Poetry
"Hey, Felix." Lila called while the boy in question was deeply focused on the contents of his locker, or perhaps his own thoughts and concerns, because weather he was ready to admit that or not, the events of the last four days had an impact of him. He took his time and ignored the call.
First of all, he was determined to consider Marinette pathetic for the way she loved his pathetic cousin. Yes, he should have been sorry for the boy who lost his mother and his father was a villain and now he had to go through a legal battle to keep anything, even from his own aunt.
But now Felix knew he was jealous of his cousin and the love that his friends had for him, he became painfully aware that that was the reason he sent that awful message for a reply from Adrien's phone that day him and Amelie went over to Paris for a visit.
Then there was Chloe, as obnoxious and annoying as ever, but he saw through her, she was actually doing nice things for people, even when nobody watched her, just because she could and he mocked her for that, just like he did for relying on (read it as using) Sabrina for her school assignments.
"Hi Felix." The same voice from behind him called again, but he continued to ignore her, because he was deep in his train of thought, determined to find some leverage, some meaning to everything that had happened to him and was not stopping for an obscure call from behind.
Then there was Kagami, a girl he could have played with and pretended to be Adrien longer, and yet she stood calm and composed, shy with showing any emotions but rather straightforward when it came to physical actions, and no, he was not able to tell if he had a date yesterday.
"Good morning Felix." A voice called and he was grabbed by his upper arm and turned around by force, his train of thought derailed, his face slightly flushed and with a dopey smile on his face (that he was not aware of) as he thought of the last girl in the line, only to face Lila.
"Oh, hi Lila." Felix pulled cordless earphones from his ears and schooled his face into mildly annoyed with a strained smile. That was a girl he was hoping to neither see nor meet first thing in the morning, in the locker room, alone. This was not why he arrived so early.
Lila, on the other hand, chose to be to school as early as possible if only to catch some time alone, without Rosa by her side watching her every move. She was certain to flip that young woman around her finger just like she did with Ms Bustier and principal Damocles sooner or later.
"I was looking for you yesterday." Lila ran her hand up and down his arm and even sneaked her fingers underneath his shirt sleeve. Felix rolled his eyes, yes he knew she looked for him, his mother told him, and he assured her that the girl was lying all the way.
"Yes, mother told me." He replied, icicles seeped from his voice. Lila clutched on his arm and fluttered her eyelashes.
"I overheard yesterday about the test in chemistry today and I wanted to go through that with you so you could be prepared for it." She sniffed. "But I couldn't find you, your mother was so nice to let me in, she told me you were in fencing, so I waited, but you did not come."
"She mentioned ..." How you pestered her and wouldn't leave her alone. He took a deep breath and made sure the door to his locker was firmly shut as the girl tried to peek inside. He really wasn't in the mood to discuss that with her, heck, not even to play a prank on her.
"Listen Lila." He straightened up. "You are an outcast in this class because you lied. I am an outcast because I played a prank that hurt them. You used to work for Gabriel, my mother is here to take over his businesses."
"Yes, you see how much we have in common." Her left hand gripped on his right arm, just above the elbow, while her right had roamed over his chest and torso. "We could help each other out, you know, with the business and the school and to feel slightly less left out and lonely."
The last words made Felix snap, pull himself out of her grip and push her hands away.
"I'm really glad I took those macarons as a provocation to dress up as Adrien on Tuesday. It made you show your real face to me, you thought you owned Adrien and now you think you could own me. Well, you don't." He snarled, checked if his locker was locked properly and walked away.
It was the truth, he would have bought it, not that he was stupid, but her stories made sense and he loved to despise his cousin and Marinette, he was jealous of what they had, he knew that now, he wanted it too, but not with that boring baker's daughter, nor with the liar that just cornered him.
Yes, he could have easily found common interest with her, the two of them would play victims of the rest of the class while in school while they collected the information about Gabriel and Emilie and the miraculous and what exactly happened, and his mother would have approved of that.
But he clutched his phone and looked at his contact list, yes, his whole class was there, as Adrien sent him all the details he could possibly ever need but never wanted to have, and then there it was the one number he got on his own, listed under her name, Kagami.
He entered the empty classroom and walked over to his seat, too angry to even try to socialize with the rest of the class, he took out chemistry notes copied from who knows whom and provided by Marinette, the class president, to at least try and prepare for an exam.
"You're wrong." Were the first words Lila uttered as she entered the classroom. "I read the files Gabriel had on you, I know what you dear aunt Emilie have done, I know what you are and I know how to control you and how to destroy you. Now, I can be nice to you or I can be mean, what do you chose?"
Felix was at a loss. What was it that this girl could possibly have on him? And what was that that aunt Emilie did or this girl thought that aunt Emilie did to make her possibly think she had any power over him? He stared at the girl with his face blank, his eyes empty.
"Oh, there you are, bon giorno sinore Felix! Lila, andiamo! We have a chemistry exam today." Rosa burst into the classroom and pulled her student towards the last row of the benches where they both continued their conversation in hushed tomes.
The boy devoted his time to study the rules between the volumes and the masses and the densities and molar sums of the chemical equations and the laws of the famous French scientists that invented the connections between them.
Ms Bustier took attendance and announced yet another test in the afternoon while Felix never lifted his nose from the schoolwork as he was determined to do well in the test, he learned early in life that teachers often forgiven a prank or two (or twenty) to their best students.
