It was one thing for Marinette to agree to still work with me. I never expected her to even accept me back even after what I had done. It was another thing for her to ask if we could go to the hallway. Now as I followed Marinette out of the classroom and felt eyes staring at my back, I could tell another rumor was about to cook up in this school, and I wondered if I was going to like it at all or not.
"Take a seat," Marinette ordered, taking a seat down on the floor and setting her items right in front of her. I did the same thing, not trying to be awkward or anything but knowing that no matter how hard I was trying, I was still failing. First of all, I couldn't even open my mouth to speak, instead all I did was nod and obey. I had a feeling Marinette knew why I was being so awkward around her. "Do you need a few minutes to think of some questions?"
"Uh, no," I shook my head. Perhaps giving her this as a reply was a mistake. Perhaps, I wasn't really ready after all. "I'll start." But then again I'd prepared some questions before Miss Bustier even suggested we do this, so it was no biggie. "Do you want to take turns asking questions or should one person just go and the next?"
Marinette looked up at me, eying me like I'd said something wrong. I got nervous again, and maybe I had said something wrong again, but then she looked down at the paper she got, and smiled. "You pick."
"Oh, okay." I smiled a little too. "Let's take turns. I'll go first." I had been thinking about the questions I wanted to ask Marinette that I even got them memorized. Marinette on the other hand was busy trying to think of some as she wrote it down on the paper. "How did your family start the bakery?"
"Ooh," Marinette chuckled and placed her pen down. "Well, actually there's not really that much to tell. My mother used to work for another bakery, but then that bakery got shut down, and everyone were upset over it. This was before I was even born. Then, when my parents saw how sad they were to see the bakery gone, they decided to turn their home into a bakery, and it actually turned out good. They never went out of business, they never had any serious technical difficulties. And when they had me, they told me their story and I started working in the bakery too."
I smiled at that answer, forgetting that I had to write it down. "That's really nice, Marinette." You're really nice. She gave me a smile before giving me a look with her finger pointing down at the paper, reminding me of why I had a paper and pen. "Right!" I grabbed my pen and started scribbling her answer down, while I waited for her to ask me a question.
"Adrien, who do you live with?"
I widened my eyes a little at the question, not really expecting for her to ask that. "Well, I live with my father, my bodyguard, whom we call Gorilla, and my father's assistant, Nathalie," It was a simple question so I gave a simple answer. The only reason I hadn't wanted to answer was because I was afraid she'd mention something about my mother. I could tell she was about to ask, so I quickly cleared my throat and added, "and my mother, but she's not in Paris right now."
"Oh. Well, it's really nice to have such a loving family, isn't it?" Marinette commented. "I mean, they are a loving family to you, right?"
"Oh, yeah, yeah," I bobbed my head up and down. Besides the fact that I had to obey them when it came to strict rules, they still loved me, I knew that. At least they gave me a home, food, they gave me a chance to go to school. "You know, instead of complaining about the things you don't like, we should all take a moment to appreciate the things we do have, because some people out there don't even got anything." I remembered when I was young, and I always thought my family members were just being mean to me because they hated me. I complained to them a lot, telling them how unfair they were and how they never treated me right. It was soon that I began to realize where I went wrong, and quickly apologized to them for my behavior.
"Adrien, do you have any other family members?"
"Oh yeah. There's my aunt, Amelie and her son, Felix, who's my cousin by the way. They're staying over at my place because my aunt is about to have her wedding on Tuesday." I realized that all throughout these days, I'd never told Marinette about the wedding, and when I did, she looked really excited.
"Oh my goodness, I love weddings! Can I come? Can I come?" She was practically all over my face now, so I laughed a little, but nodded, seeing how cute she looked with pleading eyes.
"And then there's also my grandfather," I finished off. "And well, that would be it. If I had any other family members, I guess I'm not that close to them to remember their names." I shrugged. "Okay my turn." I then got nervous, knowing my next question was something I didn't really like asking people, but with Marinette, it seemed really important that I knew. I tried convincing myself I was only asking her this question because of the project, but that may not be the case anymore. "Do you have a boyfriend?"
At first, Marinette looked a bit confused, like she didn't understand the question, or as if I'd spoken it in a different language she didn't know about, but then she made herself more comfortable on the floor with a sudden smirk. "Oh, so you wanna get into this?" She sat crisscrossed. "Well no, but I used to."
I blinked a couple of times, trying to suck in the answer she had just given me. I mean sure, it didn't really surprise me that she would used to have a boyfriend, after all she was really pretty, had such a great personality and a loving family. I guess I kinda expected her to be that kind of girl who wasn't interested in dating at all. "Who is it?" I instantly mentally slapped myself after I blurted out that question. Who even asks that?!
"Nathaniel."
My mouth was hanging opened now. I expected her to say someone like Nino, but Nathaniel? Not that I had anything against it, or that I even cared, but it still surprised me that the most awkward and quiet guy would date such a bubbly girl who was all about fun. I then started to wonder why they'd broken up.
"But it was fake."
I frowned. "What?"
"It wasn't real. We were fake dating," Marinette repeated, rephrasing her words. I didn't say anything, but I guess she knew I wanted her to continue because she did. "Nathaniel has a crush on this girl, and he told me about it. His plan was to make her jealous, though I was totally against it. But I agreed because we made this deal; if I fake dated him, he would help me with my insanely hard art project. I got an A+ on that art project by the way. On the other hand, he 'broke up' with me because he came to realize that it was never going to work."
