Under Oath | Ladynoir ✓

05 | francois dupont

MARINETTE HAD NOT YET DECIDED if she even wanted to return to school, and her indecision lasted right up until the moment that she rounded the street corner and laid eyes on Francois Dupont High School.

Then it was startling clear, of course, hitting her like an ice cold droplet of fear trickling down her spine. She did not want to be here. She wanted to walk straight on by, adjusting her purse and pretending like she was an average Parisian fashionista on her way to do fashionista things.

Alas, she was still seventeen, and there were annoyingly many months left in her senior year, and she was the president of the Francois Dupont student body.

Next to her was Alya, and next to Alya—laying a casual, protective arm around her shoulders—was Nino. They had agreed to meet at the Cesairés' apartment and face the day together, united. So Marinette had taken the long way to school this morning, letting the bright but cold sunlight and the walk from the bakery thaw her exhaustion. She was running on, like, two hours of sleep.

There were four vans parked along the kerb opposite to the school. Two white, two black. About sixty adults crowded onto the left and right sides of the entrance stairs, some hefting cameras on their shoulders, some holding microphones with a square mount announcing the platforms they represented. Others seemed less official but still equally hungry for interviews, armed with cell phones that they tipped towards their mouth, rapid muttering words that were drowned in the overall roar of the crowd of the media.

None of them had sighted the trio. Yet.

I do not want to be here.

As soon as Marinette, Alya and Nino approached the stairs, the crowd descended on them.

"Monsieur Lahiffe!" a young woman with leopard print glasses called. "Monsieur Lahiffe! As Adrien's best friend, do you think Adrien knew about his father's secret identity?"

Another reporter targeted Marinette, stepping into her path as she battled her way up the stairs. The balding man shoved a microphone in her face and walked backwards, tracking her every step. "Miss Dupain-Cheng. You're Adrien's classmate. How do you feel about his disappearance last night?"

"Is destruction of property uncharacteristic of Adrien?" someone asked Alya. She shouldered past with fierce determination, then ran into yet another tabloid reporter.

"Does he have a dark side the public doesn't know about?"

God.

Enough was enough.

Marinette glared at the man in front of her. She turned around and exclaimed, to no-one in particular, "Adrien's the best person I've ever known, and that's all I have for the record."

In the temporary silence that followed, those insatiable scavengers falling quiet so as not to miss anything further Marinette might say, she grabbed Alya's arm and Nino's t-shirt. "Come on. Let's get inside."

Tugging her friends with her, Marinette charged through the swarm of bodies. As soon as they were past the threshold—safety provided by the fear of trespassing charges—Nino heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"I miss Adrien."

"Don't we all," Marinette answered.

He still hadn't replied to her texts. Nor Nino's, nor anyone's. It would have driven her crazy with worry—was he alright, was he safe?—if he hadn't been taken into police custody in the early hours of the morning. The breakfast news was flooded with updates on the Agreste scandal and nothing but. Nadja Chamack had presented, which must have been a lucky break for the aspiring correspondent. The biggest story to sweep Paris since ever.