Chapter 12
A few weeks later, Jin sat in classes along with the other students waiting for the start of the lessons. Jin was scrolling through social media on his phone, then rolled his eyes forward as a student had arrived tired and dropped his bag on the ground.
"I'm beginning to regret the choice I made," Spoke the man in front of Jin making him look sad at the desk mate in front of him.
"School is really being tough lately, right?" Asked Jin making the boy nod. "Know how you feel," Admitted the raven-haired earning a little smile from the brunette man.
"Have you got a good feeling for the last test you had?" Asked the student making Jin shrug his shoulder.
"Lately I don't even know how I am supposed to feel about it," Confessed Jin, then looked forward at the teacher, that had started to talk and begin to walk around the class spreading the corrected exams. "Today we have got another exam after the 11, right?" Asked Jin making the man nod.
"Yeah, and all I see in my head are just words. Lots and lots of words," Commented the man making Jin nod. "You don't use VITAMI, right?"
"Nope. I heard it makes you addictive," Commented Jin making the man nod and see the man receive his test back, making him sigh in relief as he checked out the results.
65 points out of 100…..Thank goodness, this time it was worth the time," Commented the man making Jin smile.
"Congratulations," Said Jin seeing the man continue spreading the tests around. "Use now this motivation for your next exam. It sure will help you,"
"Thanks," Said the man making Jin smile, afterward the teacher passed by Jin to hand him out the exam, which made Jin gasp in shock at seeing his low punctuation.
"46 points only?"Asked Jin shocked, then looked up at the teacher, who still stood there by the Chinese descendant boy.
"You did have an excellent start into the university. You really showed a lot of ambition and will to go through the semesters. What happened to that Jin?" Questioned the teacher watching Jin pass his hand behind his neck understanding of the teacher's concern.
"I have been sorting a lot of priorities lately. Perhaps some of them don't have space in my life now or should not have been around in the first place,"
"Things are getting difficult here in the university. You should be capable to move on through the years with the minor of free time you have. I suggest you, if you have many hobbies or priorities to cease a couple of them and only leave the ones you really need to turn yourself off. Eventually, you could guide your life schedule, so you could keep an eye on everything and when necessary you prolongate work or free time for example. If you'd like, try it out. I can't promise, that it will work on you as well,"
"I will give it a try. It does sound really good," Mentioned Jin watching the teacher leave, afterward he sank down on his chair with a sigh. "If only the akumas had a time schedule,"
Mrs. Rossi sat inside the SUV parked on top of the sidewalk with a less formally dressed Gabriel standing on the outside of the vehicle lending into the car a white A4 sheet, which had the impression of an invitation.
"Where did you get that invite from?" Questioned the woman, then turned it around to see a small text on the back, which she read. "Dear Mr. Kurtzberg, hereby we invite you to a pleasant evening at one of our staff's Airbnb houses. You have been shown to be a refined young man to our daughter. We are very happy to welcome you and get to know you a little. It has been very hard for her to find herself friends in several schools and after all this with the akumatizations here in Paris and her own, things seem more difficult. We hope you will accept this as our way of gratitude for the gained bond of both of you. We are glad to see you on October 9th by the rue de Morane,"
"It starts out pretty convincing. The boy will wait there and we will take him to the other address. As you're able to open a window between the cabin we can easily hide ourselves and make our way to the construction zone and take Nathaniel with us. His superheroes will sometime later know he's missing and we will inform them about it. From that on, we will check later, how we're moving further upon holding him in our hands,"
"You said you would leave my daughter out of this," Mentioned the woman sternly, then Gabriel nodded.
"She is. This invitation is only redirected to him. She won't be around him, when our plan is about to be fulfilled. We just need to make sure she doesn't hear about this reunion otherwise the plan might fail,"
"I don't think it's such a good idea. I fear, that all this might hurt her,"
"She won't get hurt. I just thought about now, that I could arrange a situation where the car could be pulled out of the track and someone could kidnap him. In that way, both won't be seeing this as a trap. I got a bit time to go through this. Just be conscious, on the day I will reveal more details," Explained Gabriel making the woman nod.
"Alright, we're good," Confirmed Mrs. Rossi watching Gabriel get out of the window.
"Just shove the letter into the mailbox of his family. Like that your daughter won't suspect of anything," Suggested Gabriel making the woman nod, which closed the window watching the blonde leave and she leaned on the steering wheel regretting their next step. Mrs. Rossi turned the radio on to switch to a channel, which was airing music, afterward it automatically changed to the news channel to inform about occurrences.
"A pileup accident with a petrol truck at the A22 led to a full stop of vehicles and this now during the rush hour. Drivers are suggested to avoid the road and follow the national roads. Drivers inside the highway I suggest to leave at the next exit. People near the local are required to turn off their engines and prevent any sort of fire source to be activated nearby….." The radio was cut off by the woman turning it off to switch to another radio, which aired another genre of music.
Luka sat in the bus using his smartphone looking at images he had received from his sister Juleka showing a craft she had made at the after-school activities. Luka wrote down a compliment followed by a heart, then he switched back to the other messages to see he has a few ones from different people. Luka opened first Marinette's, which had a picture of pastries with a description under it.
"Your and your family's order is here. Feel free to pick it up sometime," Marinette had written down and added two kiss emojis on the side.
Luka typed down a message to Marinette, then added an amused smile after the sentence. "I'm on my way," Luka wrote, and moved to the message of another friend to respond it. He moved to the next message to see Jin had written him a message.
"I'm going to meet Yi at the school and walk her home. Don't need to wait for me" Was the message of the Shanghai-descendant boy. Luka send his friend a thumb up, afterward he noticed a message enter into his chatbox with Nathaniel's name on it. Luka opened it to see Nathaniel had sent him a picture of a letter.
