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“We’re sorry, this number is not in service. If you feel that this is an error please redial and try again,” the monotone female voice cooly chimed.Adrien hung up. The lockscreen picture of his mother reappeared along with the current time: a quarter past six. “That’s not like Gorilla to be running this late. He’d usually text if he was. Not that he answers his phone anyway,” Adrien mused to himself.He looked over at Kagami. Her normally stiff posture loosened as her arms crossed over the fencing bag that sat on her lap. Chin sunk into the ridges of her knuckles. Head tilted slightly up as she directed her gaze out at the street before them. The cars passed by. Kagami watched, uninterested, with her gaze fixed at the middle of the road. The corner of her lips scrunched up to then flatten back to its neutral position.“I’ll just text dad and tell him I’ll walk home. He’ll hate that but it’s not like I have any other choice.”Kagami glanced over at Adrien.“You know you’re more than welcome get a ride with me,” she said.Kagami’s words came as a pleasant but unexpected surprise. Just as he was about to accept her offer, he remembered something she had told him before practice. “That’s nice! But aren’t you supposed to be going to that meeting with your mom? I wouldn’t wanna hold you up.”Kagami’s hands dug into the fencing bag. Her fingers sunk into the fabric, leaving little dents on the surface from where she pushed. The backs of her hands rose and shook. A turn of her head again and a coolness Adrien had never seen before glared back at him. The breeze that wafted past suddenly gave him chills. The steps underneath them felt as slippery as ice as his body pushed back into the fencing bag that rested next to him. The guilt and surprise tumbling inside him caught his fall and propelled him forward. His lips parted to find that his words had clumped up his his throat, twisting around each other so tightly that they couldn’t loosen up into sound. Then Kagami breathed. The grasp on her bag loosened. She thawed. “Adrien I need you to be honest with me,” she struggled to keep her composure in her tone of voice. “Yeah?”Kagami’s eyelids fluttered. The bottom of her lip quivered. “Do you like me?”Adrien gave her a confused look. “Of course I do,” He answered in an upbeat tone.Kagami sighed, the kind where the air was drawn out to signal disappointment. “But do you really like me? Am I special to you—”Adrien felt his cheeks grow hot. A bubbly sensation lifted in his chest, making him feel like he was floating upwards.“Or do you just treat me like how you treat every girl you meet just because you’re nice?”He crashed back down.
”Huh?”
“Don’t tell me it’s that chivalry junk because we know it’s not that. People might go out of their way for others, but not to the extent that you do. And even if you don’t sweep anyone off their feet, you manage to make people melt into a pile of goo by just existing.”Frustration seeped into Kagami’s controlled and calculated tone. “I thought you were flirting with me, and that you wanted to be more than just friends. But after watching how you act around other girls, especially girls like Marinette and Chloe who obviously like you, I find myself second guessing those feelings and I hate it.”Adrien’s mouth hung open. “What are you talking about? They don’t see me that way. And besides you’re the one I really like!” Kagami half grimaced, half smiled.“Adrien. How oblivious can you be? Or is it just a really good defense mechanism you put up when you’re faced with something you don’t want to admit.”Stunned, Adrien could only watch as Kagami continued talking.“If you don’t like me, then I’m a fool for believing you ever had a crush on me in the first place. If you do, then I can’t accept your feelings. I can’t be with someone who’s indecisive and falls back on empty words and excuses and pretends that everything’s alright when it’s not.”Kagami lifted her bag and rose to her feet. Her hand clenched over the strap, the bag moved in close to her body, and her head turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Adrien, you’re too nice for your own good. I’d rather you’d let me down the worst way possible, then just dangling your feelings in front of me to just yank them away.”Adrien jumped to his feet.“Kagami wait!” She had reached the bottom of the steps. The bag swung back and forth as she turned towards her left and headed down the sidewalk.“Kagami come back!”Adrien bolted down the stairs and skidded to a stop. Kagami was gone.“Kagami,” Adrien whispered. Another cool breeze brushed past his burning cheeks. It felt like his heart was plummeting down into the hole below the surface of the earth. A shattering sound rang in his ears as he imagined his heart fracturing into tiny pieces upon hitting the bottom, and disappear into darkness and dust.