21. Day 2 Part 6
With a stunned, shaking finger pointed at her bag, and a reciprocal nod back from Zzubo as the faithful kwami dived in there, Chloe was caught in two minds about her present quandary.
On the one hand, she was excited beyond mere words that Adrien Agreste, the world famous catwalk star, son of the famous fashion designer Gabriel, and her childhood friend had gone to all the trouble to locate the heiress and comfort her in her hour of need. In your face, Maritrash!
The downside was, he was currently outside the ladies bathroom, wanting to enter as if it was the most natural thing in the world. This couldn't be rational behaviour, did this mean that the love of her life was… a deviant pervert? All the teenage dreams she had of him, of a perfect gentleman in a top hat and tails, began to fade…
No! It can't possibly be true! I'm sure there's some perfectly logical explanation why he'd deign to gain admittance to this most sacred and private of sanctuaries! I'll go and speak to him… yes, I will, and find out just what his game is! Then, if I disagree with his reasoning, I'll beat the living snot out of him later. Not too much , though… I don't want to damage his career…
Straightening down her clothes after her unexpected body slam at the hairy arms of a tiny bee creature (oh, the shame of it) Chloe paused briefly in front of a nearby mirror to straighten out any imperfections in her seamless appearance (not finding any, of course) before she tenatively made her way to the entrance to find out just what her intended's motivation was for being there.
"W-what do you want, Adrien?!"
"We need to talk, Chloe. Now."
"This is the female restroom, Adrien. Has someone removed the F and the E from the sign outside again, for a prank? I swear it wasn't me, this time…"
"No, Chloe. I know where I am. I just figured I'd take the chance you were in here all by yourself, so we could have a little chat. Are you?"
"Y-yes, but this is still highly inappropriate…"
"I'll wing it. If anyone else comes in, just say you saw a spider in one of the stalls, and I was helping you to remove it."
"A-Adrikins, you make me sound like some kind of pathetic coward…"
"Oh, so it wasn't you who practically screamed the place down at my house that time, when you got a daddy long-legs caught in your precious hair…?"
"Aargh! Shut up! Shut up! I've had more than enough secrets spread around this crappy school for one day, thanks. You've won. Congratulations. Come in if you must, but let me state for the record in advance, I'm not happy about this at all."
"Duly noted."
With that brief, feisty exchange, the door was swung open gingerly, and a very sheepish looking Adrien Agreste stood hesitantly in the corridor, scratching the back of his head and trying to muster up the courage to take a few more steps forward inside the location where 'No Man Has Gone Before'.
Now it was Chloe's turn to lose patience with her old friend. "Are you coming in, or what?" she tapped her foot on the floor, while staring at him expectantly.
The heiress's question seemed to jog Adrien out of his state of inertia. "Uh? O-oh yeah, of course. I've gotten this far, might as well go the distance…"
Still with a distinct pall of trepidation set on his chiselled features, the model ventured into the usually out-of-bounds facility, his initial hesitation fading as he peered around at his surroundings. "So, this is it, eh? The legend itself… I must say, it's a lot cleaner and shinier than what I'm used to… and hey, is that a blow dryer over there? Why don't we have one of those babies?! Not every boy wants to go around looking like a slob, you know… that's gender stereotyping from the school board, that is. I've got a good mind to complain…"
"You do that, and you'll have my full support, believe me…" Chloe fumed, while crossing her arms in frustration. "But first, if you don't mind, you might wanna, I don't know… tell me what the heck you're doing in here!"
"Oh yeah, sorry…" Adrien's wandering brain once again had to be brought back down to Earth. "I basically just came down to make sure you're okay. You seemed pretty upset when you left the classroom, and the teacher kinda gave me permission to go after you. Judging by past incidents when you haven't got your way, I knew where you'd be, so it was just a case of crossing my fingers that you were on your own, and then plucking up the courage to actually cross over the threshold to uncharted territory. Looking around now makes me think my decision was totally worth it..."
