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Chloé has always been at the top of the school hierarchy.
It doesn’t seem like it’ll ever change.
“Out of the way,” she shouts in the hall. Marinette, unlucky enough to be in her path, is roughly pushed onto the ground.
She stays down for a moment. She shouldn’t cry, she really shouldn’t, but after the day she’s had—this is almost enough to tip her over the edge.
As the silent tears leave streaks down her face, Marinette hides them by continuing to fix her gaze straight on the floor.
Chloé doesn’t take this for an answer. She pokes Marinette with the tip of her shiny high heel, stubbornly standing still in the crowded hallway even as Marinette feels the fleeting brushes of touch from passersby.
They don’t care. Chloé has too much power.
Sometimes, Marinette wonders why it has to be her. Why she’s Chloé’s favorite victim; why she’s the one always being hurt by her actions… it just doesn’t make sense. It’s not fair.
She should be used to it by now, though. It’s just life, isn’t it?
Sometimes school isn’t as bad as home.
Sometimes it’s worse.
She shows up to class one day with a limp in her left leg. She’d fallen down the steps this morning.
Her mother had told her to suck it up and get going. Her grades were already slipping.
And whose fault is that…
Chloé—unsurprisingly, considering the amount of time and dedication she spends finding things to hurt Marinette with—notices almost immediately.
When Marinette sees Chloé starting to pass her in the hallway, she knows what’s about to come. Chloé sticks out her leg to make Marinette trip—and while she could definitely avoid it, it just isn’t worth it, because then Chloé wouldn’t get any satisfaction and she’d just try again later.
As her face approaches the ground at a rapid rate, Marinette tries to brace herself—to no avail.
She hears Chloé snicker from above where she’s laying, and each snarky giggle chips off a piece of Marinette’s heart.
Chloé leaves, but Marinette knows better. This won't be the end of it for today.
The next few hours are somewhat tame. Chloé can be heard talking audibly to her friend, Sabrina, about how disgusting and poor and… Marinette’s learned to tune it out by now. It's nothing she doesn’t hear anywhere else, anyway.
But the breaking point is at the end of the day, after gym class, when Chloé approaches her in the girls’ locker room—with no students left in sight. They’d all finished quicker than her.
Marinette likes to go slow on purpose, sometimes, especially when gym is her last period. The empty room is always a calm and quiet place for her to rest, and if school was over then she would usually spend time here as late as she could in order to avoid her mother as much as possible.
But it had its downsides. Like right now, when Chloé Bourgeois is looming right over her as she sits on the bench.
“Dupain-Cheng.”
“Chloé,” Marinette snaps back.
“What’s with that attitude?” Chloé huffs. “Don’t be such a bitch.”
Marinette doesn't get time to think before she’s pushed to the side. Pain flares up her left ankle as she tumbles off the chair onto the cold hard ground.
Chloé, either satisfied enough for now or just plain bored, scoffs down at her, considering something for a second.
She walks out, leaving Marinette behind.
When Marinette gets home, she musters up the courage to talk to her mother.
“Maman,” she starts, “I think François Dupont is a… bad influence.”
“And?”
“And… it’d be best to change schools, maybe. Because…” she pauses, “because of… problems.”
“If you won't explain to me in detail exactly what problems you speak of, I won’t even consider it.”
There’s no way she’s going to tell her mother about Chloé’s bullying. She’ll just seem pathetic.
Maybe she is pathetic.
“Forget it,” she mutters, defeated.