Author's Notes
Written for Kagami Appreciation Week Day 2 - Sweet Tooth: "Ice cream? Orange juice? Honey? Baked goods? Maybe some fun time baking? Maybe she's 'getting herself a little sugar'? It's a buffet of options."
Warnings: References to sexual harassment and emotional abuse.
Because of the radical difference in tone and content between these stories, I have decided to move from "chapters in a larger work" to individual stories.
Adrien is very sweet, given to grand romantic gestures.
That much is obvious to Kagami as she nibbles on one of the chocolate chip cookies he brought for her – that he made for her himself with, he admitted bashfully, the assistance of Marinette.
He is playing the keyboard that he had left on a terrace reserved just for them. His fingers and forearms flow like a gentle river, exaggerated motions like cresting waves. It reminds her of his contortionist's dance on the piste when he weaves around her forceful thrusts and twists unexpectedly as if he is boneless.
This piece has never been heard by anyone else. He has taken the ugliness of his father and bent it and beaten it into form just for her.
She sighs and closes her eyes. The torrent of notes is something that she may never understand, the way they swell without giving her time to raise her guard; fall when she is already breathless, longing for a touch, only to leave her starving, an emaciated child reaching out with bony hands, no longer able to clutch the hilt of her sword so she can pretend she can defend herself.
She quivers, and is lost in the darkness behind her eyes, sensitive to the frame of the chair behind her, the buttery-savoury-sweet flavour lingering in her mouth, chocolate residue still caught in her molars, and the music that crests and surges up over the sandy shore and every barricade and levee. Her throat pinches up, undulates. He leaves her on the back-foot.
The music ends.
Gentle kisses are exchanged. Blushes. Forwardness. Abashment. Thrusts. Parries. Over-commitments. Feints. Withdrawals.
Retreats where the only one left standing in the fight is the loser.
The date ends.
In the car, being driven home by a drone, she thinks, forehead pressed to the cool glass of her window, eyes unfocused.
Thinking is a dangerous thing. You can defeat a man, no matter how strong. The battle does not always go to the strong, but an idea has no body to kill; no will to break; no tells to assess; no fortress to storm.
Perhaps, she realizes, it is better to say that Adrien is conditioned to grand romantic gestures, especially when they both recognize some deficiency in his performance: another meticulously arranged date missed; another fencing match abandoned just as he was stepping onto the piste; another "forgotten photoshoot." She has difficulty with emotions, but patterns are facile.
Kagami disembarks from Tatsu and the reverberations of his voice chase after her into the night. She returns home wounded from her attempt to grapple with the shadows that she can never force into shape, and her mother is there to offer her the comfort of stability and surety.
Conversations held in the dimly lit sitting room amidst family icons and heirlooms and the forbidding press of expectation are gentle in their own way. They sip tea, discuss training, stay reserved.
Her mother is an iron wall, polished smooth, that stretches from horizon to horizon. It is all cool and glacial. She has no tells.
Rage is not a tell.
Kagami is learning how to spot people's tells because her mother wants to ensure that she can tease apart small signs of weakness, as adept with a scalpel and forceps as she is with a epee or bokken. She did not understand them once. Could not tell when someone was lying, though she could detect weakness. Her mother began to teach her this aspect of combat when Kagami insisted that she wanted "friends." Whatever the faults of her training techniques, Tomoe is not one to send her daughter into a vicious, pitched battle unarmed or unprepared.
It is better to have a parent who teaches you to see everything as a conflict to be won than one who runs his hands over the fabric of your life, always searching for untamed loose threads to tug out, not caring what unravels.
The next day proceeds much as any other. Routine and regularity are all that keeps her mother stable. They is the foundation on which her iron rests.
Their matches are lopsided, Tomoe claiming victory after victory and sending her daughter to the ground, gravel and pavement shaving skin from Kagami's forearms and palms. Rising to fall again, Kagami wonders if her mother understands. In some ways, Kagami does not wish to defeat her. Might Tomoe realize that without acknowledging it even to herself? She can't win, of course, even if she tries, but one day...
What will happen on that day when, honed and skilled, Kagami actually commits fully?
