Straight to Video (Completed & Under Renovation)

Chapter Forty-eight: Moral Confliction

"You're welcome in advance, Alya..?" I read aloud. I studied the letter in confusion, and Plagg howled with laughter.

"Alya set you up with stalker material for both of your lovely ladies. This is hysterical!"

I turned red in the face as I put the pieces together.

"These videos are.. They're an invasion of personal privacy! I have to give them to Marinette."

"Whoa, whoa, what?! No way." Plagg protested.

I stood up and walked to the desk, carefully setting the box down before collapsing into my computer chair.

"Why shouldn't I? They were filmed without her consent."

"By her best friend? And edited again by your best friend?" Plagg questioned.

"But.."

"I promise if it were anything that crossed a line, it wouldn't have made it into the final gift. Trust Alya's judgement, and especially trust Nino. They're not bad people."

Plagg made a pretty fair point.. I caught myself fidgeting with my hands and folded them over the table.

"Besides," he continued, "if anything did leak through that was too personal, we both know that you would never misuse that kind of knowledge."

"Alright," I sighed. "I'll watch it. But if things start going too far, I'll stop watching and immediately text Marinette and explain what happened."

"Cool. Now, I'm going to take a nap. Don't wake me up until the apocalypse happens."

I looked down at the box and unfolded the tissue paper to find a beautiful assortment of small bags of popcorn. They were each embellished with the Dupain-Cheng's signature sticker, and were in all different colors and flavors.

I picked up the bag of butterbeer popcorn and took a bite, immediately recognizing Marinette's work by the distinguished taste of actual heaven.

Caramel, butterscotch and orange cream~

I grabbed my laptop from my desk and moved to sit down on the couch, plugging in the flash drive and wrapping myself in the blanket Marinette had given me for my birthday. It was so soft..

Is this really okay..?

I thought to myself what Marinette would do in my situation, and decided she would probably trust her friends to keep things in good taste. And anyway, she was a very curious person by nature, so of course she would want to watch it.

I took a deep breath and looked at my screen.

What would you like to do with this file?

I felt the excitement bubble up inside me. Honestly, I was dying to know...

It's a birthday gift. Just watch it.

I sat there, staring guiltily at the screen until I just couldn't help myself, anymore.

Then, I hit play.