Rain is water that condenses from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth in the forms of drops
Everyone knows that you don't need the definition of rain to know what rain is. And when it rains, people don't think of what rain really is, is something they already know. People don't think of the definition of the word, or what phenomenon of nature it is, people feelthe rain.
Rain can bring many feelings to a person.
Is true, there are people who don't feel anything when it rains, they just take the weather as it comes and they keep living their lives just as any other day. But there are two other groups of people.
The first one is a group of people who despise the rain.
Every time it rains their day turns as gray as the clouds crossing the sky, and their faces display frowns as they walk with their raincoats zipped to the top, with their umbrellas over their heads and their bags close to their bodies.
Then the second group is all the opposite, they are the people who love rainy days. People who don't understand why rain is called "bad weather" because hey, rain it is beautiful! You can go under it and feel the teardrops crash into your hair, your face. People who enjoy the teardrops rolling down their coats, their cheeks, and their boots; they love to play, dance and jump in puddles. People who stand in front of windows with a mug in hand and admire the drops falling from the sky. People who loved the smell of rain on any superficies, grass, pavement, it didn't matter. People who love the sound rain makes against their roofs, creating a singular and familiar melody.
Marinette belonged to the second group.
Since she was little, the rain had a special room in her heart. Rainy days were always good. Rainy days had a meaning for her.
Rainy days meant her mom would prepare her a big mug of her special recipe of hot chocolate, with wiped cream on top and pieces of chocolate.
Rainy days meant she would play video games with her dad. Rainy days meant long marathons of movies with Alya on the floor of the living room, wrapped in blankets, eating the baked goods that couldn't be sold at the bakery anymore.
Rainy days meant she could do a dancing session in her room, with Tikki flying around her. Rainy days meant new sketches, new winter designs, new clothes.
Rainy days meant transforming into Ladybug and challenge Chat Noir on a race on top of the rooftops... rainy days meant Adrien.
She would always connect the rain with Adrien. She would always see his tender green eyes on her mind when it started raining, she could hear his laugh when the teardrops crashed on her roof. Her mind would replay the image of a fifteen-year-old Adrien Agreste offering his umbrella to her. She had the vivid picture of drops of water falling down his hair, running down his cheek and passing on top of his lips. The white shirt turning transparent, and adjusting to his body. His cheeks turning redder thanks to the cold, and how tense his body had been as he waited for her to take the umbrella.
Rain meant Adrien, Adrien meant rain. And it was a horrible irony of the world to throw a thunderstorm on the day of his funeral.
What a bitter word.
A word that always had had a meaning. A word that she could throw on sentences without thinking it twice, she could even throw it into jokes. A word that had a meaning but nothing more, a word that in only two days had changed. It wasn't just a meaning anymore, now it had a feeling attached to it.
Pain, misery, ache, emptiness… those words were only a start.
Marinette had never felt like this before. She could feel her heart breaking, she could feel the shatters cut down on her chest. She felt like she had open wounds and someone was pouring salt on them. She felt all her body hurt. She felt too much.
She thought she couldn't be able to feel anything; she thought the world would disappear now that he was gone, but it was the opposite. The world was bolder and louder, the world was reminding her that he was gone.
It was raining… it was raining just like on the day of his funeral. It was raining again… it hadn't stopped raining in days.
It was raining…. Just like Marinette's eyes were.
She didn't know how her body still had the energy to keep creating tears. She cried all day and all night, she had little breaks on the day, while she ate or slept, but the rest of the day her eyes were a broken sink.
"Marinette…" Tikki whispers in her ear.
Marinette turns her head to watch the little kwami. She doesn't say a word to her, she doesn't have to ask what she wanted, she knows already.
She sighs; she cleans the tears dropping from her eyes and walks away from the window where she had been admiring the rain.
She starts walking, but she walks slowly, her body is too heavy. Her sorrow is an annoying and uncomfortable host to her body, the weight is too much for her tiny body to handle, and with such little energy it's hard to move, so when she does, she is slow.
