"Love people for who they are, not for who you want them to be."

— Forbidden Love

CHAPTER THRITY-THREE

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The king had been talking about his many years in the sport of fencing when it happened. When all the chaos that Marinette had been trying to process finally broke her. When she realized she could no longer sit at a dining table and pretend she wanted to get married to a prince. "May I be excused for just a moment?" Before receiving an answer, Marinette slid her dining chair back (its legs skidding across the tiled floor, creating a terribly dreadful sound), before she stood to her feet. She could practically feel the bile from her stomach rising up into her esophagus. It was hard to simply act as if all was fine with the world when in reality, it clearly wasn't.

"Of course, dear." replied the king. Chat Noir met her gaze (halfway through taking a bite of his food) and raised an eyebrow in concern. But before he could even swallow and question what was wrong, Marinette had already rapidly excused herself from the room.

When the double doors closed behind her, the king and his son met eyes. "Go after her son." With a sad smile, the king allowed his son to be excused as well.

Standing rapidly to his feet, Chat Noir raced after Marinette. Practically slamming the double doors open, his frantic eyes found her still right outside, hands clutched to her head and back rested against the wall. Her breaths were heavy, as if she had been attempting to calm herself down, and her shoulders were slouched.

"Marinette, are you alright?" He asked her, concern laced in his every word. The blonde took a step closer to her, unsure if it was the right approach. "If you feel uncomfortable, we can leave." Trying to lighten the mood, he added with a light chuckle, "Sometimes my father's stories can be a bit boring and overwhelming."

When he didn't get the reaction he'd been expecting to receive, his frown soon returned. He didn't understand why she was suddenly so upset. Just minutes ago, she had seemed to be enjoying the dinner. He didn't want her to feel like she had to be obligated to stay for the entire evening and put up this little charade with him. He had given her plenty of chances to back out on her word, yet she insisted. Now, Chat Noir wasn't even sure if this had been her will at all.

"Do you want to leave?" Hesitantly, he rested his hand against her shoulder, afraid she might flinch away from him as if he were fire. But when she made no attempt to move away from him, he sighed in relief. "I apologize if this is my fault, maybe I should have—"

"It is not your fault." Marinette interrupted him, finally meeting his gaze. "I just... I cannot keep this in anymore..."

Confused, Chat Noir raised an eyebrow. "Keep what in exactly?"

"We need to talk." Is all she gave as a reply.

Nodding, Chat Noir took a step away from her, allowing Marinette to have her space. Whatever she wanted to speak with him about seemed serious, and Chat Noir was almost afraid of what the outcome would be. He was not even sure if telling her he loved her was an intelligent idea.

You could say he was quite afraid of what her reaction might be to that.

And if she even felt the same way.

Or would ever feel that way for him.

Probably not.

Like she had said countless of times before, she would never marry.

Why would she make an exception for him?

"What is your father going to say, let alone do, when he finds out that I am a human being who broke the law by crossing over the wall?" She started by asking him the one question he'd been asking himself for weeks. Chat Noir knew eventually that his father was bound to meet Marinette. How they were to be first introduced, he did not know. His father had specifically trusted his son in making sure the intruder was to be disposed of. Yet, imagine what his father would think of him when he discovered Chat Noir had fallen in love with the human intruder.

Shrugging his shoulders, he sighed, "I have no idea. I have been asking myself the same question for quite a while now, and I still do not have an answer for it."

"And what about this whole game we are playing?" she asked again, completely drifting off into another subject and disregarding his previous answer. "Your father approves of me! He wants us to be wed! Yet he has no idea that we do not even love each other!"

Ouch.

Suddenly, a heavy weight fell onto Chat Noir's shoulders. Good god, he had never felt so awful before in his life. What terrible words to hear.

Did Marinette really feel that way?

After everything they had been through together?

After how much they had in common?

After how much they enjoyed each other's company?

After everything he had done for her? Given her his prized possession, allowed her to stay in his home, and showed her every special place in his life?

After everything she had done for him? Helping him get rid of a marriage he would dread for the rest of his days, and helping him discover happiness again after he had lost it so many years ago?

She really felt nothing? Nothing at all?

"I suppose," is all he muttered in return, unsure of how he could try and make her feel better when he himself felt terrible in that moment.

Catching onto the shift in Chat Noir's mood and facial expression, Marinette's face softens, and when she met his eyes again, she raised her eyebrows out of concern. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Shaking his head, he dismissed her question. "Nothing."

"Do not lie, your ears are droopy. They only do that when you are upset."

His ears perked up upon listening to her observation. How did she even know that?

He met her eyes hesitantly. "You will not like what I have to say."

Raising an eyebrow, Marinette folded her arms across her chest. "And?"

"And... and you will probably dislike me greatly for it." He added slowly, trying to convince her that what was on his mind was something she would not want to hear.

His eyes fell away from hers, and he felt internally guilty. Yet, Chat Noir could not control the now strong feelings he had for the ravenette. But telling her those feelings would only throw conflict into their relationship and destroy whatever they had already built together as friends.

Chat Noir did not want to lose that. To lose her would be like losing his entire soul.

"Maybe it will," she finally replied, after a long void of silence had stretched. "But if something is upsetting you, I would like to know. Maybe I could help." She suggested.

