AKA: The One With A Groupchat
Summary:
Ironically, Marinette didn’t even have to lift a finger to bring about Lila’s downfall. It was refreshing to walk into class one day and not feel your classmates giving you the stink eye. No, really. Marinette didn’t remember a time before this when she could confidently say that she wasn’t the most hated person of the week. ‘This’ refers to the rumours that Lila was spreading about her. Seriously, there was no line she didn’t cross. According to Lila, Marinette was a racist, religiophobic (is that even a word?) homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic bully who didn’t know when to stop. Marinette was half expecting to be proclaimed a Nazi today.
But, what surprised Marinette was that Lila was the one sitting alone. Lila was the one hunching in on herself. Lila was the one on the receiving end of the class’s glares.
Only one sentence came to Marinette’s mind.
‘What… the… actual... fuck?’
Just yesterday, Alya was bragging about how Lila was doing another interview for the Ladyblog. She was meant to be helping Juleka get a job at Gabriel and was talking about how she’d be bringing Jagged Stone to their school dance that Friday.
Only two people looked as confused as she felt. Adrien, and the devil herself, Lila.
Marinette decided to approach Adrien, the safer option. “What’s going on?” she whispered, warily examining Alya’s scowl. “Shouldn’t they be worshiping her, or something?”
“No idea,” Adrien said. “Nino won’t tell me what happened. He told me to check the class group chat, but there’s nothing there.” Marinette frowned, pulling out her phone. Adrien was right. The last conversation was two days ago, in which Rose was asking if they had any literature homework. “We could ask somebody else…” Adrien trailed off, catching the hesitant look on Marinette’s face. “...Or not.” Despite their classmates’ realisations about Lila, Marinette didn’t trust them not to treat her any differently. “Sit with me today,” Adrien said, taking her bag from her. Nino seemed pretty content to hover beside Alya.
“I still can’t believe they’re not treating her like the fucking Messiah…” Marinette muttered, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.
Adrien looked across the row, an idea occurring to him. “Hey, Chlo, can I borrow your phone?” he asked. Chloé didn’t look away from her nails as she nodded. Sabrina hopped up, taking the phone from Chloé’s pocket and handing it to him. Adrien unlocked the phone immediately. Marinette wondered how he knew Chloé’s password. He went into Chloé’s messaging app, where there were two class group chats. One was titled ‘Collège François Dupont’ , but the other was titled ‘Akuma Class Investigations’ . Adrien quickly screenshotted the latter’s messages, sending them to his and Marinette’s phones before returning Chloé’s.
“They had a second group chat,” Marinette frowned, looking at the roaster she’d just been sent. Everyone except for herself, Adrien and Lila was in the group.
She frowned, going to the next screenshot.
Alya Césaire has added you, Nino Lahiffe, Ivan Bruel, Juleka Couffaine, Mylène Haprèle, Max Kanté, Alix Kubdel, Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Rose Lavillant, Lê Chiến Kim and Sabrina Raincomprix to ‘New Group’.
