"So, are we friends or something now?" Felix asked, walking beside Marinette on the way to lunch. Both were ignoring the quizzical looks Marinette's friends shot her. No one liked seeing her with Felix.
"I wouldn't go that far yet," she replied. "Acquaintances, more like." Felix smirked, confident that would change in the next few days. When he wanted it to be, his charm was irresistible.
"Alright, acquaintance," he smiled. "Come eat lunch with me." He inched slightly closer to her. She rolled her eyes, but for once she wasn't irritated with him. In fact, his presence wasn't as awful as she'd led herself to believe. Realizing what she'd just thought, she chastised herself internally, banishing the idea.
She broke away from him, declining his offer, and moved into the lunch line. A few spaces ahead of her, Lila and Alya were chatting away, oblivious to her presence. The pit in her stomach returned and, in a room full of people, she felt utterly alone.
After she'd paid for her lunch, she moved to her usual table. She was surprised to find her seat already taken, by none other than Chloe. How had she been replaced by Chloe? Sabrina stood at the table beside the blonde drama queen, as loyal as a dog.
Marinette marched over to the table and it took an actual physical effort to maintain her anger. Her fingers gripping her lunch tray turned white as she tried to suppress her feelings. She couldn't -and wouldn't- get akumatized.
The group paused mid-conversation, noticing her. Alya's face softened in sympathy at the sight of her friend excluded from their clique.
"Sorry, girl," Alya said, but she wasn't truly sorry for anything. "We ran out of room." She laughed uncomfortably. "They really need bigger tables, right?"
Marinette laughed along with her, but her voice was dead and unconvincing. "Yeah. Well, there's other people I can sit with," she told them untruthfully.
Chloe laughed, a sharp, horrible sound. Marinette had always thought so. "Like who?" she countered. "The toilets?"
Marinette grit her teeth. Her fingers trembled with a mad effort to conceal her hatred. At least there was Adrien, coming to her defense, like the great friend he was.
"Don't say that about Marinette," he reprimanded Chloe, his face revealing disappointment in her inability to conjure a nice word. "She's plenty popular. I'm sure she has other friends." He turned to Marinette. "Sorry," he added, his voice the only earnest one, "We'll see if we can squeeze you in tomorrow."
"It's fine," she replied, lying through her teeth. It was very much not fine. Feeling abandoned, she turned and walked away, heading for the bathrooms, just like Chloe had predicted. She hoped they weren't watching her for she felt utterly pathetic.
"Hey, acquaintance."
For the second day straight, Felix's voice had stopped her on her way. She turned to face him, struggling to return a smile to her lips, let alone her eyes.
"Now you have no reason to decline my offer," he pointed out. He smugly patted the seat beside come. "Come sit." With a dramatic sigh, Marinette plopped down beside him. She had the strong suspicion he had witnessed everything and was silently mocking her.
"So, what now?" she asked, trying to redirect his thoughts away from her embarrassment. She stared at her lunch but didn't move to eat it. She had lost her appetite. Her anger was rapidly vanishing, leaving her empty and miserable.
"Now we do what good acquaintances do and get acquainted," he decided. He turned to face her. She was once again struck by how different he looked from Adrien. His smile was not at all the same to his cousin's. In the light, his eyes almost looked blue.
Her eyes wandered back to her friends. Were they even still her friends anymore? She didn't know, but the possibility they were not frightened her. They had always been her friends, for as long as she could remember.
She abruptly turned back to Felix, blinking several times to keep her eyes from watering. He watched her curiously, a feeling which he could not identify churning in his stomach. Whatever it was, it was something he was not used to feeling.
"Tell me a joke," she demanded, but her voice was small and sad. "I don't want to get akumatized." She crossed her arms, wrapping herself in a protective hug.
Caught off guard, he fumbled. "Um... Well, how does the ocean say hello?" It was her eyes that made him think of the ocean.
She shrugged. "I don't know."
He grinned. "It waves."
She laughed, but not because the joke was funny. "That's terrible," she told him. "Where did you even hear that?" It reminded her of one of Chat Noir's silly puns. The flirtatious ones she hadn't heard in a while. But that was okay. It's what she wanted, for him to move on. Now they could be perfect partners and there would be no unreciprocated feeling between them.
So why did it feel so wrong?