#[twirling my hair] girl u are so awful and only getting worse. are u free this weekend

[red-dyed-sarumane]

realizing it sounds like i dont like the unplanned apoptosis chara. i adore her as a character she fascinates & amuses me shes easily one of my top fave charas in the series. i'll be her number 1 defender. she did all those bad things and more but shes pretty so she gets a pass. if i had to deal with her directly irl she would be the most annoying person on the planet however

[tsuki-chibi]

Passionfruit (November) Day 2: Branch

Read the whole story on AO3: Passionfruit

————

When Adrien got up that morning, he actually wasn’t looking forward to Chloé’s party at all. Though it would be nice to have some time outside the house, and out from under Nathalie’s watchful eye, he didn’t relish the thought of spending several hours being dragged around by Chloé. It had been with a heavy heart that he got dressed in a suit and left.

Now, as he started at the petite girl in front of him, he was stuck somewhere between shock and disbelief - but he could feel bubbles of elation starting to rise up in his chest as the truth sank in. He’d noticed the black-haired, blue-eyed slip of a girl in the uniform before, but Chloé had carefully steered him in another direction.

Oh my god I’m so sorry I ruined your tie

Part of Adrien had frozen as soon as she said those words - his words - out loud. Yet he’d responded automatically, and apparently said her words. The unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, feeling at the back of his mind was proof of that. He poked at it tentatively and the girl squeaked.

“U-um,” the girl - Marinette, if Chloé could be believed - stuttered. She looked like she was going to faint.

“Let’s go out on the balcony,” Adrien said. It didn’t seem like anyone had noticed what had happened besides Chloé. He wanted to keep it that way.

“What about me?” Chloé said, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout. Adrien knew her well enough to know that pout wasn’t entirely manufactured. In spite of the fact that he and Chloé were clearly not soulmates, he thought that Chloé had always harbored a hope that a miracle might happen.

“Maybe find someone to clean up the mess?” Adrien suggested. “That would be really helpful.”

Chloé’s pout deepened but she gave a reluctant nod. Marinette seemed frozen, so Adrien dropped a hand onto her shoulder and gently steered her through the crowd and out onto one of the smaller balconies. He closed the door behind them to give them some privacy, hoping his bodyguard wouldn’t come looking.

Then he turned to Marinette and said, “Marinette - that’s your name, right?”

She nodded slowly. “And you’re Adrien Agreste.”

He winced, immediately thinking that she was one of his fangirls, but Marinette plowed on without waiting for an answer.

“I admire your father’s work so much. I can’t believe his son is my soulmate!” Marinette exclaimed to herself. “I knew you looked familiar. I’ve seen you modeling his stuff.”

Adrien cocked his head, intrigued. “You’re a fan of my father’s work?”

“I like designing clothes,” Marinette explained. “I - oh shit. Please tell me that tie wasn’t a Gabriel original.” Her face went ashen.

“Uhh...” Adrien said. His instinct was to lie and say that it wasn’t, but this was his soulmate. There couldn’t be any lies between them now. She’d be able to pluck the truth right out of his head, and that was if she couldn’t just straight-up tell as he spoke.

“Oh my god!” Marinette moaned. “This is a disaster. Your father is gonna hate me!” She covered her face with her hands. “Then I’ll never be his intern and I’ll never get a place in the fashion world and I’ll have to settle for selling my clothes online!”

Adrien blinked at her. “I can just say I dropped something on my tie,” he said politely.

Marinette spread her fingers so she could peek up at him. “I don’t wanna get you in trouble.”

“It’s okay. Really, I...” Adrien trailed off. This was unorthodox, but he had to ask. “I would prefer if we didn’t tell anyone we were soulmates.”

Her eyes widened as her hands fell, and a jolt of hurt snapped out across the bond like a branch of lightning to stab Adrien in the heart. He recoiled like he’d been slapped and frantically shook his head, realizing she’d gotten the wrong idea.

“No! It’s not because of you! It’s - I mean -” Flailing, because he lacked the words necessary to adequately explain, he gathered up everything and just sort of... thrust all those emotions and memories at the new warmth in the back of his head.

Marinette flinched a bit, her cheeks flushing as the overload hit her. Adrien instantly regretted throwing all that on her without even asking first, but it was too late now. He stood quietly by, watching as she sorted through the bits and pieces that made up his reasoning.

Number one were the fangirls. Adrien’s career as a model had taken off when he was about seven, but in the last couple of years the scope of his work had changed. His target market was now pre-teens and teenagers, and it was working a little too well if you asked him. He’d been mobbed more than once, and the amount of fan mail he got was crazy. He was genuinely afraid for Marinette’s safety if some of those people found out who she was.

