Note: Time skip. Also, this chapter contains an OC (or two), I just needed someone to design clothes with Marinette. The italicized portions for this chapter are from Morning Musume's "Seishun Kozou ga Naiteru" rather than Lilium Shoujo Junketsu Kageki, credit goes to the official music video.
P.S. If I don't end up explaining something clearly enough, please leave a review and then I'll try to explain it better in a future chapter.
The Forget-Me-Not Chapter 2: An Adolescent Boy Is Crying
There are many different kinds of people, ways, and tomorrows.
But in the end, it all depends on your skills.
That's why I will smile for you. That's why you should also have more confidence. That's why you should let go of your anxiety.
Yes, we can start over again and again, even if we'll probably give up after many tries.
An adolescent boy is crying today again, "not good at love" written on his face, saying "This is it."
An adolescent boy has a crush… but on who in this world?
Since that day she woke up on the roof of the girls' dorm with the others, Marinette had been living with a constant, nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she was forgetting something important. The feeling followed her with everything she did, like an itch that was on that one part of the back that you couldn't reach.
The pig-tailed girl now spent most of her time in the recreation center, customizing people's plain clothes and rain gear using supplies that Felix had ordered for her. She worked with a few other akuma with interests in sewing and designing.
So far, Marinette and her team had customized clothes for the majority of the asylum.
Ivan had requested having white cross-bones put on his plain black shirts, while Alix had simply asked for twin green stripes down the sides of her black t-shirts and black gym shorts. Kim had asked for a plain red shooting star symbol on his white t-shirts, while Nino had asked for a black-and-white eye symbol on his blue t-shirts.
Even Chloe had asked for black stripes around the waist of her white tee, while Felix had asked for different colored stripes around the chest of his black shirt. Both requests were surprising, since Chloe usually hated and bullied Marinette (and everyone else), while Felix was always unbelievably busy.
Rose and Juleka had even asked for Marinette to customize their clothes, which was also surprising, since the two hardly talked to others unless it had something to do with their duties as prefects.
Marinette's best friend, Alya, had only asked for Marinette to embroider the pockets of one of her shorts, otherwise content with her plaid button-up and white tee.
Unsurprisingly Marinette hadn't gotten any other requests to customize pants or shorts. The majority of the akuma wore something along the lines of khaki or cargo pants and shorts, due to the constant rain. There was the occasional person wearing gym shorts, sweat pants, or the generic plaid skirt, but those were generally saved for days when they felt like working out or staying inside.
The most popular request Marinette received, however, was customizing pajamas for the kids.
Like all other clothes one could order from the asylum, pajamas were always single colored. And while the older patients were content with this, there were patients at the asylum who were as young as 7 or 8 years old, having been sent to the asylum earlier than the average person due to their dangerous superpowers.
These kids were prone to getting upset nearly all the time, and so they would eagerly jump in whenever an opportunity like this came to cheer them up. A few of them had shyly approached Marinette and her team in the recreation center directly, while the prefects in charge of the kids took care of the rest of the requests.
This was the project that Marinette was currently working on.
She sat in a room on the third floor of the recreation center, filled entirely with tables and chairs that were covered in sewing supplies and clothing. Marinette was at one of these tables, currently putting little baby turtles on one boy's pajamas.
A female akuma with hair tainted white and skin tainted magenta entered the room, aggressively retrieving a roll of cloth before promptly leaving the room again without a word. A male akuma with hair and skin tainted various shades of blue was sitting with his back to the door, also working on a project. He chuckled upon hearing the female akuma storm out, and said, "Jeez, someone's in a bad mood today."
Marinette shrugged, looking up only briefly before returning to her work, "Eveline's been in a bad mood for a while now."
The male akuma laughed before replying mirthfully, "I wonder why."
Marinette paused in her work, looking up at him slowly as a suspicious look came over her. That feeling was coming back, but she pushed it away, and asked cautiously instead, "Uh, Gerald, do you know something?"
