Chapter 9: I've got a lot to live without

The moment Adrien climbed through his bedroom window and dropped the transformation, Plagg was off, zipping towards the cabinet where his camembert stash was stored and phasing through its door.

"Oh how I've missed you, my chérieese!" his voice rebounded through the wood.

Now that he was able to do so, Adrien pulled out his phone and checked the notifications, ignoring the din of his kwami's unnecessarily loud munching.

The screen's glow lit up the darkened room as he eyed his text messages. One from Nathalie; asking if he was alright, nothing from his dad (how surprising), and... also nothing from Marinette.

Now that was weird. They'd agreed to text each other after the akuma attack was over, and despite that thing having ended hours ago, they'd both completely ghosted each other. And well, he knew why he hadn't said anything. But why on earth hadn't she?

Was she okay?

He worried at his lip, and tried refreshing their shared messages. Still nothing. His thumbs hovered over the keypad, contemplating what to say. But he'd barely typed out a 'H' before Marinette's text suddenly came whooshing in.

HJI! sOrry flrqrhe late reply there was a family dilemma! but im all rigjt how bout you?

He released a slow exhale and slammed out a reply, smile twitching.

"You're making that 'simpy' face again," Plagg drawled, apparently having finished his feast. He flew over and landed on Adrien's shoulder, squinting at the phone. "Just as I suspected. Go on then, tell me. What amazing feat has she done this time? Walked down an entire staircase without tripping over her own shoes?"

Adrien rolled his eyes and pocketed his phone. "Nothing. She's just letting me know she's safe."

"From what? Akumas, or her own misfortune? 'Cause I used to think the wielder of the Black Cat miraculous was unlucky, but that girl is on a whole new level of—"

"Anyway," he said through gritted teeth, "Plagg... I need to ask you something."

"Oh? Well this should be interesting." The kwami moved to plonk himself down on the desk, facing the blond. "Though I should warn you, if you wanna know who Jack the Ripper was, I'm afraid I swore an oath to never—"

"No, it's about Ladybug." Adrien slumped onto his desk's chair. "When we were talking earlier, she mentioned something. I hadn't heard anything about it before tonight, and... I guess I'm just a little confused."

Plagg's ears faltered, humorous expression falling off his tiny face. "You caught onto that, huh?"

Adrien leaned forward, trying desperately not to lose his nerve. "She mentioned a Wish, Plagg. What was that about?"

"Kid..." The kwami's voice was so low, he had to strain his ears to hear it. "Do you know why Hawk Moth keeps terrorizing Paris and luring your attention?"

"That's the thing. I'd never really thought about it before." His fingers anxiously rubbed against the metal armrests. "I'd always assumed the man was a bit... off his rockers? Maybe he was just after our miraculouses because he wanted even more power than he already had." He caught the kwami's steely gaze and his stomach contorted. "But I'm guessing that's not true?"

Plagg sighed. "Okay, here's what you need to know. All kwamis are powerful beings. But Tikki and I? We're a little more special than the others. You see, when someone fuses both our miraculouses together, they gain the ability to grant themselves a Wish. And that's why Hawk Moth is doing all of this. That's his end goal. To make his Wish come true."

Under better circumstances, Adrien probably would've made a disney princess joke. But instead, the prickle of fear within him twisted into something more aligned with anger. "Wait, what?" he scoffed. "Are you messing with me?"

"Not at all."

"That's what we've been stopping him from doing this whole time? That's literally it?"

"That's it."

"That can't be it!" He rolled his chair backwards slightly, so he had space to rest his hands on his knees. He took a deep breath. "Okay, okay. Back up. Why can't Hawk Moth make a Wish? I-I know he's not the nicest of dudes, but... he should be allowed to, right? Maybe there's something he... something he desperately wants."

Plagg's eyes narrowed. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid. The world has to be balanced. Creation and destruction. Life and death. Good and evil. One cannot outweigh the other. Whatever Wish he makes, there will be a counter-consequence. Wish for a thriving environment, and famine will break out in a different region. Wish for prosperity, and another person will be thrown into poverty. Wish for a robot to become human, and someone else will lose their humanity."

