Chapter Text
The music stopped for a second when a message popped up on Juleka’s phone, it resumed playing Rockodiles’ long awaited latest album. Luka’s face was already half annoyed with the constant interruptions even before Juleka’s foot nudged the device from the opposite side of the bed.
“Can you pick it up, please? Yours are already dry.” She looked up from her own hands, working the polish on her nails with a small brush, glancing at her brother who was bobbing his head to the sound, almost in trance.
“Oh.” He blinked, then stretched his hand to the nightstand, the phone lit up. “It’s Rose, she is asking if she can come over.” Luka resists a smirk.
"And can she?"
Luka doesn’t miss the hopeful tone of her voice and fully smiles, even if he was only some minutes older than his sister, he was the one their mom left in charge of the house when she was gone. Anarka was starting to trust more in Juleka’s sense of responsibility, in a way, but they really weren’t making an effort to change the status quo.
"Of course." He said, softly "I think I'll be out today; it’s been a while since I’ve spent a day with Giannino" The thought of leaving the cozy space on the warm bed almost made him groan, but he figured Juleka would enjoy spending time alone with her ‘friend’, also that the events of the last few months were making him negligent of his own tutor.
He spent a few minutes changing from his pajamas to his usual blue jacket, pocketed his keys and phone and left for the streets of Paris, heading to the corner of Rue de Rouvray that was so familiar to him, his mind couldn’t stop working while he walked.
Luka's Sunday afternoons were, more often than not, occupied by visits to the local luthier, who after a lot of insistence on Luka's part, finally agreed to take him in as an apprentice.
It took him two years of learning until he was confident in how to make an acoustic guitar, still it took him months of refining, his timing improved a lot since then (his own personal record was two weeks on an Electric Bass). He had to mentally slap himself every time he thought smugly about it, deep down he knew the quality of his work had a lot of room for improvement, and not nearly as good as the luthier said it was, Luka appreciated his kindness, nonetheless.
He was able to forget most of his troubles when he was occupied with something else, such as painting his nails with his sister or working on a wood instrument, as it seemed, but the sight of the crowded city brought back the issues he really wasn’t excited to deal with today, or tomorrow, or ever, to be honest.
Marinette was Ladybug, Adrien was Chat Noir. He wasn’t as surprised as he thought he ought to be, but this was probably because, in a way, this was very convenient for him.
Thinking Marinette broke up with him due to a lack of trust was a big factor of anxiety for Luka. The possibility simmered quietly on the back corner of his conscience until the discovery; what if she didn’t like him and only accepted dating out of pity? It sounded stupidly self-absorbed, even more so when knowing Marinette, but to now know he didn’t do anything wrong lit a slight speck of hope in his heart.
Who was he fooling? The slight speck was in all actuality a huge smear, a gigantic blob of hope that made his own chest burst at the thought, he was a hopeless romantic, and the current knowledge made him admire the girl more than he esteemed possible.
But about Adrien, well, Luka barely knew the boy, and he was prone to doubt the little information he got through Marinette as the rose-tinted glasses in which she saw him were not at all subtle. In the few times they were able to talk, Luka heard, just behind his voice, a melody that got progressively sadder as time passed. Luka had a suspicion it didn’t have to do with his identity at all, in fact, Chat Noir always seemed much happier than the boy behind the mask.
The doorbell rang as he opened the door, Mr. Giannino looked up from the violin he was carving, expecting a customer, but his smile demonstrated that what he saw was tenfold better.
“Luka, Bambino! Forgot about me?” He clumsily lifted from his wooden stool, his slightly oversized belly grazed the side of a table and moved the handle of the violin he had just laid down. "I was just now counting on my fingers the number of days you left me all alone with this wood, you took so long I had to use my toes as well, and then I ran out of fingers to count! Where have you been?”
The bristles of Giannino’s moustache tickled Luka’s neck as he bent down to give him a quick hug, not forgetting to greet the man with a warm smile, he closed his eyes at the familiar sensation.
“I’m sorry, Geppetto, got a lot happening in my life lately” The smell of wood and rosin welcomed him before Luka had even glanced at the inside of the shop, his eyes skimmed over Giannino and scanned the atelier, always covered in the same shades of brown, black and red. “I missed you.” Luka said both to him and the place itself.
“Oh, I see! Got those young people’s troubles, I figure. Problems too big to care for old men like me.” He waddled back to his working table, gesticulating as he always did, and even though he didn’t know what Luka was there for, he started pushing a few oak wood boards onto the table, softening his voice. “I missed you too, boy.”
They were close enough so that this kind of nitpick didn’t bother him at the slightest, he even smiled at the drama. Luka started to learn instrument crafting with him from a young age, the two grew especially close since he first walked into the store. “Today I just want to get my hands busy”, he mumbled absent mindedly.
The man gave him a slight shove, smiling playfully, “Got your head busy with girls, yes? I see, you remind me of my own boy, you know?” Luka’s ears accustomed to the buzzing of Giannino’s voice, turning it into background noise. “He was so successful among ladies that got two of them! No surprise being so handsome, so polite...”
Luka sighed in surrender; this was going to be a long day.
Adrien winded down from his pose for the thirtieth time, the shooting should have ended ages ago, but they were stuck on the same scene. Even during the unstoppable search for the perfect shot, the director noticed he grew less and less energetic by the minute.
