(Dedicated to @Miraculously_TWICE)

“Marinette can't play today,” Tom is banging around among his pots and pans, which is the main reason why none of them heard the door open. “She's on cupcake duty. There was a huge, emergency, last-minute change to an order this morning.”

“Papa! He didn't come over to play.”

Luka holds up a box. “This was kept at the doorstep. This is yours.”

Sabine looks up.

“Marinette's.” He clarifies, and the bluenette shoots a bright smile at him, that sends him into a awkward chuckle.

“Thanks.” Setting her flour-caked mittens down, Marinette moves to examine the package. “Cool! It’s the boning for my stays.”

“Stays?”

“Corset,” Sabine says distractedly. “Honey, stop throwing sprinkles all over the counter.”

“But they're so adorable!”

Luka reddens. “Oh.”

“It’s for a dress,” Marinette explains.

He nods without looking at her. “Cupcake emergency?” He sets down his guitar, and then he enters the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves and removing his bracelets. “Need a hand?”

“Oh, no.” Sabine's alarmed. “Thank you dear, but we’ve got it.”

“Grab an apron, they’re in the top drawer there.” Tom points across the room.

“You can’t ask him to help,” Marinette interjects. “It’s not his job.”

“He didn’t ask.” Luka ties a long, white apron around his waist. “I volunteered.”

“See?” Her father says. “The boy makes sense.”

“Uh, what should I do?” Marinette glances at Luka, who looks so out of place, and kind of uncomfortable. Why did he ‘volunteered’ to help anyway?

“Those pumpkins need to be seeded before I can toss them into the oven. Put the seeds and strings on that pile for compost.” Sighing softly, the bluenette relents.

“Pumpkins. Got it.” Luka washes his hands and grabs the biggest pumpkin.

She resumes weighing flour for six dozen cupcakes. When you bake in large quantities, scales are required, not measuring cups. “Really, we’re okay. I’m sure you have homework.”

“It’s no problem.” Luka shrugs. “I came by to take you out for an ice-cream anyway.”

Tom's voice is the only one they hear for the next hour as he guides them through production. The original order was for thirty cupcakes total, but now they're making thirty of each: classic vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, red velvet, coffee and banana.

Marinette has been helping her parents bake for years, so she's pretty good in the kitchen. But she's surprised by how quickly Luka adapts. Tom explains that baking is actually an art— how much to put ingredients in it, balancing each flavour so that none of them is too prominent— and Luka gets it. Of course he’s a natural. Good artists are good bakers.

But why is he spending his Saturday making cupcakes when he doesn’t have to? Marinette's sure that he hates her, after the way she broke up with him. Is this a nice-guy thing?

He stays away from Marinette, focused on his work. It’s maddening how someone so easy to read can be so impossible to understand.

When the timer rings at noon, Tom lets out a funny noise of surprise. “We’re making good time. We can do this.” And he smiles for the first time all day.

Luka and Marinette exchanges relieved grins across the counter. Sabine flips on the radio to a station that plays classics from the fifties, and the kitchen relaxes. Luka whips the frosting with rhythm to the beat of “Quad on a que l'amour,” while Marinette and Tom pipes out cupcakes into the moulds in perfect synchronization.

Sabine must have asked about his records, because he's talking about the charts. “Second, again, ma'am. My mother says that it's a curse.”

Twisting the top of the piping bag into a knot, Marinette looks up curiously. “Curse?”

“I never have the top ranking for two albums straight. When I get third, at least I'm happy to have placed. But second. That’s too close to first.”

She's stopped working again.

“Second hurts.” He stares at her for a moment before lowering his head back to the frosting.

Tom has been pouring cupcake mixture slowly, following their conversation with interest. He sets down his piping bag and dusts the flour from his pale blue t-shirt. “What have you been up to, Luka? What are you studying?”

“Music, sir. Although Maman wanted me to study something else with better career opportunities.”

“But it’s perfect for you,” Marinette says.

He laughs to himself. “Of course it is.”