Her steps make a harsh sound against the wooden floor, but it is a nice sound for her to hear. It is different from the sound her feet make when she drags them against the wood, it is a better sound because it handles more energy with it, something that Marinette misses.
She makes it to her vanity, where the mirror reflects a girl who shouldn't be up, a girl who wishes she could avoid reality until the end of her life. The reflection of a broken hearted soul who wishes could stay in bed forever, who wishes she could go back in time to never feel like this again. It also shows a girl with a rational side and said rational said knows is time to face real life.
Marinette takes the hairbrush and starts brushing her deep dark hair in slow strokes, twisting the ends with her fingers and taking longer than necessary on her basic routine.
When she stops brushing she looks at the reflection in the mirror, finding a smile from her kwami.
Tikki has been trying to cheer her up every day, but nothing works so now she only smiles, hoping that would at least help Marinette to calm down.
Marinette smiles back, she only holds the little fake smile for a second, but that's enough to make Tikki smile brighter. It didn't last long, and it wasn't a good smile, but it's the first time Marinette tries, and that counts more than anything.
Marinette runs her fingers through her hair one last time, thinking if she should tie her hair up, wondering if she should put on makeup.
She decides to leave her hair down, but takes a hair tie and puts it on her wrist, just in case she needs it.
One more look at the mirror and she conclude that she does need makeup.
She takes a bar of concealer, she doesn't have much energy to put on makeup –something she really liked to do- but she knows it is necessary, the bags under her eyes needto be covered, is not because she is vain, is because she doesn't want to worry anyone more than they already are. She also decides to apply a little bit of lipgloss on her lips, the red lipgloss Chat Noir bought for her a year ago. "It reminded me of you" the memory of words rings in her head.
Marinette touches her lips, running her index finger across them, touching the sticky texture on her lips. It is a ridiculous thing to do, but she can't help herself; it is something related to him.
She needs him today, more than ever, but she can't have him, so the best next thing is any object that is bonded to him.
Like the black hoodie waiting for her on her divan.
She doesn't remember how she ended up with the hoodie, only that she had acquired the piece of clothing the day before his death.
She had teased him about him never getting the hoodie back; that she was going to keep it forever. Oh, the irony.
Marinette sighs again.
She can't count how many times she has sighed in the last five minutes, it feels like it is the only thing she does, well besides crying.
"Marinette…" Tikki says her name softer than she has ever said it before. Her voice is as sweet as milk and as soft as silk. "It is time to go… I know how hard it is to go on with your life, but you have to. I'm sorry if I'm being harsh, but I can't lie to you… I can't tell you everything will be fine because is not going to be, but it is time." Tikki sighs "Alya promised to pick you up and it will be Nino's first day back too, you'll have them and you'll have me, I won't leave your side and I will listen to you if you need to talk"
Marinette looks at her kwami's eyes; she can see the worry on them and the love for her. So instead of ignoring her or answering just with a nod of her head, she decides is time to speak to Tikki, she deserves it.
"Thank you, Tikki"
And those are the first words Marinette has said in a week.
She hasn't spoken with anyone since that day. Not a single word has come out of her lips. Not when Alya told her the bad news, not when her parents hugged her as she cried, not when Alya tried to drag her to the funeral, not during lunches, not during Alya's visits; not a single word had escaped Marinette's lips until now.
Tikki kisses her cheek, and Marinette is grateful that she doesn't keep talking. She knows is time, it doesn't matter if she is not ready. If it was for her being ready to face reality, then the time to do it would never come.
She walks to her divan and takes Adrien's hoodie in her hands. She pulls it closer to her nose and sniffs the scent on the neck of it. It smells like Adrien's perfume, fresh and sweet at the same time. She hugs the hoodie close to her body before putting it on. A piece of Adrien is here today, even if he is not.
With the hoodie on, she is ready to go.