Gerald held up the sweater vest he was working on and looked at it as he said with faux innocence, "Nope, not really." A visible smirk then crossed his face as he said, "Just that I got Rudolph to cheat on her."
Marinette shot Gerald an exasperated look, yet secretly relieved that it wasn't anything serious, and asked, "Really? Really, Gerald, you're almost as bad as Chloe."
Gerald scoffed, "Are you kidding? It was about time they split up. No one looking like Santa's kinky little helper should be in a relationship with a cone of cotton candy like Eveline."
Marinette rolled her eyes and went back to the pajamas as she replied, "You can tease her all you want, but you just wanted Eveline to yourself."
Gerald shrugged nonchalantly and retorted, "So? What's wrong with that?"
He then turned the sweater vest around to show to Marinette, revealing an unfinished diamond pattern, "Hey, what do you think of Sabrina's sweater-vest? I got the teal diamonds on there, it took fucking forever my god. But did she want purple diamonds to go with it, or green ones?"
Marinette looked up for a moment in thought, trying to remember. Again that feeling came back, but she pushed it away, before replying with an unsure shrug, "I don't remember. Why don't you just make another one and have one of each? I'm sure she wouldn't mind having two sweater vests."
Gerald groaned in exasperation and threw the unfinished sweater vest back on the table, "God, that's going to take such a long time. I basically made this entire damn sweater-vest from scratch. Why the fuck are normal sweaters on Felix's ordering list but not sweater vests? That's bullshit."
Marinette raised an eyebrow as she pointed out, "Well, we might not have to pay for this stuff, but it's not like Felix just gets it for free. Someone has to pay for it, so there's bound to be limitations on what he can get."
Gerald sighed, "Yeah, you're right." He then grudgingly went back to work on Sabrina's sweater vest, and the room was plunged back into silence as Marinette did the same.
The silence was not meant to last, however, as the door creaked open and a nervous yet slightly deep voice hesitantly said, "Um, hello? C-can I come in?"
Gerald briefly looked over his shoulder to see Nathanael at the door with his purple-tinted skin and red hair. Gerald promptly went back to work as he said, "Yeah, sure."
Nathanael noticed how Gerald ignored him, and bit his lip nervously, before letting himself relax. Disregard was ok, better than hate at least.
He entered the room, and approached Marinette with more confidence as he said in a more stable tone of voice yet with a slight stutter at the beginning, "Hi, I, uh heard that you were customizing clothes for people, and I was wondering if you could do something for me?"
Marinette, in contrast to Gerald, put down her needle and thread to give Nathanael her full attention as she asked with a kind smile, "Sure! Of course I could, what would you like?"
Nathanael felt a tentative smile come over his face for the first time in what felt like forever – no one talked to him as kindly as Marinette did.
The redhead reached with shaking hands into the pocket of his black pants, and pulled out a crumpled-up napkin with a design drawn on it with some kind of condiment. He then opened up his black rain jacket a bit to reveal that one of his orange t-shirts had been thrown over his shoulder. Placing the shirt on the table with the napkin, he said with a slight eagerness to his anxious tone of voice, "I-I just wanted t-this design on my shirt."
Marinette picked up the napkin to look at the design, surprised at the defined outline of the drawing despite the fact that it'd been drawn with such crude tools. It was good for something that'd been drawn in sauce, indicating some sort of secret skill.
Secret talents… it reminded her of something… someone? The feeling was back, but Marinette quickly pushed it away. She gave Nathanael another kind smile as she said, "Sure! I'd be glad to. I'll work on it as soon as I'm done with these pajamas, is that fine with you?"
Nathanael nodded in an anxious joy and replied happier than she'd ever heard him, "Yes, of course! Thank you so much!"
"No problem!" Marinette offered in reply, and, with that, Nathanael turned away with one more longing glance towards Marinette before nervously making his way out the door.