He fixed his holder with a harsh glare, green boring into green. "Wish to revive a loved one, and someone else will die in their place."

Oh.

Adrien held his kwami's gaze for a moment, before dropping it and leaning back in the chair, his arms folded. Eye contact wasn't a good idea; he didn't want Plagg to know that his mind was currently a haywired mess of thoughts and emotions.

Among those thoughts were his mother's soft eyes. Her kind smile. The way her presence in his life had somehow been bigger than the whole sky, and how an entire black hole had swallowed it all up after he'd lost her.

He knew he'd do anything to repaint that sky. Even if he couldn't stick around to witness the view for himself.

"Alright..." he said slowly. "I see what you mean. I can understand not sacrificing someone else, but... what if you'd rather—?"

"It destroys and recreates the universe," Plagg added matter-of-factly. "So y'know... pretty dramatic event. Incredibly catastrophic. Would be a bit ridiculous to end the whole world over one selfish desire."

(Almost anything.)

"Noted," Adrien said, barely above a whisper. He cleared his throat and sat up straighter. "Why didn't you tell me about the Wish before?"

The kwami bristled. "Why do you think?"

"Fine. Forget I asked." He shook his head and stood up, eyeing the bedroom window. Despite everything, he still had a promise to fulfill. "Actually, uh, would you mind helping me with a favor?"

Plagg, probably relieved by the change of topic, dramatically flopped himself down onto his back with a sigh. "What are you planning on doing, how important is it, and does it involve me getting off this comfy slab of wood?"

"I'm planning a huge surprise for Ladybug at the theater," he said with a grin. "I'm talking props, lights, electricity, the whole shebang! But I kinda need to be Chat Noir to set everything up. Because, well, it would seriously ruin things if I accidentally fell to my death." His grin widened. "And clearly, you don't want me to die, so..."

Plagg whined. "This is gonna take you all night, isn't it?"

"Yep!"

His paws flew up to cover his eyes. "Great Gimmi, have mercy on me. Humans when they're in love are insufferable."

Adrien tutted. "I'm not in love with Ladybug. I'm just doing what any friend would do."

"Sure, kid. Anyway, I want to sleep. How about we just postpone this ludicrous idea indefinitely, 'kay?"

"Absolutely not. Plagg, claws out!"

"You dick—!"

゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜

If the squawking alarm clock wasn't enough of a clue that it was time to get up, the bright light spilling in through the cracks of her curtains certainly was.

Marinette slowly sat up in her bed, frowning at the absurdity of it all. She flicked off her alarm clock and blew a strand of bed-hair out of her eyes. In her opinion, Mondays, by law, should not exist.

A blur of red immediately flew in front of her face. "Morning, Marinette! How are you feeling? Is it a good day? A bad day? Something in between?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes squinted shut against the intrusive beams of sunlight. "Okay, you've asked me that for the past two weeks straight now. It's starting to get a little old."

Tikki's kind eyes drooped to the blankets below. "Oh."

Marinette's frosty mood immediately melted. She sighed and reached forward to tickle her kwami under the chin. "No, wait... I'm sorry. I take that back. I'm a bit of a sourpuss in the mornings, huh?" She smiled in a way she hoped was reassuring. "It's a good day, Tikki."

"Oh wonderful!" The tiny god danced away through the air. Marinette watched her yank open her rucksack and begin shoving school supplies in it, tracking down pens and books that would've taken Marinette herself an embarrassingly long time to find among the clutter.

She climbed down the ladder and began helping her kwami pack. "I'm actually feeling creative today," she said, shoving her English homework into the bag without so much as a binder to protect it. (Tikki winced.) "Adrien took the time to make me that sweet little lucky charm. So after school, I'm gonna make one for him in return!"

Tikki hovered nervously near her head. "What lucky charm?"

Marinette frowned. "The one he gave to me yesterday, remember? It had a little golden goose and—"

Her stomach bottomed out.

"Oh. Ohhhh, no." Heart thudding in her throat, she raced towards the pile of discarded clothes in the corner of her bedroom and skidded to her knees, grabbing her jeans from yesterday. "No, no, no, no..."

