August 10, Entry #36 of Gabriel Agreste's Secret Journal

I regret the entire day.

Much to my chagrin, one of the photographers moved up the date for a countryside shoot to today. This wouldn't have been a problem, except it was for young adult mens' wear. Meaning, it was clothes made for Adrien to model. And Adrien was already at another shoot.

Now, that left me with two options. I could either find a random teenaged boy on the street to model for me, but the last time I did that, the police were called, so that's probably not my best choice. My only other option was to find one of Adrien's friends and have him model instead.

The only problem with this being that Adrien did not have many male friends. Or friends in general. He did have a lot of people in his class he enjoyed talking to, but only during school hours. It would no doubt be strange for me to ask them to model million dollar clothes for my line.

If only this was a general young adult shoot and not just a male young adult shoot, as I could just get the intern or that blogger friend of hers to do the job. But no, I was left with the urchin.

Sigh.

The day was already starting off bad.

I thought about calling the urchin to get him to the Agreste mansion, but then I remembered that this was the urchin, and it was probably best that I just show up at his house. That way his parents could sign a release right then, and we could leave immediately to the shoot without another trip to prison.

A few minutes later, I knocked on his door. The urchin answered.

"Hello urchin," I said.

"Mr. Agreste?" The urchin looked at me strangely. "What are you doing at my house? I didn't even know you knew where I lived."

I gave him a haughty look. "I make it a priority to do background checks on all of Adrien's acquaintances. I find out where they live in case Adrien ever runs away and I have to scope out places where he might be."

"So you stalked me," the urchin said.

"With good intentions," I replied. "But never mind that. It is not important, as Adrien has yet to run away. I came here because I need to ask you a favor."

The urchin's eyes narrowed. "What do you want from me?"

"I need a male model to model part of the fall line. Right now you're the closest thing I have to that. So take off those horrendous headphones, get permission from your parents, and let's go to the countryside so we can shoot you wearing some very fancy clothes."

The urchin stared at me in shock. "You want to shoot me with a camera right, not an actual gun?"

It took me a moment to respond. "...yes."

"Okay, wanted to make that clear," the urchin said, eyeing me warily. "But dude, I thought you hated me. Like it's a great offer to model for you, but I think I have a better use for my time."

I stuck my nose up in the air and glared down at the urchin. "Remember when I said I was asking you a favor? I was incorrect. I was telling you what you were going to be doing today. While the hating is true urchin, as much as I dislike saying this, you are the only person I have."

The urchin still didn't look convinced so then I said, "And you will get paid. Enough to buy one of those DJ turning table things I've heard you and Adrien talking about."

"Sold," the urchin stated.

Then began the rest of my terrible day.

It took no time at all to get permission from the urchin's mother. She was just excited her son was going to be famous. I told her, "Only fashion professionals will see her son, he will not really be famous." But she still did not seem convinced. I didn't want to correct her too much, as she could easily not allow the urchin to go.

Soon enough the urchin and I were in a car headed for the countryside. Normally, the models arrived in their own car, but as this was the untrustworthy urchin I was dealing with, I decided to have him ride with me. That way I could keep a watch over him. Also, it got me close enough to discreetly sniff him in order to test my Normal Teenaged Boy Theory. It worked, as I could sniff to my hearts delight and not have the urchin look at me weirdly once.

As I suspected, the urchin did not smell of Camembert. I then decided to sniff for other cheeses on the urchin. That way, I could see if all teenaged boys nowadays picked a different cheese to smell like. I sniffed for Gouda, Brie, and even Cheddar, but no luck. Shame. The urchin failed at the one thing he was useful for.

We didn't speak for a good half of the journey, until I told the urchin, "Urchin, you will need to take off the unfashionable headphones for the shoot."

The urchin shifted the hideous headphones on his shoulders. "But dude, we're not at the shoot yet. They can stay for a bit longer."

It was at this moment I realized I wanted to climb the highest mountain and shout "THE URCHIN" in a very deep voice while slowly raising my fist and shaking it at the sky in order to let out my frustration.

Instead, I said, very politely, "We are almost there. Take off those idiotic headphones so I can make sure you don't have any deformities. I need to inform the photographer if he will have to Photoshop it out later."

The urchin had the audacity to snort. "Don't think you have to worry about that my dude."

I decided to save my dignity and not respond. I lifted my chin a bit higher in the air.

However, his response made be think about what I have to actually worry about. I decided I might as well ask the urchin about Adrien's behavior, as he is, much to my dismay, his best friend. Perhaps he will have some insight Nathalie and Google did not.

"Urchin," I said. "Do you know why my son smells of Camembert?"

"Uh, no dude. I always thought it was a gross-smelling fancy cologne you made him wear."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "No, I thought it was some strange teenaged boy thing."

The urchin chuckled. "Nah, that's an Adrien thing."

The urchin's response just made my worry increase. Perhaps I might actually have to talk with and question my son. Or maybe I'll just have Nathalie do it for me.

The urchin then turned to me and asked, "Hey, why do you call me an urchin."

I sniffed. "Because you are an urchin."

"Yeah, but, can you stop calling me that?"

I sniffed louder. "I will stop calling you the urchin when you stop being an urchin."

"When will that be?"

"Never, urchin. Never."

The urchin huffed, but didn't ask again. Thankfully, the trip was silent the rest of the way.

The shoot itself went terrible. It took forever to get his headphones and hat off, not to mention the time it took him to get into the outfit he had to wear. Then, to top it off, the urchin was rubbish at modeling. Am I surprised? No, but it was still horrible to endure.

By the time the photographer got photos he and I approved of, it was very, very late. Everyone was exhausted, me included. That is what I get for staying up late last night Googling. One minute I'm looking at YouTube videos of trumpeters, and three hours later I'm watching a video about how to make a Kylo Ren cosplay.

Never mind that. The urchin and I got into our car and headed home. In seconds, the urchin was snoring, dead asleep.

I glared at him disdainfully, and looked out the window. However, the dark surroundings, the rumble of the road, and the exhaustion I was feeling quickly lulled me to sleep as well.

It was a weak moment, okay?

I woke up to the sound of the car shutting off. Then to my horror, I realized I was not leaning against the cold window, but instead against something warm. I jolted, only to have my chin hit by the urchin's head as he shot up in alarm. We looked at each other with wide eyes.

"We will never speak of this again. Adrien must never know." Nino nodded solemnly, and exited the car to go into his house.

I went home and took six showers to rid myself of the urchin's urchinness. That was the worst shoot ever. Next time this happens, I'll just take a random stranger and go to prison again rather than deal with the urchin.