Marinette loved staying in Italy with her Nonna Gina in Summer. The food was to die for, and she always got new inspirations for her designs. She also loved seeing her childhood best friend who happened to love close to Gina – Lila Rossi. Luckily for them both, mobile phones had made it extremely easy to keep in contact, but it wasn't the same as talking in person. When Lila had revealed she would be staying in Paris for a while due to her mother's work, Marinette was elated. She'd be able to spend some quality time with her bestie! So, she waited patiently until the day Lila was due in Paris.
The bell of the bakery door chimed musically as a young brunette stepped through the door. Autumn had begun to set in, and the wind was getting more and more brisk. The dark-haired girl behind the counter muttered something in French before turning to greet the customer.
"Bonjour et bienvenue to Dupain-Cheng pâtisserie ! How may I be of servi-" Quickly covering her mouth with her hands, Marinette attempted to stop herself from bursting into tears. She ran over to the Italian and enveloped her into a giant hug. "I didn't know you were here yet! Why didn't you message me?"
"I wanted to surprise you! And I wanted to try some of these pastries you keep telling me about!" Her French was slightly broken but it was good enough to be understood. Being in France for a while should improve it a bit.
"I've got some macarons upstairs if you'd like to join me. Just let me close up first." She closed the blinds on the windows, locked the door and flipped the sign to say "closed". Both girls made their way upstairs to the family kitchen, where Sabine and Tom were busy making dessert.
"Maman, Papa, this is Lila. She's my friend from Italy and has come to stay in Paris for a while. We're going to go up to my room and I locked up the shop."
"Have fun dearies. There should still be some treats up there for you." Sabine Cheng was such a kind and loving woman. Any child that came into her home that was friends with her daughter was treated as if they were her own. She may only have one biological child but quite a few others called themselves her honorary stepchildren.
The girls walked up into Marinette's pink bedroom. She sat down on her chaise, pulling out a box of macarons from one of the drawers and setting them onto the table. Meanwhile, Lila took an interest in the images on the wall. Most of them were of Marinette's friends. One of them was even a selfie she'd taken with her last Summer in Italy. However, the ones that piqued her interest the most were the sketch designs of various dresses and outfits.
"Woah Nettie are these your designs? They're amazing!" She held one of them up to get a closer look. It seemed to be of an orange summer dress with black and white accents. "This must be based on that new Rena Rouge hero you were telling me about."
"Ah yes, that's for my friend Alya. She's a big fan of the heroes so she's requested me to make a lot of hero themed outfits for her. Orange isn't a common fabric colour though unfortunately so it may take me some time to finish it." She turned to where Lila was standing and motioned to the rest of the sketches. "That and I have all these other requests to finish too."
"You must get so much money from this! I'm a good storywriter but unless I get published, I don't really earn much. Remind me to ask you for a commission when you're not as busy."
"Oh, no. I don't get payed. They ask me for an outfit, and I make it for them."
If Lila had been holding something, it would have surely been on the floor by now. Her mouth was agape with shock. "What do you mean you don't get paid? Not even for the materials?"
"It's okay. Fabric is pretty cheap, and I have a lot of thread in my kit. They're my friends. I'm supposed to do stuff for them. Like when I babysit Alya's sisters for her. I don't get paid but it's what friends do. If I had siblings, I'm sure she'd do the same."
Lila looked practically furious. Her best friend was probably the nicest person in the world and her supposed friends were taking advantage of this kindness. Thankfully Tikki was on the lookout for any akumas. "Nettie, I want you to listen to me, okay? Friends don't ask friends to do stuff for them for free. Babysitting and dressmaking are jobs and you should be paid for them. I think they're taking advantage of you."
Marinette tried to fight back a sob at this information. There's no way her friends only liked her for the free stuff, right? "Th-they would never."
The Italian girl sighed and hugged her friend. God, she hated being the bad guy in these situations. "I'm sorry Nettie, I really am. People like that don't know what true friendship is and just want to take advantage of you. As soon as the next shiny thing comes along, they'll drop you just like that. You're worth so much more than that. I wish I could prove to you how toxic they are."
"You can." Marinette said as she flipped through her notebook to an available page before scribbling some notes. This elicited a confused reaction from Lila. "You're going to be new to the class. A clean slate as some would say. You could be anything you want to be. Or… anything they want you to be."
"You're suggesting that I lie to your friends to see if my hypothesis was correct?" A quick nod from the other girl was all the confirmation she needed. "Oh, that's perfect. I swear you're so good at making plans. How do you do it?"
"I'm the class president. It's my job to make plans." She ripped out the page from her notebook that she was writing on and gave it to Lila. "Here's a list of my classmates and their interests. I suggest you tell stories about these to get the best results. As much as I hate to admit it, I think you may be right about them only liking me for the free stuff. At least after this I'll know the truth."
"I'll record everything they say to me, so we have proof. Though I suppose we should act as though we don't know each other."
"Hmm that's true. Okay, how about in public we are rivals? We don't like each other." Marinette and Lila both grimaced at the thought of pretending to hate each other, even if they could still be friends in private.
"Sure, I'm okay with that. I hope for your sake I'm wrong about them."
"I hope so too, but we'll see."