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ “Nathalie please have a seat.”Nathalie’s hands unsteadily gripped the back of the chair. She stepped forward and eased herself down. Her hands fell to her knees, clasped together, and stiffened so they wouldn’t shake more than they needed to be. She did not move the desk as Gabriel did across from her. The creaking sound that came as the chair legs as they slid across the floor, combined with her nerves made her want to jump out of her seat and bolt out of the room. But there was no way to escape. The office door was securely shut. His stern gaze was locked upon her, and he quickly made the move to speak before an awkward silence overcame them both. “It’s my fault for not taking the incentive to have this conservation sooner. I thought it would be something I could ignore, but after the events of yesterday I cannot let it slide any longer.”Hazy vision that fogged the lens of Nathalie’s glasses. The Miraculous’ sinister blue glow filled the lair. Spinning walls of gray. Feathers falling everywhere. Gabriel’s shout echoing through her ears. Her lungs tightening, twisting. His supportive grasp. Coughing. Clinging to him. Head pounding. A cry of pain. His reassuring words. Her hands grasping at the front of his blazer. Her lips jutting out, frantically trying to press against every inch of Gabriel’s face. His forehead. Cheeks. Nose. Jaw. Lips. Chin. His shocked expression. He pulled away. She howled. The blue light faded. The Miraculous now in his hands. She lay huddled up on the floor on a bed of feathers, rocking back and forth as she sobbed:
Please! Gabriel! I love you!
Mortified, Nathalie lowered her head. “The Peacock Miraculous has the power to amplify emotions that it senses much like my own Miraculous. When you fell ill yesterday, it targeted your feelings for me, am I correct?” Tears welled up in Nathalie’s eyes. She nodded to answer his question and to keep the impending waterfall at bay. “Sir I am deeply ashamed of how I acted yesterday. My actions were unacceptable. Even if that thing possessed me, I deserve whatever punishment you give me.”She forced herself to look up at him. His expression had not changed.“If this was another workplace, your superiors might not be as generous as I am with you. But you are aware that I just can’t simply write you up, dock your pay, or fire you given the circumstances we are working towards.”Nathalie nodded again. Gabriel interlaced his fingers and sat forward in his seat. “Nathalie, you know that I can never reciprocate your feelings. I am your boss. I’m a married man. I love Emilie. And even if I had an inkling of desire towards you, we know that an affair would be putting us in a precarious situation.”Nathalie bit down on her lower lip to stifle the cry that buzzed in her throat. Hot tears blotted the lens of her glasses and trickled down her cheeks. “Nathalie for your own good, forget your little flight of fancy. Whatever light you hold me up to, I want you to extinguish it. Whatever thoughts or fantasies you’ve conjured, erase them. I am not your hero, the knight in shining armor who will sweep you off your feet. I am just a man; an ordinary man who happens to possess extraordinary power in this otherwise mundane world.” His curt words sent chills down her spine. She hiccuped and buried her face in her hands.“Put your attention elsewhere. Focus on your work. You were always an excellent worker, and without you I don’t think this household would survive.”Now calm, Nathalie sat up in her seat. She took a deep breath and removed her glasses.“Someday down the road, when you’re older, you’ll be able to look back at this and laugh at this silly little crush. I know that sounds unthinkable to you, but you will reach that point. Everyone does.” Using the side of her pointer finger, Nathalie wiped away the dried up tear streaks that lay underneath her eyes. Glasses back on, she looked up to face Gabriel once again. “That will be all.” One foot in front of her, a hand on the back of the chair, Nathalie couldn’t feel her legs propelling her forward. It felt like she had been flung through the air, catapulted from the top of some castle across a battlefield of yore towards the thick, black door that lay ahead. Hands shot out to catch the fall she imagined. Eyes closed to prepare herself, regain her composure, before pretending that everything was alright as usual. “Oh and one more thing.”Nathalie gripped the doorknob. A pause, and she looked behind her. “Get another phone for Gorilla. I don’t know what he did with the last one and I can’t reach him. Adrien should have been home ten minutes ago.” She answered him in a subdued tone. “Yes sir. I’ll do that right away.”Nathalie stepped out. The door made a creaking sound as it shut her out from the office and forced her back into her line of duty.