Note: One of the OCs from chapter 2 makes a reappearance. Also, if it's ever unclear how much time has passed for the characters between each chapter, just know that it's supposed to be like that.

The Forget-Me-Not Chapter 5: Chrysalis Teachings

Young akuma without exception welcome the chrysalis, which is the same thing as puberty for humans.

But an akuma's chrysalis is a much more serious thing when compared to what humans have. Many times in the past, an akuma going through the chrysalis would get into fights with humans regularly.

And so the Council created facilities to separate adolescent akuma from everyone else.

Akuma with severe symptoms pass their time in these asylums during adolescence until they grow up into good, proper adults.

The daily medicine is what suppresses severe symptoms like out of control negative emotions and superpowers, so don't go without it.

The mess hall's first floor consisted of the offices for ordering items, and sorting them when they arrived. The first floor was also home to the infirmary on the north end and the kitchens on the south end. The kitchen was where the food and medicine was received and prepared.

The food was sent to the second and third floors. Which were the homes of the cafeterias in which the akuma would eat.

The second floor was home to the cafeterias for the young akuma, 10-year olds, 11-year-olds, 12-year olds, and 13-year olds.

The third floor contained the cafeterias for the 14-year olds, 15-year olds, 16-year olds, 17-year olds, and 18/19-year olds.

During meal time, everyone in the asylum would gather in the mess hall and report to the proper cafeteria for their age group. Once there, they'd go to the buffet line, and grab a tray, their dose of medicine, a glass of water, the meal of the day, the fruit of the day, and the dessert of the day.

In the cafeteria for the 15-year-olds, Nathanael sat at a table in the back with seven others, all of them pointedly ignoring Nathanael and each other. Their table was dead silent.

Marinette, Alya, Kim, Max, Alix, Chloe, Sabrina, and Ivan sat at a table together like usual. Each had a sandwich, an apple, a glass of water, their medicine, and a cookie on their trays. Chloe had wordlessly tossed her cookie towards Kim's tray. She didn't talk to anyone other than Sabrina with the exception of the occasional insult. Sabrina followed her example.

Meal time was also the time where the prefects held their lessons. For younger akuma, the lessons were mostly about the history and mythology of akuma, the specifics of being an akuma, and how they should be acting. The older akuma also had lessons about general history, economics, mathematics, politics, languages, art, music, and really anything they could think of.

It's like how Mahatma Gandhi said, "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

The lesson for their age group that day was being taken care of by Juleka and Rose. Nino was on the second floor teaching the younger akuma, and Felix was taking care of things in the kitchen as usual.

The lesson itself was on genetics.

An akuma girl with absurdly long white hair and strangely bright magenta skin had her hand raised and asked the two prefects aggressively, "How the hell does genetics play into the fact that I have fucking pink skin as an akuma?"

At that, Sabrina, speaking without any sort of prompt from Chloe for once, also raised her hand and eagerly asked in her soft voice, "Oh! Yeah, I want to know that, too! Everyone else at my table has normal skin and hair, but mine are purple! And my parents were both akuma, too, and they did not have purple skin or hair."

Max looked almost offended as he said to Sabrina, "I have purple skin as well."

"Yeah, but your hair is normal," Sabrina pointed out.

Rose ignored Max's comment and responded to the questions, "Those are great questions, Eveline and Sabrina." She herself had olive-green-tainted skin, pink hair, and while the irises of her eyes were a natural blue, the whites of her eyes were pink instead. As a result, she could relate to their insecurities about their strange appearances.

Rose explained, "Our superpowers come from our insecurities and personality, and our emotions themselves are heightened as akuma. The rest of our existence is dictated by our personality, and so our appearances are, too."

Eveline retorted with an outraged, "That's fucking stupid! How the hell does my personality determine my akuma skin color? It's fucking magenta. I hate magenta. Isn't there some kind of science behind it? And please get the medicine to make it go back to normal, because I fucking hate this color."

"The fact that you hate magenta so much probably has something to do with it." Juleka deadpanned from beside Rose, taking a break from eating her meal. Juleka's skin was white, and her long amaranth-colored hair fell around her shoulders. She, too, could relate to Eveline's insecurities.

Before Eveline could start arguing with Juleka, Rose jumped in to explain, "It really is a matter of what you were thinking or feeling subconsciously when you were akumatized. Like, for example, I've always liked the color pink, and my insecurities at the time of my akumatization had to do with this pink perfume bottle I had. Thus my pink hair."

