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Kagami handles it well.
Better than most people would’ve, herself included. She doesn’t even blink at Nelson’s snide accusation.
Kagami instead gives it as much attention as it deserves, which isn’t much. But he, like all bullies, is after a reaction, and maybe it might’ve been better if Kagami had gone ahead and cried. But her dark eyes are expressionless, and Alya remembers just how she got the nickname ice princess in the first place.
“It’s actually a little pathetic really. But I guess I can’t blame you, after all it must be awful being the only girl without a boyfriend.” he continues.
Kagami blinks once, that same hard, cold look on her face.
“Kagami does have a boyfriend, he just lives far away.” Kind hearted Rose interjects bravely. Alya wonders why it is that Kagami isn’t saying anything. Nelson nods, a hand on their table, face all mocking understanding.
“Yes, yes, Canada, or the states, right?”
“Felix lives in London.” Meylene says, firmly.
“Yes, yes, Felix, the imaginary boyfriend, who never calls or visits, or comes to dances or anything.” His voice is mocking, and his two cronies snigger behind him like a background chorus. Still Kagami says nothing. Finally Alya can’t stand it anymore.
She doesn’t know why Kagami isn’t defending herself, but she’s not going to sit here and do nothing. If Marinette were here then she’d fight for Kagami to the ground. But she’s sick, at home with a rotten headcold, and maybe that’s part of the reason this even happened. They saw a chance, their opening, and took it.
And…there is something to what they’re saying.
Because nobody sees Felix, nobody ever sees Felix. As far as she knows, he never visits, never joins them as Kagami’s date to anything. And yeah, he lives in London, but it’s not that far.
Alya's only laid eyes on him a handful of times, and almost none of them are recent. The rest of the girls, especially the newer ones at their school, have never seen him at all.
Kagami wouldn’t lie. They all know that. It’s just…to never see a person’s boyfriend. It’s a little weird. Nelson is nasty. Alya has to scroll back months to find a photo of Felix and Kagami together, slightly out of frame, in the garden of Adrien’s house, Max’s arm in the edge of the picture.
She holds it up, ignoring Kagami’s warning glare as she does so.
“Here. A real person.” Nelson looks at it a second and cackles, like she’s only handed him more ammunition. “That’s Adrien.” he says gleefully.
Kagami exhales heavily through her nose. Alya sputters, hating that Kagami had realized the outcome to this before she had. “No, it’s-” but it’s too late to save it now. “Next time, pick an imaginary guy that doesn’t go to this school.”
Kagami fiddles with her spoon, as Nelson leaves, still laughing. None of them know what to say.
Kagami just blinks, face blank, as the bell rings.
She’s putting her things away into her locker at the end of the day when Alya comes over to talk to her.
“Hey. You okay?” she asks her, adjusting her glasses up higher on her nose. Kagami looks over at her, being careful to school her face into a flat, comfortable mask. “Of course.” she says, careful to make her lips turn ever so slightly upwards in what she hopes is a convincing enough smile. Alya nods, but still looks slightly skeptical.
Maybe she didn't do that good of a job with her expression after all.
But Alya then is skeptical about everything. Kagami has learned that about her since they’ve become friends. She really does appreciate the other girl thinking to check on her. It helps a bit with the waves of emotion that had kept washing over her during class all afternoon.
She had overheard some girls whispering to each other, aglae and a few others, during the lab that afternoon.
"-do you think it's true? maybe she did just make him up."
It had taken all her willpower to sit there, straight up, and not turn red with embarrassment, white with shame, to melt into the tile floor, to run and hide in the bathroom and get akumatized, for the millionth time. She had just thumbed the bead on her choker and thought about nothing, and breathed.
Alya seems to be waiting on something, and when she doesn’t speak, speaks herself.
“So…you and Felix. How are. Things?” she asks. There’s a note of something, else, in her tone that Kagami doesn’t completely understand, and doesn’t want to guess at. “We’re fine.” she says, and she can’t help the dismal way she says it.