She had to clean the camera lenses, the large fans were pushing dust everywhere, or so the director had told the crew so that Adrien could have a break, even though he knew the venue was thoroughly cleaned at least two times since the day prior; orders of Gabriel Agreste himself, Adrien supposed she was too scared of the looming figure to tell him his son needed a break, he couldn’t blame her.
The perfume visuals required that Adrien wore his hair soft and poufy, the fan blowing it back was supposed to make it look luxurious, Adrien felt anything but. His state made it so that even the tuxedo bothered his skin.
He picked up his phone as he sat on a plastic crew chair at the back of the venue, wiggling a little inside his stiff clothes, and resisting the itchiness on his face where the makeup was starting to cake. There were five messages from Nino.
We are planning to hang out at the park today, just to walk around, share some gossip and touch some grass, are you up? (10:13 AM)
By “we” I mean Alya, Marinette, Mylene, Ivan, Nathaniel (I think he convinced that shy boyfriend of his to go out with us), and we even managed to make Sabrina confirm (10:15 AM)
I guess you’re too busy to text lmao, but if you run away now you may still catch some snacks, Marinette brought us fresh scones and Mylene and Ivan bought some chips (2:31 PM)
[Group selfie] (3:15 PM)
We missed you here today, maybe I should talk to your dad again so maybe you can have fun once in your life man (3:31 PM)
Adrien felt like crying, but doing that would ruin his makeup, the feeling of being left out clenched at his heart even if he knew it was not true and the evidence stood right at the reach of his fingertips, that his friends, Nino the most, cared about him deeply.
Neither memory of affection; a large banner while he traveled from New York, a surprise birthday party, were sufficient to fully ground him in this reality, that he was loved, it was a hard thing to digest when it didn’t come from the inside as well.
He didn’t want to grow to resent his father, as he didn’t want to resent Ladybug, but the feeling of betrayal comes the most painful when caused by the people you love, and he knew if he overthought these situations even a little bit more, he would be past the point of no return.
Does Ladybug really need him, or does she just keep him around out of habit? Did she ever need him or did she, as the miraculous guardian, take the first opportunity to find herself heroes who are more competent?
As it seems, a gloomy face was just what they needed this perfume to resemble, because when he found himself back in his mind, Natalie was accompanying him to the Agreste Manor’s double entrance doors.
“Your father expects you to practice the piano until at least six o’clock, then we will start dinner, do you want it to be brought to your room, sir?” she asked in her emotionless tone.
“Yes, please, Natalie.” He smiled curtly, dismissing her with a gesture, and as soon as she turned his smile dropped.
When he arrived at his own room, he had to hold his urge to slam the door and throw himself at the bed to cry, Plagg immediately flew out of his tuxedo’s pocket, yawned and scratched himself as if just waking up from a nap. His expression faltered as he saw the look on his holder’s face.
“Why the long face?” he asked, trying to sound unbothered, but he knew Adrien, and his normal gaze was not of someone who was on the edge of tears.
“I don’t want any of this, Plagg, I want to do nothing, I want to sleep all day, all night.” He muttered angrily as he unlaced his perfectly polished shoes and threw them across the room, vaguely aiming at the locker. He started undoing his tie. “And I want to wake up only when I finally know what I am supposed to want!”
Adrien yanked the tie out of his neck with enough force to make the fabric screech, “Oh, so you got into that headspace...” Plagg was alarmed. “You’re young, you got plenty of time to figure it out.” Still, he tried to calm the boy down.
“I shouldn’t need ‘plenty of time’, Plagg!” His voice faltered for a second, but he quickly recomposed, gesticulating at the small kwami, who backed away. “I should already have the answer, I have tried so many different things already, but nothing ever made me happy.” He pressed the heels of his palms on his eyes. “I have no idea where to start, I was ready to throw myself at an akuma just to have the glimpse of an idea of who I could be!”
“You’re angry at what exactly, now?” It was a challenge for Plagg to assess the full situation, only knowing Adrien was not looking for a plausible solution, only for a wall to scream at. Plagg wasn’t usually put into situations in which he had to be the one in control.
“I’m angry at myself!” Adrien screamed and slammed the lower piano keys with his closed fist, which made a haunting sound. He tried to recompose his own breath but instead started to sob, his angry façade quickly slipping away as his left hand raised to his face to hide the tears, Plagg approached him again.
“Oh, oh dear, um...” Plagg looked around in distress, trying to find something to do or to say.
In a matter of beings, the kwami were a lot more straightforward, in order to cheer Plagg up, one should simply give him some Gruyère. “There, there...” He approached Adrien’s body with his own tiny one, trying to console him with a comforting hug he didn’t know how to give.
Adrien’s body gradually relaxed under his own awkward pats.
After some minutes Adrien managed to stand up and sit on the piano stool, deciding that today, after all, was the day he tried to practice instead of pretending to his father.
As soon as he reached the first key, however, there was only a wood knocking sound, and the same thing happened when he tried to play the next one, both very close to where his fist hit.
Delicate but firmly, as his former piano teacher told him to, he apprehensively moved to play a chord, there was a brief out of tune frequency, then the sound of a string snapping.
“Natalie!” He cried out, after a few seconds immobile in disbelief. “Natalie, I can’t play!”