Marinette goes for her bag, lying on top of the desk. When she takes it, the swift move drops a jar with pens that hit the box on its side.
Marinette's heart stops when she sees the box bounce out of the desk. She jumps to catch it before she has time to analyze the situation.
She drops to the floor, hitting her stomach and chest against the floor, the hit is harsh and it hurts, but Marinette doesn't care, the box is on her hands and that's all that matters.
"Marinette are you okay?!" Tikki asks worriedly.
"Yes" Marinette answers, not paying much attention to her.
Her eyes are fixed on the hexagonal box.
"Tikki…I didn't see his kwami that day…" Marinette's words came out of their mouth slowly shaking.
"Plagg hid as fast as he could, you couldn't have seen him, Marinette" Tikki answered. Her voice was gentle and sweet, but not in the normal tone Marinette was already familiar with, there was something softer on her words.
"Plagg… he must miss him, huh?" Marinette opens the box with caution. She expects for a bubble of light to appear in front of her eyes, just like the time she had opened the box for the first time. But nothing happens, she only sees a black ring with a green paw on it.
"Yes, but he won't tell you that" Tikki says "He won't appear in front of you, you are not his chosen"
Marinette takes the ring between her thumb and her index finger, rolling it in between them.
It is heavier than she thought it would be and softer than it looked. The black material of what it was made reflected the light almost as a diamond would, and just as a diamond it felt indestructible.
Marinette stops playing with the ring.
She looks at her left hand and then at the ring again. Her sight drifts from one to other multiple times until she decides to go along with the thought that has appeared on her mind.
Carefully she puts on the ring, watching the piece of jewelry turn from black to silver and back to black, and then she see the light, a bright lime green light.
From the ring jumps a black kwami, it's the same size as Tikki but instead of antennas he has cat ears, and his eyes are not blue but deep green.Just like Chat's, she thinks, maybe that's why his eyes changed.
"Hi, Plagg" Marinette welcomes him. "I'm Marinette, I
"I know who you are" Plagg says in a plain tone. "The princess has finally decided to let me out of my prison"
"Plagg!" Tikki shouts at him.
"I'm sorry" Marinette apologizes. She wants to apologize for so much more than she can express at this moment. She wants to apologize but it is not the time, so she ignores the nauseous waves on her stomach that her guilt is spreading . She ignores it and she speaks again. "I'll make it up to you… what do you eat?"
"Cheese. Camembert" He answers.
"I don't think we have camembert" Marinette says "But we may have a few cheese Danishes, would that be okay?"
Plagg has his little hands tangled in front of him. His eyes study Marinette from head to toe before answering to her. Marinette sees how something sparks on his cat eyes.
"Yeah, that will do" He nods "Are you going to school, princess?"
"Yes" She says back, ignoring how Plagg is calling her princess.
"I would like to go" Plagg says to her. It doesn't sound like a request, it is more as he was ordering her to take him.
"You'll have to share space with Tikki" Marinette tells him at the same time she opens her back to show him where he is going to be hiding. "Can I take the ring off? You are not going to disappear, right?" Marinette knew that if she didn't want Tikki to go back to the earrings, she wouldn't go back, but she didn't know anything about Chat's miraculous. It could work differently.
Plagg nods and jumps inside of the bag.
Tikki keeps quiet. Marinette can see something is bothering her but she doesn't ask. There're enough things to worry about and she won't add another one to the list, no matter how selfish does that make her.
xx
Alya is quiet, and Marinette is grateful for it.
Quiet is not a word you use to describe Alya so the fact that she is in complete silence now it is something Marinette wasn't going to forget, mostly because she was doing it for her.
Alya had visited Marinette along the week, trying to speak to her so she could talk back, trying to convince her to go to Adrien's funeral, but it hadn't work. She had given up on it two days ago. Marinette thought maybe once they were back in school she would try again, but that wasn't the case.
Nino is quiet too, but it is a different kind of quite. While Alya's silence is comforting and a jut the right amount of awkward, Nino's silence is the loudest shout of pain anyone could ever hear.