Alya nods, but her expression is sympathetic, which Kagami hates.
They say their goodbyes, Kagami getting her bookbag from her locker and turning away. She glances over her shoulder to see Alya leaving in the opposite direction, Nino with her, arm around her shoulders.
Kagami goes home alone.
Her house is quiet when she gets home.
She doesn’t know if her mother is home or not. She still hurries her way to her room, shutting the door behind her. When the door shuts, her mask falls.
Her kwami comes flying out of her bag. He stops when he sees her tears.
“Oh, Kagami…” Longg murmurs, settling comfortingly on her shoulder. “People can be so mean. But it will be all right.” he tells her soothingly. She still cries, for longer than she should, curling herself into a ball on her bed, trying to make herself feel safe again.
It’s not so much the words they said, more that they managed to strike at a particular weakness of hers, a chink in her armour.
She hates that he lives all the way in London.
She misses him, so much. It aches, that there’s nobody to hold her hand, to go with her to the park on beautiful afternoons, to double date with Alya and Nino. That her friends never have to turn and look away because he’s kissing her.
It hurts, badly.
Even though she knows it shouldn’t bother her, it does. That even though she should be grateful for what she does have, she isn't. After a while of crying and the effort of an entire afternoon of keeping her mask up weighing down on her, her stomach begins to hurt. But she is far too proud to let them know how their words hurt her. She doesn't even want somebody like Alya to know.
She sniffles, Longg stubbornly settled on her shoulder. If Felix were here, then all of this would fade away, like clouds on a sunny day. He has an ever present self-confidence, an assurance in everything.
She doesn’t want to tell him about any of this, because it makes her seem doubting and wavering, all things she doesn’t want to be.
Like he can read her mind, her kwami says, “You need to tell Felix.”
Kagami wipes at her nose and says nothing. A glance at her bedside clock reads 4:05. Felix usually calls her at 4:15 most days, after she’s had a chance to get home and do homework for a little while. Then they talk, sometimes for an hour or more. Sometimes they talk after dinner too.
Kagami exhales.
She doesn’t want to talk to him today. He’ll see her red eyes and know immediately that something’s wrong. And she doesn’t want to tell him, her stomach full of a mixture of shame and embarrassment.
Maybe she talks about her boyfriend too often. Maybe she never should have brought him up to begin with.
Her phone vibrates. She shuts her eyes.
If she doesn’t answer, she knows he’ll panic.
He’ll think that her mother has finally taken back her ring, enslaving her, and he’ll rush to Paris.
It sounds ridiculous, but they live their lives in so much constant danger, even something as small as a missed phone call can send either one of them into a panic. He hadn’t picked up the phone for two hours about a month before and Kagami had nearly convinced herself that he was dead, dissolved out of existence, his ring cut in half, before he had called her back and apologizing profusely, explaining that he had been out, forced to spend the afternoon with his grandparents out in the countryside, and the connection had been spotty.
Kagami sniffles again.
Her phone continues to ring. She sighs. She opens the video call with her phone flat on her bed, sitting up so the top of her face is cut out of frame.
“Hey.” Felix says cheerfully, voice bright and full of warmth.
“Hey.” she says, mumbling slightly, getting up and off her bed. “How are you?” he asks. “Fine. You?” she asks, doing her best to change the subject.
Felix grins, and begins talking about what he’s been doing in the past twenty-four hours. He’s highly motivated for a teenage boy currently not in school. Mostly his days consist of getting up fairly early, exercising, preparing food for him, Dusuu, and his mum, reviewing reports of the megacorp his father has left him, occasionally attending dull functions, and working on writing the book-like essay on two thousand years of parisian history he’s working on during his gap year.
He’s already at 500 thousand words and hasn’t even hit joan of arc yet.
He’s perfect.
His face is brighter and kinder now; he's happy. Kagami wants to cry, all over again. He talks for a while and she listens, pretending to bustle around her room, moving things then putting them back.
If he were here, they would be together; with his arms around her, kissing on her bed, his soft lips against her neck, fingers pressed into the small of her back, touching her so carefully, just the way she wants...
