Chapter Text
I was up and ready for school by 7:30 am, checking off the last box on my checklist for the morning, but I felt like something was missing…
“Mari are you up?” My mom called from downstairs. I checked myself in the mirror once again before grabbing my school bag and walking downstairs.
“¡Si, mama! I’m already ready to go!”
“So early? We don’t need to leave for another forty-five minutes, sweetie”
“Yeah, but besides the fact that I feel like I should be up early as America’s schools start so early, I mean it’s seriously a great idea to start school at 8:45 rather than 7:45 but anyway, it gives me more time to watch Wakfu!” I set my book bag on the floor.
“Wakfu?”
“Yeah!” I start pouring cereal into my bowl, then milk “I’ve taken it upon myself to watch more French animation since we live here now, and though I’ve watched a lot of anime Wakfu is practically an anime and besides that it’s really good, so yes, Wakfu!” I continued rambling as I ate my breakfast. “I only just started the second season recently but it’s still really good so far! Here, I’ll show you” I brought my breakfast to the living room and turned on the tv, ready to put on Wakfu.
“Mari, I’d love to but I still need to get ready for work, okay? Go on without me, just don’t spill anything on the couch!” She heads upstairs to finish getting ready in her room, and I continue watching Wakfu where I left off.
. . .
‘Holy shit, this school is huge! How did my parents pay for this?’ I think, stepping out of the car, looking up at the huge private school before me, François Dupont High School. It looked fancy as all hell. I see students flooding in, but I turn back to face mama in the car when she calls my name.
“Just let me know if you need anything, okay?” She gives me a soft smile, and I throw up a thumbs up in return.
After taking a few deep breaths, I walk inside the building, looking at the sheet I wrote for myself of my locker and class number. Finding my locker was easy enough for me, but finding my class number was the hard part. I feel like the school is bigger on the inside. After a while of wandering around I had walked past at least a dozen classrooms, none of them the one I was assigned to. Five minutes until class starts, and I feel like the ticking of the clocks in this building are growing louder, making my heart beat just as loud, and faster with every passing second. I feel my stomach tying itself into knots as I speed-walk down the halls faster, trying to find the room.
“Hey, um, are you lost?” Some girl said as she touched my shoulder, almost making me jump out of my skin. I came face to face with a girl with short navy hair in pigtails, and bluebell eyes. She’s tall, but everyone is tall compared to my 5’ 2” self.
“Oh, yeah actually. I’m trying to find this room number” I show her the room number on my sheet.
She smiles, “I’m actually in the same class as you! Follow me,” I do as she says and follow behind her into our classroom, the teacher greeting us and taking down my name, telling me that my seat is next to the guy with the red hair in the back of the class, saying his name was Nathaniel.
“I’m surprised people actually transfer this late into the year. I’m Nathaniel, as I'm sure our teacher told you. What’s your name?” He asked, giving me a light smile.
“I’m Mari, and I mean, it’s not that late into the school year, it’s only October 13th” I reply. Sure, I transferred almost two months into the school year, but its better than, like, transferring three months into the school.
“I don’t know, I still think that’s a while…” He mutters; he then pulls out his sketchbook and a red mechanical pencil that matches his dyed hair exactly. I look around the room, two minutes until class starts and there’s still a few stragglers left coming in the classroom. I see a few people looking at me, then talking with their friends. My stomach ache worsens, are they talking about me?
I didn’t realize I was zoning out until I heard my teacher, Miss Bustier, say my name.
“…and we have a new student! Care to say hello to the class, um, Mar- Mari…? Sorry, I don’t want to pronounce it wrong.” She gives me a soft smile.
“Just Mari is fine. Hi.” I give a small wave to my class, some other saying ‘hi’ in response. I’m just lucky that this teacher has enough sense to not make me answer stupid questions about myself like where I’m from or my favorite movie. I get shudders thinking about first class introductions back at my old school.
“Okay class, today we’re starting off with…” Miss Bustier starts, but I drone her out as my mind wanders.
. . .
The bell rings, snapping me out of another daydream. It’s already time for lunch, and I stop by my locker on the way to drop off my textbooks I got in class today. I grab my lunch bag while I’m there, and was about to close my locker when someone shuts it for me, my fingers almost being caught underneath the locker door.
“What the?” I say a bit too loudly, the girl that shut my locker getting in my face. Her bright blond hair practically blinding me and the horrid amount of perfume she bathed in causing me a headache.
“Hey, new girl, I just wanted to give you a heads up,” She inches a bit closer to me, her face uncomfortably close to mine “Adrien and I are totally dating, so don’t think about getting close to him, okay?” She’s not really asking a question, but staring at me like I need to answer.
“Um, who’s Adrien? And who are you for that matter?” I ask, taking a step back. It’s only now I see a girl with red hair and classes right behind her, mimicking the blond girl. They both scoff at me.
“Excuse me? I'm Chloe Bourgeois, my daddy is the mayor! As for Adrien, he’s my boyfriend and only the most handsome model in our class!” The blond girl explains.
