MariChat: Soul Link (SoulMates AU)

Moving With Pain

Schools end couldn't have come around slower for Adrien. It was like he was being marched on a forced trek throughout hell itself. He hadn't even written anything in his notes for the day. Instead, there was just a long, charcoal black line in his notepad where he had run his pencil on paper back and forth all day. It was the first day in his life that he really detested actually being in a public school. He didn't want to be around people right now...

He didn't even want to be around himself at this point.

Once the final bell rang for the day, Adrien was out the door within seconds, relishing the breath of fresh air, and the fact that time started moving again for him. The fact that his lift home was right there had never made him happier in his life. After a brief goodbye to Nino, along with assuring him that, really, he is okay, Adrien bailed into the back of the large, black car, and was whisked away home again. Never before had he wanted to be surrounded by the walls of his prison of a bedroom so badly. He practically fell asleep in the car the second he sat down in it, exhausted from the previous night.

Arriving back home, he went straight to his room, and fell flat on his bed within nanoseconds. This was all he wanted right now. To just lay here. Let the rest of the world pass him by.

He didn't normally feel self pity like this. He wasn't a self absorbed person, in spite of being a model, arguably one of the jobs in the world that would make you self obsessed the most. But this wasn't out of vanity or narcissism. This was disappointment. Loneliness. Sadness.

"God, what am I doing?..." Adrien asked himself, rhetorically. Why was he even doing this to himself? Why was he even thinking this way? What good would it do him?

"Good question, kid." Plagg spoke up, hovering above the young teenager. "You remember that you still have to patrol with Ladybug tonight, right? Are you gonna be like this around her?"

"Oh God... I'd forgotten about that. Thanks, Plagg." Adrien moaned sarcastically, covering his face with his arms. Christ, now he had to force himself to be his usual happy-go-lucky, cheerful and energetic Chat Noir persona? This was already sounding painful to him. "I can't go on patrol like this as Chat Noir... Ladybug would immediately know what's wrong with me... Urgh..."

"Come on, Adrien." Plagg urged, trying to motivate his human master in any way he could. "It's not all bad."

"How would you know?" There wasn't even anger in Adrien's voice. Not anger. Not bitterness. Not sarcasm. His voice was basically void of emotion. There was only sadness and a hint of jealousy in the brokenhearted boys words. "The only thing you've ever loved is cheese..."

Plagg sorrowfully knew there wasn't anything he could say that was going to motivate Adrien. He didn't know a thing about romance. He was a Kwami. Kwami weren't commonly known for their understanding of human emotions. One of the exceptions was Tikki, and she was with Ladybug, so that didn't help matters at all.

That was until he looked out a window.

"Uh... Kid? You might wanna look at this."

"If it's a shipment of cheese, just go get some. I honestly don't care right now."

"No, it really isn't. I'm serious, you might want to check the window." Plagg told the depressed human, shooting back from the window so as not to be seen.

Adrien had absolutely no intentions of going to his window. Whatever it was, he couldn't care less for it. 

 That was, until he heard a tapping on the glass.

Of all the people in the world, it had to be the one person who had stamped his very soul into dust.

"Ladybug?" Adrien spoke automatically as he saw her. She almost resembled how Chat Noir might hand from a window when knocking on one. After giving him a short and friendly wave alongside that damned perfect smile, she made a sort of gesture with her free hand, indicating for him to open the window.