It is the same quiet as Marinette.
It is the kind of quiet everyone can notice and yet everyone ignores. That's what people were doing.
Marinette is not mad about people avoiding them; she wouldn't know what to do either. And they are not paying attention to them anyways.
Nino, Alya, and Marinette are standing in front of the girls' classroom, leaning against the wall, waiting for the class to start. Marinette and Nino are looking at the closest window, not paying attention to anything else. Still, Marinette can feel Alya's sight on them.
Marinette was trying to hold her tears as she looked through the square window.
Raindrops crash against the glass.
Thunder echoes down the hall.
Lighting cuts across the sky, making shadows on the wall.
And Marinette's heart breaks a little bit more….
Did it really have to rain today? Again?
Marinette wants it to be a sunny day, with nice temperatures; she wants a blue sky, only a few clouds on it. Marinette didn't want rain; Marinette doesn't want her happy memories to keep being destroyed.
"Thank god is raining" Nino whispers, breaking the silence that not even Alya had been brave enough to break.
Marinette can't cope with that. Thank god is raining? What the hell is Nino saying? IT SHOULDN'T BE RAINING!
"I know" Alya agrees. "It helps"
"How?" Marinette asks under her breath, surprising her best friend.
"It is like nature is mourning him too" Nino answers "If it was sunny I… I feel like… He was…I don't know how to put it into words, M"
Marinette nods.
She bites her lip as hard as she can, trying to trick her brain into concentrate on that pain that the one in her heart.
"I don't think I can do this" Marinette whispers to Alya. When she says it she doesn't look at her, she is too busy looking at the ring on her hand.
"We have to" But is not Alya who answers, is Nino. "Adrien wouldn't like for us to stop living"
Marinette opens her mouth to speak, but she stays there, static.
"It's true, Mari" Alya softly takes her from her shoulders. "Adrien wouldn't like to see you like this, Adrien wouldn't like to see any of us sad… we have to try, for Adrien"
The bell rings and they see Nino's teacher enter the room, which means that their teacher is next.
"For Adrien" Marinette repeats.
Nino and Alya nod to her and give little smiles.
They start walking to the classrooms. Alya stops on their door only to say goodbye to Nino, giving him a kiss on his cheek. Nino smiles at it.
Marinette knows they haven't fixed their problems, but it's nice to see them together. Adrien would have liked to see this.
She looks at the ground, trying to keep her composure.
"Mari" She feels Alya's hand trying to take hers "I'll be there, I promise… You can do this, if not for yourself, for Adrien, remember?"
"For Adrien" She says one more time. And really low so Alya can't hear her she whispers "For Chat"
xx
Death sucks.
Adrien never thought death would be something entertaining or nice, but death really, really sucked. Mostly because it was boring, there was nothing to do but stare at a death point. Ha! A pun… yeah he had made a dozen of those in the last ten minutes.
Adrien couldn't believe this was the afterlife. It was like that time when an akuma had trapped him in another dimension with nothing around him. Okay, wrong, he had been with Chloé, and in all honesty, he missed her.
If Chloé was here then he could talk to someone. His life –or well, his death – had reduced to black backgrounds and silence. It was boring, frustrating and irritating. He was going insane, and he couldn't do anything about it. There was no escape; there was nothing he could do to fix the situation.
Was the rest of his life –well, death- going to be like this?
The answer was no, but Adrien didn't know that, not until that day.
Dead people didn't sleep, but Adrien liked to pretend. He closed his eyes and tried to keep them closed and pretend to sleep for as long as he could until it got boring.
Today as he was in the middle of the game something changed, making him pop his eyes open immediately. Which wasn't a good choice, cause the light struck him and left him blind for a few seconds.
Instead of complaining, Adrien stood up from the ground and started jumping.
Light! There was light!
And what was that? There were sounds!