Before he could walk through, however, the door slammed open, making everyone in the room jump in surprise, Gerald even poking his finger accidentally with the needle with a, "Dammit! What the fuck?"
Nathanael's eyes widened in fear, and he backed up away from the door, only to realize that Marinette was looking back at him in worry. All of a sudden, it was all too much, and he was backing himself up against the wall, shaking in anxiety and curling in on himself as Chloe stalked in, Sabrina following her.
"Marinette! Gerald! Or whoever's working on my clothes, are you done yet?" Chloe then paused and wrinkled her nose with disgust before saying, "Ugh, what's that smell? Did someone skip a shower or something?"
The blonde then looked over at the wall to the far left of the room, and saw Nathanael backed up against it, as if trying to fuse with the wall would make him disappear. With a smirk, Chloe sneered, "Oh, why it's not a someone, but a something! What're you doing here, half-breed, trying to get Marinette to spice up your pathetic little rags?"
Nathanael just continued shaking in anxiety, and just looked down at his hands as Chloe continued, "Well, you can try, but no amount of extra lines on those things can ever get rid of your disgusting, pathetic, disgraceful, stupid, and completely depressing smell that comes with all of you savages. Didn't you kill your own mother? How worthless."
"Chloe," Marinette began firmly, not willing to take a back seat while Chloe continued to rip on Nathanael, "stop it. He didn't do anything to you."
"No," the word surprisingly came from Nathanael, and Marinette looked over at him in surprise. The redhead had a resigned look on his face, as he said despondently, "it-it's always been like this. Y-you don't… I mean… I-I'll just go now…" He then scurried off, trying to slip by through the door, but not being able to escape being tripped by Sabrina.
Chloe laughed, "What a rat!" Marinette could tell that Nathanael was fighting back tears as he ran off, and Chloe shook her head, "and a crybaby, too, how hopeless!"
Marinette thought back to how Nathanael seemed so small when scurrying out of the room, and the feeling that she was forgetting something returned… Hadn't someone else done something like that? But she pushed the thought away and sent a glare at Chloe, "That was so uncalled for! What has Nathanael ever done to you?"
Chloe scoffed and retorted as if she were stating a fact that Marinette should've known, "Existed? You heard him, it's always been this way and it's not like we're all gonna stop now."
"What do you mean by 'we're all'?" Marinette asked searchingly.
Chloe raised an eyebrow and replied, "What, you lost your memory or something?" That strange feeling hit Marinette full force with those words, but Chloe continued on, "Everyone at the asylum avoids the tomato head half-breed freak. And have you heard some of the stuff Alix has said to him? I'm a saint compared to that pink-haired weirdo."
As if on cue, Marinette heard screams coming from outside, and she got up to go to the window. Looking out, she spotted Nathanael exiting the building, and a crowd of children had spotted him and screamed in fear. Marinette bit her lip in worry, concerned for Nathanael. He just wanted to pass through, and the children were still screaming at him as if he were the devil.
She watched as Nathanael walked around the children, only to go past Alix, Kim, Max, Alya, Ivan, and Nino near the girls' dorm. She watched as Alix in particular backed away from Nathanael as if he had the plague, and said something Marinette could tell was rude. As Nathanael walked out of their sight, Marinette caught sight of his face, and her heart clenched as she realized that he was crying.
Marinette turned back around and sat down in her chair with a sigh. She looked over at Gerald, who hadn't looked up from his work throughout the entire conversation. Marinette nudged the table that he sat at with her foot, and he looked up for a brief second, long enough for him to shake his head at her, before returning back to his work.
It then hit her all at once.
She was the only one at this entire asylum who didn't see Nathanael as some kind of freak, or some kind of plague.
And for what reason? Because he was an akumatized half-breed? Sure, he was more dangerous, but treating him so poorly would only fuel that. Yet no one understood that.
Marinette turned to Chloe and said wearily, knowing there was no chance of Chloe listening to her, "Look, Chloe, just, ease up once in a while, ok? It wouldn't kill you."