"It could really be anything you're thinking about when you're akumatized," Juleka added. "I'm really into steampunk stuff, hence my fashion sense, but then I had this thought in the back of my head about kabuki dancers and medieval fashion when I was akumatized and it influenced my akuma form."

"If you want science, it's been proven that certain species of butterflies are more likely to induce a change in skin, hair, or eye colors." Rose supplied.

Sabrina looked ready to interject, but Rose quickly addressed the topic she knew she was going to ask about, "Also, babies that are born akuma take time to develop their akuma traits. Their personality, the very essence of every akuma, is not yet developed at that stage and they can still reject or change certain traits inherited from their parents during that time. It all comes down to what kind of personality or insecurities they begin to develop."

Juleka continued, addressing Sabrina, "As your personality and akuma traits were developing, purple may have had some sort of emotional significance to you at that time that's lost on you now, Sabrina. Most likely, the color purple was associated with your developing insecurities and so your skin and hair are purple."

Sabrina blinked, and then sat down, "Oh, ok."

Eveline interjected calmly with undertones of a stirring rage, "So, you're saying that because you had this little thought about kabuki dancers and medieval things, that you're now the white-skinned pink-haired thing you are now?"

"Yeah," Juleka deadpanned, as if it were supposed to be obvious. "I was insecure about not being noticed, and so that thought influenced my appearance, which I'm sure you've noticed."

Eveline scoffed, sat down, crossed her arms, and grumbled under her breath, "Bullshit." Beside her, Gerald patted her back to calm her, but she slapped his hand away.

Rose put her sandwich back on the tray, having just taken a bite out of it, and, after she finished chewing, clapped her hands together once and announced, "Alright, then. I think that concludes today's lesson! Let's all take our medicine now."

With that, Rose picked up the dose of medicine on her tray, Juleka and the rest of the room following suit. She held it up in front of her face, and the rest of the room followed suit. She counted down from three, and then everyone in the room took their medicine all at once, chasing it down with water.

After swallowing the medicine, Rose cleared her throat and put her unfinished glass of water back on the tray as she said, "Alright, as usual, those of you unfinished with your meals can stay, otherwise you're free to leave!"

As a large number of akuma started standing up to leave, another thought occurred to Rose and she added, "Oh, and for the ladies on birth control, the next shipment of pills has finally arrived! We sincerely apologize for the delay. They're available for pick-up in office number 5 as of right now, or Felix will have it delivered to your room by sunset."

"Ugh, finally!" Chloe exclaimed. She stood up, balanced her tray with her unfinished food in one hand and grabbed Sabrina's wrist with the other and said, "C'mon, Sabrina, let's go."

"Wait, I'm not done yet!" Sabrina stumbled after Chloe, reaching out longingly for her unfinished sandwich, which sat on the tray back at the table.

Alya sighed and stood up, taking both her tray and Sabrina's and said, "I gotta go to that office, too. See you guys later."

Marinette offered a wave and a small, almost awkward, smile and said, "See you later." Alya nodded in response, but as soon as she had turned her back to them, Marinette slumped down in her seat with a sigh.

She and Alya weren't fighting per se, but were on uneasy terms. Marinette was getting antsy, and she just wanted to find out what happened to Mylene. Alya, and nearly everyone else for that matter, wanted her to just drop it.

But she couldn't, and Alya understood that. So, Marinette and her friend had worked out an unspoken agreement: Marinette didn't bother Alya about the issue, and Alya wouldn't bother her to stop it. Marinette had slipped up once or twice, and Alya had gotten mad and told her, again, to drop it. But, other than those instances, they were still friends.

They were just on shaky ground at the moment.

Kim stood up from his seat as well and said, "Well, I'm going over to the rec. center to shoot some hoops with Gerald and Rudolph."

Marinette raised an eyebrow, "Gerald AND Rudolph? Those two are not chummy, and Gerald is completely incapable at throwing. How'd you convince them to play with you?"

Kim rubbed his hands together with a devious smirk as he said, "It's a bet. They win, I give whoever got more points advice for their love problems. I win, they have to do something for me."

Ivan scoffed as he took his time finishing his food, "That's not going to end well."

Max then said, "And that is precisely why Kim wants to do it."

"Hell yeah," Kim said, the smirk still ever present on his face. He then asked the others, "Any of you wanna come with?"

Ivan gave a curt, "No."

Marinette, however, was curious as to how this would go, and said, "I'll come! It's only three of you right now, right? That means I can join in!"

Kim raised an eyebrow, "And what do you want?"

