Undiscovered Melody |COMPLETED|

Chapter 21

"Luka?" called Juleka sleepily from her bed across the room. "Can you answer that or turn it off? I'm trying to sleep!" When the ringing didn't stop and he didn't answer her she took a small stuffed cat from her bed and threw it across the room, hitting Luka in the head.

"What?" he asked, woken up by the stuffed animal attack. He found the cat missile and threw it back at her.

"Your phone!" she said, before she pulled her covers over her head in an attempt to go back to sleep. It was definitely too dark to get up yet.

Luka grabbed his phone from the table and swiped to answer it when he saw who it was.

"Marinette?" he asked. "Is everything all right?" He looked at the time- it was really early.

"It's not what it looks like!" she said, sounding panicky. "A . . . and your secret is out! I don't know how they know. They must have been there the other day, like you thought, and now there are more pictures. I couldn't sleep and I was online and they're . . . they're everywhere. It's really big news! I don't know what we should do! It looks bad, but you know I'd never—"

"Wait, wait, Marinette what are you talking about?" asked Luka, unable to follow anything that Marinette was saying.

"Maybe it's better if I send you a link," she said.

A moment later he received the message and he clicked on the link. The website it took him to was full of photos: multiples of Jagged and him on the roof, a photo of him and Juleka from last night when he had his arm around her, another of him kissing Marinette, one of Adrien pulling Marinette by the hand, more of him and Marinette and more of Marinette and Adrien. And lots of headlines and captions, some true and some not. "Luka and Juleka: Jagged Stone's Children From a Mystery Mistress Revealed", "Luka's Girlfriend? or Is She Secretly Seeing Model Adrien Agreste?" Luka had to stop reading as he felt his temper rising. While he had expected to eventually be put in the spotlight he hadn't imagined it would have happened like this. Or that he would feel so much like he was the one hurting his sister and friends.  He didn't know what to do.

"Luka? Are you there?" asked Marinette worriedly.

"Yes, I'm here. I don't know what to say," he said as he threw off his covers and pulled jeans and a t-shirt out of his trunk and quickly got dressed. He grabbed his shoes and then headed out of the bedroom and went out on deck. He sat down and put on his shoes and then started to slowly pace, trying to clear his mind.

"Are you mad?" Marinette finally asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Luka had forgotten that she was even on the phone as she had been so quiet. "Yes, I'm mad," he said.

"Oh," she said, sounding dejected.

He was confused by her response. "Aren't you? Somebody took pictures without our knowledge and put them online with fake headlines!" He took a few breaths to try to calm himself.

"Fake headlines?" said Marinette, which only confused Luka further.

"Of course they're fa—" He stopped and shook his head a bit at her once he realized what she was thinking that he was thinking. "Marinette, I know nothing is happening between you and Adrien, if that was what you were talking about. That fake headline with the photos of you and Adrien implied something that is untrue. They just do that to get people to buy the tabloid. I know you better than that- you would never do that."

"No, I wouldn't," she said softly.

"Please have a little more confidence in yourself and the people who love you," he said. "We know that you wouldn't do anything to hurt us."