Rainy Days

Chapter 7

"I can't believe this! It's completely unfair I know he ditched but this is just harsh!" Nino was on his feet, pacing at the front of the classroom of his second class, Marinette and Alya standing by their desks in a similar state. His phone was clutched in his hand, still open to a short and simple message from Adrien he had finally gotten in response after asking why he hadn't shown up to school. All three of Adrien's loyal friends were angry at the news, but no one felt horrible like Marinette did.

The girl sank into her desk, wishing she had just stayed home. She was still slightly ill but that was the farthest thing from her mind, instead only able to focus on the empty seat in front of her. Nino and Alya had both sent messages to check on him and been lucky to even get one word responses, but it meant he at least had his phone... was he just ignoring them then? Was he upset? Did he want to be alone? Would he just ignore her too if she was brave enough to write him?

She had to try though, to let him know she was thinking of him. It was her fault... it was all her fault. He had reached out to her despite knowing he would get in trouble, he had come to check on her. She could do the same for him, she would do the same for him.

She waited for a little while, letting Nino and Alya settle down and get distracted with the lesson as class began before slowly pulling out her phone and tucking it into the folds of her jacket on her lap. Using the material as cover she texted, "How are you?"

While she waited for whatever sort of response she would get her mind spiraled down into a distracted daze. The rain was as present as always, thunder chorusing behind it and she wondered when the storm would finally let up. The weather reports said it would last to Friday at least if not the weekend and it was only Wednesday... she wondered again how Adrien was doing. All attempts to distract herself with idle thoughts about the weather fading into nothing. Was he angry with her? Did he resent her for playing a role in his current situation?

Only a minute passed before her phone buzzed in her lap, making her heart leap. That was fast. She had been expecting something more towards the end of class. When she peaked down at her phone the message was considerably more than the others had gotten as well.

Marinette waited until she was relatively in the clear before reading it.

"Hey! I'm good, just sort of confused? So the book starts with Harry Dresden already being a pretty established wizard but does he ever like flashback to who taught him? Or does it just go from him having an office in Chicago? I really like the talking skull as well."

She blinked at the message in confusion. Talking skull?

Oh the books she lent him, the Dresden Files. After a moment's thought she had to silence a laugh quickly with her free hand, making Alya look over curiously.

Was the only reason he was barely responding to the others because he was caught up reading those books? Geeze...

She said as much in her response. "Nino and Alya have been worried. Maybe you should tell them you're just reading? Also yeah you meet his mentor later on."

She went back to waiting and smiled to herself when she saw first Nino and then Alya receive text messages. After they read them they both groaned and looked over at her with exasperated expressions before returning to their work. What a doof.

'How's class?' she received after a few minutes had gone by.

M- 'Fine, though I'm not really paying attention. Mostly just boring. How's house arrest?'

A- 'Pretty normal. He never takes away any of my stuff so I still have my computer and all of my games. I wish I could be at school though.'

Marinette stared down at the message, that heavy awful feeling worming its way back into her.