Author's Note: I decided to break this chapter into two parts because it was soooo long. Chapter seven will be a continuation of this journal entry, on the same day. Love ya'll! Thanks for reading!

A deceased person I wish I could talk to Part 1

It's been a long day, Journal. An amazing, exasperatingly long day. We had the Mother of all akumas. Literally. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning and relieve all the horror, yes? That sounds like a good time.

I woke up earlier than normal, feeling fresh and fabulous. My illness had crept away sometime in the night. Besides a little aching in my muscles, I felt ready to face the day, fists flying. Mom really didn't want me to go to school but I had to. I dreaded the make-up work I had to face already. Every day I let it pile up added another load on my mountain of anxiety.

As soon as I got to my locker, I was ambushed by Alya. She pulled me into one of her spine crushing hugs and nearly made me deaf with her excited squeals. Over her shoulder, I mouthed 'help me' to Nino who only snickered. He had a stupid little smile on his face as he looked at Alya. He's got it bad.

Once Alya finally let go of me, it was like a dam had been broken and all of her words flooded out. I tried to keep up with her, but honestly, I was too tired to catch it all. I'm a bad friend, I know. Here's the main points though.

"Marinette, I'm so sorry I didn't check on you yesterday! Well, I'm not really sorry because if I had gone, Adrien might not have. I figured you would rather be with dream boat," she said in a low voice but not low enough. I'm pretty sure Nino could hear everything but I couldn't make myself care. I'm 99.99% sure Alya has spilled my crazy beans to the DJ. I trust Nino to keep the information to himself, if for no other reason than Alya would liquefy him.

"You really are the best, Alya. But you could have text me before he showed up, you know. I looked like a freaking zombie," I teased. Really, her self-satisfied grin was just too much. I couldn't resist messing with her.

"Oh yeah. I totally should have text you and let you freak out about it," her voice was actually dripping sarcasm. (No really, it was dripping out of her mouth. Swear.) "Nah, brah. You would have had a panic attack or something. And it doesn't matter what you looked like, you were SICK! Adrien gets that. No one looks good while they're sick."

"I bet Adrien does," I mumbled, in mock dejection. I really missed Alya. It felt good to kid her. She was about to say something when Nino strolled up to us with Adrien right behind him. Oddly enough, I didn't feel the normal freak-outs coming. I mean, there were some there, don't get me wrong. I just didn't want to run away from him, like usual.

"Hey, Marinette! We missed you yesterday, especially at the concert. Thanks for keeping Adrien busy for us though. You're the real MVP, putting up with him even though you were sick," Nino said shooting a wink at me. Something about his tone and the tilt of his smile made my 99.99% go up to the full 100. It didn't bother me, so I winked back.

"I missed you guys too," I said thumping his hat bill affectionately, "But you do owe me for babysitting Adrien. I accept checks or cash." I held out my hand expectantly. The three of them looked shocked for a moment, then they burst into laughter. Adrien put his hand over his heart and played the part of an over-the-top grief-stricken actor.

"How could you, Mari? I thought we had something special," he asked, his voice full of fake pain. It reminded me of Chat, the way he carried on.

"You're a terrible actor," I giggled. He acted like I had just called his puppy ugly then punched his grandma.

"Like you can do better," he said in a voice almost as cocky as Chat's. I guess an alien took over my body or something because what I did next surprised everyone, even me.

Slowly, I stepped closer to the fair-haired model, putting on my most serious face. Alya and Nino both stopped laughing and the atmosphere got tense. Adrien looked like a little kitten, his green eyes getting big as I approached him. Oh this was gonna be good.

"Adrien…" I said in a low voice, "I have something to tell you. It's really, really important," I looked down at his shoes as if I was being shy. Really, it was to hide the grin that was threatening to spread across my face.

"Wh-what is it?" he breathed. I slowly raised my head (dramatic effect) and saw his shocked expression. A light blush covered his cheeks and I felt a surge of triumph. Alya and Nino were dead silent and I could feel their eyes on us.

I took a step closer and looked him directly in the eye. I leaned closer and whispered, "Your shirt's on backwards." To accent my point, I tugged on the tag sticking out under his chin.

He floundered for a minute looking down at his shirt and back up at me. I smirked before turning to walk away. I stopped a little ways away and called over my shoulder, "Adrien, that's what real acting looks like." The alien in my body shot him a wink before grabbing the shell shocked Alya and tugging her away to class. I could hear Nino yelling "ROASTED," at the other end of the hall.

"Marinette, I'm not even gonna ask where that came from. Judging by the look on your face, you don't know either," she mumbled as we sat down in home room. What had just happened was finally catching up with me. I guess the alien decided to ditch me and let me deal with what I had done.