"Wow. . ." I had nothing else to say.
"Chloe."
"What?"
"He had a crush on Chloe."
I dropped my pen as soon as she said that. Was that why Nathaniel was so awkward around me? Because he kinda thought I was dating his crush? Was that why he hadn't wanted to talk to me, even when we were sitting together in class? Most of the time, he'd ignore me, just simply act as if I was invincible, and I was never really sure why, but this reason made sense.
"One day, I convinced Nathaniel to just go for it, so he did. He wanted to surprise Chloe, so he sneaked up behind her, but before he could even get to her," Marinette looked down, "he told us he overheard Chloe speaking bad about him to another girl, and after that, he became really distant."
I felt bad. I couldn't believe Chloe had done this. I had always been trying to convince other people, including Marinette's friends, that Chloe was a nice person, but now I knew why they were giving me weird looks, glaring at me. It was because they knew my words weren't true. They'd experienced it too, they'd been in that position where Chloe would insult them. This made me ball my hands into fists. Chloe would have had a better life than this if she was nicer to people. Instead, she had me going around telling people fake words about how nice she was. She was nice. . . But only to me!
"What about you, though? Have you ever had a girlfriend?"
"No." I muttered, loud enough for her to hear me. She muttered a word, but I was too busy wondering how I was going to fix this to even hear her. And then I saw Marinette's mouth moving, but I couldn't hear her words as I was in my own little daze. She then waved her hand in front of my face until she caught my attention.
"Don't be mad. Chloe just needs to learn how to be nicer, and I honestly think you're the only one who could be able to do that, after all, she literally follows you around," Marinette shrugged. "By the way, how. . . Excuse me for asking, but how did you meet Chloe?"
"It was raining really hard outside, and I was driving back home with my family when I caught her sitting in the rain, crying," I started, not looking at Marinette while I spoke. "I said to stop the limo, and when it did, I walked over to her with an umbrella and asked if she was okay. Without even knowing who I was, she started telling me about her family and how she wished her mother would come home. My mother invited her over to the mansion just to get her out of the rain, and we returned her to her father after we fed her." I stopped talking and just stared at the floor, coming to realization that Young Chloe was nothing like the Chloe she's become. Before she used to be incredibly sweet, but now I couldn't even believe she was going around, hurting other people. And to hear from Felix that she was manipulating me, it hurt.
I'd always thought Chloe would stay the same. Sure, people changed, but I never expected her to change that much. I understood it was because of her mother, because she didn't have her mother with her when she was young, she became distant to other people, except me and her father. Sometimes she talked with Nathalie, but she barely exchanged words with the woman.
"I think I finally understand what's going on here," Marinette spoke, almost in a whisper. "Chloe's just scared, and you know whenever people are scared, they do things they don't mean to do. Adrien, I think I have a way to solve this matter. We're going to have to talk after school though, because class is almost over and I still have more questions for you."
"I still have more questions for you too." I smiled, knowing Marinette was unlike the others. She was willing to be patient, help me out no matter how much of a bad person she heard Chloe was, no matter how much I'd hurt her friend. I was just glad I had such an amazing friend willing to help me out.
"Okay well, we'll leave the rest of the other questions till next time, but I have two more questions for you, Adrien." Marinette looked down at her paper, reading the first question before she looked up at me. "What's your favorite snack?"
I frowned. "That's your question?"
"Yeah, I just want to know the kind of snacks you like."
"Well then, it's chocolate. It definitely has to be chocolate." I hadn't had much snacks in my life, most of the time, I chewed on fruits, and other times Father gave me a piece of candy but told me I wasn't getting another one until the next three months. I'd completely given up on candy though. If I had never met Marinette, I would never have tasted chocolate, nor her pastries. "I do also like the croissants and macaroons." Truth be told, I'd only eaten those pastries when I was invited to the bakery as a different person. If Father found out about this. . . I feared what my punishment was going to be.
"That's really nice. I'm glad you like the chocolate I sent you. Well, that brings me to the next and last question," Marinette looked down at the paper again, but looked up at me soon after that. "Why are you so awkward around me?"
"Huh?" I scratched my head. At the beginning of all this, I had thought she would ask me this, but the more we talked, the more I grew really confident and comfortable around her. I didn't think I was still as awkward as before.
"I mean, the last time we talked. You just suddenly took off, and left me wondered whether you were coming back or not."
It's because I kissed your cheek. How are you not bothered by that?!
"Is it because of what you did?" Marinette asked. "Adrien, if you were confident enough to kiss my cheek, then why weren't you confident enough to stay with me for much longer?"
"I. . . I hadn't meant to do it," I could tell my face was extremely red, which was why I tried to hide it from her. When I looked up again, Marinette had suddenly gotten closer to me, getting my face even redder than it was. "What are you doing?" I whispered over to her.
She didn't reply. Instead she leaned over and pecked my cheek, before she laughed a little and backed away. "That's what I'm doing. You don't see me running away from you. I'm still here."
I was about to roll my eyes at how she had just teased me, but I stopped short once I heard something drop. I turned over to where Miss Bustier's classroom door stood, and before she could run back inside the classroom, I saw Chloe giving me an upsetting look.
~ Edited ~