That evening, she showers, soaping her hair and disliking the feeling of the coarse strands like hay between her fingers. It again gives her time to think.
Adrien bristles with tells now that she knows to look; little slivering wounds as if he'd just been pulled from a cyclone of glass. Every date, another bloodstain blooms through his Gabriel brand shirt.
Another missed dinner; another forgotten birthday; another last-minute alteration to his schedule that forces him to abandon his friends; another photoshoot with the Rossi girl whose hands are always proper and respectful when there are eyes to see.
There are never eyes to see, and the photographers and assistants tease Adrien for being the object of a pretty girl's attentions.
Voiceless, Adrien has learned to scream by smiling.
Those are the reasons that he is excessive, she thinks as she sits at her desk that evening and rubs salve into her scrapes. The balm stings. With a free, unsullied hand, she eats the last of the cookies that he made for her.
Two dozen roses; a rock-climbing wall. A rooftop dinner by candlelight; an indoor basketball hoop. A song composed to serenade her; a collection of arcade machines.
In the darkness of her room and the softness of her bed, she reflects on how difficult it is to be the object of someone's attention when they are trying to prove that they love you, but all they can conjure are stilted motions copied from an unwitting teacher's fumbled kata.
It would be so easy to wrench open any one of those wounds because causing pain is always so much easier than healing it, but he is soft with her. She knows that he wants her to be soft with him, but only one of them is sweet, just as only one of them is in love.
One is the reason for the other, she is certain, but she cannot tell the source from the stream.
Marinette is the most frustrating opponent in the world.
A fair fight being the only one worth winning, ensuring your opponent is on equal footing and prepared is one thing. To parlé with your enemy so that you may plot out a battle-plan that allows them to most effectively exploit your own weaknesses is another.
It is easy to hate Marinette when that allowance is the only thing that grants Kagami even the remotest chance of victory. In the weeks since their experience with Andre, she has seen the way that Adrien uncoils in her presence and cleaves to her. He melts for her, never losing his real shape; rather, he settles into it. Every easy motion is offered without reserve or expectation.
There is no trying with Marinette.
It's so effortless a victory that he doesn't even know that he's fighting her, probably because she's too busy grappling with herself. That may be an enemy as dangerous as an idea. Marinette gets caught in ideas, in her mortal lock with herself, a guaranteed loss either way, and in her own sweetness like a ladybug drowning in honey.
She is caught now.
Gazing out of her window, the other girl sits at her sewing desk. A small pink cube with rotating ends shifts between her hands. Absent flicks of her fingers send it spinning. It would make Kagami appear foolish to ask what it is, and she is already asking enough. She stays silent.
"I think that you should give him a gift." The little cube is set down on her desk. The motion is a jerk, but her fingers slide along its edge. Marinette wants to set it down, but does not want to give it up. "That's always what I planned to do."
"How would that address the underlying issue that I have described?"
"You're worried that he isn't as ... invested in the relationship as you, right?"
"No, he is very much invested." Too much so, as if he needed it to work – was desperate for it. "It is more that I know that he does not feel about me the way that I feel about him. That is his right, and it may be because I cannot give him what he needs. I am not a kind person."
Marinette looks at her the way that she looks at Lila on occasion – not with hatred but as if she has just told a lie large enough to swallow the world. The creases on her cheek make her look tired.
"I think that Adrien is a lot more... fragile than he lets on. His mood – his real mood just shifts on a dime and he tries to hide that by making it seem like he's happy all the time." Marinette says this as if she is no longer talking to Kagami.
"He's used to his father giving him gifts because there's something huge in his life – like he's expecting Adrien to accept them as payment for – for not being allowed to go to school or have friends over."
"They are bribes." A level of manipulation Kagami hadn't recognized.
"Emotional ones." Marinette's retrieval of a cookie interrupts her. The platter that she had brought for them to share now lays on the chaise where Kagami is seated. Marinette takes the time to chew it thoughtfully.
"If you're nice every now and then, and if you give him enough big things that ... look like they're expensive, you can make him feel guilty enough that he'll ignore all the small ones that really matter." Marinette sits next to her and wipes buttery fingers off on her black pants, leaving fine streaks. She fiddles with her earrings.