"Listen to me," Alya grabbed my shoulders and turned me toward her, "You are not going to freak out over this. You were super confident, suave, and funny. Adrien was eating out of your hand. I thought I would die when-Who is that little kid?" she trailed off looking over my shoulder. I turned around and sure enough, there was a little boy sitting in Kim's seat.

The little boy seemed to hear Alya's remark because he let out a huff and started glaring at us. I noticed for the first time that the boy looked a lot like a four year old version of Kim. He was even wearing clothes like him.

"Hi there," I said waving at the boy, "Are you Kim's little brother?" This seemed to infuriate him, because he jumped down from his seat and put his little hands on his hips.

"I am NOT Kim's little brother. I'M KIM. Why can't anyone get that? My mom made some sort of wish this morning about me staying her baby forever and poof!" he gestured to himself. I smelled an akuma. Baby Kim threw up his hands in exasperation just as Adrien and Nino walked in.

"I'm so done with this magic BS," Kim said as he hoisted himself unto his chair.

"Who's this?" Adrien asked me with a raised eyebrow. I was walking over to Baby Kim hurriedly.

"That's Kim, apparently," Alya said baffled. I was in action mode so I decided to cut to the meat of the matter.

"I don't know what's going on but I'm pretty sure this has Hawk Moth written all over it," I said, bending down to look at a pouting Baby Kim.

Adrien and Nino came up behind me, while Alya started typing furiously on her phone. I assumed she was looking for news on an akuma. Other students were coming in and they were eyeing up Kim.

"Kim, we should leave before people start asking too many questions. We don't want to start a panic. Let's go somewhere and figure this out." It felt weird, talking to such a small child so gravely. I held out my arms to him my most pleading look. He rolled his eyes but nodded, giving me the okay to pick him up.

"We're coming with you," Adrien said with conviction. I looked at him and shrugged with my classmate on my hip. I agree with Baby Kim, this magic BS is getting old.

We all three hurried to a nearby storage closet. It smelled of mold and dust but it worked well enough. Alya finally looked up from her phone to show us a live news cast of downtown Paris. "Mama Sugar" was turning everyone into five year old versions of themselves. Scary and evil, but also a little cute.

"We should get Ladybug and Chat Noir," Adrien said as soon as the video ended (with the anchorwomen getting turned into little girl and running away crying). I caught his arm.

"Slow your roll. We need to have something to tell them. I'm sure they know about the akuma but we need to find out how to defeat her," I said, trying to calm him. We needed to be smart. Besides, I figured Chat could handle her until I found out more.

"Hey, that's my mom, you're talking about!" Baby Kim yelled beside my ear. I winced and sat him down.

"Kim," Adrien started as he got down on one knee to talk to the small teenager/kid, "She's Hawk Moth's slave now. We have to figure out how to break his hold on her. Can you tell us what happened this morning, exactly?" Kim seemed to realize the severity of the situation and nodded at Adrien.

He went through the mundane details of the morning, like running out of toothpaste and not being able to find clean socks. Nino was the one who finally urged the boy to get to the point. Kim pouted but hurried up. He said that his mother had been going on and on about a Mother's Day card he had made for her as a child.

"She was so happy to have found it. I-I didn't really listen to her much. Sorry. I do remember her asking me if I was coming home for lunch but I told her I had plans. As I was leaving, she blew me a kiss like she always does. Then poof," Baby Kim said. His little face was full of grown-up guilt. I felt a surge of pity for him and his mom. I knew what I had to do.

"Where are you going?" Alya asked as I made to leave the closet.

"Now I need to find Chat and tell him what we know. The akuma must be in the card," I said, a little impatiently. The more time I wasted, the harder this mess would be to clean up.

"We'll go with you!" Nino said, picking Kim up, who protested at the action.

"No, you stay with Kim and keep him safe," I was half way out the door when Adrien caught my arm.

"It's too dangerous, Marinette," his close proximity and serious voice would have made normal me melt. But I was on a mission now.

"This is not up for debate," my voice was steel.

"I know," he said to my surprise, "I'm going to go with you."

"But it's too…" cut me off by thumping my nose.

"This is not up for debate," he said with a cheeky grin. My heart fluttered and I nodded. We bolted down the hallway and out of school.

We didn't have to go far to find Kim's mom. The lady in a fluffy pink ball gown and apron was floating in the courtyard, blowing kisses at the students fleeing in every direction. The invisible 'sugar' caught several teens, turning them into little ones with a puff of glitter. Hawk Moth really outdid himself this time.