“I meant, it’s perfect because you’ve always been a talented musician. And now, you got your own chart-topping albums—”

“Second,” he corrects.

The negative tone that’s crept into his voice is disconcerting. It’s a rare thing from Luka. But before anyone can say anything, he shakes it off with a smile. “But you’re right. It suits me.”

Tom's head tilts. He studies Luka for a long moment.

The latter has returned to work, and it reminds Marinette to return to hers. She begins mashing the bananas. The repetition is actually soothing.

As the drop-off hour approaches, they talk less and less. By the time the last cupcakes are out of the oven and into their boxes, Tom is on edge again. He races outside to open the car doors, and Marinette grabs two boxes and runs out behind him. They've just tucked the cupcakes safely inside when the front door opens.

Sabine gasps.

Marinette looks up to find Luka holding six boxes . . . in each hand. And flying down the stairs. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” her mother whispers, tightening her hold on the car door. But Luka bounds easily into the storefront.

“Ready for these?” he asks.

The boxes are still perfectly stacked.

Tom pauses for a moment. And then he bursts into laughter. “Into the car.”

“What?” Luka asks her as Tom walks away.

“Maybe carry a few less the next time you take a jog down our stairs?”

“Oh.” He grins.

“You’d be an excellent circus juggler.”

Luka follows them into the car. “Sorry, afraid of stilts.”

She laughs. “You're too tall. You probably wouldn't even need one. ”

“And being thin makes me look even taller.”

“And your jeans.” Marinette adds.

Luka makes a startled choking noise.

OH DEAR GOD. WHY WOULD I SAY THAT, is precisely the girl's next thought.

Tom reappears, slaps him on the back, and then the two throw ourselves into the welcome distraction of loading the remainder of the cupcakes.

Marinette climb into the backseat to keep them steady. Luka follows in behind her, and even though he doesn’t have to be here, it feels natural that he should come along for the delivery.

As the car starts, Marinette glances over, and he smiles at her as he buckles his seat belt. She smiles back. At least, no hard feelings.

As always, he chats easily with her parents. The more relaxed everyone else gets, the more worked up Marinette feels. They're already approaching the Seine, so they've been driving for . . . fifteen minutes? How can that be?

“Mari, you’re awfully quiet,” Sabine says. “Do you feel okay?”

“Is it motion sickness?” Tom asks. “Because you haven’t had that in years.”

“WE AREN’T EVEN OUT OF THE CITY. IT’S NOT MOTION SICKNESS.”

There’s a shocked silence.

“Maybe it’s motion sickness,” She lies. “Sorry. I have ... a headache, too.” Marinette cannot believe she's screaming about motion sickness in front of Luka, an outsider, nonetheless.

Deep breaths. Take deep breaths.

Luka's fingers are messing with his bracelets and rubber bands. He suddenly looks up. Their eyes lock.

A rubber band snaps and shoots into the windshield.

Her parents' heads jolt back in fright, but they laugh when they realize what happened.

Luka shrinks up in his seat. “Sorry! Sorry.”

And she's strangely relieved to know that she's not the only one freaking out.

They find parking in the second floor of the Bourgeois Hotel. And it was very clear that a party was in full-swing inside. They grab the cupcakes— Marinette's amazed when Tom stacks most of them on Luka's arms, trusting him to make the delivery up at the fifth floor.

“You know, you don't have to feel awkward around me.” Luka says at once when the elevator door closes with a ding. “I don't blame you for that. You liked him. He liked you. It just happened.”

There is no need for him to explain what that is.

“I just want you to know that I'm really sorry about that. . . I'm not the type of girl who goes to the Prom with one guy and ends up making out with another guy.”

“I know that.” His blue eyes are understanding, “And also, you guys were pretty hammered too, very much.”

Wrapping her cashmere sweater around herself more snugly, Marinette smiles. “Even the word 'Prom' is my nightmare now.”

When the elevator door opens again, they are greeted by the sight of a less favoured acquaintance.

