I woke up to find snow covering my window, there must have been a small snow storm while I slept. I groggily sat up in bed, the blankets warm and urging me to stay, forbidding me to leave the comfort of blankets mixed with snowy days. It was Sunday and I was very tempted to just lay back down and fall asleep again. Instead, I forced myself to get up, there was a ghost down stairs currently and I kind of want to get him back into his body as soon as possible.

I reached for my glasses, I have a hard time seeing without them, but I always have them in the same place so I just need to know how far to reach from my bed. I put them on and slipped into day clothes, black pants and a plain long sleeved bluebell shirt.

Barely making a sound, I make my way down stairs where I wake up fully watching Adrien stand up to greet my parents in the morning. My dad passed right through him to the bakery and he looked absolutely baffled that my parents couldn’t see him like I could.

I fight a laugh at his bewilderment.

“Marinette? I don’t understand what’s happening.” He spotted me. I wave my hand signaling him ‘not now.’ it took a second but he figured it out. I don’t think he’s dumb for not understanding the situation the night before, I only think that he never really gotten to exercise the part of his brain that reads the moment much with how he’s been raised sheltered. I felt a bit bad calling him dense then, you're only dense if you are provided with the information but just seem to not be able to pick it up, not when you never have the chance to receive or experience something for the same information to use next time.

“Good morning Marinette!” Mom looked up from her toast.

“Morning mama.” I walked over and grabbed a warm muffin. Mom glanced briefly at her watch.

“I’ve got a few more minutes, how did you sleep dear?”

“Alright.” I sat down opposite to her.

“Good.” she dusted off her hands of crumbs over her plate and sat it in the sink. “Me and your father have a big order to make today so we don’t really have much time to hear of ghosts today. It’s alright to still be obsessed with them, just please try to refrain from following down the same path as your grandfather, okay?”

“They’re real though-” she shoots me a concerned look. “Yes mama.”

“Marinette?”

“Yes?”

“Should we take you back to see a therapist? I know they didn’t really do much to help the first time, but I really think that you might need one. I’m not sure if you think these fantasies will help you connect more to your grandpa now that he’s gone and you’ve never really met him, but you need to stop.”

“Yes mom.”

“Okay, I need to get to the shop to set up, oh, are you going to visit that boy again today?”

“Yes mom.”

“And they seriously won’t tell you how he’s doing? You’ve visited every day since your date and were in the ambulance with him, I feel like they should at least tell you something to relieve your worry. It’s been a week already.”

“Mom, you're going to be late.” I blushed, I wanted her out before she called me crazy or brought up my slight crush in front of Adrien. I want him to see me as a friend because Chloe would tear me apart if she knew and also, it’s embarrassing, both crazy and crush.

“You’re right, thank you, have a good day dear.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek and rushed to the bakery.

“Date?” Adrien asked, curious, taking my mom’s seat.

“My mom’s words, not mine.” I hid my face in my hands.

“But you didn’t deny-”

“You're still in a coma Adrien, that’s the bigger issue right now.”

“Right, that reminds me, why-”

“Why can’t my parents see you?”

“Yeah, what’s with that?”

“I really don’t know, I do know that the only other person in my family who can see ghosts was my grandpa and he died around the time I was born. I’ve never really gotten the chance to meet him.”

“And your parents don’t believe you?”

“I tell them everyday, you saw what my mom told me just a moment ago. I figure that I should try their tactics of repeating it often and hopeful they’ll finally believe me.” I fidgeted with the muffin wrapper. “Wait!” I shot up in realization. “I’ve never met them, but I have an aunt and uncle. They’re my mom’s siblings and she cut ties with them because they believed my Grandpa. My uncle was the oldest and couldn’t see the ghosts, but always tried to, my aunt was the middle child and as my mom put it ‘was just as insane as my grandfather’, she claimed to see them, but was blind so it led to my mom doubting them.”

“How can she see ghosts if she’s blind?”

“Adrien, there are ghosts everywhere, you yourself are a ghost currently, and you choose to question that?” I raised my eyebrow, confused.

“Well, when you put it that way, then it’s still yes.”

I paused and actually thought about it. “You make a fair point. The best I can answer is that when I lose my glasses, it’s extremely difficult to see everyone around me but ghosts are easy to see because without my glasses, I just see a really bright light in front of me.” I explain. “Some people who are blind can see light, they might not be able to see colours or shapes or anything in general, but they can still see light.”

“Huh.” Adrien assessed the information. “Wait, if you take off your glasses, what do I look like to you?” He seemed way too excited upon this discovery.

I sighed, taking off my glasses. The background looked fuzzy as expected, I’ve found that recently, it’s been getting harder to see without my glasses every week and it was hard enough before. I focused my attention on Adrien and fell out of my seat in surprise.

“Gah! Are you okay?!” He asked coming around to check on me. Adrien was defined, I could see him clearly where as before with ghosts, I’d only see a bright blurry light. Now that everything else is getting harder for me to see, Adrien was getting easier.

“I can see you.” My mouth dropped in awe, neither of us said anything as my words hung in the air.

“But I’m just a light, right?”

“No, like I can see you see you, like, your solid, not a ball of wispy light.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Maybe we could find your aunt and see if she knows anything.”

