We reached our destination, and Alya walked inside first, holding the door for us. As we walked inside, we thanked her. When I came inside and said my thanks to Alya, I took a moment to take a look around. We had walked inside a restaurant — a restaurant that I had no idea existed at all. I can't believe I've been going to school back and forth, and I never stopped to look at this restaurant in the way. It was large too, and from where I was standing, I could smell all the delicious food they were cooking.
Well, in my defense, I'd never bothered about a restaurant in my entire life, because whenever I did a fantastic job, Father always chose a restaurant by himself as a way of telling me I did great. I never got to decide which restaurant we should go to, and all the restaurants he took me to were vegetarian. Father was a vegetarian, and although I enjoyed some foods I'd tried in some restaurants, they still did not smell as good as this restaurant itself.
"Adrien."
I smiled as I turned around to face Marinette. She laughed a little before she pointed out in front of us. In front of us, Alya, Nino and Nathaniel were already walking towards a table.
"You've been standing in that spot for a while. Everything okay?" Lila asked, and it shocked me a little bit, because. . .since when did she ever care if I was okay or not? I know we're both in good terms now, because I gave her money, but I never thought it'd be enough for her to care, or joke around with me, or do anything best friends would do with each other.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Marinette took my hand again and started leading me towards the same table the others had sat at, with Lila following behind us. "Wow, you seem excited, Marinette."
Marinette laughed as she let go of my hand, and right there and then, I wish she hadn't. "To be honest, I haven't been to much restaurants, so I just have a feeling that with you here, things are going to be extra fun." She gave me a wink, and I blushed a little, wondering what she had meant by those words.
We took a seat at the table, and Nino started calling a waiter to come by. While we waited, we took out our school works. I took out a paper and a pen; on the paper was a half-paged written bio about Marinette. I had started on it but hadn't got the chance to finish. I looked up at the others; Nathaniel didn't seem to care about his schoolwork and was instead drawing on his sketchbook, Alya and Nino were busy talking to each as Nino wrote down words on his paper, while Marinette had already started on hers, and Lila was just stretching, getting ready to start.
I came to believe that the only reason Nathaniel was in this group was because of Marinette. He didn't really talk much, nor did he even make eye contact with anyone; instead it was just his sketching book. If Marinette had never befriended him, I wonder whether he'd be friends with the others, or if he'd be sitting by himself at Lunchtime, scribbling down on his book. Well, it definitely didn't seem like he needed anyone as a friend, that was for sure.
"So, Adrien," Lila got me to turn around and face her. She was holding her pen in her hand, obviously wanting to ask me some questions before she started writing her biography. "Marinette told me a few things about you, but there are still some of my questions left unanswered." I nodded and smiled, telling her to carry on. "Well, first of all. . .have you ever had a crush on someone before?"
"Is that question really necessary?" Nathaniel spoke up, putting his pencil down. "You're writing a biography about his whole life, but there are some little details you don't have to mention!"
I kept my smile up. "Actually, I. . .I agree with Nathaniel." When I said that, he looked surprised at first, but then looked down with a huff. "You don't have to know about everything going on in my life." Especially the personal details.
Lila sighed. "Okay, I get it. But can you please just answer all my questions? It doesn't mean I'm going to put your answers down on the biography I'm writing," she rolled her eyes a little. "I like knowing more about people, even the littlest details, just so I could write a better biography. I've done a lot of these bios, and trust me, all of them have come out good, and it's always because of the questions I ask."
I wasn't convinced, obviously, but I just nodded my head anyway and proceeded to answer the question she had asked me. "No, I've never had a crush on anyone. All the girls I'd ever met in my life before I got to this school have just been. . .not it. And don't ask if I have a crush on a girl in this school," I quickly added, knowing she was going to, "because I don't. I actually haven't focused on anything like that at all." I knew that was a lie at the end of the sentence, because first of all, I had been thinking of getting myself a girlfriend, and second of all, I had already convinced myself that I had a crush on Marinette.