She frantically rifled through all the empty pockets, and then again for good measure. But it didn't matter how many times she double-checked; her charm simply would not manifest into existence. A quick glance in her purse confirmed it wasn't there either. She sat back on her heels, tears springing to her eyes. "Shit!"

How could she have left it in the park?! Akuma attack or not, she should have remembered to grab it first. Adrien had gifted her something wonderful and this was how she repaid him? By losing it?

Some friend she turned out to be.

"Marinette, it's okay," Tikki soothed, as her holder buried her face into her hands, heated skin cooling against her fingers. "I'm sure Adrien wouldn't want you to get upset over something so silly—"

"It wasn't silly!" Marinette angrily swiped a fist across her eyes, breath shuddering on a sob. "It wasn't— It w-was the nicest thing— I-I wanted to—!" Another sob.

Tikki landed on her shoulder and nuzzled into her neck. "It's okay! Just take a deep breath. You know he won't be mad at you."

Marinette shook her head and sniffled fiercely. "You don't get it. Just because he'll forgive me, doesn't make me any less of a terrible friend."

"Okay then. So make him his own lucky charm, gift it to him, and then tell him to lose his one too. Then you're even!"

She let out a wet laugh, and leaned her head against the kwami that she definitely didn't deserve but had somehow ended up with anyway. "Y'know what, Tikki? Maybe I will."

゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜

"Adrien?"

"Hm?" Adrien blinked, and the school library he was currently sitting in to do his math homework during lunch period washed back into focus. The sound of other people's scattered conversations filed into his ears, and Nino's concerned brown eyes invaded his vision.

"You were zoning out on me, dude."

"Oh." He dropped his gaze. "Sorry."

Nino chuckled. "By any chance, does it have something to do with the seventy layers of eyebags you're sporting?"

Adrien groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Is it that noticeable?"

"Nah, only if you look closely. But, uh... is everything okay?" Nino's brow furrowed. "This isn't about Marinette, is it?"

Adrien hesitated in his reply, throat catching on a swallow. Lying to Nino never felt good, but the truth — that being, 'I wanted to do something nice for my good friend Ladybug and it took all night' — wasn't exactly an option. Not unless he was prepared for the follow-up questions.

He shrugged. "No, nothing like that. Just couldn't sleep." He glanced at the phone in Nino's hand. "Anyway, what were you trying to show me?"

Nino sighed dejectedly. "This article, man. It's a freaking joke."

Adrien's eyes skimmed the screen. The picture of himself — of Chat Noir — was one that somebody had taken yesterday during his furious bout of rage; his fists clenched at his sides and his face frozen in anger, the emotion palpable even through the distorted pixels. He'd already seen the exact same picture at least sixteen different times today.

The subject was nothing new. Every news-station in Paris had already covered this story before the morning had even ended. But this particular article just so happened to be very negative. From within the body of text, phrases like 'not the hero we thought we knew' and 'the monster we should be fearing' sprung out at him.

God, he'd really fucked up.

But it shouldn't matter, right? This was just one publisher's opinion. Not everyone shared this viewpoint. And yet, it still sparked up the fizzle of anxiety in his stomach.

Because no matter how hard he tried to be the perfect Chat Noir, he always seemed to make mistakes. They weren't necessarily terrible on their own, but since his actions were constantly being watched by millions, his mistakes had the tendency to be remembered. To slowly build up and morph into something colossal and ugly, until they exposed him for the fraud that he really was, and it all came crashing down, and—

"They're trying to depict Chat Noir as some sort of bad guy," Nino scoffed, yanking him back to the present, "Just because he lost his temper yesterday."

"Well..." Adrien glared stoically at the sheet of paper in front of him until his vision blurred and his cheeks burned. "He did lose his temper."

"Yeah, maybe, but he wasn't in the wrong! He was just standing up for his partner. I swear most Parisians aren't thinking straight anymore." Nino's eyes flitted back down to his phone, and he aggressively swiped his finger across it. "Everyone's getting super frazzled by these akuma attacks. And since Hawk Moth never actually comes out to play, the only people anyone can point fingers at is Ladybug and Chat Noir. It's like everyone forgot they're literally just kids — probably around our age — that have derailed their own lives for the sake of this city!" He slammed his phone down onto the table.