Number two was his father, who was a control freak if there ever was one. Everything about Adrien’s life was strictly controlled, from what he ate to what he wore to how he acted. All in the name of protecting the Gabriel brand. Adrien did not want his soulmate having to put up with that, and that’s exactly what Gabriel would demand.

Number three was also Gabriel, but in a different way. Ever since Adrien’s mother passed away, Gabriel’s attitude towards soulmates had drastically soured. He didn’t want anything to do with the concept, and worse he openly criticized everything about it. It wouldn’t be out of character for Gabriel to decide he didn’t want Adrien to have anything to do with Marinette and ban them from seeing each other.

He might even force Adrien to go to one of those places that could build artificial shields to keep contact between soulmates from happening. They were supposed to be for children who were too young when they found their soulmates, or for people who, for whatever reason, didn’t want that mental connection. But Gabriel wouldn’t care about that. He’d pay whatever money it took to keep Adrien’s mind locked up until Adrien was of age.

His body was already a prisoner. Adrien couldn’t bear the thought of his mind being held prisoner too. Like many people, he’d always dreamed of finding his soulmate. The thought of finding the one person out there who had been made just for him, and who he had been made for, had carried him through many long, lonely nights.

“Oh,” Marinette said softly when she was through. “Your father sucks.”

Adrien chuckled. “That’s an understatement. It’s not about you, really. It’s...”

“I get it. It’s okay,” Marinette said. “I don’t want that to happen either.” She smiled slightly. “I’m okay with keeping it a secret. My parents will freak out and be really overbearing. I bet they’ll try to go talk to your dad.”

He winced at the thought, but said, “Are you sure? I don’t wanna push you into anything you don’t want.”

“I’m sure. It can be like our little secret. We can exchange phone numbers and talk or video call,” Marinette said, clearly warming to the idea. “And talk mentally too.” She grinned.

“I would love that,” Adrien said, relieved to his core. He’d been a little afraid that Marinette would want to put shields of her own up, or expect him to do that. His parents always had shields between them.

“But... oh. Chloé knows,” Marinette said reluctantly.

“Is that a problem?” Adrien asked.

Marinette furrowed her eyebrows in concentration. He wasn’t sure what she was doing until suddenly a bunch of thoughts and feelings that didn’t belong to him flowed into his head. It was a weird feeling, though not necessarily a bad one.

He frowned to himself as he felt Marinette’s emotions towards Chloé. Contempt, frustration, even a bit of fear. And through Marinette’s eyes, he watched a couple of memories wherein Chloé truly acted like a spoiled brat. In one, she loudly taunted Marinette’s art project until Marinette ran away crying. In another, she picked a fight that ended up with Marinette in trouble and Chloé getting away scot-free after threatening to whine to her daddy.

“We’re not exactly best friends,” Marinette said quietly. “Chloé picks on me a lot.” She crossed her over her chest and looked away.

Adrien tried not to scowl. “Chloé was the only person my parents would let me spend time with when I was a little. Without her, I wouldn’t have had any friends. I know that she isn’t always nice to people, but I never thought... I’m sorry, Marinette.”

“It’s not your fault,” Marinette said.

“No, but I still feel awful. Unfortunately, Chloé’s known what my words were since we were kids. We compared words when we were six to see if we’d match.” They hadn’t, obviously. In retrospect, Adrien was suddenly very grateful for that.

“Oh.” Marinette was quiet for a moment, staring out over the balcony.

Their bond wasn’t developed enough for Adrien to know what she was thinking unless she directly pushed the thought at him. But he could feel that she was unsettled. Worried. Nervous. All things that he himself was feeling, so that it was magnified.

“I’ll talk to her,” he said firmly. “I’m Chloé’s friend. She knows what my dad is like. She’ll understand why we want to keep it secret.” And he would also be talking to her about the other thing. He wasn’t going stand by while someone bullied his soulmate!

“Okay,” Marinette said, not fully believing him but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Should we exchange numbers, then?”

Adrien nodded eagerly and took out his phone. She took out hers and they swapped. He entered his information and snapped a selfie of himself; Marinette did the same before giving his phone back. She gave him a shy smile, twirling one of her pigtails.

“I should probably get back to work before my parents wonder where I am,” she said.

“Okay,” Adrien said. “So... talk later?”

Marinette giggled and thought, directly at him, ‘Of course’.

Adrien blushed and smiled sheepishly. ‘Until then,’ he thought back, and it wasn’t as hard as he’d expected. The thought just slipped easily between them.

She crinkled her fingers in a little wave and disappeared through the door. Adrien sighed and leaned against the railing, looking down at her contact information. She had saved herself as Mari, no last name. He touched the screen over her name, then traced her picture

Marinette. God he was lucky.