Papillon

Rain by Vixen

This contains character death — since us miraculers are such huge fans of angst, mwahaha. Enjoy!

It was raining.

The small, transparent drops slid down her window. She watched them silently, tracing the paths they left behind. Though many of them were individual, most of them connected to form one.

She had always thought her life would be like that, even when she had first gotten her Miraculous. She had thought that no matter how many quirks there were, everything would work out just fine, and would run smoothly from there.

Needless to say, it wasn't going that way.

"Coming through!" The door swung open and her dad walked in, carrying a large box in his arms. Moving forward to the middle of the room, he set it down on the floor with a grunt and then stood up again, straightening his back.

"I think that's the last one. You're sure you don't need help unpacking?"

She turned to him and smiled. "Yes, I'll be fine. Thanks for everything."

"You're welcome." He put his strong arms around her and kissed the top of her forehead. "I'll go back home to help your mom with the bakery. Love you, ma chère."

"Love you too." Standing still, she watched him leave the room and then the apartment. The minute the door closed behind him, her smile dissipated like fog in the morning.

"Hey, milady."

Shaking her head to chase the voice away, Marinette knelt down beside the box labelled Fashion Things and began to remove the packaging tape. It made a loud noise that seemed unusual to her, but she knew it was probably because for the first time in a long while, she was alone, truly alone — no parents, no friends, not even her Miraculous.

The tape stuck to her fingers and she pulled it off, wadding it into a ball before setting it down. Opening the flaps of the box, she took hold of her sewing machine and placed it on her commode. The furniture had arrived yesterday and it was already placed in its rightful places, so that was one less thing to worry about.

The books about fashion went in one of her supply drawers, along with her many sketchbooks. As she arranged them, her pink one with the clasp slipped from where it was tucked in her arm. She sighed; still clumsy as ever. Reaching down to pick it up, her hand froze in midair when she saw that the book had opened to the page where she had designed the bowler hat.

Breathing in sharply, she closed it hastily and moved it to the very back of the drawer, where it would be hidden with all the other books in front of it.

Marinette had moved out of her parents' house a few days ago, into an apartment building a couple blocks away from the bakery. Her new room was similar to her old one, the walls being a light pink color. Most of her furniture was from her old room, so everything matched well enough.

After her fashion things were through, she turned to the box labelled Books, Photo Albums, Etc. Using her nail, she unpeeled one of the tape corners. A ripping sound echoed throughout the room as she took off the rest of the tape.

Marinette didn't know how she managed to put away the photo albums without looking inside. There weren't that many since the majority of the ones she had were saved on her phone, but most of the photos capturing important events were inside, like her graduation pictures. One of them had slipped out when she was putting it away, since she had forgotten to out the photo inside properly; her and Alya were standing by some trees doing the 'peace' sign, smiling brightly at the camera.

"Milady, have I ever told you you turn my world upsidedown?"

Go away, she thought back. But the truth was she wanted him now more than ever.