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "That was... very knowledgeable of you, Nino."

The vexation faded from his friend's features, and he grinned sheepishly. "...I was actually quoting Alya's Ladyblog."

Adrien returned the grin. "Of course you were." It warmed the frigid feeling in his chest to know that even if the whole world turned against him, his friends would always have his back. Whether they knew it or not.

Smile still plastered on his face, he reverted his eyes back to his math homework, pencil twiddling in his hand. He'd barely read through the first question before Nino was tapping his shoulder again.

"Dude, can we go back to talking about Marinette a sec?"

"Oh?" Adrien said, his inflection humorous. "You seem very interested in Marinette lately. Keep this up, and I might have to snitch on you to Alya—"

Nino snorted. "You wouldn't. Think of the Bro Code!"

"Alya's my bro, too."

His laughter died out, and he shook his head. "Okay but seriously, do you think she's— Do you think Marinette is alright?"

Adrien frowned, having expected Nino to go off on another tangent about their 'romantic potential', not push the heavy weight down further into his fizzling stomach.

His mind replayed his recent interactions with Marinette, frantically trying to decipher if he'd missed something important. She'd been laughing, eating, talking, falling over — all things that were very normal for her.

"Did... something happen?" he asked quietly. "Something I'm not aware of?"

"Well, no, but..." Nino shrugged. "You know how it is. Alya worries about Marinette a lot. And I hang out with Alya a lot. So it's sort of started to rub off on me."

Adrien gripped his pencil harder, the wood surely leaving dentures in his flesh. "She seemed fine yesterday," he said, voice wavering. But was he the best person to make that call? Suddenly not trusting his own judgement, he leaned closer to the other boy. "She seemed fine, right?"

"She did," Nino agreed with a nod. "Maybe we're just overreacting." He paused, fiddling with his glasses. Then his eyes met Adrien's again. "Okay, well, even if she is fine, I've got a good idea on how to cheer her up."

Adrien, always on board to help Marinette in any way he could, immediately brightened. "What are we going to do?"

"Not 'we'." Nino lightly jabbed a finger into Adrien's arm. "You."

He pulled a face. "Me?"

Nino's gloated smile just radiated mischief, and Adrien already knew he wasn't going to like whatever his friend said next. "At the end of the semester next month, there's gonna be a masquerade ball. Have you heard of it?"

His frown deepened. "Yes..."

"Okay, good! It's a fun little party to look forward to, don't you think? Obviously, I'm planning on asking Alya to go with me." Nino threw an enthusiastic arm over the blond's shoulders. "And you, my dude? You should ask Marinette."

Right. So it was a 'romantic potential' tangent, after all.

Adrien grimaced, gently untangling himself from Nino's grasp. "How many times do I need to tell you—?"

"I don't mean as, like, a date or anything!" Nino quickly clarified. "Just as friends! I'm sure she'd appreciate that."

"It wouldn't work," Adrien muttered. The pencil began twiddling through his fingers again. "The whole 'as friends' thing, I mean. Because I'm pretty sure she knows I like her."

"Nope!" Nino leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. "The girl doesn't have a clue."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Alya said so," he stated, like it was the final piece of damning evidence that banged the judge's gavel and closed the court case for good. "Turns out, you're so terrible at making a move, she hasn't caught on in the slightest."

Adrien didn't know whether to be offended or relieved.

Was this good news? Attending the ball with Marinette had always been a bit of a pipe dream for him, something he could never allow himself to indulge in.

Because the intentions behind inviting someone to this type of event could very easily get messy and miscommunicated, and the mere idea of making her uncomfortable made him want to jump off the Eiffel Tower.

But if she didn't know he had feelings, would that make it morally wrong to ask her? He wasn't sure. The full twenty consecutive minutes of sleep he'd gotten last night weren't really helping him in the decision-making department.

