Dark Cupid 2.0

Chapter 4: A Shocking Realisation

As soon as Marinette came back inside her class, she rushed to her seat and looked on her desk, and into her bag, and on the floor.

"Have you lost anything, girl?" asked Alya.

Marinette sighed. "I can't find my phone!" she said and groaned a little. "This is bad, Alya, I had all my commission info there. I must have lost it during the akuma attack."

"I'm sorry, girl. Haven't you got your commissions logged anywhere else?" Marinette looked at her friend for the first time since she had come back to the room. Alya was literally beaming. Marinette groaned again, knowing what was about to come. She tried to keep Alya's focus on her missing phone for as long as he could.

"I suppose I can check my thousands of emails I received from my website and try to reconstruct my commissions from what I have stored there, but it's going to take time. Can you help me look for it?"

Alya giggled. "I will help you, Marinette, but only if you dedicate your full attention to me for just a second."

Marinette huffed. There you go, she wasn't able to keep Alya off her target for even a minute, apparently.

"All right. Amaze me," she deadpanned. Alya squealed and rubbed her own phone in Marinette's face.

"Look what happened today, girl. LadyNoir is REAL!" Alya had put on her phone a video that she had loaded from the Ladyblog. Marinette's eyes became as big as saucers as she saw Ladybug getting hit by the beam of light, her and Chat talking quietly (so quietly that Marinette couldn't understand what they were saying), and then, Ladybug moving her head up and looking at Chat.

Marinette's heart skipped a beat. Ladybug was literally seething with anger. Her jaw dropped as she watched Ladybug jumping around Paris with all intention of cutting Chat Noir into pieces. She couldn't believe what she was looking at. No, that must be a joke, right? 3D animation? Cosplayers acting up?

Something?

Anything?

Please?

Without consciously realising it, her hands moved to her temples and her face paled ashen, starting to wear the most awkward of grimaces. And she paled further when she saw herself wrapping the yoyo cord twice around Chat Noir's neck. She heard Alya shout to Chat Noir to be careful as a beam of light nearly hit him on the head, and saw both of them rolling over until they came out of view behind a tree. The video got all fizzy for a second. Marinette realised that Alya had been rolling too, and again she was the one filming them. Ladybug was screaming at Chat Noir to get off her and... Chat Noir kissed her.

And as she saw the kissing, the picture in the video faded into the one from her own memory, as she woke up from the akuma' control. She remembered herself tensing, but then relaxing and letting herself go into the kiss. At the time, she didn't know why. Now—a painful jolt twisted her stomach as the butterflies filled it and she started feeling dizzy.

"Girl?" Alya's voice sounded concerned now.

Marinette blinked, as if waking up from a dream. "Uh, yes? Yes?" she muttered.

"You're so pale. Are you sure you're okay?" Alya put a hand on her forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever."

"I—I'm not feeling too well. I need the washroom." She stood up and her vision faded as she staggered badly.

"Do you need me to come with you, Marinette?" asked Alya, always more concern in her voice, a frown furrowing her eyebrows.

"N-no. I'm good, I can walk." But to her disappointment, she tripped on her own feet and started falling off the stairs, until she bumped on something warm and soft.