#idk i just really like writing chloe (and pls ignore that it's 2.30 am)

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

Reasons to be nice - chapter 1

Did someone say Chlonette?

On AO3 as well

Chloé Bourgeois was such a nice person these days. No more being rude, no more putting people down, no more unnecessary antagonizing these pitiful classmates of hers. No – from now on, she was good. Better than good, in fact. The best!

At least, as long as Adrien thought so, that was what mattered. It was hard to bear the feeling of ruining her perfect, too-good-for-anyone-else reputation that she had worked so hard to cultivate for the past several years. But for Adrien? She would do anything. There was no way she was going to lose her childhood best friend, and especially not for something that would be so easy to fix.

Most things were tolerable. Saying “thank you” to Rose for those cupcakes and then quietly disposing of them later, as opposed to pushing them back at her and sneering that she would never eat something so sickly and repulsive. Getting her butler Jean-whatever-his-name-was to do her homework instead and giving Sabrina a break for once. (He was on her payroll after all, so he might as well.) Saying “excuse me” and waiting for whoever it was to move out of the way first, rather than shoving them aside.

Some things were much harder. Seeing Marinette get all the attention for designing some hideous new dress or something made her feel furious enough to want to punch a wall, though she would never bruise her flawless fingers by actually doing it. And anyway, such a dress would look so much better on her! How could Marinette have made it for Juleka??? That morbid stick insect would never be able to pull off such a colour! Did Marinette just not have eyes or something, honestly?

That was not the worst part of Chloé’s pact to be nicer, though. The worst part was Kim. That panther-challenging lunatic seemed to have taken Chloé’s sudden turn for the better as a sign that he had another chance or something. Her opinion of him hadn’t changed one bit since Valentine’s Day – he was still just some pathetic fool who thought himself much better than he actually was. She would never even think about going out with someone like that, goodness gracious. So far in her life she had never quite found a man good enough for her, and Kim certainly could not change that.

But oh, he just had to ask her again when Adrien was nearby, didn’t he?

A bouquet of flowers – cheap, miserable ones, with clashing colours and already wilting – holding them up at her and asking her, yet again, if she would think about dating him now that she was “kinda nice these days!”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t this boy just take a hint and move on? How could being akumatized not have changed the mind of this absolute dimwit?

The classroom was mostly empty, at least. Perhaps if Adrien hadn’t been here, Chloé would have turned Kim down again without a second thought. That would have been ideal. Just a simple rejection, nothing too harsh, nothing mean. Nice and quick.

But things couldn’t have been ideal, could they? She could see Adrien in the corner of the room, his conversation with Nino on pause as he turned his head to watch what Chloé would do now. His eyebrows were turned up slightly in the centre, his grip on his bag just a little too tight. Was he nervous? It looked as though he were expecting the worst, as though everything that Chloé had been doing for him recently hadn’t been enough to convince him that she really was a good person inside.

She let out a sigh, turning back to look at Kim kneeling in front of her with that ridiculous bouquet and that even more ridiculous hairstyle. The idea of saying yes to him was just so repulsive, on so many levels. But what would Adrien think? If he didn’t think the best of her that he possibly could, then what was even the point of Chloé’s whole “nice girl” personality that she was working so hard on? Would it all go to waste?

Well, everyone knew that she wasn’t truly in love with Adrien. As clingy as she acted, no one was really fooled. Saying yes to Kim wouldn’t change anything in that respect. And anyway, if Kim really did like her that much, then she could order him to stay at arm’s length (or further) all the time and he would do it, so that wouldn’t change too much either. It would be like having another servant, that was all.

Not that she considered Sabrina a servant, of course! Or anyone else for that matter. Kim could be another sidekick. There, that was better. He already did everything she ever told him to; it was fine. She was doing this for Adrien. Not for herself. This was a totally selfless action.

“Fine, I suppose it might not be a terrible idea,” she said finally, very carefully trying to sound on the line between nice but unenthusiastic. Delicate acting skills were something of a speciality of hers, considering her father’s position as a prominent politician. Perhaps it would come in handy here to make sure Kim got the idea that she was doing this out of pity, not love.

But of course he didn’t. All that nuance went straight over that thick head of his. He stood up and wrapped her in a gross, sweaty hug, which she quickly pushed herself out of. Being in such close proximity to that horrendously unfashionable hoodie and that rotten excuse for deodorant was not part of the deal, thank you very much. Why were sporty types always so lacking in personal hygiene?

