DAY NINE: LETTERS
The bear had gone horribly, tragically, unbearably wrong.
Well, perhaps not horribly, tragically, unbearably wrong, but wrong nonetheless.
"It's not that much of a problem, Marinette," Tikki said, poking her little head out of the purse as they meandered home. It had snowed a little that day, and the pavement was still lightly frosted. "You can try again next week."
"It won't go any better," Marinette grumbled. "It's so lame. Why did I think a toy was a good idea? As soon as I take it out of my bag, everyone will laugh at me. And I can't exactly wrap it up."
"Why not?"
"It's awkward. And in a box it would be too big to wrap."
"What are you going to do then?"
Marinette sighed heavily, looking up to where the sun was struggling to set behind thick, pale clouds. "The original plan. I'll have to give it to him on the only day I won't look like a complete idiot. I'll give it to him on Valentine's Day."
For the next two hours, Marinette distracted herself from the impending terror of Valentine's Day by helping out in the bakery; clearing the counter, restocking goods and cleaning utensils. Then, when the shop closed, she left the bear on top of her chest of drawers and busied herself with video games before dinner.
She had almost—almost—forgotten about her woes, nearly emptied her mind of Adrien and teddy bears, when she was called downstairs to eat. She turned her screen off and, like an omen, the bear appeared in the blank monitor. Her stomach writhed like a nest of maggots. She moved the bear to the chaise lounge on her way out.
After dinner, she surprised her parents by insisting on doing the washing up. Then, with no homework to be getting on with, and Tikki's disapproving stare when she reached for her games controller again, she deigned to face her problem.
The problem being, she had no idea how to present the bear.
Sure, doing it on Valentine's Day made the possession of a teddy bear mildly less embarrassing, but it also meant it was more likely to get lost in the myriad gifts Adrien would no doubt receive. Without a note or something to identify it as from her, she may as well note give it at all, or suffer a repeat of Adrien's birthday scarf.
A gift tag would suffice, but was that not a bit boring? To Adrien, love Marinette. It oddly felt too forward, like she was forcing her love upon him. A note? No, she'd tried that already. A letter?
Although a note and a letter ought to be rather similar concepts, a letter seemed to hold more weight in her mind. Whereas as a love note was more a sweet nothing about love and admiration, a letter was more formal. A piece of writing wherein one lay their intentions out, much easier to tackle. No need for lists or traits to compliment; she needed only to say that she loved him and ask him to give her a chance.
She just needed to say it...nicely.
Rather than go through a small forest writing and scribbling out drafts in her notebook, Marinette opened up a word processor on her laptop.
Dear Adrien
I love you
Please give me a chance?
Love,
Marinette
Tikki giggled. "It's to the point," she commented. "It might need a few flourishes though?"
"I know…" Marinette moaned. She kept typing random letters, as though hoping the appearance of a 'T' or an 'O' would spark inspiration, but she usually ended up aggressively deleting them. Eventually, she had the following letter:
Dearest Adrien
There are words that are easy to say and words that are hard to say. The danger of this is that sometimes the most important words are left unspoken.
I have some of these difficult words for you, which I've only now found the courage to give you, with the hopes they'll make their way to your heart. If you give me a chance, I'll prove to you how true these words are.
I love you.
Yours,
Marinette
She reread the letter a few times, hating how it sounded both clunky and overly grand, then sighed and let her head fall onto her desk. "This is so hard."
"No one said it would be easy," Tikki replied. "Is there anyone you can ask for help? Someone who's good with words?"
"Good with words…" Leaning back in her chair, Marinette went through a mental list of everyone she knew one-by-one. Alya did a lot of writing, but based on the cheesy and irritating posts about her favourite ship 'LadyNoir', she wasn't sure how good she'd be at love letters. Rose could probably come up with some lovely phrases, but perhaps a little too lovey-dovey for a confession letter. She was better saved for when she and Adrien were actually together. Mylène hated writing of all kinds, and Alix didn't have a romantic bone in her body. Juleka could help, but was often so unsure of herself that she rarely let people read anything she'd written. Marinette knew for a fact she had a binder's worth of song lyrics that had never seen the light of day.