Marinette gave a playful smirk of her own and said, "To play basketball." She stood up, picked up her tray, and said, "C'mon, let's go!"

Kim and Max exchanged a glance, shrugged, and then simultaneously stood up and grabbed their trays. As Max followed after Marinette, Kim stayed behind briefly to ask Alix, "You gonna join us later?"

Alix was eating her apple as painstakingly slow as possible and replied with a gloomy, "Nah. I'm gonna go hit up the skate ramps instead."

Kim nodded knowingly and said, "OK, see you later." With that, he left the cafeteria, dropping off his tray with the others before he left.

With Kim's departure, only a handful of akuma remained, most of them, like Alix, were purposely eating their food as slowly as possible.

Juleka and Rose could finally relax, and they both sat down with a tired sigh and started to properly eat their food.

Ivan ended up finishing his food more quickly than the others, and, after saying bye to Alix, got up and walked to the front of the room to drop his tray off with the others.

As he did so, Nino walked through, and collapsed on a chair beside Rose and Juleka in exhaustion and complained, "Oh god, those kids are such a handful. Why do I always have to take care of them during meals?"

Juleka deadpanned, "Because you're bad at teaching."

Nino gave a finger pistol in her direction and replied, "That's true." He then saw Ivan standing nearby, who was looking at him strangely, and the sky-blue-skinned aspiring DJ asked casually, "Hey, Ivan, what's up?"

Something then occurred to Nino and he added, genuinely curious, "Hey, why're you always hanging out here afterwards? You know you don't have to like they do." As he said that he vaguely gestured to the rest of the room, where a few akuma were left sitting, including Alix and Nathanael, all of them eating their food slowly in an almost sad silence.

Ivan blinked, and thought about it for a moment before shrugging, in indifference, "I don't know. It's just a thing I've been doing I guess." At that, Ivan noticed that Nino appeared to be more suspicious, and, though they seemed to be engrossed in finishing their meal, Juleka and Rose were also listening closely to their conversation.

Marinette had asked him more than once about whether he remembered this Mylene person, and each time he'd said no because he genuinely didn't know.

And it was still true. Colorful dreadlocks? Scared of being called a monster? Fear complex? Short and chubby and shy? Pink headband? Their age? His girlfriend? He didn't remember anyone like that.

But, Marinette kept insisting that Mylene existed somehow, and that she knew because of this feeling she had that something was missing. Ivan had never had such a feeling.

That was… until that moment when Kim had fallen off the side of the rec. center during that dare he did with Alix.

He'd gotten that feeling that he was forgetting something. It might not be the same feeling as Marinette's feeling that something was missing, but the fact that he'd even thought he'd forgotten something important at all was troubling. He'd genuinely feared for Kim's life when he'd fallen.

Had Ivan seen someone else fall like that? He swore he had, but couldn't remember anything about it.

It was just a feeling, but… Maybe he shouldn't dismiss it just yet.

Ivan then felt Nino's piercing gaze, like it was analyzing him, judging him, suspicious of him. It threw Ivan off, and he was reminded of the moment in the rec. center when Nino had told Marinette to give up, and of the moment in the girls' dorm when he'd left abruptly.

Nino knew something, and he knew that Ivan had started getting that feeling that he was forgetting something important.

He definitely shouldn't dismiss that feeling, he needed to try remembering that something that he'd forgotten. In a rare show of uncertainty, Ivan said breathlessly with the weight of his new mission on his shoulders, "I forgot something important… I-I need to go."

Nino held back a groan of frustration and anger, and ignored the way Rose and Juleka seemed to be glaring at him despite the fact that neither of them were looking in their direction.

The room was deadly silent, and Ivan stood there for a moment longer despite having said he'd needed to go. Juleka then deadpanned, "Do you need our permission to leave? You've been standing there for a fucking long time already, you know."

Rose then lightly slapped Juleka's arm and said, "Hey, don't use such bad language!"

Nino ignored the exchange and instead said to Ivan, "Don't think about it too much. Some things are better left unknown."

The words struck Ivan, and he had this gut feeling that it was imperative that he listened to Nino.

But his heart was telling him that Marinette was on to something. That he had something that he needed to remember. That he did, in fact, need to think about it a little more.

Ivan opened his mouth to protest, but, before he could, the door fell open, and Felix stumbled into the room, the blonde nearly collapsing onto the ground as he said, "Oooh, it hurts!"

Ivan caught the prefect before he fell and said, "Whoa, you ok?"