The important thing was to check Adrien’s reaction, of course. Leaning around Kim’s giant stature, trying to look inconspicuous, she watched as Adrien stared at her, frowning somewhat. Then his expression returned to neutral and he resumed his conversation with Nino.

Hmm… he didn’t look happy. But why? Chloé had been kind to Kim for once! Actually accepted his pitiable advances! Surely that had been nice of her, right? Then why was Adrikins not impressed? Were her best efforts still not good enough for him?

“So what now?” Kim asked her.

Ugh. Did he really expect her to just suddenly know what to do when he was the one who asked her out in the first place? All she wanted to do was tell him to go take a shower and avoid any physical exercise for the next forever. But of course, Adrien was still listening probably, and he wasn’t quite happy with her yet. She still had to be extra nice.

“Now I take you shopping for a new hoodie,” she decided. “Something much better than what you’re currently wearing. And we’ll buy you some proper deodorant while we’re at it. And perhaps some cologne, too.”

She snuck another glance at Adrien. He wasn’t even paying attention anymore! Nino had put those awful orange headphones on him and seemed to be playing some music. And now Adrien was smiling properly, his face lit up in a way that she had seen so many times recently – but never directed towards her.

Kim was saying something else now, probably something irrelevant, Chloé wasn’t listening. She cut him off halfway.

“Come on, let’s go now and get this over with. Don’t keep me waiting.”

She clicked her fingers and began walking out of the room. Kim quickly followed. Ah, good, he was still doing whatever she told him to. If she could just keep up that dynamic long enough for Adrien to take notice and appreciate her properly, then this might just be tolerable.

It wasn’t so bad at first. Kim was perfectly willing to carry Chloé’s shopping bags, just as Sabrina had always done. Hoodies looked awful and Chloé certainly wanted to buy Kim something a lot better – if he was going to be her “arm-candy” from now on then he might as well look good – but he had bluntly refused, no matter how much she tried to tell him how unfashionable hoodies were.

“But they’re comfy!”

Comfy, seriously. What was comfy was to not have people gawking at you over your disastrous fashion choices, knowing that when they watched you they were admiring you instead. But still, Kim was annoyingly stubborn, so Chloé just went with the best she could. A new hoodie that looked much better. And more importantly, being fresh and new, didn’t already have a sporty stench to it.

Next she made sure he bought some actual functioning deodorant so that she wouldn’t have the urge to throw up whenever near him for more than two minutes at a time. After that, some perfume (though she guessed he wouldn’t really use it, considering the type of person he was). And then, since they were already in the perfume department, she went on a bit of a spending spree herself. She had a much better taste in perfumes than the class’s resident perfume “expert” Rose, after all, so why not use it?

She might have got a tiny bit carried away. By the time she stopped shopping the stores were closing and Kim was starting to complain about having to get back and do homework. Of course – she’d forgotten that most of her classmates didn’t just get other people to do their homework for them. Poor souls. Why bother putting in the effort? Especially Kim, who was more of an athletic star anyway?

In any case, she had done a fantastic job of being nice today. Said yes to Kim, then taken him out shopping. See? Wasn’t she just such a good person? There was no way Adrien wouldn’t think so! And just to drive home how nice she was, time for some quite literal driving home. She ordered her limo to first drop Kim off at his house, before taking her to her hotel where she could finally take a long shower and relax.

Part of her had been preparing for the absolute worst when it came to saying goodbye to Kim at his doorstep, but she needn’t have worried. It seemed that lugging around her shopping bags all afternoon had zapped his energy, so he didn’t attempt any overly romantic parting adieu. Thank goodness. She might have just dumped him on the spot if he tried anything. That boy was too much of a hopeless romantic for his own good, and she could tell.

On the way back to the hotel she pulled out her phone and sent Adrien a message.

Just went shopping with my darling boyfriend! xxx

Ew, just typing out the word “boyfriend” gave her the creeps. Boys were certainly not her preferred romantic partners, even if she was hesitant to yet tell anyone that. But it was a necessary sacrifice for Adrien’s approval.

She refreshed her phone over and over as the limo carried on through the busy Parisian streets. It seemed that Adrien had read her message but just hadn’t replied yet. Why not? They were friends, right? Best friends! He had to reply to her! Why would he just leave her on read? There was no typing bubble, so surely he wasn’t even typing out some long reply. He was just… ignoring her? Maybe he didn’t know what to say? Maybe he didn’t think it was important enough to warrant a reply?

Good. Hope you had fun.

Aha, a reply!

But then again, it didn’t sound particularly friendly, did it? Oh, was Adrien never going to be satisfied? And supposedly Chloé was the mean one!

