Shall We Dance?- A Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction

Chapter 4

Marinette took a steadying breath and straightened her back. She waited for the music to start before she positioned her arms in the proper waltz position, rocked a bit in her high heels, and with the first note, began the box step. Everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours knocked around her head like a bouncy ball. It was dizzying. She stepped left.

"What do you mean you're giving up on Adrien? Girl, you've had it bad for him for the last year!"

She flinched at Alya's voice but continued to pull down the pictures she'd clipped of him from various magazine articles. "I mean just what I said. Adrien kind of admitted he liked another girl to me today." Alya's face dropped. She came over and stopped Marinette's hasty removal, hugging the girl tightly to her.

"Oh Mari. I'm so sorry."

She sniffled. "Hey, that's life right?"

"Yeah but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less." The dark skinned girl stroked her friend's blue-tinted hair. "It's alright to cry."

Tears threatened her eyes once more but she breathed again and refused to let them fall. She'd cried yesterday. It lasted until late in the night which prompted a sleepover by Alya. Her parents had been cool with it. They knew something was wrong but they didn't ask; they knew Alya would help and that she would come around to talking about it soon. They'd binged watched several American TV shows, ate so much junk food that Mari was still sick to think about it, and even did some boy-trash talking before finally passing out for the evening. When she woke, Alya had disappeared to get a set of change in clothes from home but promised to be back to walk her to school. All day she kept a close eye on her and for that, Mari would be eternally thankful. Nino and Adrien had noticed something was wrong but every time Adrien went to ask, she made some flimsy excuse of being sick or not sleeping or needing to go to the restroom. It was horrible. She'd seen the look of hurt in his eyes when she did that. Really though, she just couldn't handle being near him; doing so was enough to squeeze her heart and throat and put fire back in her eyes until she started to cry again.

Marinette's heel caught on the front of her own heels. She bucked and fell with a cry to the floor. The music continued playing as she groaned, rolling over on to her back before placing a free arm over her eyes. This sucked.

Not only had today been tough sitting behind him in class, they started their professional ballroom dancing classes. The teacher had been a tiny, thin woman somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties named Madame Amelie. In the class of about forty students, she was dwarfed and timid in her personality which earned her some rude snickers from some of the other students in the room. She tried to call the students' attention to her but failed until Mr. Damocles stepped in. The room fell silent as she took over.

They were put into pairs according to height. Those of similar heights were asked to partner up until there were only a few "odd" people left. Alya, of course, grabbed for Nino and she saw a couple of people in the room instinctively go for their friends or people they had a crush on. She was pleased to see such pairs as Kim and Alix (both were adamant that they would be okay despite the height difference), Max and Sabrina, Rose and Juleka (they were an odd couple since there were more girls than guys), and Ivan and Mylène. This left her to dance with Nathaniel. He'd been timid with her and she remembered that at one point, the young artist had sported a crush on her. Her face paled realizing that she'd probably caused him a lot of pain when she eventually got to rejecting him after the Evillustrator incident. She was beginning to feel bad about it until Madame Amelie called for everyone's attention again. She introduced several things at once: hand positions, leading, body posture, and box step. She then had them practice each without any music. Nathaniel's face flushed just as red as his hair.