This is a challenge. Sometimes, even when the weaknesses are obvious, there is no suggestion as to how one might exploit them or, desperate, try to shore them up. Blood pours from Marinette's tight-set mouth and leaks from her sunken eyes, and Kagami cannot see why.
"If you want to be gentle, what you have to do is show him that you care in all the little things."
"Death by a thousand cuts rather than a swift killing blow." Kagami picks at the folds of her skirt. "That is a terrible method of killing someone. Very ugly. Cruel. I suppose that the opposite would be true as well."
Life breathed into a person by a thousand kindnesses.
There is a beauty to that.
As Marinette hands her a cookie and smiles for her, it is, unlike Adrien's music, a beauty that Kagami can both appreciate and understand. It is nearly enough to make her weep for the dead-eyed girl she was.
It is a terrible thing to fall.
Far more terrible is to admit it. That's when you become powerless.
"I... might not put it that way if you talk about this with anyone else, but, yeah." Marinette nods, forehead pinching. "Sort of. I think."
"The problem is that I do not know how to express these kindnesses. I don't not know how to be sweet."
"It's not that hard."
The corners of Kagami's lips stutter downwards as the other girl plucks up the plate of cookies and settles it in her lap to make another selection. Marinette is a good person. A beautiful person. But not a perfect person. She has difficulty empathizing with people, projecting her own experiences.
Kagami sees that only because she has learnt that she can never assume that how she feels is how others will feel. She cannot empathize or expect.
"Luka once told me that you practice acting like a good person. You force it by making a conscious choice each day, even each time you do something, and you make a habit of it until it is. I think that sweetness or kindness is the same way. If you force yourself to do anything long enough, it... it has to become a habit." Marinette's hands are locked, bony, nails leaving red grooves in the flesh covering her knuckles. "I think that it does."
"You are suggesting that I train at it. Make it part of my regime, but I do not know how to exercise it, or what Adrien's needs are at any moment in order to undertake the 'kind' action." Kagami stares at Marinette's hands, and she wants so badly to be gentle. She has to be.
With the platter of oatmeal raisin cookies abandoned, Marinette's hand is soft against her arm, her expression sweet and gentle and all the things that let Adrien love her without even being aware of it, or without being willing to acknowledge it. The things that Kagami wants to be able to express.
"Then I'll help you learn."
Of course, easy as it may be to hate Marinette, it takes supreme effort to resist the pull of her gravity.
To not fall.
Even Kagami does not have that kind of fight in her. It is almost horrifying to think that anyone does.
If Kagami wants to be sweet, then she had best start now. Every student's first stroke is a fumble.
"You know that you could have him if you tried, yes?" Kagami's voice is the same as the one she uses with her mother. It is ugly to meet an enemy who is your better in every way, and so painfully beautiful to have a friend who is your better in every way, and reaches out a hand to lift you up to her level.
But there is only fear in response. Kagami can see that easily enough. It is the animal terror of prey, the instinctive cry of a lost child, and then it is cut with a longing like Kagami's own.
Marinette smiles like Adrien in those photoshoots with Lila.
"I know."
Kagami is a literal-minded person. She cannot think of a metaphor ugly enough for the great interlocking web of tells and scars and great bleeding wounds that twist Marinette's body and face. There is only the one that she has already used.
It is death by a thousand cuts. There are two executions scheduled. Perhaps three.
In the following weeks and with quality tutoring, she tries so hard that Adrien notices. It almost becomes a competition between them, but not one of the many that they actually enjoy. How hard can she try to give him what he needs and still fail? How hard can he try to give her what she wants and still fail?
Every motion is ill-timed; every word misspoken. She tries to joke, as he does, and his hiccupping laughs sound like sobs. She speaks softer than she knows how, but it falls on her ear like a death rattle, lungs filling up. How does she plant her feet, hold her arm, hold his hand? Where does she see a vulnerability that is just deep enough to matter, but not so tender that her clumsy hands will only inflame the wound?
She might have had more success, but training sessions with Marinette are unproductive. Too much time is spent probing the other girl's defenses, testing to find the source of her pain. The designer conceals and deflects and redirects, a better fencer in this arena than Tomoe is in hers. It is shocking to see how well Marinette lies – lies all the time and seems to hate herself for it. She is so sweet, and so kind, and so giving that it turns Kagami's stomach bitter now that she sees it.
