Undiscovered Melody |COMPLETED|

Chapter 2

Luka sat on the chaise in Marinette's bedroom, waiting for his sister and Marinette to finish talking about their plans to get them in to see Jagged Stone at his hotel. When they had arrived at Marinette's, Juleka's shyness appeared like it often did around others and she started to mumble quietly. So Marinette took them up to her room and the two girls were now at Marinette's desk with their heads bent close together so Marinette could understand Juleka. Luka didn't want to make his sister feel like he was trying to take over by talking to Marinette himself, so he had sat down and let her do her thing. This meant that he had had nothing to do but quietly study Marinette's room. 

He had quickly noted that there were a lot of pictures of Adrien Agreste on her walls, some of him modeling for the Agreste brand and some of him with Marinette and their other friends. This discovery poked a bit at his heart. He had liked Marinette from the first moment that he met her the day of the Paris Music Festival. She was so sweet and kind and brave and he had wanted to ask her out. The only problem was that he had quickly realized that she was crushing on Adrien, who seemed strangely oblivious to her interest in him. So, here he was, in the middle of the friend zone, which is not where he had hoped to be at all. He tried to make it clear that he was okay with that and that she could always talk to him about anything, including Adrien. He had also tried to get her to talk to Adrien about her feelings because most of all, he wanted her to be happy. And if Adrien made her happy, he couldn't help but feel happy for her. Of course, encouraging her to talk with Adrien could also move those two into and then back out of a relationship and then Luka would be free to ask her out. But, with Marinette seemingly paralyzed by indecision as to what she wanted to do about Adrien, none of them could move forward.

Juleka suddenly stood up, walked over to Luka, and sat down next to him on the chaise, startling him out of his thoughts.

"So, what did you two decide?" he asked her quietly as he noticed Marinette was now on the phone.

"She's calling Jagged Stone's assistant- Penny, I think- to see if we can meet him," said Juleka.

"Marinette has Jagged Stone's assistant's number?" asked Luka, his eyes automatically drawn to Marinette, who was wildly gesticulating with one hand while she talked on the phone.

"Yeah. Remember how I told you that Marinette had to make Jagged Stone some Eiffel Tower glasses as part of our class thing awhile ago where we had to help out at the hotel? Seemed weird that we worked for the mayor for free as part of our class, but we did end up getting those tickets to see Jagged Stone, so I guess it was okay. Anyway, Jagged Stone's asked Marinette to do other work for him. He likes her style. So, she's got a way to reach him."

"I guess that explains why Jagged asked Marinette for advice about who could replace his guitarist yesterday before Vivica appeared as 'Desperada'," said Luka. A small smile appeared on his face at the memory of a flustered Marinette offering Adrien up as a guitarist to Jagged the day before, not to mention asking Luka to lend Adrien his guitar even though Adrien didn't play guitar. While some people might have been offended by Marinette overlooking them and their qualifications and recommending someone completely unqualified, Luka had found it pretty amusing and endearing. Luka knew Adrien could do no wrong in Marinette's opinion.

He knew that his sister, on the other hand, could hardly believe that Marinette had passed over her brother, even if it was for her crush. Juleka had told him that she and all of her friends on the boat had watched with mouths agape, completely baffled with Marinette overlooking Luka. She said that later on everyone talked about how they could tell that even Jagged Stone had seemed confused by Marinette's choice. Luka did feel appreciative that everyone thought he had enough talent to play with Jagged Stone, but he also felt bad that people had been talking about Marinette behind her back. Of course, in the end none of it had mattered anyway as Ladybug and Cat Noir had defeated Desperada with his help as Viperion, and Vivica and Jagged had made up, so there was no need for a new guitarist.