Cupid's Canvas《Marinette Dupain-Cheng》

˚₊· Her Invitation

˚₊·

THEY WEREN'T SKIPPING. That's what Claire tried to tell themself, at least. Class officially started in about five minutes, and their teacher thought they were in the bathroom downstairs. Having a class so close to the art room had its perks. Besides, there was only one more period after this one. The affects of ammonia could wait.

As she entered the room and headed towards the canvas, she was quickly reminded of why she would always pick art over any other class.

The art room at her old school wasn't even an art room. It was a tiny classroom with broken air conditioning and inappropriate doodles on the wall. But this was completely different. As an artist, she was able to see the beauty in everything. And the art room at Françoise Dupont High School was, well, a work of art.

The windows were a transparent icy blue with seven light yellow shapes on the left, a teal starfish with rainbow lines, and a colorful circle in each section. Windows of different sizes supported the entrance. On the left of the door, a black wall with a floral green aspect never failed to catch her attention when she walked in.

In the front of the class, there was also a multicolored wall that consisted of yellow and teal graffiti-like writing on it. Spray cans of every color in the rainbow sat in the corner. The back area was also filled with multicolor paintings put on wooden frames, and mannequins with tape and fabric wrapped around them.

In short, it was the art room of her dreams. She was surrounded by colors and quiet. It was her element, and she loved it.

She took her earbuds out of her backpack and plugged the jack of her phone. She'd left her painting the day before. Just as she began to dig through her backpack for her reference, she noticed something in her peripheral view and stopped. In the corner of the canvas was a pink sticky note, with a white heart drawn onto it.

It took a second to process it, but when they did, Claire smiled in spite of themself. The little gesture didn't take away their embarrassment or their bad mood from the day before, but it was enough to help in the moment. They took the sticky note off the canvas and stashed it away in their pocket.

A knock on the door made them jump in their seat. When they turned around, they were greeted with a familiar set of bluebell eyes.

"Marinette. Hi."

Marinette gave her a small wave as she headed for one of the boxes on the table. "Class is starting soon," she said, pulling out a box of pens and some colored pencils.

Claire nodded. "Yeah, right. I'll get there in time, don't worry about it," she said quickly. She didn't know what Marinette would think of her if she just admitted that she probably could've spent the whole period in front of her painting.

Marinette smiled and dropped her voice to slightly above a whisper.

"Wanna run away with me?"

She simply laughed at the surprised look on Claire's face. "Not literally, duh!" she clarified. "I meant, do you want to hang out with me? Nowhere in mind, we just...go."

Claire needed to blink a few times to process this. She never got asked to hang out. Her friends in London were nice, and let her eat lunch at the same table. But those friends always had other friends. She was never a first option. She was an afterthought.

"That sounds fun," she finally said. She wanted to slap herself as soon as the words left her mouth.

Why did I say it like that? And who the hell says "that sounds fun?"

But Marinette didn't say anything about that. She simply smiled and said, "Does after school work?"

"Yeah, it does," Claire said quietly.

I'm hanging out with the cool girl across the street.

Marinette grinned and waved at her before she left, confirming their plans. It seemed like such a casual thing for her, but for Claire, she had to mentally brace herself for something like that.

This was good. This was great, actually. The only problem was that she would have nothing else on her mind until she saw Marinette again later that day. It was a habit she hated. Even in her final class, which she didn't skip, on her way home, while she dug through her backpack to find the pencil she'd lost that morning, her focus didn't shift whatsoever.

As the sky became a mixture of orange and blue and she ditched the homework on her bed, she sat on the steps outside her house.

She tried to tell herself to be cool, to not make it a big deal. But she just couldn't stop her heart from racing inside her. 

Marinette had told her five p.m. So what did she do until then? Nothing. Well, she let her thoughts take over her and imagined every worst-case scenario, but other than that, she didn't really do anything. Claire was sitting on the white steps outside her front door fifteen minutes early.

"Claire! Hey!"

Five minutes after five, she jerked her head up and couldn't stop herself from letting out a sigh of relief.

Marinette looked cute. She'd pulled a red hoodie over her clothes, which engulfed her small frame. One of the ribbons in her hair was loose, but not to the point where she seemed to care.

"You look nice," Claire said.

"I didn't put in much effort, but thank you." Marinette ran a hand through her hair, trying to keep the light wind from blowing it into her face. "C'mon. I'm gonna show you that there's more to Paris than the front of the chemistry classroom."