"Glad to hear that I've given you and your buddies something to boast about under the bleachers. Maybe you'd like to take a few souvenir snaps..." the heiress sighed at Adrien's immaturity. "But if you're still worried about me, I'm afraid you've ran all the way over here for nothing. I feel absolutely fine, thank you very much. I wasn't even crying, I just had an eyelash stuck in my cornea. I've sorted it out now, so shall we just go back, with no further discussion?"
"Both eyes?" Adrien inquired, skeptically.
"H-hey, it happens…" Chloe chuckled nervously, trying to cover up the tension in her voice. Sorry to lie to you Adrikins, but I really can't be dealing with this right now…
The heiress quickly turned away from her friend to pick up her bag, expecting him to go first and open the door for her like the polite, attentive chap he was.
That was until a determined voice rang out from behind her, that gave the blonde girl such a jolt she dropped her hold-all to stare at the speaker slack-jawed in amazement. Just four words is all it took.
"I don't believe you."
What?! Chloe was completely aghast, her mind speeding at a thousand miles per hour. Adrien has never accused me of telling fibs before. He always trusts me 100%, doesn't bother to protest anything and is quite happy to sit back while I do my thing. What could be going through his… ah, I see where this is going! It's that blue-haired twit spreading her malicious lies about me again. Honestly, that girl has no scruples! Not only is she trying to steal my man, but constantly denigrating me in front of him, too. So much for the Sisterhood. Well, not to worry, I'll soon put him straight on this unfortunate matter…
Before the heiress could flap open her maw to utter another syllable though, her crush had a few other things to say… and this time, he wasn't going to be stopped.
"I know exactly who you're about to blame…" Adrien's voice suddenly turned deadly serious. "You can get that false notion out of your head,right now. True, Marinette is more opinionated these days, but that's because of her gradual increase of self-confidence, something that she's been working at for months. She'd never dream of telling me to run my life or dictate what to say to my friends, though... unlike a certain other individual, I have to point out…"
Realising her bluff wasn't proving effective and unable to turn the model against her nemesis, Chloe decided to return to a more tried and tested formula of garnering sympathy. "O-oh, Adrien…" she cried out, allowing the waterworks to flow once more. " Y-you're absolutely correct, I am upset. Everyone in that class hates me, and I don't know why. Please give me a nice, warm hug, like the ones you used to when we were younger. I had a terrible time in that classroom, you saw what happened when those nasty brutes all ganged up on me, I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. Those imbeciles will regret how they treated me, when I speak to my Daddy. Expect the suspensions tomorrow amongst our peers to reach at least double figures…"
During this juncture, Chloe opened her arms widely while closing her eyes, expecting the large gap that appeared to soon be occupied by a comforting teenage boy who'd whisper in her ear that everything would be okay, she shouldn't be worried, he'd always be there for her…
Except he didn't, and the Adrien-sized hole remained in front of her. After about thirty seconds of feeling a bit stupid, Chloe opened up her eyes a tad to see a distinctly unimpressed Adrien still in his original position, hands by his sides and ready to say something else.
"That's not going to work anymore Chloe, I'm afraid. For far too long now, I've been a casual bystander while you've been creating havoc around the school, reluctant to do the right thing because of our long history together. Well, that stops right now. Sabrina helped me realise that in my inaction, I'm not doing you or my classmates any favours at all, in fact you might even say I've been a passive enforcer. So from this point onwards, you're going to hear a lot of things you won't like from me whenever you mess up, as hard as it might be for you to adjust. Because I care."
Her usual attempts to elicit sympathy being complete failures, Chloe was at a total loss as to what to do next. She staggered backwards blindly, unable to quite process this unbelievable chain of events, nearly falling over a mop bucket while doing so. Fortunately, the newly uncompromising Adrien caught her just in time, and she was reduced to numb silence as he carried on his speech, holding both of her arms in his hands, his gaze never wavering from hers for a micro-second.
