The Aftermath
Marinette was blushing. Rose cooed. Alix snickered. Alya wanted to scream for so many reasons she could not possibly list them all. The rest of the class was on an emotional roller-coaster, each of them in various stages between. Adrien was still holding Marinette's hand in front of the whole class.
"Sorry dude, I had no clue." Nino spoke first while he clapped his hands, he knew Adrien would get the message even through the noise because their eyes just met.
The class applauded to the performance, Ms Bustier clapped her hands and smiled gently, proud of her two student. The teacher felt that angsty pang in her belly, she knew she did wrong by hers students, but she did not know what was the right thing to do. She always taught her students to love each other. It always worked on her. Those teachers who taught her to love and forgive where her favourite when she was a child.
Principal Damocles was beyond excited, this was the first performance on the subject that he witnessed in his school and he was pleased that everything went so smoothly.
"This is great, this is so good I am going to recommend you to perform these sketches in the other classes, well, for the whole school." The man exclaimed while he applauded eagerly even after everyone else stopped. The school principal looked at the sketches, and few of the actions looked familiar, but he never made a clear connection that Adrien and Marinette impersonated the mayor's daughter.
Marinette stared at the school principal in panic. Adrien looked rather satisfied and happy, even giddy at the prospect of continuing this experience.
"Actually, the whole point was to engage as many students into the subject and make them more active in observing and correcting such behaviour in their classmates." Marinette smiled politely. Don't get her wrong, she wanted to spend more time with Adrien and this was an excellent opportunity, but she knew the boy's schedule was packed and he could hardly afford the time. Besides, she was hurting the boy, okay.
"Oh, but I do intend to make a common performance for the whole school with selected sketches, just as the programme suggests, and you two are definitely selected." The school principal was in his element and there was nothing that would deter him.
There was one particular student who had the power to just stop that in the roots.
"I am sure my daddy would like to know just which sketches are going to be performed if he is supporting this action." Chloe turned up her phone and looked at principal Damocles.
"Of course, Ms Bourgeois, if your father has the time, he is definitely invited to attend." The school principal was just not getting the message today (if ever).
Chloe scoffed indignantly at the school principal and got to her feet. She was about to walk out the door and call her father.
"Chloe, wait." Marinette and Adrien called together.
Chloe turned around swiftly, she glared at Adrien and completely ignored Marinette.
"I learned my lesson." She mouthed to the boy with anger in her eyes.
"That was the point." He smiled back as he replied quietly.
"Principal Damocles?" Marinette called. "I think we should make our performance shorter or adapt a few sketches for the common performance."
Chloe flashed her eyes towards the girl, there was recognition as well as surprise.
"The act we showed here served its purpose." Adrien added as he looked at Chloe. "We might have to modify the acts if we are going in front of a larger audience."
Chloe visibly relaxed, switched off her phone and went back to her seat.
Adrien and Marinette bumped their fists to celebrate. They got their message across to at least one bully. Adrien always had faith that his childhood friend had the capacity to be nice, but that faith whithered once he started to go to school with her. He never had expectations from people, he was there to fulfil the expectations of others. So he never expected Chloe to imrpove, he merely hoped for it.
Marinette, on the other hand, had long years of experience with Chloe as a bully. She knew better than to expect a miracle, but the girl took the message and Marinette knew that Chloe was able to do good things too. If only she would just stop doing few bad ones. But she was Chloe.
"Can I put the video of the two of you on the school blog?" Alya shouted.
"Of course." Principal Damocles answered. "Please do."
"How could you do that to me, Adrien." Chloe gritted through her teeth and glared at her childhood friend. But he just smiled and shrugged in return. The heiress was somewhat proud of her bullying nature, that was the way her mother behaved so she did it too, as if it was expected from her. But now her childhood friend taught her a lesson. That was not okay. On the top of it, he felt humiliated by her actions towards him. What she thought was normal interaction between them was hurting Adrien. And that was lot more to take for Chloe than the fact that she was a bully.
Marinette was relieved, Chloe took the message and it was reasonable to expect she was not going to repeat doing that to Adrien although she was mad. It was highly probable she would not be a bully, at least not so often, well, one could hope.
"Can I make a comic book about your performance?" Nathaniel asked shyly. Both teens nodded in response.
"You were really good." Juleka muttered.
"What should we do if we see someone doing something like that?" Rose asked.
"Ask if everything is okay and warn the culprit that what they are doing is wrong." Marinette recited the answer from the material they got.
"You should kick their asses." Kim exclaimed.
"Great job dude." Nino winked as he played with his red hat. He was feeling a bit guilty because it was obvious his two friends acted bullying and harassment they suffered themselves and he never did anything about it to help them. He always thought Adrien was oblivious because the boy did not notice how Marinette had a crush on him. Now, Nino became aware that he himself was oblivious to his best bro sufferings. The boy felt sexually harassed by two of his classmates. Okay, Adrien was a celebrity and as a supermodel and a face of a brand he had certain status, some fans were rather unreasonable. But those were Adrien's classmates. No wonder Gabriel insisted on homeschooling his own son.
Alya was too busy writing the accompanying note for the video to comprehend the complete chaos around her nor to reflect on the fact that her two classmates admitted they have been bullied by other classmates. She had a scoop. She had a piece to write. This would guarantee her views. She was a woman on a mission. Marinette looked at her friend as a lost cause. But she knew some time later, the girl was going to reflect on everything that happened. And she was scared of that moment, because Alya was known to be distressed about her friends. She got akumatized when Felix impersonated Adrien and sent that nasty message. It was Friday, perhaps a sleepover would be a good idea.