The first lesson was with the same teacher and their task was to dissect some meaningless poem into pieces. And it was him, of all people, who was chosen to read the poem to the class. That hopefully saved him from any further analysis, so he read it, with all the appropriate feeling acted.
Chloe listened intently to the boy who recited the poem. He looked so much like Adrien, he was wearing his usual school uniform and his hair was combed neatly, not ruffled, but still, his face, his gentle features, the eyes, his lips, his gentle manners, he was so much like his cousin.
And yet, Felix was so different, he strived for class and style, albeit his style was different than hers, far more subdued, it was asking for attention in this classroom just like she was, and he came from distinguished family with connections, just like she did, she felt like she found a soulmate.
But they had their disagreements, and first and foremost, Felix never ever let her tell him what to do or at least did not listen to her or did not do it, he was not the one to let her have the last word and he never admitted that she was right, even when she was, which was always, according to her.
Then there was the issue of Sabrina. Chloe had one policy in life, and that was not to move a finger if someone else can do it for you. It was a quality of a good employee to execute tasks, but it was a quality of a boss to delegate them, and she never wanted to be a mere employee.
Therefore, she was not bossing Sabrina around (no she never did that to anyone else, Jean Something included) she was merely delegating tasks just like any self respecting boss, a city mayor or an heiress would do, she simply did not do tasks.
'You can't know if your employee did their task well if you don't know how to do it yourself or at least how it is supposed to be done.' Felix argued while they were doing their worksheets together, as they were supposed to, for their common homework the other day.
Felix considered her incompetent and her style unnecessarily flashy and drawing too much attention while her own actions were, according to him, mean with no purpose, because he considered his pranks funny, while she considered them childish.
There she was listening to this blonde boy reciting a song about harmony, written in perfect harmony of verses and rhyme, the words that produced just the right sounds when spoken, to rise the expected feeling in the listener, and he spoke so perfectly calm and collected.
"What kind of a poem was this?" Ms Bustier asked the class.
"It was a love poem." Chloe replied while she pretended to examine her nails, but her eyes were on Felix who looked at her flushed her conclusion. Several students burst into laughter and Chloe turned around. Then she noticed that Lila was laughing too, or at least, she covered her mouth and pretended.
"It speaks about the harmony between the two souls who had finally found each other, although they grew side by side and competed for the attention, they finally saw each other and recognized their soulmate." Chloe continued to elaborate.
"Chloe, I know you have a crush on Felix, but the song was about two flowers in a meadow." Lila replied proudly. "It was a poem about nature." She concluded proudly and observed Ms Bustier as she waited for her teacher's approval.
Her unreadable assistant was making notes in her notebook and did not provide any kind of a reaction to the girl's answer. Lila was at least encouraged to continue with her actions because no reaction also meant there was no negative reaction.
"What?" Chloe screeched completely unaware that her face turned pink (or she was hoping that her blush was perfectly hidden below the layers of her expensive make up, thank you very much) and even less aware that Felix got pink in the face too after the rest of the class reacted.
"What I was meaning to say is that the poem glorifies the beauty of nature and its harmony, it is what I strive for in all the charities I do where we fight against the climate change and try to save the planet ..." Lila felt a light nudge from her teaching assistant, the rest of the class turned away already.
"Lila!" Chloe glared still offended at the public disclosure of the feelings she was not even aware of. "If all the climate change fighters are like you, no wonder the climate turned into such mess." The heiress shot back and then demonstratively turned around, huffed and sat down.
"Actually, Chloe is right." The teacher concluded with a gentle smile as she purposefully ignored the two blushing teenagers in the first row and strived to aim the attention of the rest of the class towards herself while she explained the hidden message.
Marinette observed the two teens as she was able to do it unnoticed, Adrien was too much within Felix's line of sight when he glanced at Chloe and he did it every once in a while while the girl determinedly stared at her nails, unfocused, not that Marinette could see from her place.
Felix felt the heat in his cheeks and for the first time he wished his hair was more ruffled, like Adrien's, so he could simply bow his head and let his bangs hide his blush, this way he had no choice but to stand and later sit there while the rest of the class and the teacher had a clear view of his red face and ears.
He just read a love poem, okay, he was a teenager who had just read a love poem in front of a class, a whole class of other teenagers, do you know how many hormones that is? And he knew it was a love poem after two verses, because how it made him feel while he read it.
The boy bravely continued to read the lines, the way his mother taught him to, the way those lines of poetry decided to be read, with all the emotion hidden beneath it, but not too much, to be treated with respect and admiration for the hidden messages and meanings.
Chloe stared at her nails, she did not have a crush on anyone, okay, that was that baker's daughter job, or Kim's, or Nathaniel's, or whatever, but not hers. Other people had crushes that made them loose their bearings and do stupid and self deprecating things, she did not do crush, okay?
And then to have the audacity to claim that she had a crush on Felix of all people, don't take her wrong, the boy was not that bad, in fact she might even admit that she found his company acceptable, from time to time, and just because of his family connections.
Whom was she kidding? She was devastated that morning when she learned that the boy went to school early and she had her morning ride alone. And then she was even more put down by his devotion to the chemistry notes instead of giving all his attention to her.
Chloe raised her eyes, slowly, towards her seat mate and just when she observed his face he glanced towards her again and their eyes met. They both blinked a few times at each other, and then each of them smirked, it wasn't infatuation, they were ready to shoot verbal daggers at each other again.