Letters to myself

He didn't quite know how to deal with what he was feeling anymore, so he'd decided to write it as it came to him, so that maybe he could finally figure himself out.

I don't believe in love. Not anymore. Or maybe I never knew what it was, and maybe it's better off that way. But then again, the old saying went like: 'It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.'

But did he love her? Was it just hormones? Or something darker? She was probably the one woman who he couldn't just have easily. Pride then? It was his pride that dictated this pursuit. That sounded about right. Who knows. It's better off this way.

He knows he should've gone after the akuma as well as the rest of the team. But, he was next. He could somehow sense it. It had to be him next. He was a verifiable ball of negative emotions.

But he wasn't next. Nor after that one. Not even after a solid eight.

Was it all just in his head? Did... did he really not feel anything at all? Was he immune? Is Hawkmoth toying with him? No. It had to be that. He had to be-to protect them all. Chat Noir couldn't be akumatized. Even in his civilian form, there was no telling if his destruction power would carry over.

It wasn't much a surprise that he began distancing himself from his friends. He had to protect them. From what he was becoming, or already was. His true self perhaps?

The excuses came naturally, a photoshoot, extra lessons for university stuff, family business issues, etcetera. And they bought them quite easily. As if they didn't care. Like they were just keeping up appearances. That's all it was, wasn't it? He didn't blame them though.

It has to be this way, can't you see? Can't you? I do this all for you. So please, tell me why? Why can't you see it? Do I matter to you? Any of you? Was that all I ever was? A convenience?

That word made him pause. Convenience. As Adrien, the wealthy naïve sweetheart. Chat Noir, cataclysm, taking hits, the sacrifices he'd made. Was that the key? Convenience? It had to be. That was the only real connection. The rest were all superficial.

Maybe somewhere deep down, I still hoped. That maybe I was wrong about all this. So that's why, when they were so close to losing for real, that I stepped in for the last time.

They were on their last legs, the whole team was down and out of the fight. Down to where it was just her. And Adrien had watched from his room. He'd seen her fight, her desperate last stand by the canals. And he could tell, just like everyone else could probably tell, that she was losing. Her form was sloppy, her usually graceful movements slow and weary. Her suit severely damaged, left arm dislocated.

He sighed raggedly as he fell from his window for the last time.

This sentimonster was basically invulnerable, its form bent and twisted, gnashing rows of teeth itching to rip and tear into the populace. But first, it had to get the red circles for its creator. Its chromatic skin boiled as it approached the red girl, the best way to get the circles was to burn everything not circle.

And then pain. He did not like that. It burned him as he boiled. But he himself was the boiling. So how could he burn? And why was it not stopping? No. His skin wasn't black. It was shiny. Not black and crumbly and hurting and burning and cold? The cold? But he was boiling. And the circles of the red girl. And-and cold? Dark? And it was-

With but a simple utterance of cataclysm, Chat Noir saved them all. And then he ran away again.

It isn't going to happen again. I decided that I'll only step in when it gets that bad. That maybe I can do more good that way, being the unknowable trump card. But I can't let them know I'll even step in, otherwise they'll expect me and not fight to the bitter end. They'll hesitate, and that will get them killed.

As Adrien watched them fight again and again, he could see that they were somehow getting weaker.

And then Plagg vanished.

THIS WHOLE STORY IS JUST ME EXPIREMENTING WITH DIFFERENT WRITING TECHNIQUES, BUT I DO HOPE PEOPLE KINDA LIKE IT.