32: Chaos

Adrien's―or Chat Noir's talk with D'Angelo took longer than he expected. His only agenda was to ask for help so he could be of help, which ended up into a very long talk. Although the talk was beneficial in a way, he feels like he had aged 30 years in the span of hours.

After the boy had transformed back behind a pillar, he ran immediately inside the school. He was planning on heading back home first to freshen up then go to Kagami for the afternoon, but he had forgotten that he left his bag in the classroom thus the detour.

He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, but before he could reach the top, he was intercepted with Alya and Nino with their bags on, arms crossed, looking unimpressed.

"Hey, guys." He managed a weak smile.

"hEy?" yelled Alya, "Where have you been?"

"Good afternoon to you too, mother." He thought to himself. He didn't dare say that out loud or Alya would have possibly whacked him.

Adrien glanced pleadingly to Nino hoping his best friend could assist him with the situation.

Nino shifted his stance, "Come on man. Alya's right. You were gone for the whole afternoon when you said you were just gonna pick up a call. Where were you?"

Adrien took the last step of the staircase and decided to face them properly, "Sorry." His eyes drooped. "I can't say much since it would be breaching of the deal and it's highly confidential."

He noticed they still looked unsatisfied with the explanation so he tried the shorter version.

"I had a meeting."

Alya and Nino's expressions softened. They both backed up exchanging glances before deciding to entertain the excuse.

"Oh. Something going on with work?" Nino asked.

Adrien wasn't lying when he said it was highly confidential nor was the fact that being Chat Noir is a job, so he went for a light shrug and nod to supply the thought.

"Yeah."

Alya sighed, pinching her nosebridge, "Well if it was work then I guess it couldn't be helped. It isn't unusual for you to leave for work, but.." her voice trailed as she turned to Nino.

"But what?" He said. Adrien then realized the clock on the wall being still 40 minutes before the end of last period.

"Guys," he called, which made the two stare at him, "Isn't class still going on? Why are you both out of the classroom?"

Alya turned pale, "Actually..."

Nino stepped forward and started narrating what happened after Adrien had left. He told him about the principal's announcement about the ball and how Chloe managed to boss everyone around leaving the class no choice since it was a major school project.

Alya was glad that Nino left out the part where Marinette was taunted by Chloe assigning her the most difficult part of the show. This wasn't the first time she felt proud of Nino for being sensitive, but she felt relieved that he didn't make Marinette look weak and unable to protest to Chloe unlike how she usually stands up for herself. In the end, Adrien still is Chloe Bourgeios childhood friend.

Adrien's nose crunched up, "A dance theater and I'm the prince?"

He sounded horrified and Nino felt glad he felt the same.

"And Chloe is the princess." Nino added.

Adrien's shoulders sagged. He felt as if the gods had finally decided to let him carry the sky and he was out cold during the deliberation. He was only gone for a few hours and things have already escalated to this.

"I mean, I'm not surprised with you Adrien being the prince and all but...the casting of the princess?" Alya opened her mouth like she was about to gag.

"Do you even dance bro?" Nino said wearily.

Adrien shrugged. "Well, I think I can manage. I did have a few dance classes before."

"As expected." said Alya in a smug grin.

"That's cool bro." Nino pointed hand guns at him.

"But what about you guys?"

"Lady in waiting." said Alya, obviously not enjoying the thought of her being Chloe's on screen servant.

"I get to be a tree!" rejoiced Nino.

Adrien laughed. "You're gonna be an awesome tree, man." He said fist bumping with Nino.

Although the two looked like they were enjoying the talk about the ball, Adrien noticed how Alya still wasn't looking too well.

"You look like you're going to be sick." Adrien commented.

"Am I?" she whimpered.

"Yeah. Oh but, I was going to get my things from the classroom, maybe you guys wanna come with―"

"DON'T!" yelled Alya and Nino in unison.

Adrien's eyes flew open holding his hands up. Their yell reverberated like a siren all over the hallway, "Woah! Okay? Wow! What was that all about?" his voice trembled.

"Nothing." Alya nervously grinned.

"Nothing and yet the two of you are acting suspicious."

Adrien glanced behind them and noticed the classroom was somehow deserted. Not to mention the lack of people downstairs was quite alarming.

He glanced to Nino, "I thought the afternoon was spent preparing for the ball? Where are the others?"

Nino tensed, "You see..uhmm..there had been a few complications.." His eyes started flying around.

"What complications?" He grumbled. "And why are you both trying to stop me from going in there?"

Alya's thoughts started to race. She knew Marinette was still crossed with Adrien and having him possibly getting all worried and unnecessarily bug her about it would just annoy her best friend even more.