Felix nodded weakly, and seemed to be out of breath as he said, lightheaded, "Yeah, it's just my anemia acting up again." He tried to shake some of the fatigue off, and stepped back from Ivan. He smiled sheepishly and said, "Sorry about that, I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

Rose shook her head, "No, nothing at all." She added in concern, "But, you really ought to take better care of yourself, Felix. You're wearing yourself out too much, and you know that your anemia's pretty bad."

Felix had his eyes closed, trying to collect himself, as he said, "I know, Rose, I will."

Juleka then shot Rose a look, and the short-haired girl nodded, and took a note out of one of her pockets, holding it out to False whilst saying mysteriously, "Here, it's a note from the boss, about recent events."

It was a small note, and it was placed in a little envelope that was decorated enough for it to look really important. It also noticeably had a few drops of rain on it, and a strange scent coming off of it. Perfume?

Felix opened his eyes and looked at the note curiously for just a brief second before casually taking it with a laid back, "Right, right, thank you, Rose." He stuffed it into his pocket as if it were a gum wrapper.

Felix, seemingly having composed himself for the time being, then turned to Ivan and said, "Hey, you were headed back to the boys' dorm, right? I'll come with you, I could use a nap."

That elicited a groan from Nino as he complained, "That means I'm on dish duty!"

Felix chuckled and replied, "Hey, I've always been doing it otherwise, and, you know there are always other akuma helping me out in the kitchen. They'll be there, too."

Nino simply grumbled under his breath and walked out the door to get back to work.

Ivan watched him as he left, noticing that Nino had been oddly silent when Felix had entered the room.

Felix was watching Ivan, and seemed to be able to read him perfectly, as if he knew exactly what he was thinking, "Are you thinking about something?"

Ivan was aware of how Alix, Nathanael and the few others were still in the room, and how Rose and Juleka were listening to their every word. Felix also had this intimidating air about him, and that prevented Ivan from saying his true feelings.

Something else, however, occurred to Ivan and he asked carefully, "Aren't you tired of being a prefect? It must be hard taking care of everyone else and then worrying about yourselves, too. You all look run-down."

Juleka huffed, and resisted rubbing at her eyes tiredly, knowing there were prominent dark circles under them, and said shortly, "We manage."

Rose nodded and placed a reassuring hand on her girlfriend's arm and added, "That's why we appreciate it so much when other akuma help us out."

Felix then said to Ivan gently, "Come on, let's leave them to their meal and work."

As Ivan and Felix walked out of the room, Rose and Juleka both rapidly finished their meal. Downing the rest of her water, Juleka placed her tray with the others, Rose following suit.

Juleka then walked back behind the buffet table where the akuma had picked up their trays in the first place, and retrieved a tray that was filled with only about a dozen different sized doses of medicine in needles. Enough for all of the remaining akuma patients in the room to get one.

As Juleka began sanitizing and preparing them, Rose announced to Alix, Nathanael, and the few akuma left in the room, "Alright, it's time for your second dose. If all of you akumatized half-breeds are done, you can go ahead and take your tray up and start forming a line to get your individualized medicine."

Alix was the first to stand up and get in line. Nathanael trailed after the others.

As Ivan and Felix walked back to the dorm, Ivan made sure to zip up his rain jacket and pull the hood up to shield himself from the rain. Beside him, Felix had his rain jacket zipped up, too, but kept the hood down to let the rain drops touch his hair.

Ivan was now acutely aware of this feeling in the back of his mind, nagging at him to try and remember… something.

He thought about what Marinette kept on insisting. Did he really have a girlfriend?

Ivan contemplated on his relationships with the others, wondering how Mylene could've fit into it all if she'd actually been real. He tolerated Kim, and Max was relatively friendly enough. Ivan, like most others, hated Chloe, but he didn't really have an opinion on Sabrina either way. Alya was nice enough, and he considered Marinette to be his friend.

Of the prefects, Ivan knew the ones his age the best: Rose, Juleka, Felix, and Nino. Rose and Juleka, however, hardly socialized with the others anymore, and Felix was often too busy to do so, but did the best he could. Nino used to hang out with them a lot, and he used to be nice enough, but now he seemed to be just as busy as the others.

Out of all of them, Alix was probably the person he was closest to now, but Ivan couldn't remember how they became friends in the first place.

Now that he thought about it, Ivan wasn't sure why he had any friends at all. He wasn't a very sociable person, preferring to be on his own. But he found himself hanging around the others and loitering around the girls' dorm as if it were something he'd done all the time.

As if he were good friends with all of them.

