A Ladybug's Wrath

Two

"What's all this, Marinette?" Tikki looked over her holder's shoulder; Marinette seemed to be making lists.

"We need a plan, Tikki. If I'm going to succeed, I'm going to need to be a bit more practical. This is how I do my class president stuff too, I make lists of everything I can think of and then divide them into categories to make it easier for me." Tikki nodded, still reading through her admittedly enormous list.

"So what does this list have?"

"It's a list of all my responsibilities." Tikki's eyes widened, looking from her holder to the list. She knew Marinette was doing a lot, but she always took on everything with grace, even when she had to stay up all night to finish something and then was late to school.

"I know, I hadn't even realized how much I was doing for other people until I started this list. I'm going to have to get rid of a lot of these to make room for the more important things."

"How are you going to do that, Marinette?"

Marinette stayed silent, staring down at her list with a calculating gaze.

"A lot of these responsibilities are from being Class President. I don't really want to step down, I worked really hard for that position, but if no one is going to listen to me anyway or just take everything I do for granted," Marinette thought bitterly of Lila, "then the position isn't worth having."

Marinette picked up her enormous binder full of information on Class President responsibilities, but paused, setting the binder on her lap. Slowly, a wicked grin full of malicious glee filled her expression, "I'm a genius," she muttered.

"Marinette?"

"Don't worry about it, Tikki, I just had a fun idea, plus it'll get rid of my Class Rep responsibilities. Nothing to worry about, you'll find out what it is on Monday."

"But Marinette, it's only Saturday morning. I have to wait the whole weekend?" No matter how mature Tikki acted, she was always up for a little mischief, so long as no one got hurt. Plus, she hates surprises, or at least that's what she tells Marinette whenever she's planning something.

Marinette only hummed in response, going back to looking over her list before stopping on something. Her fingers reached out and stroked over two of her listed items, they weren't necessarily responsibilities, they were just things that took up a lot of her time.

Thinking about Adrien.

Planning situations to spend time with Adrien and confess her feelings.

Marinette sighed in frustration and looked out her window. These two things had taken up a lot of her time and lately she had been questioning her feelings for awhile now. His bright green eyes had her flushed and swooning in seconds, but he had shown little to no interest in her other than making sure she knew how great of a friend she was to him.

She had claimed once in the past that she tried to get over him, but deep inside, she knew she hadn't tried very hard. She had continued to allow herself to daydream about him and follow him around.

Agitated with herself, Marinette stood from her chair and walked around her room, staring at her walls with a frustrated sense of dread. This wouldn't do, how was she supposed to look past Adrien when his face was literally everywhere she looked?

No matter where she turned, posters and pictures of Adrien smiling at her surrounded her. A shiver ran up her spine, an unfamiliar feeling of shame filling her. She had never felt shame when it came to her love for Adrien, but after finally taking a step back and seeing this for what it was, Marinette felt that feeling fill her up until she wanted to rip all the pictures from the walls to make herself feel better.