Chloe predictably scoffed and said, "As if. Look, are my clothes done?"
Gerald then finally spoke up and said, "Yeah, they're over with Eveline across the hall."
"Ugh, I came in here for no reason then! What a waste of my time," Chloe turned around and moved to storm out of the room.
Sabrina, however, lingered for just a moment to ask in a more subdued tone than her blonde friend, "Is my sweater vest done, yet?"
Gerald shook his head and replied, "Nah, not quite. I'm gonna make a second one, too, so it's gonna take some extra time. I should have them done two meals from now at most."
Sabrina brightened up at the idea of getting a second and said, "Oh, thank you so much!" Chloe then shouted for her, and then Sabrina was out of the door without a second glance.
With Chloe and Sabrina finally out of the room, Marinette slumped over onto the table with a groan, careful not to mess up her work on the turtle pajamas.
Akumatized half-breeds had a bad reputation, even worse than normal akumatized humans, worse than 2nd or 3rd generation akuma, and definitely worse than normal half-breeds. Marinette knew that this poor reputation followed Nathanael around like a plague.
Of course, such a reputation didn't come from nowhere.
When akuma became a normal occurrence, so had the prospect of the akuma marrying other akuma and producing children. These children would be born akuma, and were called 2nd generation akuma. The children of a 2nd generation akuma would be called a 3rd generation akuma, and so on.
Akuma were legally allowed to marry humans, but this was a practice that came with severe social repercussions. Not only because marrying someone with such pent up anger or depression and strange superpowers was rather sketchy, but also because of what would become of their children.
Such children of an akuma and a human were called half-breeds. Half-breeds could be anywhere between 0% and 100% akuma, but were never completely human or akuma. Whether the child had more akuma traits or more human traits depended on the mother.
If the mother was an akuma, then the child would show more traits of being an akuma, with their own akuma uniform, superpower, and a matching set of chaotic, angry, and depressed emotions to come with the package. If the mother was a human, the child would be blessed with a clearer mind, and only a mere affinity for their skill instead of having full-blown superpowers.
Most half-breeds fell somewhere in the middle. Like, for example, if a pure-bred akuma had powers over the weather, they would be able to control it. If this akuma were instead a more human-like half-breed, then they would only have a knack for accurately predicting the weather. If this akuma were purely half-human and half-akuma, then they would only have a minor influence over the weather, and their negative emotions could be controlled since they weren't as strong.
The reputation of a normal half-breed varied depending on whether they were more human-like, more akuma-like, or purely half-and-half. If the half-breed could pass as a pure-bred akuma, then they could and would be treated as such, there was little ambiguity there.
Half-breeds that were more half-and-half couldn't be categorized so easily, and it all depended on which akuma traits they inherited. Some radicals on the human side would discriminate against them anyway, because just being part akuma was bad enough. Other akuma would be envious of their ability to control their negative emotions, though pitied their weaker superpowers at the same time. How other humans treated these half-breeds would depend on their control over these emotions, how cool their powers were, and the reputation of the akuma parent.
Half-breeds that were more human-like were treated like normal humans, only ever being discriminated against if the akuma parent had a reputation. But it was these human-like half-breeds that were in the most danger.
While other types of half-breeds showed more obvious akuma traits, human-like half-breeds didn't have much of these traits at all. They were, thus, prone to be mistaken for pure-humans by strangers, or, even worse, rampaging akuma.
Normally, the corrupt butterflies and rampaging akuma that could turn humans into akuma would be able to tell the difference between a half-breed and a human, due to the aura of resentment and depression that wafted off of the akuma, as well as other traits.
They would know not to turn them into akuma, since they already were. Often times, turning them wouldn't work at all, and they would be put under initiative instead. Sometimes, as is the case with half-breeds that were only around 45% akuma, there was no effect at all.