Ivan and Mylenne gushed about their colleagues.
Sabrina did her best to keep Chloe calm. The heiress was shooting daggers at her childhood friend, there was anger and betrayal, but there was more, she understood that she hurt him and that was actually not what she intended to do. She was finally aware of what she was doing. So she was angry, at herself for it had taken this for her to understand and at the fact that it was Dupain Cheng who had to show it to her.
Max was reciting some statistical data about bullying and harassment, apparently it was far more common than anyone anticipated.
"How did you avoid being akumatized for that?" Alix shouted. She saw her classmates akumatized for less, but she did not want to say it out loud.
That had taken both Adrien and Marinette by surprise, of course everyone recognized the situations, but this was such a straightforward personal question. Adrien never had a close call with a violet butterfly, but he knew that Marinette did.
One person in the back of the room was angry. Both Adrien and Marinette noticed her glare. And both of them kept checking for a violet butterfly She was hiding her face from the rest of her classmates and pretended to be hurt and crying, but she kept shooting glares between her fingers.
"Hey Lila, I guess he is not really your secret boyfriend if they depicted that scene with you in there." Kim teased.
And that was the moment when both performers were certain a violet butterfly was imminent. And there was not much that they could do to stop it.
"If she gets akumatized she will go after you." Adrien whispered to Marinette.
"And you, oh Adrien, she will go after you. Perhaps you should go and hide?" The girl was terrified. She knew she would run away and transform and Lila akuma can search for Marinette for as long as she wanted.
Adrien inhaled sharply, he could take care of himself, he was Chat Noir, but he needed to protect the civilians and he knew Lila would go after Marinette.
Meanwhile Lila knew exactly to whom she wanted to shift the blame, she did not need to be akumatized in order to go after the girl she hated.
"That wasn't me. That was her touching him." Lila acted hurt. "How could you? Marinette! Everybody knows Adrien likes me. I am his muse." She feigned tears and covered her face with her hands.
"My father's muse." Adrien replied coldly through gritted teeth. He wanted to make sure that everybody present understood there was no way that he liked Lila, even remotely.
"What is it? Cant take it, Lila?" Chloe was looking at her nails. She got her message all right, but that did not mean she was going to be silent for this. Because nobody harasses her Adrien if she can't.
"Oh, I would not be so certain that I was a villain in any scene performed here, while I was in fact a victim in one of them, but the perpetrator played me right, I guess." The girl feigned tears, but most of the class was simply confused. Few of them stared at Marinette, others at Lila. Who trheatened who and for which seating arrangement? But there was no confusion for the part where Adrien got harassed. The students were certain they recognized the way Lila latched onto Adrien herself. There was photographic evidence for the act. Alix was whispering with Max and Kim. Everybody knew Marinette could barely talk to the boy, let alone touch him or sexually harass him.
"I think we made a great choice in Marinette to play the role of sexual harasser, she would definitely know how to do that." Lila spat her words in a tone that contradicted the way she acted hurt.
"Sorry, Lila, but Marinette is not able to talk to Adrien, let alone touch him." Alya shouted from her place. The rest of the girls nodded their heads eagerly to confirm what Alya just said, even Chloe and Sabrina joined in. Nino grinned, he knew about the mannequin, Alya even sent him a photo.
Ms Bustier and principal Damocles frowned as they took in the meaning what Lila had just said. Then principal Damocles remembered Lila had that illness that made her lie and calmed down. This was just another episode from the girl, nothing to worry about. Ms Bustier observed how principal Damocles calmed down and took the outburst as something not to fuss about, so she decided to follow the example of her older and more experienced colleague and not do anything about Lila's tantrum.
That did not deter Lila from spiralling down in her own web of lies.
"Besides, why have you chosen such mild offences Marinette, I thought you had worse things in your arsenal, you stalker!" Lila started with sweet expression but she snarled in the end. "You think I don't know how you followed us around when I was invited to his home?" Lila was sorry she did not take a photo of Marinette on that pile of trash cans.
"You were never invited." Adrien protested. Marinette looked at the boy and repeated the statement.
"Of course I was, how do you think I became the muse of your brand, Adrien?" Lila cried and sniffed through her speech. Then she feigned tears again and waited to be consoled by the whole class. But the class was preoccupied by their own confusion. Of course Rose wanted to console the poor girl because that was always her first instinct, but just like the rest of the class, something was not adding up and she withdrew.
"We should do something." Ms Bustier whispered to the school principal. She was close enough to Adrien and Marinette to overhear the whispers about Lila becoming an akuma.
"Lila sometimes has those episodes when she is lying, don't worry, it will pass." Principal Damocles replied with a confident smile.
"Lila, darling, this presentation has obviously caused a lot of distress in you, why don't you come with me to the nurses office?" Ms Bustier offered gently with her sweet smile.
"Yes Lila, that would help you." Rose piped in. The rest of the class agreed and Lila relented and left the classroom with Ms Bustier.
Gabriel stood in his office.
"Ms Rossi so agitated right now that I can't work on anything else." He said with a wicked grin and turned to the portrait of his wife.
"You are going downstairs sir?" Nathalie asked flatly, she knew her boss never missed an opportunity.
"The feeling is not so strong, she could turn the situation around in her favour. Let's wait." Gabriel proposed. "I will be downstairs and wait for the right moment."