Strike At Midnight || Luka Couffaine

Chapter 20 ❧ Special Sweetheart

"You look like an angry chihuahua," he says between laughing fits until he becomes breathless.

"Can you not?"

"But you're so cute," he teases. I push against his chest and breakaway from his hold before he could feel or hear the erratic beating of my heart. This is too much.

•●•●•●•●•

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

•●•●•●•●•

"I need to breathe," I insist. The laughter dies down slowly to slow breathes. "Why did you even bring me here?"

"Honestly? I know there's something bothering you." He leans onto the railing. "And I know you don't want to tell me. I've heard about your past but only from someone else and never from your own mouth. But that's all right. I just want to do everything I can to lighten your burden. I broke your trust before, but you're granting me a second chance and I don't want to waste it."

He looks at me, coaxing me to respond. In that moment, I feel like a butterfly attracted towards the nectar of a breathtaking blossom. I can tell that he's having doubts on whether or not I trust him, but I still do- more than ever before. I have to express my faith in him, but how do I go about doing that?

Marinette opened her heart to me by revealing her long kept secret. Would it have a lasting impact if I do the same. It's worth a shot. "Let me tell you a secret. It's something I've been holding in for a very long time."

I join him by the railings but not quite brave enough to lean over it like him. Too frightened to let my eyes travel my surroundings, I settle on gazing at his blue eyes instead. "I can claim that I hardly remember my parents but really, I've only been suppressing my memories, prolonging the stage of acceptance until all the bottled up feelings just burst out."

"Yes, my dad was a superhero but when both my parents just disappeared- it happened so fast, I was grief-stricken. Mrs Agreste brought me here to escape my past and cope. I found healing with her and her son, my best friend, Adrien."

"But somethings don't last," Luka says. I could imagine the gears turning in his head, trying to solve the puzzle.

"Yeah...it went downhill from there. She was suddenly taken away by a disease that I had never even heard of. And I had to be there for Adrien." When I look away, he pulls me into his arms again. "If there was a way to get back someone you lost, would you do it?"

I couldn't bear to hear his answer so the words kept tumbling out. "I used my miraculous to try and take someone else's so I could get her back. I kept thinking that I was doing it for Adrien when really, I wanted her back too."

"You're the Blood Bat," Luka concludes, without any hint of anger like I had expected. "But you you had good intentions."

"That didn't mean I should terrorize innocent people. For God sake, that didn't mean it was okay to watch from the sidelines when Hawkmoth terrorizes innocent people!"

"Hey," Luka firmly grasps onto my waist, keeping me bound to the ground. "I know you're already making a solution. That's your strength- to fix what's broken or cracking, but don't ever think that you're alone. If you want, you could leave it all to me."

"You don't have to go about trying to appease me, Luka. You're too good for me, you know that."

"I have something to say too," he begins. "I may not understand the pain of losing someone to death but I have a close second although I'm not proud of it."