However, she also felt that eventually Adrien will know of the situation and that it's better to just tell him of it.

In the heat of the situation, Nino started spouting a bunch of broken phrases that did not make sense. He began talking about ponies and reindeers in the same sentence which had made both Adrien and Alya cringe from the idea.

"Alright, that's enough." Alya held Nino's shoulder.

The two boys looked stunned at her calm expression.

"You see Adrien, we have a problem." She inhaled sharply. "Marinette was assigned―no." She exhaled, her palms pressed to each other. "Marinette was ordered by Chloe to design and make the costumes of the cast for the show all by herself."

"What?!" Adrien exclaimed. "That's insane! I mean, not that I don't think she can do it but that's a lot of uncommissioned work!"

Alya expected that. "Right? Originally it was supposed to be only Chloe's and yours but the queen has spoken to her subjects with the approval of her father and mother's will. Marinette respects Chloe's mother so much that she couldn't even snap back at Chloe like how she usually does."

Adrien's expression turned dark. "I'll talk to Chloe."

"No!" Alya prompted. "If there's anything in this situation that you will not do, that is talking to Chloe about this."

"If there is anyone who can talk some sense into Chloe, that will be me. Having Marinette do all that alone will break her."

"We know that." Alya gave Nino a slight glance. The boy nodded.

"We know that Adrien." She repeated. "But you can't have Marinette get more annoyed of you right now."

His shoulders slumped, "She...She's that angry at me?"

"We really don't know dude." Nino sighed. "She looked like she was on a warpath when we came back to the classroom at lunch. She didn't look good."

"At any rate," Alya muttered. "Let's not do anything to aggravate the situation. The girls and I have a plan on helping her, but for now we should just do what we're supposed to do."

The two boys nodded.

"Especially you, Adrien." Alya added, which had him pointing at himself innocently.

"Yes you. You have a tendency to act on an impulse. Let's not make things worse than it already is." She said weakly with sad eyes.

They gave each other weary looks as if coming up with a silent agreement.

"Is she...?" said Adrien hesitantly.

"Still in there? Yeah." Alya reported. "The class ended about an hour ago and she looked like she was going to lose it. Nino and I tried talking to her but she wasn't responding, so we decided to leave her alone."

Adrien curled his lip. "Do you think I can..?"

Alya mustered a smile. "Yeah. You're just picking up your things right?"

"Mhhmm." Adrien nodded.

"Just get it quick before she notices you were even around."

"Which I doubt." Nino added flailing his hand on the air. "Her eyes looked misty when we left her―Ow! Why'd you pinch me Alya?!"

"At any rate," she chided, "Just try to keep it minimal, alright?"

Adrien's skin crawled. Alya looks really scary when she gets annoyed. He began to wonder how Nino manages to ease her temper when the boy can hardly get a clue most of the time. Not that he was any better at not being thick, but he thinks he's got better instincts than Nino. Maybe Plagg's feline instincts have been brushing off on him.

He watched Alya and Nino walk down the stairs waving at him. He managed to wave back at his friends before he decided to turn around ready to head to the classroom.

Plagg pops out from his sleeve, hovering over to his face. The little guy's face looked extremely worried.

"Are you sure you want to go in there? We can wait for her to leave."

Adrien arched an eyebrow. "I just have to get my bag. I'm meeting Kagami today and I can't be late. Besides, aren't you worried of Wayzz? We left him in there. He must be hungry."

"I AM worried of Wayzz but you heard your friends right? That girl Marinette sounded like she was in a bad mood."

Adrien chuckled. The idea of Marinette getting mad, suddenly looked cute in his head. Quite odd, he thought.

"Since when did you start fearing Marinette?"

Plagg didn't answer.

"Don't worry. It's just Marinette. I'll just grab my bag and leave. If she wants to talk then I'll talk." He said walking past Plagg.

"It is because it's Marinette, Adrien." Plagg whispered to himself.

Plagg knew how Marinette was when stressed. He's been with her a lot to know that and mastered the way on how to not annoy her even more. Knowing she's been pushed to another corner this time, Plagg had a bad feeling about it.

Although that was the initial thought, Plagg still had to follow Adrien. The boy was not only oblivious to his feelings but most of the time that also applied to his surroundings which had Plagg worried of him for some time now. He trailed behind his partner, carefully keeping a distance.

Adrien on the other hand had a lot on his mind during this walk to the classroom. He began to remember their time inside the closet when he tried to pull Marinette close. He then remembered her flushed face when she stormed off looking extremely pissed at him which did not make him feel better. His mind then trailed off to the talk he had with D'Angelo this afternoon. His heart began to throb painfully like the nail that had impalled him earlier had sunk deeper.