She zones out, lost in a sad hazy fog, driven into a daze by the thought of him, kissing her. So she only just barely notices when Felix pauses while in the middle of talking about the hundred years war and asks her: “Are you all right?”
Kagami blinks, fiddling with the shirt she’s folded and unfolded and then folded again. Her face is turned away. “Yeah.” she says thickly. There’s a pause, and then a soft. “Kagami.”
And she turns. And then the tears begin to fall, thick and heavy, one after another, exactly the way she said she wasn’t going to do. She can’t look at him to see his expression, but she does hear the sharp intake of breath on his end. Finally after a moment she manages to get a grip, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“What’s happened.” he asks her, voice low.
She picks up her phone and sits down on her bed, legs dangling over the edge. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”
“Is it your mother?” he asks worriedly. The brightness has faded from his face. She’s ruined everything.
“No. It’s really not important.” He frowns. “Then tell me.”
She knows he’ll never let it go. She sighs. “It’s just…some boys at school. They like to bother people.”
“And they decided to bother you.” Felix says, face dark.
Kagami shrugs half-heartedly, then tells him. When she finishes, his eyes are black with anger and his mouth is a tight line.
“I’m gonna kill them.” he mutters under his breath. “Felix.” she reproaches.
“They’ll wish I wasn’t real.” he says, hard. She shakes her head. “No.”
“They can’t just accuse you of something like this and get away with it.” He shakes his head. “I could come there, to your school, and-” She just shakes her head again. “No. It’s giving those horrible boys far more power than they deserve. You’re not doing anything because of them. It’s beneath you.” she tells him firmly.
“I didn’t even want to tell you that it happened. I’m ashamed that I even let it bother me.” she tells him in a small voice. There’s another pause.
“I’d kiss you in front of all of them.” he tells her, just as quietly.
And she loves him, and she’s so sad because all he is is a dark mirror, a small piece of glass that she can hold in her hand, and all she wants is the real Felix, so so badly.
“I miss you so much.” she tells him, voice wavering, more tears ever-threatening. “More than you can imagine. I miss you not being here, I wish that you were. It’s so hard, I want everyone to see you, to see how wonderful you are, that I could hold your hand, sometimes it just, gets unbearable.” she says, and she’s crying all over again.
Felix blinks hard, his face white. “I’ll come. Right now.” he says, but she just shakes her head. “I don’t want Argos, I just want you. Normal, you.” she whispers.
“I just want you to be my boyfriend.” she says finally. Felix nods, slowly. She lies down, curling onto her side, and she can tell that he’s doing something of the same on his side of the phone. “You’re a wonderful person. Like. an angel.” he says softly.
“The best I know. You’re so kind. I love you, so much.” he continues, slowly, softly.
She smiles faintly, letting his words soften and bloom in the dark pit of her stomach. “I love you too.” she murmurs, the shape of the words now familiar against her lips. He says more, much more, soft and quiet things, perhaps nearly sweet nothings, ephemeral and gentle.
That night she falls asleep on the phone.
Kagami seems just fine on Monday, and Alya supposes that she really was fine, and Alya worried for nothing. Monday passes by without incident, and Alya’s just beginning to hope that the whole thing will pass without any more mention, and Marinette is still stuck at home sick when Tuesday comes around.
They’re at lunch, it’s her, Nino, Kagami, Mylene and Sabrina sitting at one table, the rest of their friends around them, and Kagami is texting Marinette to see if she wants her to bring over her some papers from a couple missed assignments after school when Nelson and his friends saunter back over to their table. Alya bites back a snarl.
“Texting your imaginary loverboy, gami.” he says with a nasty smirky grin. Kagami stiffens, her shoulders tightening almost imperceptibly. Alya can see, now, that this is bothering her, no matter how well she may hide it.
“Beat it.” Alya says. “Yeah man, go away.” Nino adds.
One of his friends make to grab Kagami’s phone but she’s too quick for them, and she pulls back. There’s just a slight hint of vulnerability on Kagami’s face today, and Alya hates it. Nelson just sniggers.
