Perfume

Perfume- Chapter 4

Nino sighed as he looked up at the once blue sky that was now filled with wisps of grey clouds. A few minutes earlier, Adrien, as always, had excused himself and repeated the familiar phrase 'I'll be right back!'. But Nino had known his friend long enough to know that when he says he'll be back, it's only expected of him to not return for at least a few hours. He wondered where Marinette and Alya had gone. As if to answer his question, his phone beeped. He looked down at the notification. 

"Heh. Of course." He chuckled to himself at Alya's post on the Lady-blog about the akuma fight. His friends always seemed to have something interesting going on in their lives. For Alya, that was capturing the latest news on the super villains and heroes of Paris. Marinette and Adrien seemed pretty busy too, whatever they spent their time doing. Nino had always secretly wished to be part of all the action too. But here he was, sitting alone on a bench in the middle of an empty park. He felt a cool drop of water fall onto his arm, then another. And another. He reached into his bag for an umbrella. 

"Just my luck." He mumbled sarcastically, realizing he had forgotten to bring one. Knowing that there was no point in staying where he was, he stood up and started walking. He didn't know exactly where he should go; he didn't feel like walking all the way across the neighborhood to get to his house, and he was sure the school was empty with all of this excitement, but he felt like it didn't really matter where he went. By then it had began pouring with rain. It didn't really matter to him at all. 

'Paris is one of the most exciting cities in the world,' they say. 'There's always plenty to do in the city of love,' they say. But no matter how much romance and adventure there was in the beautiful city around him, Nino always felt like he was alone inside. 

"Hey," a voice said from behind him. He turned around to see Alya holding out an umbrella.

"Alya?" he said, not believing his eyes. 

"Don't be so gloomy," she joked, gently punching his arm. She gestured for him to take the umbrella.

"Thanks." he said, smiling. "What happened with Ladybug and stuff?"

"Oh, I dunno. I left before the fight ended." Alya said as she stepped under the umbrella and began walking beside him.

"Really? Wow, that's a first. Alya Cesaire, leaving a battle scene without blogging the whole thing?" Nino joked.

"Just... shut up." Alya said playfully. She seemed to redden at his words. "What were you doing out there alone in the rain anyway? I was looking for you."

"Oh, I dunno. Guess I had nothing better to do." he shrugged.

"What?! But you could catch a cold, and.." Alya began to argue.

"It's fine, really." Nino sighed. Alya, seeing his blue expression, began to worry.

"Nino... are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just.... nothing exciting ever happens for me, you know?"

Before he had realized, they had arrived at Alya's house. Just as he thought it was about time for him to leave, Alya pulled him by his shirt. After looking into his eyes for a second, she stood up on her tip-toes and kissed him on the cheek. He felt his whole face burning. Smiling, Alya stepped away and onto the sidewalk in front of her door. "See you tomorrow, Lahiffe." Alya winked and entered her home.