"Wow, okay," Lila nodded as she scribbled down the answer. "Now Adrien, do you have-"
"Adrien, have you ever had a pet before?" Marinette asked on my right side. I turned around and answered the question, which was obviously no, because according to Father, pets were apparently annoying and distracting. He made it sound like he'd had a pet before. "Well," Marinette continued, "what do you think of cats?"
"Those little adorable things-"
Marinette chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, them. They're so cute, aren't they-?"
"I WAS TALKING TO HIM!"
The words all took us by surprise. Even Nathaniel had looked up from his drawing and stared straight at Lila, who had screamed the words out. As soon as she realized what she has just said, she started stuttering out other words that made no sense, before she gulped and looked down at the floor.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to say that. It's just that, I was still in the middle of asking him my questions and you just pulled him over to ask him about cats!" This was a surprise, because first of all, Lila was fighting over me and second of all, I'd never heard her get so angry at Marinette. Marinette on the other looked a little shaken up too, before she let out a tiny apology.
"No, I should be the one apologizing. That was so rude of me." Lila spoke in a squeaky voice. She then stood up from her seat, excusing herself, and she started walking away.
Marinette obviously felt guilty; guilt was written all over her face. It was clear as crystal to see that she's never angered Lila, at least not till the point that she'd scream and run off. Marinette stood up as well and telling us she had to go talk to her, she followed Lila away, leaving us four all alone to wonder what had just happened.
"Wow," I let out a small chortle, pretending that the argument hadn't been about me at all. "She really cares about Lila. It's like those two are inseparable." But when I said that, none of the other three looked happy with my words, and now I was really starting to wonder why. "You guys. . .when did you guys meet Lila?"
Alya, Nino, and Nathaniel all looked at each other, as if they were all deciding on how to answer the question. Alya then opened her mouth to speak first. "Marinette introduced us to Lila on the first of school."
Nino continued from where she left off. "We all really thought that Lila was this nice and sweet girl. I mean, if she's friends with Marinette, then she's gotta be nice, right? Wrong! The girl is even worse than Chloe."
I widened my eyes. "Wait, really?"
"Marinette told us to treat Lila well because she was having problems at home," Nathaniel said. "We agreed to make her one of us, make her one of our closest friends, but we found that hard because Lila was just a difficult girl to handle. On the second day of school, the math teacher gave us a test to see what we remembered from last year. Lila got a 100% on that test, and we all thought it was because she was extremely smart, but then it turned out that she had cheated. Even worse, while no one had been around, she had broken into the teacher's classroom and changed our test marks, including Marinette's. All throughout the day, Marinette was wondering how she had gotten a 64% on her test, because she believed she was smart when it came to math. Us three knew who did it, but we didn't have the guts to tell Marinette because we were afraid she wasn't going to believe us. We didn't have proof."
"Every time we caught Lila doing something horrible, we weren't all ready prepared to catch it on video or anything to show it to Marinette." Alya sighed as she leaned back on her chair. "It got too far when I caught Lila putting on a fake scar on her body, so I walked over to Marinette and told her. But of course, Marinette didn't believe me. She said she knew Lila was having problems at home with her father, and that there was no way she'd be putting on a fake scar. She got angry at me, saying I shouldn't joke about things as serious at this, so I didn't bother talking to her about Lila anymore."
My mouth was hanging opened by then. I was just so shocked. I had already thought Lila was a girl these guys really admired and was close with them, but it turns out that the only friend Lila had was Marinette. Marinette was going to be so mad to hear what Lila had been doing. "How do you even fake a scar?"
Alya shrugged. "Beats me. Lila knows how to do it though."
"Listen, we really value Marinette as a friend. If she was never here with us, all of lives would probably be in a mess right now. There are a bunch of times we've done something wrong to her, and she always forgives us, a bunch of times when she'd drop whatever she was doing just to help us. But Marinette values Lila more." Nino pointed out. "It doesn't surprise me, because she's known Lila ever since they were young. She sees Lila as her own sister, in fact, so proving to Marinette that Lila is a bad guy is insanely hard. . . Lila had already managed to get away with whatever she does."
"Adrien!" Nathaniel leaned in closer to me. "You can not tell Marinette that we told you this. She'd be really mad." I nodded my head quickly, promising them that I wasn't going to say a word. Then after that, it was silent.
