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“Luka!” Adrien whispered as soon as he picked up, drowsiness clouding his head and sweat beading on his forehead.
“Adrien?” It wasn’t weird for the two to exchange pleasantries over text, something like “thanks for inviting me out today!” or “had a really fun time today!” but early morning calls were way above their friendship level.
“Yeah, hi! I-“ he paused, seemingly searching for what to say, “I need help.”
“Do you need me to pick you up?” he asked, already reaching for the sneakers sitting at the foot of his bed and the jacket slung around the bedpost. His helmet was in Juleka’s room if he remembered correctly-
“No! I’m fine, really. This is more… of a favour?”
His posture instantly relaxed, placing his shoes back and sitting on his bed. “Do you need me to meet you?”
“Can I come over to yours? And you own hair bleach, right?”
“What-?” he asked before the line went dead, Adrien having hung up on him.
*.*.*.*
The light illuminating the deck was useful in the early morning, Luka thought as he sat with a blanket draped around him while waiting for Adrien to show up. He had been tempted to call him again, but there was a possibility of his dad hearing and disconnecting the call, banning him from leaving the house. Gabriel wasn’t a kind man, nevermind a nice one, but no matter how many times Luka had noticed it, none of the others never did.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the heavy breathing coming from the side of the boat as he let down the gangplank. “Hey, Luka,” Adrien said as he climbed up to meet him, grabbing onto his hand. Something was off, but in the dim light of 2AM Luka couldn’t really tell.
“Mum’s away visiting family and Juleka’s sleeping at Roses tonight,” he informed in place of a greeting.
“Thanks for letting me come, by the way,” Adrien replied while following him into the houseboat, as Luka led the way towards his room.
He chuckled as he opened the door, “You didn’t really give me much of a ch-“ He stopped as his eyes met Adrien's hair, tones of pastel pink and blue peeking out between his natural blond.
“Okay, I get it, it’s pretty bad,” he groaned, running his hands through the strands. “It wasn’t meant to be permanent!”
“And let me guess, you need it bleached?”
“Yeah, I sort of have a photo shoot in, like, 4 hours?” he replied awkwardly, seemingly looking anywhere but Luka’s eyes.
He wanted to say no. He wanted to push him out of his room and lock the door and scream at him and the universe because a stupid twist of fate had ripped away any possibility that he could be the one that Marinette chose. But Luka knew that none of this was Adriens fault: his melody could tell him that much. It was sweet and nostalgia-inducing yet passionate underneath a stifling bass that he could only attribute to his fathers overbearing instruction.
“Sure,” he agreed, pushing him into the small bathroom. “Let me get the towels.”
*.*.*.*
“How the hell did you manage this?” he asked exasperatedly. His fingers ran through his hair, stained anywhere between magenta and navy to sky blue and baby pink. It wasn’t all that damaged, thankfully, and Adrien had told him that the dye did have relatively good reviews.
“Ask Marinette! She told me that it would be semi permanent!” he laughed from the chair that sat in front of the bathroom mirror.
The mention of her stung more than it should have, honestly. He was supposed to be over her. He was over her. And if he wasn’t, he’d have to get over her soon and get these two idiots together if it was the last thing he did.
Luka knew he was not a bad person. He wasn’t malicious or spiteful and (while the thought did cross his mind a few mere hours after The Reveal) he wouldn’t begrudge her a relationship with Adrien. Because Adrien and Marinette weren’t bad people either. Marinette had kept secrets and Adrien had lied to others but that was something necessary. Luka… he understood why Marinette lied and kept things from him now.
(He still felt like a partial failure because she couldn’t or wouldn’t trust him enough to divulge the truth, but that was for another night.)
Mixing the powder with developer, he parted Adrien's hair into thin sections and applied the thick bleach as he hummed along to whatever song was playing on Juleka’s bluetooth speaker he had “borrowed”.
“Luka?”
“Yeah?”
“You dated Marinette, right?”
He took a second to answer, pushing the unwanted thoughts out of his head ( Yes, but she’s destined to be with you, so that doesn't really matter, does it?) “I did, but you know we broke up, right?”
“Yeah, of course. But- how did you…” he trailed off, fiddling with the cuffs of his sweater. Luka let him take his time, carefully adding the bleach to each strand of hair while Adrien became less and less awkward. “How did you tell her that what you felt for her was serious?”
“I was akumatized, Adrien, so if you want to get with Mari I can always tell your Dad you’re here-”
“No! It’s- It’s not Marinette that I'm talking about. But she’s awesome and really brave, don’t take that as me not liking her-”
Luka zoned out throughout his flustered ramble, his traitorous brain echoing the thought that Yes, you actually do like- no, love Marinette, my ex girlfriend.
While finishing off the bleaching, he was thinking about the fact that Chat Noir was in his house.
While washing his hair clean of hair dye, he was reflecting on his relationship with Marinette and cursed whatever sick fate pulled them apart, even if all the secrecy was bound to break their fragile relationship sooner or later.
While he was blow drying Adrien’s hair, he cursed himself for placing any of the blame on Marinette.
And while he was sending Adrien off by refusing his money for the bleach and giving him a hug that may have seemed strangely pitying and equally envious, he thought about the fact that the boy in front of him had no clue that the girl he had fallen in love with (twice, he had fallen in love with her twice,) was right under his nose.
Luka Couffaine knew he could grow to push away the anger and envy, and Luka Couffaine wasn’t going to rest until he had done everything in his power to make those two see that they really were made for eachother.