before she would do something stupid.
"Feel the rage?! Huh?! Feel the disappointment, the despair?! The fucking helplessness I'm putting you in, bad, bad Alya?! Feel like an Akuma is on its way, fluttering happily because someone succeeded again in making someone else mad?!"
Some gazes involuntarily went to the windows but immediately back to the fight. Alya had clenched her fists by now and forced Chloé down to the height of her desk, one step away from ground level.
"I don't know why you keep doing this.", Alya now concluded, some of her anger having morphed into something entirely worse – disappointment. Honest disappointment, "I really don't know what you get from this. I just acted like you, exactly like you, and I feel awful. Even for protecting my best friend."
Alya sighed and leant back, probably to release some of the tension she built up through screaming.
"Go, run to your father. I'm sure he'll be happy to hear I verbally abused and almost beat you to death. That's what you're best at, aren't you? Exaggerating.", she rolled her shoulders, then she shrugged, "Yeah, I don't care. Go to the mayor, I'm eighteen. I can go to prison. Tomorrow I'm heading to Château d'If, ready to rot there."
Everyone saw it in Alya's eyes as she went for the kill. Everyone could have felt a needle drop to the floor in the moment right before Alya opened her lips again.
"But hey, if I didn't have a real life and were looking forward to be daughter by profession because I was useless then at least destroy as many lives that I can as I go down, huh? Can understand you there."
That was it. Just like this, Alya had gone from rage to final kill – completely calm. She didn't even allow any emotion on her face as she stared down at Chloé, standing one step above her.
Nobody dared to breathe as the two girls continued to stare each other down. Even Marinette sat up a little straighter, anxious what would happen now.
They waited for a bit longer, seeing Alya's eyes narrowing, while Chloé still didn't move. Not even a faint breathing sound somehow filled the room for something way heavier blocked the air.
Suddenly a faint movement. Chloé was the first. Her hands lowered down to hang limply by her sides and she didn't straighten her shoulders, as always. She just broke the eye contact, also something she never did first, and turned – to sit down on her desk.
Her shoulders were hunched and she stared down at her desk, not moving a single muscle, not to her phone and not to stand up again, scowl, and run to her father.
Another few moments nothing happened. Nobody even attempted to lift their gaze off of Chloé except Alya, as Miss Bustier stepped in.
After looking around in the classroom she noted with a nod that she had recognized the mood, deciding on keeping herself busy with arranging her stuff to give the class a bit of time to settle down.
She didn't question why Chloé acted completely unnatural. She also didn't question it as Alya turned on her heel, grabbed Nino's and her stuff and returned to the last row where Marinette was wordlessly comforted by the boy embracing her. And lastly, she didn't question it when Adrien only showed up ten minutes before the lesson.
She didn't need to.
The faces of five of her students spoke volumes for her.