Chapter Text
“...This is a joke, right?”
“Nope, sorry dude.”
Adrien buried his face in his palm. “I have one day? There’s no one else who can do this?”
“Everyone wants you, model boy. You’re not gonna leave us hanging, are you?”
“Nino...” Adrien groaned. “Being a model doesn’t make me an actor, you know?”
“Dude, you voiced Cat Noir in the animated film, so don’t try to deny that you can voice act. And you have stage presence. Put it all together and bam! We've got ourselves an actor.”
“I was reading off a script. How am I supposed to memorize all these lines in one day? ”
Nino clapped a hand on his shoulder. “If anyone can pull it off, it’s you, dude!”
“... Fine.” Adrien reluctantly accepted the stapled packet from Nino—the script for the school play that would make its debut in just over twenty-four hours.
“Thanks bro, you’re the best! Mr. Bordier’s gonna be happy about this.” Mr. Bordier was the director of the theater program, and as his Student Assistant Director (read: glorified gopher), Nino had been tasked with getting Adrien on-board with this last minute change.
“Seriously, though… one day?”
“Hey, not my fault both leads got sick and lost their voices last minute.”
Adrien flipped through the packet, feeling stressed out. But he’d feel guilty to reject only to heap this trouble on some other unfortunate soul.
“Don’t worry, dude. It’s not actually that many lines. And Marinette’s the understudy for the female lead. Why don’t you ask her for help?” Nino gave him a wolfish grin.
“They didn’t cast an understudy for the male lead?” Adrien grumbled. He usually prided himself on doing things right and well, especially when it came to presenting himself to the public. And if he ended up making a fool of himself onstage, it would only give his father ammunition to take him out of public school.
“Well, Marinette was a special case, actually,” Nino explained. “When she auditioned, she was hoping to make it into the ensemble so she’d still have time to do costumes, but she did amazing and landed the lead role. She rejected of course—she really wanted to do costumes. You know how Marinette is about fashion. But Mr. Bordier managed to convince her to understudy, at least.”
“Oh,” Adrien said, feeling a little guilty that he hadn’t known about Marinette’s involvement with the play. But his busy schedule meant he was often left out of the loop.
“Anyway, the point is, she knows what the director wants and all the stage directions. She can fill you in before the final dress rehearsal tomorrow.”
Adrien cringed at the reminder that his first rehearsal would be the final one.
Talk about bad luck.
“Well my dude, break a leg,” Nino said ironically, with a two-fingered salute and a wink. “The third act’s gonna be … interesting.” He chuckled and left Adrien in the courtyard, blinking at the thick packet in his hand.
There was a solid half hour before afternoon classes resumed. Adrien sank into a bench and started to read through the script. Thankfully, Nino was right—the main bulk of the acts consisted of musical numbers, and there was a sizable cast with a variety of scenes, so he didn’t have that many spoken lines. He’d just have to do some acting while the dances were carried out in the background. His head was spinning. He’d probably have to do a lot of improv, because there was no way he’d be able to memorize the lines and the blocking by tomorrow night. He groaned. The standards for a high school play weren’t that high, right?
When he got to the third act, he understood Nino’s sly expression when he had mentioned Marinette. Of course there was a kiss. Why did there always have to be a kiss? He rolled his eyes, thinking of Nino, but took it in stride. He could be a professional about this.
Heaving a sigh, he set the script aside and pulled out his phone. Thankfully, he didn’t have any lessons or modeling gigs between now and opening night. He could already see his immediate future: little to no sleep, a grueling school day, and more coffee than a fifteen year old should be drinking. He just hoped there wouldn’t be an akuma to top it all off.
Finding Marinette in his contact list, Adrien shot off a message.
Hey, do you have any plans for tonight?
—
The next twenty-four hours passed by in a blur. After pulling an all-nighter with Marinette to run the entire play four times and go over the blocking, Adrien was running on pure adrenaline, boosted with caffeine. It probably wasn’t the ideal way to go into a performance, but he didn’t have much of a choice.
Adrien tried his best to get his mind in-character, so any time he forgot exactly what he was supposed to be doing, he could improv well enough that the audience wouldn’t suspect. He hoped he’d done a passable job, anyway. He was thankful that learning Chinese had sharpened his memorization skills, so the lines were manageable.