"For some reason, this was in our mail today. Why would the embassy of Italy want to see a weirdo like me?" Luka read out loud, then opened the image to zoom into the letter. Luka furrowed his eyebrows interested, then pressed on the video call button to call his friend.
"Woah, you answered fast," Commented the redhead making Luka chuckle.
"I had just texted another friend as your message came in. I had no idea, people at the embassy knew you,"
"Yeah, that's the strangest part. I don't know anybody there. Not even Lila's mom and she just invites my family to meet her. It says she's thankful for my friendship with her and Lila clearly told me and Marc, that she does not know who we even are. That we even are from a lower class as her she doesn't,"
"Is it possible, that she IS aware of you and Lila being friends or do you think, there is another story behind this?"
"Maybe I'm just worried. I have never been in contact with the highest level of class. I'm going to be a clown there,"
"Why don't you ask Lila? Perhaps it's like one of her wishes. Maybe she wants her mother or the others to get to know how kind you are,"
"You know the real reason Lila and I became friends was, because Marc suggested I talk to her. Otherwise, I believe nothing would have ever happened between us. We would just be deskmates and be in an awkward silence from the knowledge of her lies,"
"Well, I don't know, what I should tell you, Nath. Just go there. If your mother has time you both will be there. I bet they just want to get to know her friends. Or at least you,"
"Okay, I reconsider going there. What do you think, should I talk to Marinette about it or am I just being overdramatic?"
"You can tell her how you feel about it. I'm sure we might both be on different terms, but at least you have a choice to follow if you want,"
"I will send her the picture. Thanks for the video call,"
"No problem. If you need something, call," Offered Luka watching Nathaniel nod and turn off the camera.
Jin and Yi sat in the living room of Yi's mother both sharing a plate filled with cookies.
"Okay, you're saying that you might get kicked out if you keep writing bad grades at this rate. You have already suffered several times from a bad exam,"
"Yes. You have seen how much time we have needed to defeat the last couple of villains. It didn't only rob us time of sleep. Also, our free time to be able to study or calm down. Everything is coming to us all at once and you gotta immediately mentalize yourself for the next thing. You're kinda stressed at some point, that you begin to forget certain things or lose focus of continuation. I believe I will get a burnout if things keep going in this direction,"
"What are you planning to do?" Questioned Yi. "Avoid seeing me or your friends?" Questioned Yi making Jin shake his head.
"No, I can't lock myself out from you guys, mostly from you. It's just with the university…you can't easily fake signatures on your test and save your butt for the rest of the school year. Here you end up losing, if you don't make it,"
"What about telling Ladybug how you feel? I'm sure she's okay with that,"
"I don't want to leave Ladybug just like this now. She had already troubled with getting a new partner to help her out and for me it's not right to leave out for selfish reasons,"
"Looking for your own health isn't a selfish motive. It's a humane one. Tell her that you have trouble at the university. Luka or Nathaniel can take your role temporarily. She can't expect, that all of us can hold it longer," Mentioned Yi placing her hand on Jin's shoulder to earn his attention seeing him eye her almost unmotivated.
Into the living room entered Yi's mother, who came back from work and widened her eyes surprised to see her daughter on the couch caressing her boyfriend.
"Aww you two look adorable," Commented the woman entering into the apartment. "How's the university doing?"
"Jin needed to talk about it. He's been feeling really stressed and came here to talk," Said Yi making the mother nod, who patted the boy behind his back.
"You require to do a few yoga activities and take a warm, relaxing bath. A little nap with calm music would do good too. You're only a human. You also need to make a break or two sometimes,"
"That's what I told Jin, right?" Asked the girlfriend lean against the arm of the student, which nodded and grabbed her hand for relaxation.
Nathaniel sat along with Rose, Marc, and Alix watching Juleka sew gently with her hand a hemline on a gown. Rose watched her girlfriend lovingly work on their clothing and Alix had on her hands a sheet with a sketch of the dress. Nathaniel during the scene took out his smartphone to open his gallery to look at the letter he has taken a picture of to take a look at it again. Beside him, Marc watched Juleka normally and noticed Nathaniel look at his smartphone, then glimpsed at it curiously.
"Is everything okay?" Questioned Marc making the redhead shrug his shoulders.
"I don't know. I received this letter here from the embassy and I'm kind of wondering why I have to go there," Said Nathaniel showing his friend the picture, who took a closer look to it.
"I thought you owned a French ID….wait, why is this the Italian embassy?" Questioned Marc perplexed, then read the last of the letter. "They want to meet you because you're Lila's friend?"
"Yeah, it's kind of weird, unless it was written by her mom and we're supposed to meet her. I don't know it,"
"Maybe they want to see, if you are a…uh how shall I say this…..a useful person for business?"
"You mean that sort of thing like the Agrestes or Bourgeois' do with their kids?"
"Yeah, well, I don't know exactly what they do, but it's basically something between people from their class," Commented the raven-haired friend.
"I just hope it's nothing bad,"
"Honestly, if they were against her befriending two normals like us, they would have done something a long time ago. I'm not even sure if Lila would let herself convince about that,"
"Yes, you're right. I just think before I go there, I need to ask someone what exactly…should I do there,"
"Just be yourself, Nathaniel. We all know people pretending to be someone else in order to get liked does lead to bad endings,"
"Right…but I would feel safer to know how to be like there," Nathaniel commented, then got slapped on his shoulder by the friend.
"You'll do fine! Don't worry. Otherwise, if you're really this worried bring Lila the invitation and ask her about it,"
"I think I might do that. Tomorrow we have French class, so I can immediately ask her when we enter the classroom," Suggested the blue-eyed boy making the redhead nod.