Soon after that, Marinette and Lila walked back to the table and took their seats right beside me, Marinette on the right and Lila on my left. Lila gave me a small smile, as if trying to assure me that their conversation had been nothing of that seriousness, and knowing more about Lila now, I gave her a fake smile instead.
When I looked over at Marinette, she didn't really look as happy as she had been before she left with Lila, showing me that the conversation she had with Lila had been extremely important. Now I was curious to hear what they had talked about. Had it all been about me?
Lila then poked my shoulder, getting my attention. I turned to her, asking her what she wanted, and she gave me that same smile she had been giving me ever since I gave her that money. "Can you walk with me to get a new drink? I would go alone, but I actually haven't been in this restaurant before and I don't really like walking around new places alone. Please. Pretty please?"
"Uh, I. . ." I turned over to the others and they seemed to give me different looks, which I couldn't quite understand. I then turned to Marinette, but she was busy writing words on her paper to even look at me. She looked more upset, though she was trying to hide it. I then turned back to Lila and smiled back at her. "Yeah. . .yeah, sure."
"Great!" Lila instantly stood up as soon as I gave her my answer. She then grabbed ahold of my arm and started dragging me away from the table. I looked back to see that the others were all staring at me as Lila took me away, excluding Marinette, of course, who was still busy writing. Sighing, I looked to the front. Lila had led us to a vending machine, and she was now frantically searching for money in her purse. I accidentally looked inside her purse to see that she barely had enough money for a drink.
"Do you need help?"
Lila looked up at me, putting a little bit of her hair behind her ear. "Uh, yeah. Thank you."
I took out my wallet and got out the amount of money Lila needed, before handing it to her. While putting my wallet away, I suddenly heard voices behind us. I turned around to see a bunch of people whispering and pointing over at us, and I heard a few words one of them had said.
"Is that his girlfriend?"
I gulped, knowing what they were talking about. They're misunderstanding us! As I turned around to tell them Lila wasn't my girlfriend, I suddenly felt a pair of arms around my neck. I gulped again, knowing Lila had suddenly hugged me in front of everyone, probably on purpose too, to make people misunderstand more. I grabbed her arms and gently threw them off away from me, her giving me a confused look. Feeling guilty, I turned back around and started walking back to the table.
I got to the table, while Lila was still behind, walking so slowly. I should have known that something like this was going to happen. Of course people were going to recognize me, and start a rumor that Lila was my girlfriend just because we went to get a drink together. Clenching my fists at the mistake I had made, I looked down at the table.
"She did it on purpose," Alya whispered over to me, Marinette hearing it as well and looking up. "She hugged you like that on public just to have everyone talk about you two. She probably actually has a crush on you."
I knew her words made sense. What I didn't get was how a girl that used to despise me could suddenly start having a crush on me just because I gave her money. What I didn't get was how she was suddenly willing to be so close to me, and actually hug me just because of that Euro I gave her. It was just an Euro, it wasn't like I saved her from anything. Sighing out of frustration, I turned over to Marinette, but for some reason, she was still acting cold.
"Hey," I shook her shoulder, wanting to make her look up at me. She didn't. And that was when I got a sudden idea. Lila had just got to our table and was now sitting down beside me, and there were still people watching us and whispering. I shook Marinette's shoulder again, this time much harder, and she looked up. Then, taking my chance, I leaned in closer and pecked her lips.
It took everyone by surprise; I could tell everyone were now watching me with bugged eyes, even Lila herself, who was behind me, had her hand clasped against her mouth, acting like I had just committed a crime. I leaned in closer to Marinette again and whispered in her ear, "please play along." Her eyes widened with realization, before she nodded her head and hugged me, giving me a kiss on the cheeks while at it.
"It seems like we were wrong. The baker's daughter is his girlfriend. That other girl may have just been a friend of his."
I smiled a little to hear that my plan had worked. I'd rather have everyone think that Marinette was my girlfriend instead of Lila. I backed away from Marinette after that, knowing I would have to face a serious consequence later on. Lila, on the other hand, suddenly stood up from the table, packed up, and left the restaurant.