Song lyrics…
Luka!
Marinette surged forward to grab her phone. Of course! Luka was the obvious person to ask. He was great with words; he'd be able to help.
Another part of her was also still curious about the person he liked. Hopefully the more she engaged with him on the subject of romance and crushes, he might become comfortable enough to divulge more.
She called his contact then put her phone on speaker. He picked up on the fourth ring. "Hi?"
"Luka! I need your help!"
"Are you alright?"
"I'm trying to write a letter for Adrien."
There was a long pause, during which Marinette worried the phone connection had broken, but then she heard a rustling sound and a clunk.
"Sorry," he said. "Just putting my guitar down. How can I help?"
Marinette faltered. "Uh...I just, I'm struggling to make this letter sound...romantic, you know? And I thought since you write song lyrics maybe you'd be able to help?"
"I'm happy to help, Marinette, but I'm not sure how I can exactly. Do you want me to read what you've done?"
"No," she yelped. "No no no. It's really bad."
"Well-" he laughed. "I can't write it for you. Difficult to write a love song or letter for someone I'm not in love with."
"Maybe you can tell me your process?" Marinette asked, scrabbling to find paper. Typing would be too loud and might drown out her phone speakers. "How do you write your love songs?"
Assuming he wrote love songs. Truth be told, most of his songs were about other subjects. Perhaps she could sneakily wheedle out some more information about his mystery crush…
"I don't really have a process," he admitted. "I start with music, I suppose, but that won't help you. When I have some vague idea of tune, usually a phrase will pop into my head and I base it around that. If it's a love song I just think about-" He stopped himself. Then he sighed. "Words and ideas come to me in scraps and I tweak them to fit the tune."
"What if you don't have a tune in mind?"
"I have bits of lyrics without tune," he said. "They just come to me, you know. Sometimes—um, well, you've already guessed. Sometimes when I think about...a certain person, I just think of them, you know? She's my main source of inspiration. My muse, I suppose."
"Can I hear some of your lyrics?" Marinette asked, though it wasn't until the words were out of her mouth that she thought perhaps she was being invasive. "You don't have to sing them, of course. Just...maybe she can inspire me too?"
Another long pause as he considered this. "I…" His sigh shook slightly as though he was laughing. "If you promise not to laugh."
"I would never!"
"Hold on, let me find some…"
There was more rustling on the line. Marinette grinned silently at Tikki who beamed back.
"Found some. Uh, these aren't finished. I haven't found tunes for these yet." He cleared his throat in an awkward, self-conscious way that didn't suit him. "She's the cooling river across my skin, she's the burning in my chest. There are stars in her soul—you can see them in her eyes. She's brighter than a summer's day, mysterious as the winter moon… Um…"
"They're really beautiful, Luka. If I could write stuff like that this letter wouldn't be so hard…"
"Uh, thanks…" She could practically hear him blushing. That was unusual too. "They're not finished, though. When I find the right song for them, I'll probably change them."
"I hope you don't change them too much," Marinette said. "Who is she, anyway? She must be pretty amazing. Someone at your school?"
She knew by his lack of answer that she'd gone too far. "Uh… Look, I'm really sorry, Marinette, but I have to go. I have some essays due tomorrow I've been conveniently forgetting about all week, and-"
"I get it, it's cool," she said hurriedly. "Thanks for your help, Luka."
"Any time," he replied. He ended the call.
Marinette huffed and put her phone at the far side of the desk. That hadn't helped at all. In fact, it had made it worse. Her letter, which she hadn't liked before, now seemed bland and unfeeling compared to Luka's poetic words. And when she tried to emulate his style, all her brain came up with was…
He's...perfect. He's...a prince. Prince charming. Perfect prince charming. He…
Growling, Marinette screwed up the paper she'd been scribbling on and hurled it at the bin.