Chapter Text
At the time, she’d just backed away silently, unable to muster up a proper response to the commands.
In fact, at the time, she’d almost completely failed to register it, on the simple basis that it didn’t make sense in her head.
Nobody told her what to do.
Well… Of course, a clever debater could have brought up that she tended to do what she was pretty sure her mother wanted her to do, which in some regards…
She was getting off topic.
The point was, she prided herself on listening to nobody but herself, to the point that she was the only person in Paris to ever have turned down Akumatization after the butterfly had landed on her.
Take that, Hawkmoth.
And, of course, the other thing she prided herself on was being in control of whatever situation she was placed in.
She was, after all, the queen.
And, the problem was, both of those self-assertions had done her absolutely no good.
Not only had Kagami not listened to her, she’d… She’d completely ignored it, and then given Chloe orders…
“Don’t ever touch me again. Don’t ever speak to me again. Don’t ever look at me again.”
And she’d followed them, which was… Utterly ridiculous, to say the least, because of the two of them, Kagami had been the one getting in her way. Between the two of them, she was the one who’d known Adrien the longest, so if anyone should get priority to sit next to him…
Chloe’s expression curled into one of disgusted anger.
And then, it froze, as her mind rewound.
‘Don’t… ever.’
Ever.
The word played again in her head.
She hadn’t listened to Kagami.
Not yet.
She would only have listened to her if she listened to every one of those commands for the rest of her life, which mean, if she broke every command on that list, she’d have definitively proven to Kagami that Chloe, and nobody else, was the queen.
Yes…
Yes, Kagami would see soon enough.
--
Adrien didn’t get much in the way of free time.
School, sleeping and eating, all of which he wouldn’t exactly consider free since they were basic necessities, obviously ate a significant portion of it, but he could hardly complain about those; after all, all of his classmates faced the same issues.
Not all of his classmates, meanwhile, had modeling, which was another few hours a week. Nor did most of them have private tutors, which basically meant more school. That was before he considered his primary extracurricular, which was to say, fencing, which added another few hours.
And then…
Stack on being a superhero, which was… Probably a full-time job.
It should have been a full-time job, anyway.
The point was, he had long since arrived at a point where he’d started calling things ‘free time,’ that really wouldn’t have been if he’d had another choice.
Which was to say that one-on-one fencing with Kagami classified, at this point.
After all, he liked Kagami, and spending time with her obviously meant he was spending time with a friend, which was a classic free-time thing.
Where had he been going with this?
Oh, right.
He’d been going out to spar with Kagami.
Obviously.
This being one of the days where it was supposed to be just the two of them, he’d be heading to her house, since her family had better facilities than the school anyway.
--
He’d had to hurry to get out of the locker room so he didn’t keep her waiting too long; he didn’t know how she did it, but Kagami was always ready to leave before him, no matter how fast he went, no matter whether he’d gotten out of class early.
And, sure enough…
“Hello, Adrien,” she said, pleasantly enough, as he was consolidating the last of his supplies into his bag.
“Hey Kagami,” he said, smiling. “Let me guess; you’re ready to go.”
“Of course,” she said, “I always am.”
That… That had been the joke.
Oh well.
“Did you see the coverage on yesterday’s attack?”
Adrien sighed, trying to brute-force a folder back into place. “Yeah… Some of it.”
Technically it was a lie; he had, however, gotten up close and personal with Slamborghini, which presumably added up to about the same.
“It was just a normal one, right?” he said.
At her silence, he looked up. She was giving him a questioning look.
“I mean… Just… just an attack. Nothing to make it stand out?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing interesting, though there is a short clip of Chat Noir getting run over that seems to amuse some people.”
Yeah… That one was probably going in a compilation video. He still had the bruise on his chest, and his back still ached from where he’d bounced off a wall like a pinball.
“Well…” said Adrien, standing up, slinging his bag over his shoulder, “at least he can take it, right?”
“I don’t see why they find it funny in the first place,” she said, shrugging, as they turned to the door.
“I think it’s because he’s a superhero, but he keeps getting hit.”
“Hm,” she grunted, “getting hit doesn’t seem like a surprise, superhero or…”
Adrien looked over, surprised to hear her falter, and…
Kagami was staring, stone-faced, at-
Chloe was looking back at her, as Adrien turned, her expression… Not angry, but not friendly, either… Resolute? Brazen? Defiant?
Adrien wasn’t an expert in what figuring out what was behind faces, and right now he wished he was.
They passed Chloe, and were out the door.
As it shut behind them, he looked back, a bit unnerved.
“Not,” said Kagami.
“What?”
“Superhero or not,” finished Kagami, as if there had been no interruption.
“I—” Adrien mentally caught up. “Right. I suppose not—What was that about?”
Kagami looked at him, expression impassive.
“Nothing important. Don’t worry about it.”
Ordinarily, he’d have suggested that if it wasn’t important, there would be nothing wrong with satisfying his curiosity, but…
This seemed like the kind of ‘not important,’ that was… The private kind of not important.
--
It was later that night, and Adrien was trying to sleep, but…
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she’d said, but…
Well. He wasn’t worrying about it, was he? He was just… thinking about it. That was a totally different thing. It wasn’t like he was afraid that something was wrong, he was just idly considering…
Yeah, there was no way to spin this that wouldn’t sound like he was making excuses.
But…
What it came down to was that Kagami clearly knew what it had been about, and, obviously, so did Chloe.
Chloe hadn’t been angry, and if Kagami had been, then she was hiding it well.
So… Chloe had been communicating something?
Reminding Kagami of something?
But… What would she have been reminding her about that she couldn’t just say it out loud?
Adrien’s mind jumped immediately to some kind of blackmail, a sign that he’d read altogether too many comics, and…
That didn’t sound right, though, for either of them.
How would you even blackmail Kagami? How would Chloe have gotten something that could?
No. It was something else.
He just didn’t know what.
--
By chance, Adrien’s bedtime had coincided with Chloe’s own, and she…
Frankly, she wasn’t satisfied.
She’d been ready to march straight up to Kagami, and make no bones about who exactly she answered to, and then…
Well, and then, Adrien had been there.
That was what she was blaming, anyway, because the alternative…
Chloe would at no point admit that she’d felt nervous at the idea, because that would mean that Kagami unnerved her, which…
Which didn’t bear thinking about.
She’d just have to do better tomorrow.