The next day at school was no picnic. Kim was wearing his new hoodie, sure, but the improvement to his appearance was minimal. As soon as Chloé entered, proudly flaunting the new perfume and bracelets she had bought for herself yesterday, he ran over and latched himself onto her arm.

Well… they were supposed to be a couple, after all. Chloé just gritted her teeth and dealt with it. At least Kim hadn’t yet done any exercise today, so there was no sweaty body odour to deal with for the moment. She should be thankful for that. And plus, Adrien was over there. Perhaps if he saw her bonding with her new boyfriend, he would finally believe her niceness.

The remainder of the day was just as unpleasant. Kim wanted to share his food with Chloé at lunch – some greasy sandwich, honestly! She would never be caught dead eating something so disgusting! Rather than outright dismissing him as she ordinarily would have done, she thanked him and took half of the sandwich, before turning and promptly stuffing it at the bottom of her bag to be dealt with later. She could always get Jean-whatever to clean that up later.

Catching Adrien alone near the end of the day, having practically run out of the classroom while Kim was still talking to Max about something, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the empty locker room.

“What do you want, Chlo?”

He was rubbing his forehead, sounding tired. Perhaps he was ill? Had a headache? In that case that would explain why he seemed so unenthusiastic about Chloé’s extra-nice behaviour recently. Poor thing must have been too sick to notice.

“Adrikins, what do you think of me?” she asked. There was no point wasting any time. They were best friends, she could ask him things like this outright. “Haven’t I been such a nice person lately?”

“Um, I guess?”

He wasn’t looking convinced. Time to pull out all the stops.

“Then why do you seem so disapproving? You like Kim, right? Surely you don’t object to me saying yes to him? Wasn’t that nice of me?”

Adrien frowned at her. “Did you only say yes to him because you thought it would impress me?”

“What? No!” Chloé was an excellent liar, of course. Her father, the mayor of Paris, hadn’t got as far as he had by telling the truth all the time.

“Well alright, if you say so…”

“I took him shopping yesterday! That new hoodie he’s wearing, did you see that? That was because of me! He looks far better now. I can’t have my boyfriend wearing ugly clothes.”

“Chloé, I really don’t have time for this.”

Adrien, on the other hand, was a pretty bad liar. She knew perfectly well he just wanted to get away from her. But why? They were friends! They had pinkie-promised to be best friends forever! She couldn’t imagine a world where they were apart!

But when he just sighed and pushed past her without another word, she began to think twice. Was her friendship with Adrien really breaking apart? Even after she was trying so hard?

Oh, never mind. Surely he would come around eventually. For now, she had to go find Kim again and force herself to be even nicer to him. A dinner date, perhaps? That wouldn’t be too unbearable, right? As long as she took him somewhere sufficiently fancy and made sure he didn’t order anything gross. Kim was a sappy fool, he would love something like that. And plus, he was a show-off. He would tell everyone how nice and amazing Chloé was being, and then Adrien would see.

Yes, that was a good idea! Feeling proud of her fantastic mind, Chloé began walking towards the exit of the locker room – only to feel someone grabbing her shoulder and turning her around rather more forcefully than she would have liked. She found herself staring right into the eyes of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“What do you think you’re playing at, Chloé?”

For a few seconds Chloé stood frozen on the spot. Marinette’s bright blue eyes seemed to be drilling right into her, as if trying to attack her.

It had been a while since Chloé and Marinette had last spoken. Now that Chloé was being nice, she simply refused to interact with her. Marinette had a habit of igniting the worst in Chloé – an angry, burning, passionate side. A side that she had decided to lock away for now.

And there was jealousy, too. That much couldn’t be hidden. Marinette was supposedly “nice” – everyone in the class seemed to think so, and especially Adrien. Marinette had everyone wrapped around her finger without even needing to try. She didn’t buy anyone expensive presents, she didn’t have to work to gain Adrien’s approval, and she certainly didn’t have to agree to dating a boy she didn’t love just to get everyone to take her kindness seriously!

Marinette was just perfect. She was everything Chloé tried to be, yet failed. Perfectly pretty, but without all the expensive maintenance effort. Perfectly smart, without needing to point out everyone else’s shortcomings to make her seem better in comparison. Perfectly popular, and without using money to win her way at all! How did she do it?

And now the girl herself was standing right in front of Chloé, glaring at her, one hand still clenched around the fabric of her jacket. Oh drat. Surely this could only mean an argument was coming. Chloé had made up her mind to avoid arguments from now on, but having Marinette in close proximity just did something to her.