"Don't think about that right now." He muttered to himself.

He was close to the classroom when his ears have caught up to a nearby voice. He looked around to see if there was anyone else, but it was only him. He slowly crept closer outside the classroom and realized it was coming from inside. He thought about how Alya said Marinette was alone and got curious to who she was talking to.

"Possibly a phone call." He thought to himself. But it sounded urgent and serious which made him more curious.

Adrien decided to push his back against the wall just beside the classroom's back window to get a clearer sound.

"What are you doing?" Plagg whispered with conviction in his tone. Adrien responded with his finger pushed on his lips.

"Shhh. It'll be awkward to go in while she's having a call. I'll wait for her to finish."

"Wha- What?! But isn't this eavesdropping?" Plagg chided.

Adrien shrugged. He wasn't really planning on eavesdropping, but it did seem like that now. He wasn't confident enough to butt in and cut her conversation, plus it sounded really important.

"It'll be fine." He whispered back to Plagg. "We'll just be here until she's done then we go in and snatch my bag. Easy peezy."

That did not sound good to the black cat.

Adrien decided to passively listen and wait for her voice to die down before he goes in. Surely, that will make it look like he just dropped by. But that plan of his jumped out of the window when a deeper and accented voice had replied to Marinette.

"I'm glad you had told him everything." She said.

"He didn't like the idea at first but eventually the little one had him calm down." the voice replied.

Marinette sighed. "He's usually like that when he's with the mask but hearing that from you made me realize he's a lot differrent when people aren't around. Although, I do wish he acts more like himself when he's out of the mask. It's harder to interact when he acts like two different people."

Adrien's mental gears started moving as if a hundred dozen rusted coils have been revived. His heart was pounding like he just came back from a marathon.

"With or without mask? Like a persona? Two different people?" He mumbled. "What is she talking about?"

Plagg, who is seeing and hearing all that is currently happening started to panic. He doesn't want to admit it but he understood what Marinette had meant.

"Adrien, maybe we should leave now." He said pleadingly in his tiny quivering voice.

He was hoping for Adrien to say "Okay, maybe we should." or "I shouldn't listen so let's wait downstairs." and they would straight up abandon the whole thing. But Plagg knew he wouldn't be getting an obedient reply.

"Adrien?" Plagg tried calling for him, but he was too stunned to reply.

"With or without the mask. She's talking about me annoying her isn't she?" He repeated then shot his eyes at Plagg, "I have to see who she's talking to."

"No!" Plagg scolded in a whisper. "You aren't thinking straight! This is a bad idea."

Adrien crunched his forehead, "Why? Is there something I shouldn't know? I can't get her to talk to me properly so this will do."

Before Plagg could even protest, Adrien lunged to the floor crawling over to the window nearest to the door.

"What. An. Idiot." Plagg grumbled.

"Plagg!" He called in his raspy whisper. The black kwami floated towards him with his shoulders slumped.

"Is she facing towards here?"

Plagg sighed then took a peek from the window then went back at him.

"No." He replied in a devastated tone, which bothered Adrien but he waved the idea aside.

((A/N: Inside Plagg's head: Marinette is going to kill me for this.))

Truly, when he crept up the frame, Marinette was facing the other way, away from the where he was. He was glad of it but then he couldn't see who she was talking to.

"Haven't you had enough?" said Plagg who was sprawled out on the floor beside him.

"Just a little more. I have to know what she thinks about me."

"Sure, kid. Knock yourself out." said Plagg sarcastically.

Although Adrien still couldn't see properly, the shift of positions, had made their voices clearer from that angle.

Adrien got a few phrases about attitude and perseverance from the exchange of voices. There were a few bits of whispers and grunting, but most of the time he had to decipher some words which sounded like chicken, cheese and something about a box. He often pulled himself down whenever Mari moved and shifted in her seat. A flood of worry would wash over him fearing that he might get caught. But that did not faze him. He was sick and tired of always having to figure out what was going on in her head and how he could help her. He knew he was a major factor of her turmoils which made him feel more responsible of assisting her with it. He tried a few advances with her but he would always fail. Now that he has the chance of understanding Marinette, he's not going to let this opportunity pass.

"You're going to regret this." said Plagg.

He ignored him.

Adrien believed his intentions were good. His head was on high gear and was eager to learn from what he is about to hear. He didn't see any reason for regret to come along nor did it feel wrong to be there at that moment. But like what most say, you should never speak too soon. Plagg had tried to warn him not to push for things too much, but the boy had already seen and heard something more than what he had intended to discover.