"Another thing I have to mention while I have the chance… all of the unwanted public displays of affection. They have to stop. They make me feel so uncomfortable, but you never seem to notice. You're my friend Chloe, not my girlfriend, and the way you behave sometimes, I wonder if you're even that. I could never fall in love with someone who bullies and insults the people in my life to the extent that you do. You're lucky we have such a long history together and I hadn't met you for the first time when I arrived here, or I don't think I'd even be giving you the time of day…"
Chloe quickly went from mild nausea, to wanting to throw up there and then. Adrien...How could you… all of my hopes and dreams… gone forever… I have nothing left to live for…
Luckily, she was in the perfect locale to empty the contents of her stomach, but as she attempted to wriggle free to perform the unpleasant task, the model carried on holding her in a firm grip, eager to preserve the moment and finish off what he'd started.
"I'm very sorry I had to confront you like this Chloe, and if you don't want to carry on being my friend I'll totally understand. But I felt responsible, as one of the people who knows you the best, to put things into perspective. You're a beautiful, intelligent girl, with more potential than you realise, but right now you're just spoiling yourself. Your father isn't helping matters, either. I know you've been to hell and back, but if you'd just try and open up a bit, there are so many other people who could help you…"
"NNNNOOOOOO!" Thanks to the power of pure adrenaline, Chloe was able to wrest free from Adrian's firm grasp and grab him by the scruff of the neck, even managing to pin him up against the wall in her demented ire. "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT TO ANYONE. NOT NOW, NOT EVER! IF I FIND OUT YOU'VE SAID ANYTHING I'LL… I'LL… SET MY FRIEND ON YOU, AND SHE'S MIGHTIER THAN THE WHOLE SCHOOL PUT TOGETHER!"
Extremely frightened at this point that his boyhood chum was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Adrien struggled to respond through his convulsed esophagus "W-what?!" *COUGH* "S-Sabrina is that powerful?" *WHEEZE*
"SHUT UP!" Came the angry retort, as the heiress continued to harangue the model. "IF THAT'S HOW YOU REALLY FEEL, THEN FINE! I DON'T CARE! THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF BOYS DADDY COULD INTRODUCE ME TO THAT WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO BE THE FUTURE MR BOURGEOIS, SO I WON'T EVER BE LONELY! IN FACT, I MIGHT EVEN MEET ONE NEXT WEEK AT THE PARTY, THAT I'LL MAKE SURE YOU'RE UNINVITED FROM NOW! IF YOU'D RATHER HUNT AROUND IN THE GARBAGE FOR YOUR DATES, OBVIOUSLY YOU'RE NOT THE PERSON I THOUGHT YOU WERE! CONSIDER THIS THE END OF WHATEVER FRIENDSHIP WE EVER HAD. NOW, IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I HAVE A CLASS FULL OF DROOLING IDIOTS LIKE YOU TO GET BACK TO. FEEL FREE TO JOIN ME WHEN YOU'VE FINISHED PERVING IN HERE!"
With that final verbal blast, Chloe dropped Adrien like a bad habit, marched over to the door and flung it wide open, almost flattening Lila in the process. "OUTTA MY WAY, LOSER!"
The Italian exchange student stared with disgust at the blonde girl as she stormed off, before noticing a dazed Adrien pick himself up off the floor. "Hey, why are you in here?! Also, what's up with the bimbo? Is she having her 'time of the month', or something…?"
"Wow… so strong. Who'd have thought it, on a diet of Ryvita crackers and air..." the model remarked, completely nonplussed. He soon recalled the gravity of the situation though, and ignored Lila as he pursued his former friend with breathless vigour. "Chloe, come back! I didn't mean…"
Aghast at being made to feel so invisible, Lila nevertheless was highly intrigued by what she'd just witnessed. "Hmm… very interested…" She contemplated the possible reasons for such an explosive fracas as she took a few steps inside the bathroom, before almost tripping over a large lump on the floor. "Who's leaving their junk lying... Hello, what do we have here?"
Sitting there unattended, was a plush velvet bag. With no name tag.
" I wonder who you belong to…" Lila smirked, as she reached out.
Author's note: That's yer lot for now. Get ready for more twists, turns and annoying cliffhangers ahead, as the plot doesn't just thicken, it solidifies. Ciao. :)