"Oh," he finally choked out, after realizing he hadn't said anything for a while and Nino was giving him a weird look. "Well... I-I guess I'll think about it?"

"Awesome!" Nino clapped him on the back. "It would be really great for both of you, dude, I promise."

He nodded stiffly in response, wishing he shared his friend's excitement. "But just don't expect me to—"

"Hey," a voice interrupted.

Both boys looked up to see none other than Chloé Bourgeois standing in front of their little isolated desk, hands planted on her hips. Her blue eyes darted between the two of them, eventually landing on Adrien.

"Now that there aren't any akumas blowing up the city, is it okay if we talk?" she asked.

Adrien stared at her, the pencil in his hand falling still. Her gaze held his, steely and unwavering. But not angry. Not cruel. He knew she wasn't here to pick a fight.

He released an exhale, the tension in his muscles leaving with it. "Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. Let's talk."

Her eyes briefly lit up, before she composed herself and turned to the other boy. "Go away, Nino." She waved a hand at him in a shooing motion. "The adults are having a conversation."

Adrien glared at her. "Chloé!"

"No. No, it's alright," Nino said slowly, standing up and gathering his papers and stationary equipment together. "I wasn't getting any work done anyway." He turned to Adrien. "But, um... I'll see you later in class, yeah?"

Adrien nodded. He balled his clammy hands into fists as he watched his friend sling on his schoolbag and pull away from the desk.

Nino looked back at him once more and his face softened. "Seriously, dude, it's fine." He patted his shoulder. "I'm not mad. You, uh, sort things out, okay?"

Again, Adrien said nothing. Nino left the library and then it was just him and—

Chloé settled herself onto Nino's empty seat and twisted it slightly so that they were a little more in each other's vicinity. She crossed one leg over the other and stared at him, as if waiting for him to make the first move.

Adrien's nerves twinged in agitation, unable to shake the feeling that he was on a stage and the spotlight was shining directly into his face.

He cleared his throat. "Um, you know that the library is for doing schoolwork, right?"

She glared daggers. Then she reached into her designer bag, pulled something out, and slammed what looked like a half-finished essay down on the table. "You were saying?"

She straight-up started writing, and all he could do was gawk.

Say something, idiot! It's just Chloé!

"Um, what is it that you—?" He swallowed to get rid of the blockade in his throat. "Can I... help you with anything?"

Her hand paused, mid-sentence. "About what I said to you in the car that day..." Her pen tapped against her paper. "I didn't mean any of it. I'm... I'm sorry."

Adrien couldn't help it. He guffawed hysterically.

She snapped her head round to look at him, her glower fierce enough to take out an entire army. "I'm apologizing to you and you're laughing?"

"I don't think..." He sucked in a wheeze, hand on his chest, "I've ever heard that word come out your mouth."

"Yeah," Chloé winced. "It felt wrong on so many levels." Her features hardened. "But you deserved an apology."

"Oh." His laughing fit faded away and he smiled at her, chest fizzling in a way that had nothing to do with anxiety at all. "Well... thank you. Why— uh, why did it take you this long?"

She began doodling a little circle into the corner of her paper, essay ignored. "Take a guess."

"Because it's..." Realization dawned on him. "It's not easy."

Chloé let out a snide chuckle. "You have no idea."

"W-What about the dozens of other people that deserve an apology from you?" His mind tried to list them all, but he drew a blank on the exact number. "There's... quite a few."

"I know that!" she snapped, and he tried to hide his flinch. Her tone softened. "But I can barely say it to you. I'm not about to try and say it to half the school."

Adrien set down his pencil, giving up on his homework. "What's so special about me then?"

She shrugged, blonde hair falling in front of her face as her pen scraped back and forth. "It's different with you."

He supposed he'd already known that. Barring their argument in the car, he'd never once been on the other side of Chloé's wrath. In fact, he might be the only person in the world who'd been privy to her generosity and her surprisingly kind heart. But he was still curious.

"How so?"

Her sigh almost sounded tired. "Because when I look at you, I don't see someone I need to defend myself from."

He watched her, his hand tightly gripping the back of his seat. She didn't meet his eyes.