But… how? Nowadays, Ivan wasn't even sure why he kept on going back to the girls' dorm. Had there been someone there that he'd visited on a regular basis? Had they been such good friends that he'd made a point to visit her in her dorm?

It wasn't Rose, Juleka, Marinette, Alix, Alya, Chloe, Sabrina, or any of the other girls here, Ivan was sure of that.

So… Maybe Mylene had existed, and that was why he was in their friend group? Why he kept on going back to the girls' dorm?

Ivan sighed and rubbed his forehead as he thought about it more. Despite having that feeling, and trying to remember, he just couldn't picture this Mylene person in his head. He couldn't think of what her voice would've been like. Couldn't picture what she'd been like.

He couldn't remember her at all.

But… he felt like he should.

Ivan was broken out of his thoughts when Felix remarked, "Uh, Ivan? The boys' dorm is this way."

Ivan blinked, and realized that he'd been unconsciously walking in the direction of the girls' dorm, and quickly walked back over to Felix to go to the boys' dorm.

Felix watched him carefully, and asked, "Why do you keep on going back to the girls' dorm?"

Ivan shrugged, having a feeling it had to do with Mylene, but still wasn't able to remember who she was, "Don't know."

Felix patted Ivan's shoulder and reassured, "Well, don't worry about it, either way. I can tell you've been thinking about it too much. You need to relax and get your head out of the clouds."

Ivan remained stoic, his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed in thought, "I guess." He sighed and considered Felix's words. He really was starting to get a headache. Maybe Felix was right, and he was thinking about it too much.

Ivan changed the subject, knowing that talking to Felix about his thoughts wouldn't yield results. He spotted the letter sticking out of its cage in Felix's pocket and asked, "Aren't you going to open that letter? If it's from the director of the asylum, then it's gotta be important."

By then, the two had reached the boys' dorm. They walked through its doors, and stood in its lobby. Felix took the letter from the director out and said casually, "Oh, this? It's not important, I wasn't going to read it anyway."

Ivan was appalled, but it didn't show much on his face as he said calmly, "It's from the director, the boss, the president of the asylum. He doesn't ever show up, so wouldn't a letter from him be really important?"

Felix shrugged with a smug smirk on his face as he said, "Hey, if the boss actually had anything important to tell us prefects, he'd do it directly. Besides, I know for a fact that this doesn't have anything important in it."

"But, you haven't even read it. And it's from the director, he's in charge of the asylum."

"Well, what if the director was actually… a monster!" Felix said with a teasing smirk, wheeling around at the last part in a half-assed attempt to scare Ivan that clearly hadn't worked.

Ivan instead glared at Felix, the word "monster" had struck a chord with him, in the wrong way. The word had emotional significance for him, the bad kind, not only for himself, but also for… someone else? That he was forgetting? Mylene?

Either way, Ivan deadpanned, "Don't even joke about that." The director was not, could not, and would not be a monster. It just simply wasn't an option for him.

Nobody deserved to be called a monster. But, if they were bad enough to be one, there was just no way that they could be so close.

No way.

Felix held his hands up in mock surrender and said, fighting a smile off his face in vain, "Alright, alright I'll stop." He and Ivan then began walking through the lobby of the boys' dorm, turning to walk through one of the hallways.

At one point, Felix had started ripping up the letter and the envelope from the director without reading it. Ivan's eyes widened in shock as he exclaimed, "What are you doing? That's from the director!"

Felix simply chuckled and tossed the scraps of paper over his shoulder, patting Ivan on the shoulder as he stopped in front of the door to his room, "Relax, it's fine. It wasn't important anyway." He then sobered up and said more seriously in concern, "But, you should really take a nap, you look like you've got a headache from all this overthinking."

Ivan sighed, "Yeah, whatever, I guess." He turned around to walk towards the stairwell to head up to his own room.

As Ivan walked away, Felix took out his keys and opened up the door to his room. As soon as the door closed with him inside, Felix's facade broke and he was out cold. He hadn't even made it to the bed before he finally passed out from fatigue from his anemia.

He really was pushing himself too far.

Outside, in the hallway, an akuma boy was walking past when he saw scraps of paper on the ground.

"Ugh, I hate it when people litter."

He picked up the pieces of paper, some of them were thicker and had a design on them, indicating that they used to be an envelope.

The akuma boy shuffled through the pieces of paper as he walked to the lobby.

They were all blank, not a drop of ink on them at all. Nothing that indicated that any sort of writing utensil had even touched it, though it smelled as though there were perfume sprayed on it.

The boy shrugged, and threw the papers into the trash can.