Chat Blanc ✅

Chapter 3

Landing in the alley beside her home, Marinette muttered, "Tikki, spots off," allowing the suit to disappear in a flash of pink light. Tikki hid inside her purse, as she made her way to the bakery's entrance.

When the bell above the door chimed, Sabine Cheng looked up on instinct, but smiled when she recognised the person was her daughter. "Hi, Honey. Are you ready to help out?"

Marinette nodded, already walking behind the counter and into the kitchen area. Tom stood at one of the ovens, leaning down to slide out a batch of fresh macaroons. His eyes caught sight of her as he placed the tray onto the counter, and he immediately gave her a peck on the cheek.

"Just in time, Sweetie," he informed. "Let's get baking!"

Sabine and Marinette both chuckled at his enthusiasm, making him blush in pride and embarrassment.

Marinette rolled her blazer sleeves up, but not before sending Tikki a smile and motioning for the kwami to head into her bedroom for the remainder of the day.

Snatching a rolling pin, Marinette squished down a bundle of batter, molding it into a circular shape. As she was doing so, she gave a hesitant glance towards her parents before opening her mouth to speak.

"Maman, Papa. I have something I need to tell you guys."

Their gazes focused on her in unison as she stated, "I'm going to invite Chloe to the bakery at lunch tomorrow in school."

The adults promptly dropped their baking equipment to give her looks of incredulity and utter disbelief.

Maybe I should have explained it before dropping such a bombshell.

~*~*~

Letting out a sigh, Marinette staggered towards the chaise in her bedroom, closing the trapdoor behind her. When she came into contact with the soft material covering it, she lay her face and body on it for comfort.

Tikki flew out from her hiding spot, opting to settle herself on the palm Marinette held out. Giving her owner a smile, the kwami finished savouring the cookie in her mouth before going into conversation.

"So, Marinette," she started. "What are you going to do in order to gain Chloe's friendship?"

Glancing to the side in thought, Marinette smiled, answering with, "Well...I don't know about you but macaroons would easily get me to trust someone."

Giggling, Tikki nodded, but soon caught sight of the pictures decorating Marinette's room. Noticing the kwami's silence, Marinette followed her line of sight and sighed.

"I better take down all of these photos, huh?"

Standing, Marinette gently placed Tikki on the nearby desk, pat her head, and then placed her hands on her hips.

With a determined expression, she began to first remove most pictures of Adrien, starting with the ones that had hearts around them. It was embarrassing for her to think that she had been so naive in romance, at first.

She did, however, leave several photos, some were of him modelling but others included the ones where he was genuinely smiling. A lot of those pictures had Alya and Nino in them, which made her chew her lip in contemplation.

After having a small conversation with Tikki, she decided on only displaying those who were her actual friends: Adrien, Luka, Aurore and many others.

Marinette even printed out the selfie she had taken of her and Kagami together.

It was a long and tiring process, but was worth it in the end. After all, she couldn't even work up the courage to text any of her classmates, nevermind having to see their faces every day. The selfie with Kagami was taped proudly at the border of her computer screen, and a copy of it was pinned to the corkboard beside her bed.

Marinette turned around just after ridding her room of Adrien's schedule, a small smile gracing her features. Through the window, she could see the sun begin to set, the natural sunlight fading into an orange hue.

"Tikki?" she called, causing her kwami to float beside her. "What do you think?"

Tikki smiled at her owner and exclaimed, "I love it Marinette! Now you can surround yourself with only good influences, just like Master Fu advised!"

Weeks before, Marinette had informed the man of her situation in school, and he had thankfully given her tips to avoid akumatization. One way was to clear her mind of bad influences, and to only think of the good in things.

"Now all I need to do is change my desktop background, don't you think?"

Humming in agreement, Tikki glanced back at the jar of cookies sitting on the computer desk, but before she could sneak a nibble from one of them a familiar aura caused her to faze quickly out of sight.

As Marinette set the background to a photo of her and Aurore celebrating a competition with a selfie, a tapping noise from above made her swivel her head around in surprise.

Making her way up the ladder, Marinette crawled on her knees towards the trapdoor, and focused her attention to the handle of it. Right as she was about to open it, her gaze caught on the unmistakable sight of a hand adorning sharp claws tapping the hatch again, though this time slightly harder so as to catch her attention.

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