Rainy Days

Chapter 9

Marinette was in her own world, replaying the walk to school a thousand times in her head. The way he had held her hand... She smiled for the hundredth time, burying her face in her arms while the bell rang, signaling the end of their second class.

She picked up her head, finally free to read the message she had gotten from Adrien almost thirty minutes ago but couldn't look at because she had already been caught once by the teacher.

A- "I am so done with this book, I can't believe he fell for that stupid mirage thing. Murphy is way too cool to die why would he even buy that."

Marinette chuckled, recognizing the names and realizing he was probably just finishing the first book of the series.

M- "Oh you like it don't be dramatic."

She finished packing her stuff up and walked out with Alya into the hallway, moving towards their lockers to trade out some of their textbooks when she got a response.

A- "There you are! Class get busy or something?"

She was about to reply when she heard sharp laughter a little ways down the hall, her head immediately snapping up to see what was going on.

Chloe was standing with her crony around one of her quieter classmates Ivan, who had apparently tripped and dropped a majority of his things onto the ground. He was rushing to pick things up, Mylene running over to help but most of his books had already gotten at least somewhat wet from all the water tracked around by the shoes of students. Chloe had seen and wasted no time in making a spectacle of him, pointing and laughing and making no move to help.

"Shut up," Ivan was vehemently spitting at her, standing and trying to use his hulking frame to intimidate her into following his orders.

"So the gorilla does speak," Chloe laughed, reaching out to poke him in the chest. "I didn't know if you would have the brain cells to manage! When was the last time you did anything but brood in the back of class?"

"Stop it he-" Mylene tried to defend him, but Chloe used the girls timid nature against her and cut her off.

"Ooh the scaredy cat is trying to be brave? Why don't you leave that to wannabe heroes like Marinette?"

"Shut up!" Ivan shouted now, stepping in front of Mylene who had moved to cower behind him. "Just stop talking! Why can't you just be quiet for once?!"

"Don't worry I won't waste any more time trying to talk to an oaf and his coward of a crush. Bye bye!" Chloe gave another shrill, snotty laugh and stepped deliberately on the few papers of Ivan's left on the floor, striding off into the school with Sabrina on her heels. Chloe's bratty streak had been getting worse by the day, it was just a miracle that Marinette wasn't on the receiving end.

"Ivan are you oka-" Marinette tried to say as she approached him, but jumped back when his anger turned on her.

"Shut up! Just leave me alone, why doesn't anyone ever just BE QUIET!"

He slammed his locker shut and grabbed his things roughly, storming away through the small crowd that had formed. He didn't head towards his class, vanishing deeper into the school building, just getting angrier the more gossip he heard or the more people tried to speak to him. He wanted everyone to leave him alone, he wanted people to be QUIET.

"Ivan!" Marinette called one last time, but Mylene stopped her, shaking her head slowly.

"We should just leave him alone... he needs to be alone," was all she said, wringing her hands nervously before leaving for her class.

"Well if anyone would know what to do it would be her right?" Alya offered, not knowing what else to say. She sighed, clapping Marinette on the shoulder and steering her in the direction of their lockers once again, trying to forget about it for Ivan's sake.