“Marinette?” Chloé sounds genuinely surprised and if the bluenette isn't hearing wrong, there is a slight overtone of happiness in her voice. But that moment quickly passes and Chloé reverts to the original Chloé, Marinette has last seen. “I mean, Maritrash! Why are you late?”

“The last time I checked, we are two minutes early, Chloé.” She narrows her eyes at the blonde. God! And here she was, thinking that her classmate must've changed.

Stumped a little, the blonde impatiently waves her hand, “Ugh. Whatever. Just keep the cupcakes on the table there. What a waste of my time!”

The two of them exchange a grin and walk towards to place the boxes on the wooden piece, and Chloé strides away to get their bill.

“So, did you talk to him about Prom?” Luka asks, “I mean, if you did, maybe he'd have. . . you know, admit his feelings for you.”

Marinette bites her cheek absentmindedly. “Actually, no. I didn't. No.”

“Why?” Luka seems genuinely bewildered.

Me too, Luka, Marinette says feelingly in her mind, me too.

“Because, because,” She searches for an explanation, “he was, just like you said, hammered. . . He had a girlfriend, and he never liked me and—“

“I see the way he looks at you.”

“Huh?”

“If he didn't like you, he wouldn't look at you like that. I promise, just go and talk to him. And everything's going to work out exactly the way you want it to be, okay?”

Marinette suddenly feels a building pressure behind her skull. And she has to pinch the corner of her eyes to prevent her tears from falling. “Why are you so nice to me? After everything I did to you, you're still so nice to me. It feels almost illegal.”

“Yeah.” He snorts. “The nice guy.”

“What?”

“That was what my one-and-only girlfriend said when she broke up with me.”

“Oh.” Marinette's taken aback. The Girlfriend, at last. Juleka was telling something about this earlier. “That’s . . . a really, really stupid reason.”

Luka touches his nose for a split second. “It’s not uncommon. Nice guys finish last and all.”

“Who was she?”

“One of Juleka's friends. Last year.”

“A model?”

“My social scene doesn’t extend much further.”

The news makes Marinette feel bad. “You're going to find someone, who will appreciate your niceness and very much awesomeness. I mean, who said you have to have tattooes and lip piercings to be cool? And y'know, it's just a myth. Nice guys don't finish last.”

“Thanks— Hey, man.” At Luka's change in tone, Marinette spins around to find a handsomely dressed Adrien grinning at the two of them. And his girlfriend on his arm.

Oh, god. Not again.

“Hey, guys. So, what are you doing here?” Adrien looks at them, his eyes darting between the two of them. Kagami was silent.

Marinette feel slapped in the face. Ashamed. Although she didn’t have anything to be ashamed about, but Kagami had that effect. If she wanted you to feel something, you would.

“Cupcakes.” To her gratitude, Luka quickly answers for her, “For the party.”

“MARINETTE?!” But it wasn't either of the three who yelled her name.

Tiptoeing over Adrien's shoulder as inconspicuously as she can, Marinette is surprised to see Alya dragging Nino towards them, surprise etched on her face. “I'm so glad you could come, girl. Did you finish your work?”

“Work? What work?” The bluenette is surprised.

Alya impatiently takes her hand. “Are you messing with me? Your work! Adrien told that you couldn't come because of your work today. That's why you turned him down.”

“No, I didn't—” Halting abruptly in the middle of her sentence, she angrily turns to look at Adrien, “Why did you tell her that I was working today?”

“You were. . . working, right?” Adrien narrows his eyes ever so slightly at her to instruct he'd to play along. What is he trying to do?

But Marinette had enough of this. “Stop lying! I wasn't. If you didn't want me in this party, don't lie to my friends. First you say you want to be friends again, and now you're lying to me. Which one is the real you? And for the record, I didn't want to come to your party, anyways.”

She storms out.

*

      Be honest with me. Did you like it? I hope you did. Don't forget to vote and drop a comment so I know how this story is going! Constructive criticism is always welcome. Think you have noticed an inconsistency or a mistake? I hope you tell me that so I can improve my writing!

— Upama ♥