"Y'know, I'd actually made the decision to start this school year anew?" she said, huffing out a sardonic laugh. "Like, before the first day, I'd fully decided to just... be a nice person. And leave people alone, even if they pissed me off."

Her shoulders slumped. "And then the coffee incident happened with Marinette, and I just..." The circle on her paper was starting to become an inky black stain the more she filled it in. "Sometimes I don't realize how much of a horrible person I am until after I've done something horrible."

She must've known he was staring at her. And he probably looked like a creep. But Adrien couldn't tear his eyes away.

"Being the person you want to be is easier said than done." She shook her head. "And I'm not... I'm not convinced people can actually change. Not really. Like, of course I'm gonna revert back to doing things the way that's always worked for me. Why had I expected anything different?"

Adrien licked his dry lips and reminded himself to blink. She didn't say anything else, so he figured this was a good time to speak up.

He thought about the last two months he'd spent being Chat Noir. "I think..." He hesitated, desperately wanting to find the right words, "People can change. It just takes more than just one simple decision. It, um... takes time, and effort and... commitment, a-and sacrifice, and even then, you're still gonna backslide sometimes. It's impossible not to."

She said nothing, pen still adamantly coloring in her circle.

He dropped his gaze to stare at his jeans, and forced himself to keep going. "Y'know, the movies kinda lied to us. All those characters who have 'redemption arcs' suddenly make a snap decision to change their ways, and boom, that's that. They stop being a dick and they're a good guy. But... I'm starting to realize that's not how it works for real people."

"It should be." Her chuckle was genuine. "We honestly suck, huh?"

"But Chloé..." He reached out towards her shoulder. But he hesitated and ultimately decided not to touch her, his hand falling back onto his chair. "I think you have changed. Ever since the coffee incident with Marinette, I haven't... I haven't actually seen you be mean to anyone."

"Wrong," she said, shooting him a pointed glare. "You were the last person I was mean to." Her eyes fell back down to her circle, her pen aggressively tearing through the paper and spilling ink onto the table. "And I hated myself for it."

Oh.

So he was her rock bottom.

He gently grabbed the pen from her, his heart clenching. "Y-You don't still hate yourself, do you?"

Her smirk held no humor behind it. "It's like you said, changing takes time."

And what could he even say to that? He knew exactly how she felt.

"I'm trying though." Her eyes burnt holes into him, but not in a way that was designed to hurt. "I promise you, I'm trying."

He grinned, and his next words slipped out before he could stop them. "You'd make a good superhero."

She blinked. "What?"

"Nothing!" He laughed uneasily and bulldozed on. "Anyway, I feel like..." He shifted in his seat. "...you could start by... um, apologizing to Marinette?"

Chloé wrinkled her nose. "Yeah... She was first on my list, actually."

Adrien choked on a snort. "Oh my god, there's a list?"

"Not an actual one, dumbass!" She rolled her eyes. "Just... a vague one in my head, I guess. But I don't know... I tried apologizing to Marinette on the first day of school. But I'm not convinced I went about it in a very, uh, efficient way."

Adrien nodded his head in contemplation. "She told me about that. Kinda sounded like you wanted to murder her."

"See what I mean?!" She threw her hands up. "I'm not good at this!"

"Well, I believe in you," he said vehemently. Because it was true. He'd known this girl for years; he knew exactly what she was capable of. All the bad and the good. "And I think Marinette will listen to you. She's the most understanding person I know."

"Alright," Chloé said, smile strained, "Enough about Marinette." Her eyes softened. "Are... Are we okay? Like, are we friends again?"

Adrien stopped breathing. His eyes started to sting from his lack of blinking, and the pads of his fingers were digging uncomfortably into his palms. He could feel his pulse loudly thumping through his ears, brain whirling a mile a minute.

And he realized what he'd been so scared of.

He loved his other friends. He did. But they were all very recent additions to his life.

However, there were only two tethers that ran deep enough to have ingrained themselves into every fiber of his being. Two people whose presences throughout his entire life had managed to bleed into the deepest chambers of his heart, becoming irreplaceable and necessary constants.

