Dance with Me, Chaton

Tears

Plagg's way of teaching was a little unconventional. At least concerning the scheduling of their lessons. For one, he preferred to see Adrien late at night or before everyone woke up. And he never warned about the next lesson more than an hour in advance. Effectively, it had come to this: no matter where Adrien was or what he did, if Plagg texted him, he had two choices: he either showed up with five wheels of Camembert at precisely the appointed time at the studio, or he could quit.

"You seem grumpy today, kid," Plagg said, opening his "fee" for a before sunrise snack. "What's up?"

"I've had five hours of sleep tonight. Why do you think?"

"Ah, poor you. Why didn't you go to bed early?"

"Why, indeed," Adrien grumbled. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with you letting me go only at midnight."

"I fail to see the issue," Plagg said, chewing as he put the first empty box away. "You signed up for my lessons yourself and now you're complaining?"

"For dance lessons, Plagg," Adrien groaned. "I didn't sign up for you to completely mess up my sleep schedule."

"That's the way I teach dance," Plagg shrugged. "You don't like, you can quit. Or did you think that learning how to dance despite the rain is easy?"

"No."

"Then quit whining because, if you haven't noticed, I could've been dreaming of a lady in red right now. Instead, I'm stuck here with you. Would it hurt you to at least be thankful?"

"I'm paying you for this," Adrien groaned under his breath. "Let's just start. I have work in a few hours."

"Un momento," Plagg smirked. "I have to appreciate your offering first. Give me five minutes."

"Fine," Adrien mumbled and dropped to the floor. He focused his eyes on the ceiling instead of the glutton on his throne. Weird. From what he'd seen from Plagg so far, Adrien could tell the man had mad skills. How he could reach this level of mastery with his attitude was beyond Adrien's comprehension. And even more confusing was the fact that Plagg hadn't had Adrien do any actual dancing yet. At least one, sometimes two, excruciatingly hard workouts was all that Plagg offered. Workouts that had nothing to do with dancing. If Adrien wanted that, he'd stick to his personal trainer. At least that guy was nice and didn't smell like Camembert all the time.

***

Barely moving on his feet, Adrien entered the halls of Gabriel a few hours later. His first objective was to gift Marinette the lucky charm he'd made for her. Then head for the business management and accounting departments. Adrien sighed. Boring. He'd rather go back to the designers' one. At least that was fun. Well, hopefully, he wouldn't have to stay there for long, though, because Ladybug had emailed the edited designs to his father last night, and if everything went well, Adrien might learn Ladybug's identity soon. She promised him to think about that date. Although... maybe he should warn his father to play along, just as a precaution...

Someone zoomed past Adrien, lightly bumping his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry." The girl stopped, turning around "Are you okay? I didn't mean to—"

"Marinette?" Adrien's eyes widened as he frowned. "Why are you crying? Is it Lila again?"

She shook her head, her lips quivering. Eyes looking to the ground, she struggled with words. "I—I..."

Adrien took her by the shoulders and caught her gaze. "Marinette, calm down. What happened?"

"He—your father—"

"What did he do?"

"Fired us—all of us..."

"What? He fired you?"