“What’s wrong?” Chloé asked.

“You can cut the goody-two-shoes act,” Marinette snapped. “You might have fooled Adrien, but you haven’t fooled me. I know you’re just doing all this to make him happy. Not because you want to.”

“How do you know that?” Chloé retorted, before realizing her tone was rather snappier than it should be. More softly, she continued. “I’m trying to be nice because I want to show everyone that I’m a good person! You know, like you!”

Whoops. The last bit had been a slip of the tongue. Being civil to Marinette was something Chloé wanted to do, but blatantly calling her a good person? That might just have been a little too nice.

Marinette herself seemed surprised at that, though that look of fierce determination quickly returned. Chloé had never really bothered to observe Marinette properly during their previous clashes. Now, however, she allowed herself a moment to take it in. Marinette’s face seemed somewhat chubbier than usual when she was frowning so much. And the way her furrowed eyebrows caused her eyes to narrow… those were some rather well-done eyebrows, she had to admit.

“There’s more to being a good person than just sucking up to people,” Marinette said finally. She loosened her grip on Chloé’s jacket slightly. “And anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something else too. Kim.”

“Well what about him?”

Marinette clenched that fist again. The fabric of Chloé’s jacket moved slightly, brushing against her skin more delicately than it ought to have done. She found herself unexpectedly taking in a rather sharp breath.

“He’s my friend,” Marinette said. “And I don’t appreciate you playing with his heart like this.”

At the mention of the word “heart”, Chloé noticed her own beating rather speedily. Surely that couldn’t be the adrenaline rush of an oncoming argument, could it? She didn’t want to argue with Marinette. But this was how she always felt around her. It had been a while, and it felt unusual to feel it again.

Wait… what had Marinette said? Playing with Kim’s heart…

“What do you mean?” Chloé asked her.

“If you’re not actually into him then don’t string him along like this, you’ve already broken his heart enough times! Just leave him alone.”

Marinette had moved a little closer to make her point clearer, her face now very close. It was just making that adrenaline, arguing rush worse. Chloé did not want to argue! That was the last thing she wanted! Then why was her heart trying to convince her otherwise? Couldn’t it just slow down and beat normally, like a regular person?

She noticed that Marinette was staring at her expectantly. Why did those eyes always have to be so determined? So focused? Chloé gulped and tried to get her mind working again. The most important thing – no arguing. If she could be nice to Marinette, she could be nice to anyone.

“Of course I like Kim,” she said. “I didn’t want to turn the poor darling down again.”

“You actually like him? Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Chloé hoped Marinette would not find out that she was lying. That would just result in more arguments. As it was, Chloé’s heart was still picking up speed, and seemed to jump right into her throat when Marinette suddenly let go of her jacket.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it. But if I find out that you’ve done anything bad to my friend Kim, anything bad at all, you won’t be let off so lightly.”

Perhaps Chloé would have been on the verge of arguing again, if her brain didn’t seem to be taking an unexplained spa break right now. Why was being so close to Marinette making her feel so odd? Sure, it always had done, but it had been a while and Chloé was such a different person now. Had nothing changed at all?

And as for Marinette, well… threatening Chloé into being nice to Kim (which she already was doing, of course!) did not seem nice, not one little bit. Yet Marinette was still considered one of the nicest members of the class without even trying. How? And how was she such close friends with Kim? Kim was such a troublemaker! He never had any problem being a jerk. So why did Marinette tolerate someone like him, and yet not Chloé?

“Stop staring at me like that,” Marinette said.

Chloé dropped her eyes quickly, her face feeling hot. Why had she been doing that?

Without another word, Marinette turned and left. Chloé tried to keep her eyes focused on the floor, but they drifted upwards until they were fixating on Marinette’s bouncy hair ribbons, getting further and further away, until they were through the door and out of sight.

Chloé let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. Feeling oddly weak, she leaned back against the row of lockers and slid slowly to the floor. Her heart was still beating rapidly. Her palms were getting sweaty and she wiped them on her leggings, hoping her perfume would be enough to mask any possible smell.

What had that been about? She hadn’t even argued with Marinette. She hadn’t even wanted to. So then why was she still feeling so full of adrenaline? Like she just wanted so badly to do… well… something! But what?

#idk i just really like writing chloe (and pls ignore that it's 2.30 am) #miraculous ladybug #chloe bourgeois #chlonette #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #le chien kim #random stuff #hmm i need a writing tag... uhh let's see... #aish writes #there we go