Alone

Chapter 9

Marinette woke up to thousands of text messages and missed calls from Alya. She quickly went through most of the messages before she registered the fact that she was late for school... again.

Marinette quickly jumped down from her bed and ran into the washroom. One quick shower later, Marinette climbed up the steps to school while running her hairbrush through her messy bed head.

"Well, look who it is! My favourite person, Marinette Dupain Cheng. I mean, seriously? Why even show up at school if you're going to be late?" Laughed Chloé with Sabrina tailing her.

"Because some of us don't have servants at every beck and call." Grumbled Marinette tying her hair in her pigtails.

Usually, Marinette would slip into class, unnoticed but this time, it was different. One, because she had woken up when the others were halfway through the first period and two, the class was conducted by Miss Mendeleiev.

"Marinette! Late again, I see. Straight to the principal's office!" Ordered Miss Mendeleiev pointing her marker towards the door.

"Marinette sighed while Chloé snickered. Marinette backed out of the classroom and closed the door behind her as she walked along the hallway to Mr Damocles's office.

"We really got to work on getting you early to school." Sighed Tikki popping her head out of the side bag.

"What can I do, Tikki? Last night's patrol took way longer than necessary and Chat didn't show up because he was sick. We were lucky that we did not have an Akuma attack last night."

Adrien had actually been sick last night. But to be precise, it was his heart that was sick. He didn't show up at school either, too scared to face Marinette. But he knew that he could not stay at home in the midst of an Akuma attack. So, he was prepared for the worst.

He had all the things necessary if he had to sneak out of his house under his bed. And by that, Adrien only had a few body pillows and Mr Banana's banana costume.

"Adrien... You really need to upgrade your skills." Sighed Plagg settling on top of Adrien's computer.

"Oh? And you have better skills?" Asked Adrien folding his arms.

"Allow me to introduce Adrien's sneak-out masterplan 3000!" Cried Plagg throwing his arms in the air.

"You were waiting for me to ask you that, right?" Questioned Adrien facepalming himself.

"It's much more effective, efficient and foolproof! It also makes you look less like an idiot!" Shouted Plagg completely ignoring what Adrien had said.

"Oh, yeah? And what is it?"

"You just have to drag your pitiful butt back to school and act like a real gentleman instead of a scaredy alley cat!"

Adrien sat on his bed completely shocked. He had never heard Plagg utter anything close to a helpful suggestion and now, Plagg was ordering Adrien to get back to school.

"Now this is why I don't share my wisdom with anyone." Muttered Plagg taking a closer look at Adrien's shocked face.

"Adrien?" Asked Plagg now concerned for the boy. 

But he did not receive a response from the boy that sat on the bed.

"Oh, look! It's Marinette!" Shouted Plagg.

"What?! Where?! Do I look okay? No! I'm a mess! Plagg!" Wailed Adrien falling for Plagg's trick.

When Adrien realised that Plagg had been joking, he snatched the kwami out of the air and poked the little black kitten in the stomach.