When Adrien Returned

Chapter 7: Why Do You Smoke?

Chat's hand brushed between Marinette's thighs as she held his hand. He was more concerned about her soft breasts touching his arm. To top it off, the desperation in her eyes and her calling him Kitty, no chance in hell he could possibly say no to this, no matter how hard he tried.

As she bent toward him more, one of her straps slip off her shoulders, enticing Chat a bit more than he already needed. The deep cut of her top was a centimetre away from exposing her areola and Chat tried his best not to stare once again. He looked away and gulp down his urges.

Chat nodded and stepped away from her. He didn't know why he felt this way. His earlier thoughts about Mari's shorts.... ugh, so unlikely of him.

In an attempt to make this hot mess less of a mess, he tried to be quirky and confident.

"I will stay. Only because my Princess asked me to" he got down on his knee and asked for her hand to continue "and you know I can't say no to my Princess"

Marinette blushed and give him her hand as she laughed her heart out. She did a little courtesy which makes him smile. For a second, both of them were thrown back to a time machine, years ago where everything was alright. This is what they both missed.

"So we are going to completely ignore you smoking?" smirks Chat

"Ummm... yeah! Let's pretend it never happened!"

"Not happening, Princess. Since when did you start?"

"Oh Chat, you don't wanna know"

"Oh believe my Purr-incess, I do"

"Uhh fine! Since... Adrien left..."

Chat Noir's heart skipped a beat. He forgot for a second that Chat was not the only one who left poor Marinette out of the blue. Of course, he was unaware of the fact that she was Ladybug

"... why?"

"Just because I guess???... things got... a lot harder... Since he left... career wise I mean" hesitated Marinette. She didn't want him to find out about her being the Ladybug. Being a fashion designer with talents like hers was a lot easier than the rest, but she had to cook up some excuse to convince him otherwise... even if it is a half-truth.

"Since you-, I mean you know, um... Adrien left, and the Paris Fashion Industry shifted. Gabriel Agreste with The Agreste Brand used to have a monopoly when it came to fashion. He created world-class designs with the fashion industry's favourite, Adrien Agreste. They ruled the thoughts of everyone; what was in style, and what wasn't, they were the opinion makers. Right from fashion brands to others, Adrien's appearance guaranteed a 100% success rate in their business and sales. But since Adrien quit the Parisian Fashion Industry, everything went haywire. Gabriel... lost his way somewhere. There was no longer a monopoly and the industry became chaos. No standard was set by the elite. No one unit to tell them what's in trend and what's not! It was like Fashion Industry lost its Chat Noir." Marinette joked.

Adrien was a bit taken aback. Apart from his friends, Adrien did not expect to leave such an impact on Paris. Being off the grid for so many years, he thought no one cared much about his disappearance. Now realising the impact he actually created, Adrien wished he would've stayed alongside Marinette to help her achieve her career goals better

"So....the constant stress from higher up for something new, something fresh causes me to smoke" Marinette snapped Chat out of his thoughts

"I'm sorry." The Adrien inside this Chat was apologising.

"Ah no! Don't be, after all, you could've done nothing to fix it.." added Marinette, still a little salty from years of torture, knowing that he, in fact, could've fixed it.