“No way, even if we had information on any of them here in the house, they would be destroyed before we even got close to finding them.”

“Well that’s just great. Why don’t you ask your parents?” I gimniced at his words as I slid my glasses back on and everything cleared up.

“I- I don’t think that's the best idea.”
“Why not? How did you find out about them in the first place?”

“Well, the first few years of my life, they’d visit regularly and there are a few photos of us together from when I was a baby. But what ended up happening was that when my parents were out of the room, my aunt would tell me about ghosts and my uncle, he could perform ‘spells’ but my mom just brushed it off as him trying to be a close up magician.” I reminisced on my foggy past. “She cut ties with them because she was afraid that they'd be a bad influence with ghosts. I believe that I have a cousin around my age that I’ve met once but when we were very little before everything happened.” I had very little memory of them and that age but my mom did tell me about when they were allowed around me. “It’s been so long that I don’t think they’d recognize me anyway.”

“You uncle can do magic?! That’s so cool!” Adriens eye’s glittered in excitement completely ignoring everything else I said. “Can you do magic?”

“I don’t think so.”

We sat in silence, Adrien still freaking out over magic and me finishing my muffin. I tried to cool down my blush of sitting across from my crush who looked like a puppy.

“Want to try and get you back into your body today?”

“Yes please!”

“Okay, I don’t know how to do this, but maybe try possessing your body when we get there?”

“How do I do that?”

“Um, just line up this form” I motioned to him “with your physical body and go into it I guess.”

“Can we try it?”

“Umm, well, preferably no, I’m all too used to it because I’ve found that being able to see ghosts weakens my defence against them so it would be harder if you go to your body next after practicing on me.”

“Wait, is that why I’ve never been possessed? Because people who can’t see ghosts don’t usually get possessed because their strength is more focused on protecting from getting possessed over seeing?” he asked. “Weird.”

“Yeah, it’s instinct even though they don’t realize what they're doing.” I respond, I’m so proud of both me and Adrien, he picked this up better than I did, maybe because he’s got someone explaining it to him, but it’s nice to have someone actually believing me. I’m also proud of myself for being able to explain it well enough to the point someone could follow my train of thought.

“That’s all good and swell, but I still want to practice.”

“Okay, I don’t want to be practiced on so how about we go downstairs and you could try on a customer? I know it’s weird, but just possess them and order, umm, a rose macaron.” I suggested.

“O-okay, I can do that.” We follow the stairs down to the bakery.

“Try that person.” I pointed to a tall man in a business suit sitting at a table with a newspaper.

“Got it.” he walked over and did as I explained.

Adrien disappeared and the Man stood up looking a bit robotic before tripping over his legs. I winced as I saw him fall to the ground, I fought the urge to run over and help Adrien. The man picked himself and finally managed to make his way to the counter.

“Um, hello, what can I get for you? Are you alright?” My mom asked.

“Yes yes, sorry, my foot fell asleep.” Adrien explained, the man’s voice coming out sounding deeper than I expected. “May I get a rose macaron?”

“That would be 3.40 euros.”

Adrien opened the wallet “I, um” He brought out American dollars. “I don’t believe I have euros on me.” he looked embarrassed.

“That’s alright, those are us dollars right?” He nodded. She grabbed a paper and pencil and did quick math. “4 dollars then” He grabbed the money, muttered a quick apology, and handed it over.

My mom set his order on a plate and handed it to him. “Have a nice day!” He nodded and when back to the table, he sat down and exited the body. Adrien became visible to me and the man binked and shook his head, glanced at the plate in confusion. Me and Adrien left as soon as he got back to me.

“How was it?”

“Weird and like I never want to do that again. I felt like I was on stilts and like I had full control but none at all.”

“Mhm, and?”

“And it was exhausting, give me an hour before I have to enter my body.”

“Take your time.” I smiled. That was weird, I’ve never been a ghost so I don’t know what possessing others is like, but I figured it would be harder than what I saw and what was described.

‘Yes, have him take his time, the longer he lasts in that state, the closer he comes to death.’ I freaked out at the voice.

“Who was that?” I asked Adrien, looking around.

“What do you mean? We’re the only ones out here.” The snow kept everyone wary of leaving their warm houses.

“No there was a voice, it said-” My breath hitched when I caught sight of Scarlet Moth across the street staring at me with an evil grin on her face.Time quite literally slowed down around me. Adrien and the snowflakes slowed to the point where they could have been frozen.

‘You’ve already lost a week. You’ll never save him, and even if you did, I won’t stop trying.’ She disappeared and time sped back up to normal.

“Marinette! What happened?” Adrien turned in front of me, keeping me from continuing forward. He put a hand on my face, I couldn’t feel it but it was the thoughts and actions that counts.

“Non-nothing. I’m fine, I promise.” I show him the weakest smile ever.

“Yeah, and my body isn’t in a coma, Marinette, you're crying.”

I twisted away from him and wiped away the tears. “Let’s just get you back into your body. The sooner the better.” I stepped around him and continued. I just need to get him in his body and it’ll be alright, everything will be alright. I don’t know how to get rid of Scarlet Moth, but I just need to keep Adrien safe for now.