Viscous Cycle

• There You Go Again •

"I can't believe we did that!" Alya exclaimed.

"It was all your idea, Alys. Don't give me any credit or ill grief." The two found themselves at school the very next morning. Mari needed to gather her textbooks, binders and folders before class began. She wondered what became of the naked skinny dippers. They both sprinted as fast as possible from the scene of the crime.

Sure, they felt a little bad for leaving Nino stranded, but he decided to get naked all on his own. Not to say that justified the consequence of returning home without clothing, but heck if actually he used his head for once.

The pile of clothes had been grossly tucked in a corner of Marinette's bedroom until they could decide what to actually do with it all. Goodwill was most likely going to house the random pile of clothes, in all honesty.

While sat in homeroom, Mari checked her phone, only to find no notifications to speak of. Until a text from Adrien popped up. The girl had noticed that he had skipped the first class, and wondered where he was for half of a second. It instructed her to meet him in the photography club's dark room, possibly due to its vacancy. To say the message shocked her would be an understatement; she thought the blonde hated her since he seemed to recently avoid her like a lethal plague.

Nevertheless, she excused herself, claiming a visitation for the bathroom was vital. The closer she got, the more nervous the girl became. Sure, she's pulled a plethora of pranks in her lifetime, but none that violated a person's body in such a way. Mari twirled her fingers in the loose fabric of her floaty miniskirt.

Ever since her mini makeover, she would make doubly sure that every hair, powder and article was in place; even more so now that she was meeting up with the blonde boy who might have caused a few heart palpitations for some odd reason. What did it all mean?

Knocking on the creepy door to the dark room, Adrien greeted her with a nod of his head there, opening it to allow her entrance. "You wanted to see me?" Mari asked, leaning against the nearest wall, trying her best to ease her thumping heart and shaky limbs. He breathed inwardly. "Some prank you pulled last night."

She was caught in the act and her short life was over before it nearly started. "What do you mean?"

"Ugh. There you go again! When do you ever have a clue as to what's going on? Must I remind you that you left all of us high, dry and naked without so much as a warning? Geez, not even an announcement to give us a fighting chance?" Mari studied the floor closely.

"Oh. That."

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

"I don't know! Maybe? Ugh, you're too confusing to figure out!" That threw the boy for a loop. "What?"

"One minute, we're friends. Sure, I'm dumb for creating a near decade of awkward silence. Then, you reach out to me after stalking me. We got... closeish, well, enough for me to see all of your weird tattoos and take a suicidal number of motorcycle trips. Stupidly, I mess up again, clearly pissing you off. I don't blame you for that, you had rights, I realize that now. But dating another girl? That had me puzzled.

"I was also jealous that you could switch your feelings off so easily. Then, you tell me to meet you in a room with no lights. That kinda sends... I don't know... a certain vibe, or something. And now I have no clue what to think about you. Are you mad that I forced you to show your wiener to the block? Just about everyone was asleep by the time so I don't understand the damage. Also what's up with-"

"Wait, repeat that again." Dark eyebrows furrow with Adrien's interruption. "What? The wiener bit? Is that too small for you? I know most guys find peculiar fascination with overestimating their anatomy's size. What about calling it-"

"No, no, no. The jealous part." Adrien shook his head, taking one step closer to Mari. He was digging around in Marinette's head, testing her. "That I was jealous of the girl you dated?" A soft smile appeared on his face. "Yes, but the statement about your feelings, too." Sighing, she gave in.

"I was jealous that you could switch your feelings off so easily," the blue eyed girl repeated. He cracked a full on grin at her words. "Bingo."

Closing the distance between the two, Adrien placed his hands on her waist, pulling her into his body softly, yet with an air of urgency. "Hold up," she said, "You think that I'm going to just let you kiss me without a through explanation in your end? Dream on, Creep." The girl rolled her eyes, annoyed that he was trying to escape his fate.

If possible, his smile grew bigger. "Aww, you're calling me by my old nickname, Princesse." Growing annoyed by his stalling, she crossed her arms and tapped a toe, pushing him backward slightly, his grabby paws still rested on her middle. "Right, right. Well, the girl I was with was a one time deal. She had been begging for a proper date for nearly a year. I always blew her off, until the day I stormed out of your house. I'm sorry for that, by the way. I was a jerk who didn't listen to you at all.

"As for last night, I'm not mad that I had to walk home vulnerable, I'm mad that I didn't think about that prank first. I mean, I know that same group skinny dips once a week near my street and the idea of taking their clothes never dawned on me. It also means that you have a set of my jeans and a sweatshirt.

"From what I hear, having a male's clothing signifies exclusivity, or something. So that just means that you're mine. Just like you have been since we were pull-up wearing, snot nosed, marker stained children. I'm so very sorry that I threw that all away for my anger issues and one dumb date that only talked about how much she loved me."

He breathed, finishing his side of the story. "How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine?" Mari asked him.

"Like absolute horse crap. I'll do better, I swear!"

"Don't swear. That's too permanent."

"Speaking of permanent, I got a new tattoo that I want to show you!" Adrien grew elated with the idea of flashing her with the new inking. Quickly, he undid his belt, yanking his jeans down before turning around and lifting up the bottom flap of his boxers. It was a tree with a person with a crown falling from it. Standing at the bottom was a knight in shining armor. It reminded Mari of how they started talking again the night of Alya's birthday party.

"And you decided to get this when we were upset with each other?"

"If it's one thing I never regretted, it was catching you under that tree."

Just like she had done to all of the others, she stuck a finger out, tracing each of the lines of green ink. The girl overlooked the strange placement of the permanent image, not putting it past him. "You really are something, you know that?" Mari said to him. "My apologies, I couldn't hear you over the heavenly touch of your hand on basically my lower butt." Adrien sent her a cheeky smirk. "You pervert! Remind me why I have you a chance again," she scowled.

"Because your life was miserable without me along side of you."

She sighed, curving her lips into a tiny smile. "Yeah. Yeah it was."