When they got to the kiss scene, he felt surprisingly calm and prepared. He and Marinette had breezed through it with air kisses during their practice session. She had seemed to get more and more flustered as they approached the scene the first time around, and especially since they were alone in Adrien’s room, he didn’t want to make it any more awkward than it had to be. Adrien figured it should be fine to leave the real deal for opening night. What could go wrong with a kiss?
At least, he was glad he was doing this with Marinette, someone he felt comfortable with. Not to mention, she was cute and had good hygiene. It could be worse. It could have been Lila.
As he moved toward her, hot stage lights making his costume feel stuffy, Adrien took a moment to admire her acting skills. She was biting her lip with the slightly apprehensive anticipation he’d expect from someone who was about to be kissed. Not that he’d know from personal experience, but he’d seen a lot of movies. The blush complemented her expression and—yeah, he had to admit it. She looked pretty cute. Props to the makeup artist.
He put a hand lightly on her waist as they met at center stage, making sure to give the audience a flattering angle. With his other hand, he gently nudged her jaw upward and met her lips. They were surprisingly soft, and the fragrance of her perfume mingled with the chalky scent of stage makeup.
It was the dramatic ending scene, where the two characters who had been separated by trials were finally reunited and declared their love for one another. A chaste little peck wouldn’t fit the mood—they’d have to hold it a little longer. He thought about Ladybug to conjure up some passion to put into his acting. The picture of the kiss from the Oblivio fight that Alya had posted on the Ladyblog flashed into his mind. If only he could remember that happening. He parted his lips slightly to make the kiss more realistic and stroked her cheek with his thumb, trying to portray tenderness without making her feel uncomfortable. It was a delicate line. The skin of her cheek felt warm—she probably felt as overheated as he did. Because of the stage lights, of course.
The unexpected feeling of her fingers in his hair sent a shiver down his spine.
And as they pulled away, faces mere inches apart, he accidentally caught her eyes—bluebell irises, bright and deep, glimmering as they caught the stage lights, and looking up at him in wonder.
His heart jolted. Adrien caught his breath, reminding himself he was on stage, and fumbled the next line. Which, thankfully, was in-character.
But... whoa. Why did he have that reaction? This was just an act.
Maybe he’d taken “thinking about Ladybug” too far and projected her onto Marinette. Maybe her blue eyes had reminded him of Ladybug. But it didn’t mean anything. He and Marinette were just friends, after all. There was no reason for her to get that kind of reaction out of him.
But, that look she’d given him? Adrien had to hand it to Marinette. The emotion in her eyes looked so genuine. Then again, he shouldn’t be surprised—she continued to impress him with all her hidden talents. He made a mental note to give her a big congratulations later. Maybe even with flowers. She’d done a stellar job handling the pressure, not to mention all the effort she’d put into helping Adrien get up to speed. Yup, he’d better throw in some chocolates with those flowers.
All in all, they’d made a pretty great duo. And judging by the standing ovation, the audience agreed.
—
Later, lying in bed after a shower, the forty consecutive hours of being awake hit Adrien like a pile of bricks. His brain went into dream state before his body had even properly fallen asleep. He felt the ghost of soft lips on his own, and the sensation that he was falling made him jerk awake, grasping at the air for something to hold onto. Bluebell irises flashed in his mind—the last thing he’d seen before falling.
He smacked his forehead with his hand, rolling over onto his side. “She’s just a friend,” he muttered to himself. For some reason, he couldn’t get that kiss out of his head. It was surely a result of sleep deprivation. Or maybe he’d been pining after Ladybug for too long and it was driving him crazy. He was a normal teenage guy. It was only natural to get hung up on a kiss, right? Even if it was fake.
It was his first kiss, after all. Well, the first one he remembered. He’d been kissed twice before, but he only knew that from photographs. There was the kiss Ladybug had given him to break Dark Cupid’s curse, and the one from the fight with Oblivio that he was still dying to know the story behind. A low groan escaped Adrien’s throat as he was reminded that the love of his life had kissed him twice and he had absolutely no memory of either time. He could almost cry.
Yeah. His heart belonged to Ladybug. He definitely didn’t think of Marinette that way. Curling the pillow around his head, as if to stop unwanted thoughts from entering his brain, he succumbed to the black hole of a much-needed sleep.