Undiscovered Melody |COMPLETED|

Chapter 10

Every day of the following week Luka spent time with Marinette. He had been surprised that she was the one arranging something for each day, but he hoped that this meant that she was thinking about changing the status of their relationship. Each day was different and brought a new excuse from Marinette about why she was late or why she had to abruptly leave and Luka was starting to wonder what was going on- was it just him she did this with or was this normal? And if this was normal, Luka thought that Marinette was trying to take on too much as she was running all over everywhere helping different people out everyday.

One afternoon when Marinette had to leave unexpectedly to help her grandfather bake a cake for his mice's birthday, Luka decided to ask Juleka about it.

He found her lying on her bed reading a fashion magazine.

"Juleka?" Luka asked.

"Mmm?" she replied as she continued reading the article about the next summer trend colors, none of which she would be caught dead wearing.

"When you and your friends do things together, does Marinette arrive late or leave early using some sort of bizarre excuse?" said Luka. He sat down on the end of her bed and turned his attention to his sister, hoping she said 'yes' so that it wasn't just him that Marinette seemed to be avoiding.

Juleka rested her magazine on her stomach and then looked at her brother. "So, just what is your relationship with Marinette? You two seemed awfully close when you were 'composing' the other day," said Juleka, making finger quotes around the questionable word. It hadn't looked like composing to her.

"We were composing and I don't know what we are exactly. That's why I asked you about Marinette- is she trying to avoid me? Because it's a strange thing to arrange things for us to do together only for her to then arrive late or leave early so we don't have as much time together as was planned. I don't understand it."

"So, you're hoping to be more than friends and become 'composing' partners then?" said Juleka with a smirk.

Luka rolled his eyes at his sister's attempt at humor. "Yes. But, I feel like I'm getting these mixed signals from her."

Juleka sat up and propped her pillow behind her back. She still wasn't sure how she felt about Luka and Marinette, not because she didn't think they were a good match, but she was worried that Luka would be hurt because Marinette was so obsessed with Adrien. Her brother deserved to be with someone that appreciated how great he was. No matter how she felt about it, she owed him the truth, though. She wouldn't be the one to keep them apart, she would leave that to Marinette, as Juleka didn't think that after all of the many attempts to get together with Adrien she would just stop.

"It's not just you. She uses weird excuses all the time. It does seem like she is always trying to help other people, though. Well, that, and she seems a bit time challenged," said Juleka.

Luka nodded as he absorbed what Juleka said. So, it's not me she's avoiding. That's a relief anyway.

"Thanks, Juleka," said Luka. He then stood up and went over to his side of the room to grab his guitar. "I'm going to go up on deck and play for a while. See you later?"

"Sure," said Juleka and she picked her magazine back up to see if there were actually any wearable trends for the summer.

Luka sat down on a step on deck and let his mind flow as he played. He eventually recognized that he was playing the mysterious melody again. It was driving him crazy that he couldn't figure out what it meant but he was now certain it had something to do with Marinette. And Ladybug.

- - -

The next day Luka, Juleka, and Marinette met Jagged at the recording studio. Penny had managed to book an hour between other recording sessions, so that Jagged and his kids could play together for fun. Jagged's assistant had met the teenagers in the lobby and escorted them up to the studio. It was smaller than the one that Jagged would normally use to record his albums, but there was enough room for all of them to fit in there comfortably. Jagged looked up from where he was plugging his guitar into his amp when he saw them arrive.