Something new

chapter 57

3:32PM

In half an hour (Name) would be off to their "date".
But Adrien had different plans.
Both Adrien and (Name) were sitting on their bed, playing uno, when suddenly Adrien spoke up about the date, for the second time already.

"So about Jake.."

"I'm not romantically interested in him."

He inhaled sharply, he wanted to hide his grin so bad but he couldn't help but let a small smile out. Good, it should stay that way.

"Then why did you even agree to going out with him?"
(Name) was silent.

They groaned before speaking up, "Okay Agreste, this is probably new for you since you are literally a model and have probably never expierienced rejection-"

Adrien listened dumbfounded, almost offended even.
"-But, people like me, who aren't conventionally attractive like you, don't get this opportunity a lot."

Adrien found a thousand reasons to argue with them, so he did. "I'm sorry. I don't think I'm following you right now." (Name) sighed, having expected this answer, „Okay look-" "-What's so wrong with your appearance?"

"What?"
This wasn't the question they expected.
"Do you think people only want you when you look great?"
(Name) shook their head, almost offended even. "What? No I didn't even-", before they could argue he cut them off once again. "Also I have been rejected. Multiple times, a thousand maybe even, I stopped counting after the 20th time."

It was silent.

(Name)'s jaw dropped.

He got rejected? After processing what he had comfessed they waved their hands around in disbelief and put their cards aside. "Wait, wait, wait, wait..." staring at him in disbelief he looked at them and waited for them to put an end to their endless line of 'waits'.
"You got rejected? Multiple times? But all of Paris loves you, who would reject you?"

"The girl I let my guard down for did."

Ouch. Adrien thought he had forgotten the pain he felt from Ladybug's multiple rejections, unfair treatments, and even the pain of loving her smile and grace. But when he spoke up about his first love that had failed him, the memories and emotions still came to show.
Even (Name) felt the emotional impact this girl probably had on him. "Man, are you okay?", they reached for his hand, he stared down on their hand coming to hold his, and when he felt the touch of their warm fingers slowly grasping around his palm, he felt safe. He smiled and looked back into their eyes.

"Yeah, I got over her thanks to.. a special friend."

(Name) smiled sympathetically at him. However it didn't take them long before they visibly cringed and shivered. "Ugh, this is all too sappy for me."
Adrien laughed and tilted his head slightly confused, "Don't you talk about your feelings with your friends?", they scoffed and took their hand back to their own side, leaving Adrien with a cold hand. "No. Well- Yeah, but not like that."

But you talked to Chat Noir about this topic for hours and days when he needed it. He smiled. They lied and he knew it too well.
How adorable. He thought and snickered.
But they decided that their statement wasn't complete just yet, which honestly surprised him.
"Well, there is one person I ever talked about this type of thing in more depth with. He had the same problem as you actually, which is kinda ironic.", they snickered.
Adrien blushed, of course they were talking about Chat Noir, but the fact that (Name) always finds similarities between him and his other identity intimidated him.
He coughed afterwards and tried to not go into detail about this specific similarity, but then got an idea.
"Was.. the other person Jake?" He asked, a sly smile on his face as he knows damn well it wasn't. (Name)'s laugh died down and they shook their head.

"I don't know what you think how close me and Jake are, but he's really not that important to me."

"Well how did you meet him in first place then?", Finally. He glanced over at his phone screen, 3:49PM. They won't notice the time moving forward when they're too busy telling me stories.

They in fact did forget about the time and proceeded to start storytelling. "I helped him in 6th grade when he freshly moved here. A couple kids were making fun of him because he was from Canada and therefore had a funny accent when speaking french."
Oh. Of course Adrien hadn't expected this, and now he feels slightly bad for wanting to ruin their date. Only slightly though.
"I helped him gain confidence and teached him how to correctly pronounce some words. I guess we were friends in a way, I didn't expect him to actually develop feelings for someone like, well, me." They finished their little story but proceeded to leave Adrien confused with their last concluding sentence.

"What do you mean by that?", he asked them, not getting what would be so wrong about falling for them.
Well yeah, for him it's wrong. He thought back to Jake and agreed only in that sense with them.

(Name) shrugged, "Well, I'm a boring person and Jake used to tell me all these awesome things he used to do in Canada. I think it's weird for someone who is really interesting to be so interested in someone so boring."

Adrien scrunched his nose irritated at their statement. "Excuse me, how are you boring. You're the funniest person I know." He defended them to which they only responded by laughing. "Yeah I'm funny, but I still don't have any hobbies or cool interests like Chloe or Nino for example. I'm plain boring, we can be honest here Agreste I won't take it to heart."

But you're the most interesting person I have ever met.
He sat up closer to them, "Is this connected to the 'not being conventionally attractive', by any chance?", they only nodded, not taking this conversation as nearly as serious as he is.
"Okay but I first want to make clear, if you call me ugly I'll beat you up. Because I know damn well I could get it if I would sleep regularly and style my hair. I'm just saying there's a difference between being naturally beautiful and being okay, which is nothing bad."
He wanted to laugh at their blindness.

4:05PM

How could they say that so casually? So confident in their sentence building? How could they claim something so wrong and make it out to be right?

"I think you look more than beautiful."