But, they wouldn't be able to tell that the human-like half-breeds even had any akuma blood in them. Whatever small part of akuma blood they had in them at birth would often augment their temper tantrums if they had any, and were thus prone to be targeted by butterflies drawn to their episodes of distress.
Trying to turn such a half-breed worked, and had disastrous results.
If a half-breed was only 10% akuma from birth, and then they were akumatized again by a butterfly, they would thus be 110% akuma.
They were more of an akuma than normal akuma.
While such a half-breed would've been 90% less of an akuma, they were now 10% more of an akuma than the average akuma. This person now has 10% more anger, 10% more depression, 10% more superpowers than a full-akuma. Often times the dark energy that turned them would continue to linger. It could leak off of their skin like a permanent threat, like a constant visible sign of their corruption, and how deranged they've become.
It was these akumatized half-breeds that rampaged the most, that lost control of their powers the most, that lost control over their sanity the most, that put others in danger the most, and the ones that needed the most help.
These akumatized half-breeds were required to be sent to an asylum immediately, no matter the age or the social status. They were also required to remain until they'd taken enough medicine and had enough therapy to control themselves, even if it wasn't until well after adulthood.
It was a curse, but one they'd never asked for, one that they couldn't help.
But no one cared for this fact. Humans, half-breeds, and pure-bred akuma alike all ostracized these akumatized half-breeds, called them "lunatics" and "savages."
They saw them as monsters with no ounce of composure.
Marinette froze then, paused in her work on the turtle pajamas as she backpedaled to her last thought. "Monster…" hadn't there been someone she'd known, someone who wasn't an akumatized half-breed, but still feared being called a monster all the same?
That feeling returned full force, and this time, it would not be ignored.
It'd been a girl… right? And, and she'd been ashamed of her superpower, so much so that she had this fear complex. Her power had something to do with being turned into something that looked like a monster, but Marinette couldn't remember the specifics.
Marinette's eye caught a roll of cloth with rainbow-colored swirls all over it, and it hit her, didn't this girl have colorful hair? Dreadlocks, were that what they were called? And, and a pink headband, she had one of those. Hadn't Marinette been the one to make it for her?
Then, a thought struck her, how had she even forgotten one of her companions at all? What really happened on that day of the roof? Marinette hadn't seen anyone in the asylum with such hair, ever, and yet she could still remember this girl hanging out with them all. And, and wasn't she Ivan's girlfriend?
Marinette then realized with horror that she wasn't the only one that'd forgotten about this girl. No one had ever mentioned her at all, not even Ivan. Had they forgotten her, too? Or maybe she just left, and Marinette didn't realize? Marinette simply couldn't fathom why she'd forgotten about the existence of an entire person.
Marinette was sure that this girl had existed. But, where had she gone? Maybe, maybe she didn't exist, and she was remembering it wrong? No, impossible. Marinette could feel it on her skin that this girl used to hang around the asylum, she had definitely existed.
But, what was her name?
Marinette was alarmed when she couldn't remember her name. How had she forgotten?
Didin't it start with an M? My-… My-something? Myra? Mira? Mila? Myla? Mirtle? Mile? Myle?
Then, it clicked, Mylene, it'd been Mylene.
It was unsettling that Marinette had managed to forget one of her friends, and she made a resolution to look for Mylene, and find out why she hadn't been around. Maybe if she asked around, people would remember…
The thought of asking her friends brought Marinette's thoughts back to Nathanael, and she bit her lip in worry for the well-being of the redhead. She returned to her work on the turtle pajamas, determined to finish it and the rest of the pajamas so she could work on Nathanael's shirt.
After a while of working quietly, Gerald broke the long silence with a solemn statement, not looking up from his work on Sabrina's sweater vest, "It's pointless trying to stand up for Nathanael, you know."
Marinette simply shook her head with conviction, determined to finish her work, "Nobody deserves to be treated like that."
At the other end of the asylum, the redheaded adolescent boy was crying again, secretly wishing that everyone would treat him like Marinette did, but knowing that they never would.