One of those tethers had already snapped. And, well. Until today, he'd been so sure that the other one was only hanging on by a thread.

Chloé tilted her head, confused. "Um... Adrien? You good there? Is the idea of us being friends again really so horrib—?"

Without warning — to Chloé or even to himself — he threw himself forward and flung his arms around his oldest friend, trapping her in a tight hug and burying his face in her shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut but tears leaked onto her expensive leather jacket regardless.

"Of course we are," his muffled voice said, between gasping inhales that clogged his lungs with her nauseating perfume. He couldn't bring himself to care. "I didn't w-want to lose you, too."

"Adrien," she whisper-hissed, hand stiffly patting his back, "We are in a public library. Stop crying!"

After a few deep (suffocating) breaths, he tore himself away from her, awkwardly stumbling back into his own seat and wiping away the excess tears from his face. "Sorry."

Her eyes weren't unkind. If anything, they were shining a little themselves. "It's... It's fine. I didn't want to lose you, either. And I don't think I ever will. So..." She took a deep breath and leaned forward in her seat. "Pinky promise we'll always be best friends."

He snickered. "We're not five years ol—"

"Adrien!"

"Fine," he relented, offering up his little finger. Chloé hooked hers around his. "I pinky promise."

The school bell blew through the speakers, unnecessarily loud in the quietness of the library. Adrien glanced down at his math homework, and realized he'd never even answered the first question.

But that was fine. He'd answered so many others.

"Alright." Chloé stood up and ran her fingers through her hair a few times to fix its volume. "Glad we cleared that up. I'll... talk to you later? And um, if you need me for anything, just send a text." She narrowed her eyes. "Unless it's about Marinette. I honestly couldn't care less about your love life."

Adrien gaped. "Wait, how do you—?"

She was already walking away.

゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜

"Seriously, girl," Alya said, after she and Marinette had changed back into their normal clothes and were following the crowd out of the gymnastics hall, their gym bags at their hips. "You fell off that beam at least six times. What happened? You're usually so much better than this!"

Marinette groaned and rubbed her hands down her face, briefly dragging the skin of her eyelids into demon mode. "I know! I'm just really stressed today, okay?"

Alya pushed her glasses up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "Wait, this isn't still about the lucky charm you lost, is it?"

Marinette's blood simmered at her friend's cordial tone. Like this wasn't a big deal. Like she could just blame losing something so precious on her forgetfulness and move on. But she wasn't willing to do that.

Hell, she'd even rushed over to the park (as Ladybug) before school started just to check if her charm was still on the picnic table. It hadn't been. No doubt a pigeon or a curious little kid had already snatched it up.

"You don't understand. I'm seriously this close to just tracking down and purchasing the exact same beads and remaking it, so that Adrien never finds out I lost the original."

"Ooooorr..." Alya drawled, "Don't overcomplicate things and just be honest with him."

Marinette gritted her teeth. "You're hilarious."

The blur of a magenta jacket suddenly rushed past her. Someone grabbed her hand and deposited an object into her open palm that made a clinking sound. The blur took off in an instant, before Marinette could process anything that had just happened.

Her head whipped sideways to see the back of Chloé's blonde hair disappearing into the crowd.

Bewildered, Marinette looked down at her hand. Adrien's blue and gold lucky charm looked back up at her. She pursed her lips, the word 'what' not quite following through.

"What just happened?" Alya spluttered, equally as confused. People kept bumping into them, so they both shuffled to the side of the school hallway.

"I think..." Marinette tightened her grip around the charm, relief rushing through every vein in her body, "Chloé just... did something nice for me?"

"Oh." Alya folded her arms, eyebrows raised. "So hell froze over then."

Marinette stared at the direction Chloé had left in, but she was already gone.

She couldn't remember that girl even being at the park, let alone having the context that this particular charm belonged to her. And even if she did, why would she give it back? That was the most un-Chloé thing she'd ever witnessed in her life. Her brain could draw no logical conclusions, so she eventually gave up trying.

Marinette swallowed. "Yeah," she said slowly. "It definitely did."