Can you tell I like Chloé Bourgeois a lot?
It all started with that stupid party. Chloé had been invited by Adrien for some reason. To this day she didn't know why. She didn't really belong there. But she was so glad he had. Their entire class was at the Agreste Mansion during one of Adrien's father's business trips to celebrate the ending of summer vacation. School was starting again soon. It had been Alya Cesaire's idea. It was at that party, that Adrien and Marinette decided it would be a good idea to confess their love to each other and promptly kiss. Right in front of everybody. Including Chloé.
Chloé liked to believe that she had already become a slightly better person at that point, giving up a lot of her bullying tendencies as she had matured. After all, she was at the end of her second year of lycée now, she was seventeen. She had done a lot of growing up. But that didn't stop a huge boulder of emotion from falling on her the second she saw Adrien and Marinette kiss. While her crush on Adrien had started out as a ploy to gain popularity among their schoolmates, it had developed into a real, honest to goodness crush over the last year. She had started to believe that she might have a real chance since Adrien didn't seem to be taking any interest in Marinette.
Apparently he had.
Chloé had the urge to do so many stupid things out of heartbreak and jealousy. So badly she wanted to take the cup of punch she was holding and pour it all over Marinette's head right as they pulled apart from their stupid kiss. Chloé wanted to scream out loud, drag everyone's attention over to her and then scream at Adrien, telling him he had no right to like Marinette back after everything he put her through. She wanted to scream at him and beg him to look her way; tell him that she would give anything just to have a chance with him.
She moved to do any one of those things but then he pulled away from Marinette and she saw his face. His look of adoration and love and pure bliss. And Chloé had changed too much to let anything stop him from finally having that. She just hadn't changed enough for it to be her. So instead of doing any of those things that were so typical of Chloé, she turned and walked out of the room, heading straight to the main hall.
She wasn't the only one. As she tried to slip through the door, someone else did at the same time and they bumped into each other before squeezing awkwardly through the door. She turned to see who the culprit was and was met with the most gorgeous electric blue eyes. As soon as they made eye contact, some sort of bell went off in Chloé's head and all of her hectic thoughts stopped and went still. Her mind went completely blank. He had blue dyed hair and was wearing an outfit that Chloé would call ridiculous if she paid attention to it. But all she could see was those eyes.
"Um, hi," she managed.
"Hi," the boy responded.
They stood there for a second before Chloé remembered her initial plan: Get as far away from Adrien as possible. She slowly reached up and patted this new boy on the shoulder awkwardly and then began walking away with another word. She had made it halfway down the main stairwell when she heard that boy call out to her.
"Um, wait! Are you okay? You're Adrien's friend right?"
Chloé stopped and turned sharply. The boy's eyes widened and Chloé reached up to touch her face. Tears. She had tears. Why was she crying?
"But I bet you wish you weren't Adrien's friend, right?"
"How would you know anything about it," Chloé grumbled.
"Because I'm Marinette's friend."
It was then that Chloé understood. She knew this boy. Juleka's twin and Marinette's ex boyfriend. Luka.
Chloé crumbled onto the floor, sitting on one of the steps. She could hear Luka coming up behind her, moving to sit on the step beside her.
"So you saw it too," Chloé guessed. He nodded.
"Yup."
They sat in silence for a minute. Chloé didn't know what to say, she hardly knew this guy, if at all. But his presence was alarmingly calming, something she desperately needed at that moment. She pondered back to earlier. Their eyes had met and it was as if time had stopped, she became so calm. Everything just became quiet for a moment.
"So you must be Chloé. I've heard of you," Luka offered.
"We met once," Chloé told him. "But I was akumatized and you were under my control. I insulted your outfit."
"But you remembered it," he attempted to joke but he went quiet a moment after.
"So what happened with you and Marinette?"
Chloé wasn't sure if she had the right to ask, but it was as good a conversation topic as any. And what was Chloé Bourgeois if not blunt.
"She has secrets. Way too many. She just couldn't tell me and so I told her that I would wait until she could. I really had hoped that she would figure it out and we could get back together...but now..." He trailed off, Chloé could hear the sadness in his voice. "I didn't see this coming. I mean, I always knew she liked Adrien, but it didn't matter. I just wanted her to be happy."
"I wanted to scream," Chloé told Luka. "When it happened. I wanted to scream, throw a fit. Do anything. But Adrien just looked so, so happy."
"Marinette too," Luka chuckled dryly. "Well, here's to their happiness thanks to our misery."
"That's what idiots in love do," Chloé grumbled. "But with them it was bound to happen eventually. I just thought that..."
"Maybe I could have gotten there first," they said at the same time. They brought their gaze to meet one another's again. That same calm from earlier washed over Chloé and she possibly felt just a twitch better than before.
"Looks like you and I are in the same boat," Chloé said with a gentle bump to his shoulder.
"Maybe we should get together," Luka joked. It was very obviously a joke. But that didn't stop Chloé from letting out a:
"Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!"
Luka looked at her with both of his brows raised.
"Sorry," she muttered. "Force of habit."
He chuckled, giving her a soft but sincere smile before turning to look down at his hands.
"What if we get married," Chloé said as soon as the thought entered her mind. She had no time to stop it or take it back before Luka turned to look at her wide eyed.
"What?!"
Surprisingly, Chloé didn't get all riled up or try to defend herself. She just stared off into space, calmly explaining the ridiculous and outlandish idea that popped into her head.
"What if we get married and don't tell anyone. It could be like a way to control a situation we have no control over. And you would get to keep something from Marinette like she keeps things from you."
"Unlike you, I'm not that petty," Luka shot back.
"You don't have to be. It still feels nice to be able to get back at someone in the smallest of ways. It wouldn't even hurt her at all."
"And what do you get out of this?"
"The satisfaction of knowing that I'm sitting on top of one of the biggest secrets that nobody knows. It would be like finding out Ladybug's secret identity and not being able to tell anybody."
Luka sighed. He grumbled something to himself and then brought his hands up to rub his eyes. He placed a knuckle over his mouth before speaking again.
"Well we can't just get married, it's a big, long, expensive process and all that stuff."
"Not really," Chloé deadpanned. "We could elope. Since you're eighteen, you are a legal adult so you don't need any parental permission. I could get my dad to sign off, he doesn't care what I do at all. He also acts as a witness. I'm rich so money isn't that much of a problem. We don't even have to talk to each other ever again if we wanted to. There's no law that says you have to be with somebody you're married to."
Luka stayed silent for a moment.
"Okay."
He got up and then reached out a hand for Chloé to take.
"Seriously," Chloé asked as she allowed him to pull her up. She raised a brow at him.
"Yeah. You haven't given me a reason not to. And I'm a 'go with the flow kind of guy'."
Chloé shrugged.
"Okay, I'll call my dad."