Steps on stairs, whispers of voices, the sound of rain falling on top of rooftops, birds singing, oh so many different noises!
Adrien rubbed his eyes, trying to adapt to the light he opened his eyes slowly this time.
The first thing he noticed was the spot of painting on the roof. And that was enough to know where he was.
Adrien stood up from the floor, realizing he was in the middle of the classroom. He didn't expect for anyone to see him, he was dead, he was a ghost, no one should be able to see him.
Well and no one will because the room is empty.
Adrien looks at the clock on the wall and the bare classroom makes sense, is recess time.
Adrien wastes no time –not that he has much to lose –and runs outside. He needs to find his friends. He needs to see how they are dealing.
He had been wondering for days how they were doing. He didn't want them to mourn him, but he knew that was an impossible wish to have, knowing his friends they weren't doing okay.
He knew that Nino was not doing well. When Nino was worried he wasn't able to sleep, he got easily irritated and he put on his headphones and disconnected from the world. He didn't want to see Nino in bad shape, it was enough to see him suffer over the breakup with Alya and now Adrien had died, he couldn't believe he was putting more pain in his friends' life. And talking about Alya, she was probably sad too, and Mari! And Nathanaël!
God, why did he have to die? Why couldn't he stay alive? Then he wouldn't hurt the people he cared the most.
Adrien ran across the second floor, he went to the library and searched all around it. He ran downstairs and he ran across the field trying to find his friends. But they were nowhere to be found.
Adrien stood in the middle of the field, looking to every direction, trying to think where they could be when the sight of a red bun ran across his eyes.
In the second floor, Nathanaël was walking towards Marinette and Alya's classroom.
"Of course!" Adrien said and changed directions, running upstairs. "This would be easier if being a ghost was as cool as it is portrayed in movies"
The good thing was that he didn't get tired of all the running, at least that was a plus of being dead.
He entered the classroom, and finally, he saw his friends.
Nathanaël was sitting next to Nino, none of them is smiling, and that's an odd look for them. Nathanaël looks like his old self, like when he sat in the last row of the class and slept through every lesson. Nino looks like he hasn't slept in decades –something that doesn't surprise Adrien, he knew he was going to look like this –his eyes are stained in red and his under eyes circles are prominent, a rare thing thanks to the color of his skin. He is also skinnier and that's not a good look on him.
"Nino" Alya's voice interrupts Adrien's thoughts.
Alya looks like she always does, for someone who doesn't know her. But Adrien knows her and while he can't put his finger on it, there's something missing in her, that little spark that makes Alya shine as bright as a constellation, that something that makes Alya as loud as festival, that little something, is gone. And he knows is his fault.
"Yeah?" Nino asked back to Alya.
Adrien is glad that they are talking, but he can see that things between them are not quite right, not yet.
"Do you want something to eat? I'm buying Marinette a cereal bar…"
"No, nothing, I'm fine"
"Sure?" Alya crooked an eyebrow at him.
"Sure" Nino nodded.
"Okay" Alya says. Then she turns back to Nathanaël, but she doesn't ask him if wants something. She only looks at him and then points out at Nino and at the back of the room.
Adrien sight follows Alya's hand, stumbling into the body that she's pointing at.
Because that's what he is looking at, it's just a body because the girl who that body belongs to can't be the girl he thinks she is.
He could have focused on many details of Marinette. She was slimmer, just like Nino she had undeniable dark circles under her eyes, her eyes were as red as his best friends. Oh, there were so many things to point out that showed Marinette's pain, but Adrien couldn't look at anything but her eyes.
Cerulean eyes that used to shine in excitement, eyes that were always sparkling with vitality and joy; a pair of eyes that Adrien always thought were beautiful, a pair of sapphires that inspired him calm. Those eyes that Adrien liked so much were now empty.
It was like looking at a broken doll. Marinette's porcelain skin and red lips were still there, but all the little details and beautiful things that made her and the extraordinary person was no longer there.
Marinette was as dead as Adrien was.
xx