Chapter Text
Adrien forced his body to keep working. He was running on nothing but those ridiculous pills his father keeps him on to “stay in shape”. He trudged down the runway, critics have been commenting on home his performance had gotten “sloppy” lately, Gabriel didn’t like that, which resulted in another beating. It was an endless loop, lie, model, throw up the bare minimum of food he ate, get hit, repeat. He stared at the flashing lights from cameras that were surrounding him, feeling nauseous. He needed to throw up. He felt dizzy. “Adrien! Look over here!” A man.. or a woman’s voice..? He couldn’t tell; shouted out from the crowd, one of the only voices he could made out through the painfully loud chatter amongst everyone in the room. Adrien turned around and walked back down the run way to the exit, he had to get out of there.
LATER THAT DAY
“Yo, dude… You look awful.” Nino commented, noticing the black bags underneath his friends usually bright green eyes. “I am awful, Nino.” He didn’t mean to let that slip. “What do you mean?” Alya butted in and she closed the bathroom door, entering the locker room with Marinette Dupain-Cheng right behind her, as per usual. “I- Nothing. Sorry.” He apologised, for nothing. “A-Are.. moo- you! I meant you…” Marinette took a deep breath to clam herself, “Are you sure?” The bluebell eyed girl finally managed to say. Adrien just nodded in response. The boy was exhausted but if he wanted to avoid another beating from his father he had to lie. Always lying.
The bell rung a few minutes later painfully loud i. the starved boys ear, he groaned, his three companions noticing but deciding not to comment on this as he would just say he’s fine, as per usual.
“Alright class, settle down.” Miss Bustier said, gesturing with her hands to try and silence them. The redheaded teacher placed a hand on her pregnant stomach as she sighed, she then started up her laptop to pull up the lesson plan.
“You have piano, then Chinese lesson.” Nathalie, Gabriel’s assistant, said with a painfully dull expression. “I’m not doing that, Nat.” Adrien said as he kicked off his converse. “Adrien, you haven’t been in months.” Nathalie said, trying to convince the blonde. “And i’m not going again! Fucking hell Nathalie.” The boy yelled as she stormed off to his bedroom. Adrien flopped down on his bed, letting out a long sigh. “Fuck.” Is all he could say. He slowly put his hand in his pocket and took out his phone, dialling his best friends number. “What?” Chloe’s voice filled the empty room. “I need to see you or something bad will happen.” Chloe knew that tone, she hated that tone, the tone in Adrien’s voice meant he’ll hurt himself. “Okay.” Is all Chloe mustered. Adrien just simply hung up the phone and stood up off of his bed, he walked into the bathroom and stared at himself, then at the pocket knife on the counter. “No.” He said, trying to convince himself. “No,” He repeated. “Claws out.” He whispered, still staring at the knife. For some odd reason he couldn’t pull his gaze off of the piece of metal. He wanted to see his crimson blood pouring down the drain. “No…” He whispered, for the last time before jumping out of his bedroom window and making his way to Chloe Bourgeois’ house.
Chloe was on her phone, waiting desperately for her friend to arrive, she heard a knock at the window and saw none other than the famous cat heroine. She walked over, her worried vanishing and opened her balcony door. “I’m proud of you, Adrikins.” She said, using the name Adrikins ironically. “I’m proud of me too.” He said softly. “Claws in”.