“But Chloe… Isn’t Adrien the only model in whole school?” The red haired girl quietly asks her.
Chloe gasps, offended, sticking her hand out in front of the other girl's face, “You’ve lost all your talking privileges, Sabrina!”
“But-“
“Nope!” Chloe says, and Sabrina pouts.
I don’t need to keep watching Chloe treating Sabrina like her maid, “See you later” I walk away, towards the cafeteria.
“No one walks away from the Chloe Bourgeois!” She yells at me from across the room before I leave the locker room, but I try my best to ignore her. Once in the cafeteria I manage to find an empty table to sit at, putting on some headphones to listen to some cool music, and pull out my lunch - last night's leftover empanadas and ropa vieja, always a delicious combination. When I take a bite, I sigh at the overwhelming deliciousness of the food.
‘I have to take up cooking lessons from mama sometime, really’ I think, she’s a natural born cook. A few minutes into eating lunch I look up at two girls I recognize from class standing across from me, one of them being the blue haired girl that helped me find our classroom earlier; I take off my headphones.
“Hey, we were wondering if we could sit with you, if that’s okay?” the brown-ombré haired girl asked.
I nodded, “Yeah, if you want to” They both gave me a smile and sat next to each other across from me.
“I’m Marinette, by the way! Sorry I forgot to introduce myself earlier haha” Marinette says, picking up her utensil to eat her school lunch.
“It’s no worries Marinette” I respond.
“And I’m Alya, but enough about me, can I get an interview with you?” Alya whips out a small notebook with brightly colored sticky notes poking out from the sides.
“Huh? What for?” I ask.
“For the school blog, of course! We don’t have a school paper so I thought I’d create a blog instead, covering anything from big school events to small stuff, like opinions on stuff like the winter ball, or new students that I’m sure everyone is curious about, etcetera etcetera. So, is that okay?”
I think for a moment before responding, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea, “Sure, I don’t mind”
Alya’s face lights up with a big smile, clicking her pen and grasping her notebook, “Full name?”
“Maricielo Belmonte”
“Where are you from?”
“I’m originally from Mexico, but I’ve lived in the United States pretty much my entire life up until a month ago” I answer. I notice Marinette watching the interview like it was a television show, invested in every answer I give Alya.
“Wow! What made your family move to Paris?”
“My mom got a major promotion and my dad is originally from here, so that’s why we came specifically to Paris”
“Hmm, interesting,” Alya mutters, before closing her notebook “I’ll ask you more questions tomorrow when I come up with more, okay?”
I nod, “That sounds good to me” I get back to eating my food, continuing to demolish the ropa vieja.
After a bit of more talking on and off with the two, I notice Chloe across the room, giving me a side eye before continuing to eat her lunch. Marinette and Alya look back to see who I’m looking at, and when they notice it’s Chloe they roll their eyes.
“Why was Chloe staring at you like that?” Marinette asks.
“I don’t know, she’s pressed about nothing. She demanded me to stay away from Adrien because she’s dating him or something”
“She said that?” Marinette looks back at Chloe, then back at me, and groaned “They’re not dating, she’s just possessive because she likes him but he doesn’t like her that way because they’ve been childhood friends since forever.”
“That doesn’t explain why she’s psycho about it though”
“Rose says it’s because Chloe’s mom left her”
“Hmm.”
. . .
“So, how was your first day at school, Mari?” Mama asked as I walked through the door.
I took off my shoes, “Pretty good, I think I made a friend”
“Oh, that’s good! You can tell me all about it when your dad comes home” she says, sitting down on the sofa with rice cooking on the stove. I go up to my room to unpack my things, and just started working on my first assignment when I’m disrupted by my mom.
“Mari, ¡ven aqui!”
“What?”
“Just come here!”
“What for?” I shouted with no response. I sighed and walked downstairs to see my mom watching tv.
“This is crazy…” she muttered. I looked at the tv, seeing two people, probably teenagers by the looks of them, fighting this guy in a robot suit claiming he was a cop, wanting to bring certain people to justice.
“I didn’t think you were into superhero shows, mama”
“That’s because this isn’t a show; this is live news, Mari”
I gasp, staring at the tv as I continue to watch the two fight the cop, struggling every now and then as they find their rhythm. Maybe they were still new at this? I sit down next to my mom as we watch the two heroes defeat the villain Rogercop. My mom cheers for the hero's victory but I just continue watching the tv.
“Ladybug and Chat Noir have done it again! We can’t be more grateful for our heroes saving the day from Hawkmoth once again!” The newswoman says as the camera gets a close up of the two heroes smiling and waving before running off in opposite directions.
Honestly, the two heroes seem cool, trying their best to save the day. I can’t help but admire the two, the way that they got more in sync during the battle, their powers, it all seemed so cool. They don’t seem scared either, even though they look like they’re my age. If I were in their position, I’d hate being a hero. I’d have a constant stomach ache just being in that position. I laugh at the thought of a world where I was a hero, and I head back to my room.
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