I am the next Ladybug?!

Chapter 28- Your POV

"Really? Could you tell me who your celebrity crush is?" Adrien asked, blissfully unaware of the predicament he put me into. How was I supposed to tell him the truth that wasn't even true in the first place?! I hesitated, wondering what I should exactly say, but Adrien spoke again before I could form any coherent answer.

"You don't have to tell me if you aren't comfortable," He said, probably feeling my uneasiness.

"No, it's fine!" I jumped to answer without thinking, "Its just that... I haven't really told anyone before other than Alya and Marinette which also kind of happened in the spur of the moment... I am not really that out -spoken about these kinds of things, I just need some time so..."

"You don't have to justify anything," Adrien said, stopping my miserable rambling.

"I- Thank you," I said, deciding this was the best way out of this mess.

Just then, Ms. Bustier entered the class, garnering the attention of all the students, including Adrien's. I thanked her mentally for naturally ending that awkward conversation.

She kept the neat stack of books in her arms on the table and addressed the class, "Good morning class! I am Ms. Bustier as many of you might already know. I am an English teacher for middle school students and I am here as your substitute today."

The class cheered at the news.

Ms. Bustier coughed slightly at the class's behaviour and continued, "If you have some work to do, I advice you to use this time get on with it. If you do not have anything you want to do, you could come up to me and I will give you some work to do. I any case, I expect a decent decorum to be maintained in the class. You may speak with each other but please do not cause a ruckus."

Ms. Bustier pulled out a chair to sit and began her own work and the student body soon got themselves busy. I sighed and opened my maths notebook again,  forcing myself to utilise this time for a good cause. Adrien chose to sit silently besides me, observing me. 

"You got this wrong," He said, as I almost finished my first problem.

"Huh?" I asked, startled by him suddenly speaking.

"You got this step wrong. See you copied the number and it's sign incorrectly," He said pointing at my mistake as I squinted my eyes to check it for myself.

"Oh! You are right. What a stupid mistake!" I exclaimed, scratching the page to solve it once again.

"You need to be precise while solving so you waste no time." 

I chuckled, "You are right. That is why you are the top scorer for maths in the whole school."

Adrien chose to stay mum, but his smugness was on full display on his face.

"Can you tell me if I go wrong somewhere again? It will save me a lot of time rechecking if I know that you checked it," I asked for his favour, already tired by just looking at all the work in front of me. 

"Sure," Adrien said in a heartbeat.

For the next forty minutes, we spent time on doing my homework. Adrien only spoke when I made a mistake or was stuck in some question and I genuinely enjoyed his company, shuddering even at the thought of doing this all alone in silence. Soon enough, we were done, and I was thankful for all his help for making this a forty minute job rather than a 'guess I'll have to stay up tonight' job.

"Thanks," I said, pushing the book in my bag as the bell rang, "I mean it when I say it would have take at least quadruple the time if I did it on my own." 

"Don't mention it," he said, smiling.

"You are the best, really," I said as I stood up to leave, him standing up right after, "Now at least I'll have some time to think about Juleka's gift before I go shopping tomorrow. Hey! You know Luka, right?"

"Yes. For quite a long time now. Why?"

"I want to get something for him too but I don't know what he likes."

Adrien went silent, his lips tightly pursed as he thought hard about it.

"He is a musician, so anything music related works well. Other than that I can't really think about anything right now. Ask Marinette or Juleka. They are much closer to him than I am," Adrien said, sounding a bit dejected.

"Thanks, I'll keep it in my mind," I said, not pressing the issue. Personally, asking Marinette anything about Luka seemed like a self sabotage and asking Juleka when it was her birthday as well also seemed like a problem. Anyways, it seemed it was up to me to solve this problem at this point. I looked ahead at the swarm of students ahead me, rushing to their next classes. Adrien and I shared almost all of our classes so we walked together everywhere. Suddenly, I saw Marinette in front of me, as she walked towards us.

"Hi" She squeaked, greeting me and Adrien.

"Speak of the devil," Adrien said before talking to me again, "Now you can ask her about Luk-"

I hit him with my elbow in the stomach, stopping his sentence mid way.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, "Why did you..."

I cut him, speaking myself. "I just wanted to ask you about," I looked around for inspiration but nothing in particular came to me, "about- uh- drawing! Could you draw somethings for out project if we need it?"

The question sound more directed towards me than her but thankfully she didn't seem to notice.

"Sure? What are they about?" Marinette asked, confused a bit.

"I'll tell you about it in detail later today, " I said,  buying myself some time to think about the said 'details', "We all have classes soon and it might take some time."

"Okay," Marinette agreed, "Oh! I almost forgot what I was here for! Adrien, I wanted to talk to you after school if that is possible for you."

"Of course," Adrien assured her.

"See ya," Marinette said, leaving and soon getting missing in the ocean of students.

I let out a sigh of relief.

"Why didn't you ask her about Luka?" Adrien asked, as he stood besides me, dumbfounded himself by whatever just happened in front of him.

"I'll fill you in later," I said, mentally exhausted by the conversation with Marinette myself, "Let's go to chemistry first."

*** It had been so long that I had literally forgotten the general format of this novel hehe. I wanted to write this one also as a notice to another big hiatus (maybe till May, i dunno for sure how things will pan out) 

My many important exams will be starting very soon so I wanted to put out something just so that this already long break won't stretch any longer. 

Anyways, LIKE, VOTE AND COMMENT, yk all that good stuff, cuz I'll be coming back (like William Afton lol) and thank you so much for waiting so long and reading this. 💜💜💜