A Little Too Soon for Goodbye

3 -Lunch

I hold the door of the bakery open for Adrien, and he slightly laughs. "The roles are reversed here." I slightly smile, and he gives me a look of worry. "Hey Mama and Papa. I'm home. I brought a friend over if you're okay with that." I say, walking behind the counter. Adrien follows me, and I go up to my mom.

I hug her, and whisper in her ear, "I'm worse. A lot worse. Call Plagg or Tikki. They'll tell you. Now smile. Adrien doesn't know. Tell Papa on your lunch break." I pull back and look at her, letting her see the true fear in my eyes. "I love you too sweetie," she says, masking her own and putting on a smile.

I grab two croissants, and hand one to Adrien. "Can I work on a project with Adrien at his house after school?" She nods, and gives me a look as I head for the stairs.

We get upstairs, and I drop my bag behind the couch, kicking my shoes off too. Adrien does the same, and I see that his croissant is gone, while mine is still in my hand, untouched. "Catch." I say, tossing it over to him. He quickly grabs it, and smiles. "Thanks Marinette." I nod, and open up the fridge. "Do you want dumplings with fried rice, hamburgers with fries, grilled salmon with vegetables, or chicken with fruit?"

"Um, I don't really care. You choose." "Well I'm not having any of that. I always make my lunch before school, then go for a walk and head towards the school. You can choose."

"Um, can I have the grilled salmon with fruit instead of vegetables?" I nod, and pull it out. Instead of reheating it in the microwave, I pull out a pan and warm it up on the stove.

"It always tastes a lot better if you don't warm it up in the microwave. It's also all the way warm. It somehow also tastes better. I don't get it." He laughs, and I slightly smile. I put the fish on a plate, and hand it to him, placing a fork on his plate too. I grab the bowl of fruit out of the fridge, and place it in front of him. "You can have the rest. There isn't a ton left."

He mumbles out thank you with a mouth full of the fish, and groans. "This tastes amazing!" He says, his eyes going wide. I laugh, and grab my pasta out of the fridge, and open up the container. I grab a fork and also grab the dressing, and put some on. I close the lid again and shake it, then open it back up.

I begin to eat the chicken pasta, and Adrien asks, "don't you need to warm that up?" I shake my head no, and say, "I think it tastes better cold. You can try some if you want. I don't mind." He reaches his fork over and stabs the noodle and a piece of chicken with it, placing the food in his mouth.

"Why is all of your food so good?" He asks, and I giggle. "Because my parents understand food. I've gotten collage level lessons from them for free, so I understand it too. While my parents are finishing up in the bakery, I make dinner, and then they both clean up and do the dishes. Then we chill for the rest of the day. My parents go to bed pretty early cause they have to be up by 4:30-5:00 to have the bakery open by 7, but yeah. It works out."

"Wait, you made this?!" I shake my head up and down to answer is question, and he just gapes at me.

We finish eating, and still have 40 minutes left of the hour long lunch. (A/N: in some places around where I live they combine their free period and their lunch, so they have an extremely long lunch. That's what I'm doing in this book.)

"Do you want to hang in my room?" I ask, and he nods. I go up there, and lay down on my chaise. He looks around, and goes over to my desk, looking at all of the pictures hanging up of different models and samples of fabrics, along with a bunch of different things.

(A/N: I know, another one... anyway, she does have a crush on him, but he isn't as much of an obsession to her as he is in the show. She's more... normal about it if that's the right word. In this book, she isn't the same, because she is older, and has had more trials in her life that have allowed her to grow.)

I close my eyes, not watching him anymore, and letting myself relax. To think. I let myself quietly cry, while Adrien looks at different things and ogles at them. "Woah- This picture of you and Alya at the top of a mountain is cool. Where is that?" "Oh, um, that was a few years ago. Our families took a trip together to China, and we went hiking there. We stayed with my uncle in Tokyo for like a week and a half."

He is still looking at it, and smiling at the picture. "Your hair is different. I forgot you had bangs." He continues to look at the different pictures I have hanging up, but I can't find it in myself to even remotely care with how my room looks. If anything, I hate it.

"I want to re-paint my room. Maybe to a light cream. Get different decorations like hanging plants and have it be in black pots. Give the room a neutral feel. I feel like the pink is too childish, and really intense. Like there's just so much of it, you know?"

He nods, and says, "but I feel like this room is also you. Like so you. Besides, it would also cost a lot of money."

"I have €5,000 to spend." I say, shrugging. "What? How did you get so much money?" "Working. I've been saving up since I was like 11. I used to always want to go to college, but I don't really want to anymore. I need to work on building up my name." I half lie. If I was going to last for the next 60-70 years, then I would go to college, study fashion, get a degree, but now I don't even have a year left of my life, so why bother?

"What made you decide to not go?" He asks, still looking at all of the pictures I have in my room. "Life is too short to spend so much of it in school. I want to enjoy life while I can, not sit in a classroom for hours on end learning stuff I might not even use in life. I want to do so many things in so little time."

"Marinette, you have a long time left on earth. Don't worry about it so much." He looks over at me, and realizes that I'm crying. "What's wrong?" He asks, coming over and sitting down next to me. "Today has been one of the worst days of my life Adrien. Life is so unfair that it hurts."

I begin to cry harder, and he pulls me into a hug. "Shh. Shh. It's okay. I'm so sorry about Chloe. She shouldn't ha-" "It's not Chloe." I say, cutting him off.

"Adrien, you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone. You have to promise. No one knows. Not even Alya. Only my parents do." He looks at me and nods, a serious expression going on his face. "I promise Marinette. What's wrong?"

"For the past year, I've had cancer. Metastatic Melanoma. But it hasn't progressed at all. It's stayed at a stage two. But t-today when I went into my appointment before school, they told me it's progressed. A lot. Chemo isn't working. Nothing is. I'm dying Adrien. And they gave me 6 months."