I forgot to tell you that I love you

Comic Book

It's been almost a year since Marc is gone. And almost a year since I haven't written in this notebook. This year passed a lot faster than I thought it would. Too fast. Becoming a student, an adult and being independent is more difficult to live with than you could think. And it's terrifying too. We're more free, our parents are no longer behind us, that's true, but we have to think of everything, by our self. I am now in a great Design School in Paris and I study alongside with Marinette and Alix. We're known as the Infernal Trio. I have to say, we already had a little reputation before we even entered the school. Alix was known for her huge wall paintings. She created a team, so she could make more ambitious projects. On a personal level, she's apparently seeing someone, but she refuses to tell me anything. That's insane ! She's my best friend and she's not telling me anything ! Well, maybe she's taking revenge, since I didn't say anything about Marc. Concerning Marinette, she got promoted since high school's prom for the end of the year. Everyone only talks about her as the future fashion queen, supported by the great Gabriel Agreste and by the high fashion priestess and mother of Chloe, Audrey Bourgeois. And as for me, everyone is still asking when the next issue of Ladybug's adventures will be released.

If Marc would have been there, I would have been the happiest man on earth, and the most enthusiastic to talk about it. And I would probably not be in this school. I would still be full of motivation to illustrate his scripts, but now this question stabs my heart like a dagger. Every time, I have to act like nothing happened, so, I just say that, for the moment, we're busy with our studies. And that we'll continue when we'll have free time. But it's a lie. We'll probably ... well, we certainly really won't continue our series, we'll never be able to put a last full-stop. We left our readers with a huge cliffhanger which will never find answers. And our comic book, is like a metaphor of my story with Marc. I neither will never have answers. But meanwhile, for the readers and the fans, I have to make a distraction.

Since I met Marc in middle school, my life has taken a very unexpected turn. After the events that followed his akumatization, we immediately worked things up and settled to write this comic book about Ladybug and Chat Noir's Adventures. Marc ended up leaving the stairs where he liked to take refuge to come work alongside me in the art room. After a few weeks, we made a first issue, only for people in our middle school. Available in room 33, and also in the library. I thought everything would end once we're done with this project, that our lives would go back to normal. But life, you know ! The feedbacks were very positive. Everyone seemed to love it, so Marc and me, we thought we could take advantage of the beginning of this reputation to continue a bit more, to make it work and create a little series with a few episodes. Somehow, the comic book was really an excuse ... To see each other and spend some time together. Thanks to Ladybug and Marinette, I found a real friend (Alix is still my best friend but there are some things guys can't share with girls, sorry). I was floating on a small cloud and I didn't want that to come to an end.

We kept seeing each other in room 33 after school to plan a plot we could quickly finish. It became my favorite moment in the day. Goodbye school's dullness and boredom and hello mysterious Paris full of super villains that Marc and I loved to portray. The meetings after school started to last longer and we were looking for new excuses to see each other more often.

I came at my place, I went at yours. We worked on our comic book, we made our homework, we listened to music. You had diner at my place, I had diner at yours. We watched movies, we played video games. You slept at my place, I slept at yours. We went to school together in the morning. We were indivisible. When we weren't in room 33, we were together in the dining hall or in the library. We worked on different scripts that we had invented and we read articles about Ladybug and Chat Noir. We also watched videos from the Ladyblog, as well as television reports, and I was looking for references in comic books and mangas available. Over the weekend, we explored the city together to find unusual places which could be used as settings for Ladybug and Chat Noir's battles. Small alleys, the Seine River's banks, the sewage, disused buildings, the catacombs. I listed everything. Paris' guts didn't have secrets anymore for me. You, weren't fond of these trips, always worried we would break the law, get arrested, wind up with weird men or get hurt in dangerous places, but you still followed me and I already imagined myself protecting you and you smiled. You trusted me. During every break between classes, we liked to meet in the school's stairs. I was mesmerized by your writing. You always had thousands of ideas about settings, super villains, costumes and super powers. Over time, I think I became your first fan, just like you admired me without me knowing.