Short chapter now. This one changed a lot. Initially it was meant to be a cute, fluffy, if slightly sappy one. Instead, this happened. Whoops. Hope you enjoy!

Note: Make sure you read Day Fifteen (Missed Connection) too! I uploaded both today, a few hours apart.

Thanks for your continued support.


Day Sixteen: Wings

As a rule, Luka didn't care for dressing up.

He frowned at his reflection and tugged at his shirt. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one Marinette had made for him, which currently resided in one of the storage rooms as it was the only place he could hang it up without fearing it would become crumpled or dirty. But this shirt—a green one he'd picked up from a charity shop on Monday afternoon—didn't fit as well across the shoulders, and it bunched slightly awkwardly on the sleeves. But it was better than one of his graphic t-shirts.

And so, Luka had to make an amendment to his rule. He didn't care for dressing up, unless Marinette was involved. Specifically, unless her parents were involved. Because although she didn't care what he wore, which he was grateful for, he wanted to impress her parents. He'd met them before, yes, but not as her boyfriend.

Not that he expected them to demand she break up with him because he was wearing the wrong sort of clothes. In fact, he expected they would have the same opinion about clothes as their daughter did, but that didn't mean he didn't want to make the effort to impress them.

He had thought about wearing the shirt Marinette made for him, but decided it was perhaps a little too formal.

After all, it was only dinner.

And so, dressed in his plain, charity shop shirt and black jeans, Luka grabbed the box of chocolates and phone—displaying an akuma alert for the other side of the city—from his desk and headed out into the spring evening.


Twenty-five minutes later, Luka found himself sitting at a table, flanked by Marinette's parents. He had a pick in his pocket, and hooked a thumb inside to fidget with it as they waited for Marinette to emerge from her room.

"So," Tom Dupain said. His hands were on the table and he was twiddling his thumbs. "Music, eh? Is that what you're hoping to go into?"

"Well, it's my passion," Luka replied. He dug the pick's edge into the pad of his thumb. "It's the only thing I've ever been good at it. Well, good at that I liked. I was pretty good at languages too, but that's probably because Ma brought me up learning English as well as French."

"Is she English?" Sabine asked.

"Scottish," he replied. "Half. She was born near Loch Lomond."

"Have you ever been?"

"No. I'd like to, though. Maybe when I've finished school. Travelling's cheaper during term-time."

"Very frugal," Sabine commented, but she was smiling. Impressed, perhaps. Or he hoped, anyway. "I'd love to go back to China, take Tom and Marinette with me. But it's a long journey and it's difficult enough persuading Tom to close the bakery for more than a few days at a time."

"Because if we close it for too long, people will start going somewhere else for their bread," Tom pointed out. "And then they might not come back."

"I don't know," Luka said. "Everyone knows this is the best bakery in the area. Maybe even the whole of Paris."

Tom's booming laugh clashed with Sabine's quiet tittering, like a violin on timpani drums.

"You know why that is?" said Tom. "Because we never close for more than a week."

Just then, the door was flung open and Marinette skidded into the room, looking slightly out of breath. Her skirt was pale blue, with a second, gauzy outer layer, and a white blouse. "I'm here!" she yelped. "Sorry, I got caught up, err, cleaning?"

"You sure you weren't napping?" Sabine teased, standing up. "I'll go and bring in dinner then. You sit down."

Sabine disappeared into the kitchen, giggling quietly. Marinette hurried across the room to her seat, but stopped next to Luka to kiss his cheek. "I'm sorry. Papa hasn't been interrogating you, has he?"

"I wouldn't interrogate our guest!" Tom exclaimed, an offended hand across his chest.

Marinette laughed. "Sure, papa."

Luka let go of the pick and laid his hands on the table. "I like this," he said, nodding at her skirt. "Is it new?"

"Yeah, I finished it today." She grinned and twirled; the gauzy layer floated up like a cloud. "Took ages to get it to sit properly…"

"What's on the back of your shirt?"

Marinette turned again, this time stopping so her back was to him. Embroidered on her back was a pair of pink, feathered wings. "Wings. Isn't it cute? Alya gave it to me."

"It's lovely, Marinette." Tom smiled, clapping his hands together, looking utterly beguiled by his daughter. "Papa's little angel!"

On the one hand, it was heart-warming to see a man possessing so much love for his daughter. But on the other hand…

Luka shook his head and matched Tom's smile. He wouldn't be surprised if he had the same beguiled look too. "Angel," he said. "It suits you. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a pair of real wings under there."

Marinette flushed, and for a moment Luka was worried he'd gone too far. Talking about what was under her clothes, and in front of her father. But to his relief she grinned.