“I think it’s time to drop the pathetic act and just admit it to everybody that you made it all up. Felix is just a fabrication to make yourself look less sad and alone.” he says smugly, arms crossed. Kagami says nothing, but her eyes are glistening, and Alya thinks the goal all along was to make her cry, and she can tell that Nino’s thinking the same thing beside her.
The whole dining hall is watching them, and Alya’s heard people wondering, for the past few days, if Kagami really is lying.
Alya’s starting to wonder what it is that she should do, what she can do, that won’t just make everything worse, when the door to the dining hall opens, and one late person strides in. Nelson and his group have their backs to the door, and they don’t see the newcomer come in, and Kagami is both turned slightly away and emotionally distracted enough, and so she doesn’t notice them either.
But Alya, Nino, and everybody else in the dining hall sees the blonde-haired figure, tall and slender and dark, stride in. He has some kind of casual leather jacket thrown over a faded greyish purple sweater, and dark dress pants, looking so extremely british Alya almost rolls her eyes. She can't deny the fact though, that he is hot.
His footsteps are silent as he comes up to stand a few feet behind the group. Everybody in the room sees him but Kagami and Nelson’s group. He stands, eyes dark, and with a rather evil smile, puts a single finger to his mouth in a silhouette reminiscent of red light.
The command to the whole room is obvious, and halfways a threat. Hush.
Alya swallows. Nelson is still talking. Alya almost feels bad for him.
“-and I don’t know what kind of pathetic loser would pretend to have a boyfriend, and who is clearly lying to everybody because they can’t get one on their own-”
Felix looks amused, in a darkly evil kind of way, standing behind him with his arms crossed. Nelson pauses, realizing that they’re all looking at something, and that it isn’t him.
“What?”
He turns in the general direction they’re all looking. Felix gives a little half wave, arms still crossed over his chest. “Hey.” he says with that half-american drawl of his.
Nino bumps her gently on the shoulder, and then Alya remembers to look over at Kagami, who’s finally seen him. And it’s a little amazing, really.
Because something only describable as pure happiness has bloomed on her face, and her pale cheeks are flooded with color. She’s positively radiant, and no one in the entire room would doubt for an instant that Kagami, even with all of her half-expressions and stoicism, loves Felix more than anybody in the world.
Felix looks at Kagami and smiles a little crookedly, but it’s kinder than she remembers; and the knot in her chest loosens.
One of his friends frowns at Felix, and says, not that intelligently: “That’s just Adrien though.” and then he makes the frankly stupid choice of poking Felix in the shoulder.
Alya can’t completely see what exactly it is that Felix does, but he does grab the wrist of the offender's hand; he does do something to it that sounds like it hurt, and he does say something that sounds suspiciously like, “Fuckhead,”; and then everybody in the entire room is certain that that is definitely not Adrien. The poking boy darts away quickly, out of Felix's reach, and there's definitely something like fear on his face.
All three of them almost immediately slink off. Kagami has the most beautiful glowing smile on her face.
Felix smiles at her, obviously completely unfazed by any of this. The adoration on his own face nearly matches Kagami's, Alya thinks.
“Hey Felix.” Alya says, when it seems as though the two of them have forgotten about the room of gaping people, staring at them. Felix smiles at her faintly. “Hey Alya.” he says, so incredibly handsome, voice deeper now than Adrien’s. There's a glow to him now, and he's lost most of his sullen unhappiness. If there was ever any doubt in her mind as to if he loves Kagami, it's all gone now.
“I told you not to come.” Kagami says quietly, sounding thrilled. Felix shrugs, a small grin on his face, arm gentle around her shoulders.
And Alya, well, actually Alya can’t blame her.
They leave together, once Felix has spoken to a couple people, proving he, “is real,” (something he actually said, dryly), mentioning something about bringing Marinette her schoolwork and finding out where on earth Adrien has been this whole time.
Alya watches them go, and smiles faintly.