How has she grown this perceptive?
Maybe – the thought leaves her sick – it's just like Adrien's photographers and aides when he is with Lila: maybe she just never cared enough to really see.
The ungainly competition with Adrien becomes the norm through fencing matches and dates until the day that she realizes that their relationship has become the opposite of the one that she has with her mother in all the wrong ways. She and her mother want her to be the same thing; she does not train, or dream, or strive solely for her mother's sake.
With her mother, she is true to herself, even when she acknowledges that in some ways, she doesn't want to win.
"Kuso!"
In a fumble of heat and frustration, a flurry of uncoordinated fingers already dotted with reddened scald marks, Kagami rips the pot from the stove. It ends up clattering into the sink, filing with cold water as she grabs a dishcloth and flicks it at the blaring fire alarm that, fortunately, her mother is not here to question.
She has overheated the chocolate.
Not that it is the cause of the smoke.
The smoke is due to the dish-rag that went up in flames a minute ago and is now likewise submerged in the sink. That would not have been so galling a blow to her pride as she slashes away at the air, trying to quiet the alarm by coaxing up cool and fresh air from the window she had opened earlier, had this attempt not been her second.
How is it possible for anyone to be so bad at this?
They meet in a park, Marinette intending to serve as Kagami's Cyrano de Bourgeac whom she knows not because he was a lover, but because he was a duellist. His darkness and despondency only became clear when he ruminated on his perceived flaw even though the truth was... as plain as the nose on his face.
Kagami might be literal-minded, but that comparison is shockingly apt now that she begins to consider it.
She plops a blanching Marinette down on a park bench next to Adrien. The baker's nose and cheeks bristle with freckles highlighted by the paleness of her skin.
"Marinette?" Adrien asks after giving them both a chance to settle. "Kagami, is everything alright?"
"Yes. I apologize for turning our scheduled date into an opportunity to spend time among friends, but there is an issue that we should discuss."
Kagami notes that Adrien actually looks relieved as he falls into Marinette's gravity well and the girl cannot find it within herself to shy away. There is a quick and desperate series of glances towards Kagami, and to reassure her friend, she inclines her head.
"Great! I'm always happy to spend time with friends, and we have a wonderful time together, don't we?" He is too cheerful because he sees that Marinette is not. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah. Everything is fine on my end." Marinette plays with a pigtail, nearly ripping it out.
"If you want, Marinette, we can go for a walk and try to track down Andre." He does not touch her, but Kagami knows that he wants to. "Kagami and I were going to fence, but that may not be something that you'd enjoy."
"Actually, Adrien. I really wouldn't mind watching."
"Nonsense," Kagami brushes off the clumsy attempt to shove Adrien into her arms. "I want you to have a chance to practice, and to try to teach you. The best way to remind oneself of the fundamentals is by teaching another."
"Oh. S-should we head off now then?" Marinette gathers up the hem of her jacket, clutching it like she is seconds away from trying to swaddle herself in it. Her attempt to rise and flee is halted by Kagami's hand.
"Please give me a moment." Rooting about in the pocket of her school bag for a moment, Kagami grasps hold of the small gift box that she had stowed away and offers it to them. "I have a gift for both of you."
It is a small, pink cardboard box, wrapped with a slightly lopsided bow.
There is a remarkably pleasant look of commingled gratitude and shock as they reach out for it together and express their thanks, nearly in unison, only to laugh off the way they are mirroring each other.
"Thank you, Kagami!" If there is a dog miraculous, Ladybug really should give it to Adrien. He's already wagging his tail. "Can I open it?"
She nods, and, after a moment of gazing into Adrien's expectant eyes and being worn down by his smile, Marinette reaches out to help him pull out the tie on the box.
They reveal the lumpy and uneven shards of her chocolate.
"Oh, Chocolate!" Adrien looks up at her, not even noticing how misshapen and ugly her work is. "Did you- did you make this?"
They both appear awed.