"You must have a pair of wings under there too," she said.

"I don't know. More likely a pair of horns under this." He nodded his head, flipping his hair.

She snorted. "I find that hard to believe," she replied.

But he didn't. If she knew what he was capable of, if she knew whose blood ran through his veins, she wouldn't see angel wings on his back. She'd see the devil in his eyes.


Dinner went well when Sabine returned. The food—delicious, unsurprising for professional bakers—was demolished fairly quickly, and after a light dessert of meringue, cream, and peaches, Sabine brought in a Chinese tea pot and a set of dainty, handle-less cups. As she placed one cup before each chair, Tom opened the box of chocolates Luka had brought to pass around.

Luka wasn't generally a tea drinker, but he felt it was rude to refuse. He figured he could always drown it in milk and sugar if need be, but the liquid Sabine poured in his cup was paler than black tea, greener. It smelt different, too. Fresher, more like leaves than hot water.

"I hope it's okay, dear," she said, sitting back down. "It's a Chinese green tea. Baimao Hou. I met a man, Wu Fang, the other day who told me about a little Chinese shop and I couldn't help but stock up."

Marinette choked on her tea suddenly, but waved her father away before he could start patting her back. Probably wise, Luka thought, eyeing Tom's trunk-like arms.

"I'm fine," she croaked. "Just went down the wrong tube."

She coughed a couple of times, cleared her throat, then sipped her tea again. Once, Luka might have been surprised, but one thing you learned quickly about Marinette was that she recovered fast. So, after flashing her a quick smile which she returned, he looked back at his tea.

Green tea, if Luka remembered correctly, didn't go with milk and sugar. So he picked up the cup and sipped it. The tea was feather-soft, surprisingly pleasant. Delicate, airy.

Before he knew it, he'd finished the entire cup.

He could still taste it a while later, when Marinette was walking him out of the apartment, her fingers entwined through his. And he could taste it on her lips when she kissed him in the doorway.

"I hope they didn't ask anything too awkward," she said. "Last time they invited a boy around, it was Chat Noir, and papa started asking him all these questions about if he wanted to be a baker and if he liked hamsters."

"Hamsters?"

She giggled, turning her face away. "Yeah. I used to have this dream about having three kids and a hamster when I'm older."

"Used to?"

"Well…" The smile fell, replaced by something like shame or embarrassment. "There was more to the dream than that. And, when part of it fell away, it felt wrong to keep the rest, you know?"

He didn't. Then again, he didn't know what it was like to have an attainable dream like children and a hamster. All of his were impossibly big: to be a famous guitarist; go on world tours with Jagged Stone, have enough money to buy Ma that boat she once saw, big enough to sail back to Scotland whenever she wanted.

Or they were dreams snatched away before he could want them.

Those ones hurt more.

But, he nodded, and said, "I get it. But, you know, there's a difference between wants and dreams. Wants are the foundation, dreams are a little more specific. So your dream was three kids with, say, blue eyes, called Pierre, Paul and Jacques."

"Hugo, Louis and Emma," she interjected.

"That dream might be gone, but you can still want kids. Your dream was a white hamster called Anton—"

"—I never actually picked a name—"

"But you can still want a hamster. Or a pet."

"I guess," she said, fidgeting with his hand. "Do you have wants like that?"

"Wants? Like a family?"

"Yeah."

Luka paused. He stared at his hand, her pale, dainty fingers dancing across his palm. It was difficult to crave that sort of connection when your whole life was spent on a boat, always moving up and down on the waves, moored but never still. Maybe that's why his dreams were so un-tethered: fame, constant travel, giving Ma the freedom she craved.

All but that one dream. But the less he thought about it, the better.

Luka felt something in his chest, like an ache, or a hole. A chasm, and the bridge had just fallen in. And suddenly Marinette seemed far away, and her fingers on his hand were a ghost's, and her smile was an echo from a forgotten memory.

Another impossible dream, snatched before he wanted it.

Luka shrugged. "It's not something I've thought about," he said. "Anyway, as much as I'd love to stay here with you all night, I don't think your parents would approve."

"Oh, right." Marinette let go of his hand and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "I'll let you go then. Goodnight, Luka."

"Goodnight, angel," he replied, and smiled at the way she blushed. He bent down to press a chaste kiss to her lips, but she looped her arms around his neck and held his head in place. One hand crept up, into his hair, across his head, into his fringe.

Then she laughed into his lips and pulled away, keeping one hand in his hair. "See," she said with a sly smirk. "No horns. You must be an angel."

The chasm in his heart grew a little wider.