ａｆｔｅｒ

His breath quivered just by the name. A bucket of cold memories splashed against his face. The dream crawled out of his mind like a soulless monster and consumed him. Slowly and painfully. The phone kept buzzing, but it fell to deaf ears. The sound fading into some far part of Adrien's mind.

"Who's Megan?" Marinette asked with a blank expression as she picked up the phone.

Her suddenly solemn voice snapped him out of his trance. Panic overtaking.

"No one!" He yelled quite agitated. Slamming the phone off her hand. Which fell on the floor with a loud thud. The rings stopped, the pieces of the screen's glass staking through the floor.

Marinette jumped back, holding her now red and aching hand against her chest. Her eyes wide open with surprise, her breathing unevenly as she look in disbelief at Adrien.

Adrien's head was hanging low, with his eyes closed to calm his racing heart. Closing his fists to contain the pressure under control.

"Look mari-" he started but bit his tongue as soon as he look up to Marinette.

"What is wrong with you?!" Marinette questioned. Backing up even more, till her back bump with the fridge. "First, you almost gave me a heart attack last night and now you're hitting me?"

"Oh God, I'm so, so sorry baby. I didn't mean it! I just panicked-" His voice quivered, he tried to get close to Marinette but she stopped him. With her other hand, she pushed his chest.

"Why? Why did you panicked exactly?" She roared, slapping away the hand Adrien tried to use to check hers.

"I-" He couldn't get a word out before Marinette spoke with disdain again.

"You know what? Never mind, I'm late for work. And you too. Well, if you're even planning on going to work." She spitted out, grabbing her case and slamming the front door as she left.

What did I just do?

He fell on his knees to then crawled into a ball on the floor. Relieved that no one was going to see his vulnerability. Silent tears rolling down his cheeks, the voice in his head torturing him.

Slowly and painfully, you're losing everything you love. Because you can't face the raw truth. It's all your fault, accept it! You hit your wife, what's next?

"I didn't mean it! I didn't mean anything!"
He yelled, drowning his sobs and bitting his fist.

I didn't mean to die and leave you alone with my son either

And that did it, hell broke lose.

⌘
ｍａｎｏｎ

"I already told you! If you call me kitty one more time, I'm going to knock out your teeth."

"You know what? I'm sorry. That was mean of me right?" Zelie, Manon's best friend, said teasingly.

"It was, thank you." Manon said but closely watched her bestie as they walked through the sidewalk.

"You're welcome kitty!" Zelie made emphasis on kitty, pronouncing it "kit-ty"and bursted out laughing as Manon looked at her deadly. Thinking if it was reasonable to kill the only human being that didn't care about her special gifts. She did tease her from time to time, but she could tolerate it. Like today. Besides other people wouldn't even come near that subject. How Zelie talk and tease so freely about it made her feel some sense of closeness to her.

"I mean look at you! With your grey eyes, feline ears, and that cute fuzzy tail! How can you blame me? You look like, well a kitty. Fluffy and cute." Zelie explained, pointing out the named parts.

Manon groaned annoyed. Zelie laughed softly.

"Have you wondered why you don't have whiskers?"

"Okay that's it!" Manon exclaimed, rolling up her sleeves. "You better run, I'm going to give ya a fabulous 10 seconds head start."

"Oh sh-" Zelie closed the zipper of her backpack and bolted out. Running through the crowd of people, "Sheep! Sheep! Sheep!"

Why sheep? This girl...

As promised, Manon chased after her ten seconds later, dodging people. In less than three seconds she was on Zelie's talons.

"Run in four legs, you'll make my life!" Zelie yelled over the wind as she jumped over coffee tables.

"I hope you still look pretty without your front teeth!" She yelled back, pushing aside some people.

People stared, weirdly and judgmental. But she didn't care nor Zelie. Manon specially was used to these kind of stares, behaviors, silent words.

But she promised herself to not let these people rule her life, she was already outcasted. Why give three cruds about them? And Zelie? She was the president of the "giving three cruds"
club.

"I think someone lost their sheep?" A masculine voiced asked confused, holding a dizzy Zelie by her shoulders. Who kept repeating Sheep and ba-ba-bah.

Manon snickered and slowed down. Walking calmly toward the tall guy. Watching closely his features, dirty blonde hair and those green eyes she had seen somewhere. He look awfully like-

Nah.

"That will be me!" Manon chuckled softly, retrieving her sheepy. "Aw, Zel! I told you to not run so fast." She joked, hugging Zelie with one arm and with the other she patted Zelie's head.

"So fast? Jesus, she bumped into me and that didn't stop her. But then the wall did that pretty much." The guy commented, holding a hand out, "I'm Alex by the way." He smiled.

"Manon." She smiled back, and shook his hand. She found herself looking into his eyes, that damn green seem somewhat familiar. She
pulled her gaze away before he thought she was a weirdo. But that wouldn't be anything new right?

"And my speedy sheep here is Zelie." Manon smirked, Zelie held her hand to wave but used it to hold her aching head.

"So what was the reason for-" Alex started but was interrupted by the Bakery's door bell.

From the door a tiny red-headed holding more bags that she could carry exited.

"Alex can you help me with these?"

"Yes. Of course, sorry mom." He looked apologetic that for some reason surprised Manon.

He took almost all the paper-bags, leaving his mother only with two small ones.

"Thank you baby," she told him. With her view clear she noticed the two girls. "Oh, who are they?" She chirped, looking at Alex teasingly. "Making friends already!"

"Mom calm down, I actually bumped into one of them just now," he affirmed. "This is Manon and her friend there is Zelie."

Manon waved and picked up Zelie's hand to make her wave too.

"Girls this is my mom, Megan."

⌘
Bonjour mes chatons!
Ça va bien?
Good, Goodie good?

I'm pretty sure is more like:

So! How much time since I last I updated?

Okay, Okay Sorry! But anyway, I tried! It took me 3 days to write this. Y'know because of school and all that crappy stuff that are also totally *cough* unnecessary *cough*

I hope you liked the chapter! Tell me if you liked it or not, kindly please. My heart is fragile

See you next year! Kidding, later...
Au revoir! 🎶
~Nicki 🖤

(I apologize for any grammatical errors)