"I did. It took several attempts, but I succeeded in the end." With a gentle pat to Marinette's knee to knock her out of her little stupor and get her to shift over, Kagami takes a seat between her friends. It gives them both respite. Prevents them from falling to their deaths. "Please, try some."
Adrien hands over the box to Marinette after retrieving a piece for himself, and they bite in at the same time.
The eager expression on Adrien's face does not fall, but a twitch unsettles it for a moment as he chews and swallows before going back for more.
"I like it. It's really good, Kagami!" he mumbles around the next piece. "Thank you so much."
"Oh- yeah! It's... uh... got a really strong flavour." Marinette nods at her. Nods like a bobble-head, really. "Could I ask how you sweetened it?" She draws out a shard and analyzes it with a critical, baker's eye.
"Powdered sugar, but it is dark chocolate."
"Ah." That fake upturn of Adrien's lips is actually quite pleasant. Amusing. "It's great."
"I suspect that it is slightly too bitter," Kagami granted. "And burnt. And gritty."
"Oh, that's just because I've got a sweet tooth," Adrien brushes her off, showing off the chocolate caught up in his teeth. "I've always been more of a fan of milk chocolate, but this is great! You made it, after all."
"I am not good at making sweet things."
"I could always show you how." Marinette plucks another shard from the little box in Kagami's hand and pops it in her mouth.
"That is very kind, Marinette, but not quite what I meant."
"So you prefer dark chocolate?"
"What I mean is that I may not be able to make something sweet, but I am more than prepared to share something bitter. I want you both to know that." This is a metaphor, and for two people who lie about so much, it seems important to try to be... symbolic.
Adrien is silent. If she was not familiar with Adrien's smiles, she would think that he didn't understand, but that grin is neither a lie nor a shield. It is simply thoughtfulness covered by happiness. It is a common look.
"Isn't that what we're doing right now?"
Marinette does not understand. Kagami is not being sufficiently direct.
A rare experience indeed.
"It is a matter of what I have to give, and what others will accept. I love you Adrien." Ah. There are times when even Adrien is vulnerable to the most direct strike, but she does not allow herself to appreciate the way he scratches at his reddened cheek nervously as she turns to Marinette. "And you are my best friend, even if I am not yours."
Iron falls into place in the baker's eyes, and not for the first time Kagami sees that Marinette, like Adrien, plays many roles in her life.
"At this point, Kagami, you really are. It's nice to have someone who you know will be willing to fight for you."
"Now, that, Marinette, is quite bitter."
"I guess that it is," Marinette acknowledges. "I shouldn't be, and it's probably something that I have to work on."
"Marinette, I – is everything alright?" Adrien's grin is gone, and there is only fear and concern. "Is there anything that I can do?"
"Maybe, Adrien. I'll have to think about it."
Then let them think on this too.
"I know how to bear that kind of bitterness." Kagami takes the box of chocolate after Adrien has retrieved his third morsel, even though he clearly does not like dark chocolate. Or maybe her chocolate. That is not important right now. "Any kind that I am called on to shoulder or endure. I am not soft, but I am strong. I do not break easily, though I have a temper. I want you both to know this."
"I've always known that you're a very ... resilient person, Kagami." Marinette snaps a rough and filmy piece of dark chocolate in her hands and gnaws at it, gumming it. Melting chocolate and saliva are just visible on her lips. Adrien watches, passive.
"There are many bitter things in your lives. I see that, but I do not know them. There is much sorrow in Adrien's. I cannot give him what he needs-"
At that, Adrien's hand is on her arm and he is speaking, but silenced by a single glance from both her and Marinette.
"I can only give both of you what I am."
Marinette stares at her and plays with her earrings for a very long time. The baker looks to Adrien's clenched fists, one hand folded over the other, hiding his ring.
Marinette laughs.
"And you said that you didn't know how to be sweet."
She pulls out the last piece of chocolate, breaks it apart, and Kagami accepts a hunk when it is offered. Taking the larger piece in hand, Marinette snaps off another section and proffers it to Adrien. Unlike Kagami's kisses, this he takes without hesitation.
They finish the chocolate together.
It really is rather bitter.
Maybe she'll add honey next time.
After all, Kagami likes sweet things.
Author's Notes
"And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."