Disruptor Designer and Her Model

kiss

1. Kiss

Adrien was sixteen when he visited New York for the first time. An overrated city, if you asked him. The only reason he was here was because he had been dragged along by his father to go meet Ms. Audrey Bourgeois, her daughter, and her protégé.

The first thing that was abundantly clear was that Adrien wanted to spend as little time as humanly possible around Miss Chloe, Ms. Bourgeois' daughter. Clingy and entitled was the best way to describe it. There really wasn't much of a difference between her and most of his fangirls.

However, there was one person that they didn't get to meet.

"I thought you said I would be meeting your protégé," his father said.

"Yes," Ms. Bourgeois began, her scowl deepening. "Except I had to let her go."

Gabriel rose a single brow.

"Yes," the woman said with an exaggerated sigh. "It's a long story I don't care to bore you with, but she didn't have the… tenacity to do what we do here. She simply didn't fit. Mercy and sweetness have no place in a ruthless world of fashion."

Adrien disagreed, but he couldn't exactly tell a woman as famous as Audrey Bourgeois otherwise.

"Now," she continued, "shall we start the tour of my headquarters?"

And that was the beginning of one of the most boring tours Adrien had been on. Not that he'd been on many interesting ones when it came to offices. An office was an office, and despite working in fashion, he really didn't care much for it.

So, when he was granted the opportunity to slip away, he gladly took it.

He wandered down a hallway with the intent of pulling out his phone and playing whatever game seemed interesting, but he paused when he heard crying. Curious, Adrien followed the sound to a storage room. And upon peeking inside, spotted a girl sitting on the floor, her legs curled to her chest and her head hidden between her knees.

Adrien knocked, startling the girl. She froze but didn't lift her head. "Are you okay?" he asked.

The girl remained frozen.

"Can I come in?"

"Leave me," she said.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'll be gone soon enough. Don't worry. You don't have to kick me out."

"Who said anything about kicking you out?"

At that, the girl finally raised her head.

Adrien gave her a smile, hoping to put her at ease as he walked up to her and knelt beside her. "Hey," he said with a weak wave.

She stared for a moment before a look of horror crossed her face. "Oh my gosh," she whined. "You're Adrien Agreste."

He gave her a smile and a nod. "That I am."

In a second, she buried her head between her knees again. "How humiliating."

"Hey, no. Don't worry," he tried to placate. "You're upset over something. There's nothing shameful about that. Do you want someone to talk to?"