"You cannot," he sighed, "And even if you could, you would not."

"Why would I not?" she frowned slightly at him, half of her facial expression radiating off confusion, and the other half slight frustration. She did not understand what he meant. "If I had the opportunity to help you, I would. What kind of friend would I be if I allowed you to drown in your sorrows?"

Double ouch.

"That is the problem," Chat muttered frustratedly. He raised his hand to rub his forehead, slightly irritated. "You will not help me because it will go against the promise you made to yourself. The oath that you swore to keep." With narrowed eyes and a hard glare, he met her eyes. "That you would never marry, nor love a man."

Still bewildered, Marinette tilted her head. "What in god's name does that oath have to do with this situation? That oath does not restrict me from helping you!"

With a sigh, Chat Noir turned away from her. He could practically feel his heart being pierced with an arrow. Oh, how badly he wanted to believe those words could be true. But little did Marinette know that her oath did indeed restrict her from helping him. She could not mend his heart unless she was willing to share her own.

"Please let me help you!" It almost sounds as if she was now pleading for him to listen to her, pleading for him to accept her. Yet, unknowingly to her, he had already long ago accepted her into his heart. "I will do anything for you. I swear it."

Anything?

That was not the truth.

Scoffing, he felt anger slowly beginning to boil, and he turned to meet her gaze. "Anything? That is complete and utter bullshit, and you know it!" Crossing his arms now above his chest, he frowned, "I thought we made each other happy. I thought that maybe you could see me in a different light– see me with a different pair of eyes. But I was wrong. You see me as every other man you have ever encountered, and do not even try to deny it!"

"Now that is just complete and utter bullshit," Now folding her arms across her chest, Marinette sent him her own hard glare. "How dare you say such a thing when I just endured a dinner with you to convince your father we were in love... only to get what? This!" With a pointed glare, she shook her head. "I could have easily not cared at all, and you could have married that horrible blonde beast!"

"Maybe I should have married her instead of being in the predicament that I am in now." Shaking his head, his shoulders slumped in defeat, sadness and distress consuming his soul. "At least, I would feel nothing instead of heart ache."

Brows now furrowed even more deeply together in confusion, Marinette's frown only deepened. "What does that even mean?"

He wasn't sure what caused him to snap, but he finally did. Her obliviousness to the situation laid out before them was driving him mad, and before he could even stop himself, Chat Noir was practically pouring out his heart to her in small fits of rage. "It means that I love you, Marinette!" The words had rolled of his tongue before he could even process what he was saying. Finally, he had let out what he had been wanting to tell her for weeks now. Suddenly, a terrible heart-aching silence had filled the entire room– so silent, that not even a cricket's song could be heard. Though he was frightened beyond his mind, Chat Noir met her eyes, only to find her staring back at him with orbs as wide as saucers. When she still did not reply, he continued on, "I am in love with you, okay? There, I finally said what you wanted to hear. Do you see now why you cannot help me?" He asked almost pleadingly, as if trying to get her to understand why he had not wanted to say anything in the first place. "You cannot help me because you cannot love me in the same way that I love you."

At first, Marinette was for certain she had heard Chat Noir wrong. But when he once again proclaimed he loved her, and was in love with her, she knew for a fact she had not been hearing things. The only man– well, cat– who had ever been able to catch pieces of her heart successfully was admitting he loved her, and she was too cowardly to proclaim that same love to him. She was too prideful to admit she had broken her oath and had fallen in love with him only a week ago. She could not bring herself to tell him she loved him as well. Because admitting such a strong feeling was like throwing away everything she believed in. Everything that she stood for. Everything she had been fighting for as the years went on.

Was she ready to let it all go? To give up the lifestyle she promised herself she would live? To disregard all the years she worked so hard in to keep herself free?

Was it really worth it?

"H-how can... how can you b-be in love with me?" Flabbergasted, she met his eyes, afraid she may melt once she found them. He was already staring blankly back at her, the expression written in his eyes she cannot quite read. "That is impossible... t-this cannot be..." she stuttered out, the realization of it all finally beginning to sink in.

He shrugged his shoulders, his eyes already casting away from hers. "What is there not to love?" he asked her, "You are intelligent, unique, breathtakingly gorgeous, and you are not afraid to chase after your dreams. For god's sake Marinette, you have accomplished things I would have never tried to accomplish on my own." He admitted. Heaving a heavy sigh, he continued on, "You have gone against your aunt's wishes countless of times, something I would have never done to my father. You have shown me that I can be happy, that I can live a life where there are reasons to smile. Where I can be free." smiling to himself, he bravely lifts his head to meet her eyes once again, which were still in fact staring back at him widely. "I thought that maybe, just maybe, when we were together: running through empty fields and having picnics by mountains, that we could be something more. That maybe you saw me in a different light, just as I see you."

It just was not impossible to admire his words. And Marinette knew that he meant every single one of them. Chat Noir was no liar, and every word he spoke poured straight out from his heart. But another feeling besides love tugged at Marinette's heart - a feeling of complete and utter anger. Angry for how she had let herself fall into the pit of love. Furious that she had fallen under a spell she proclaimed countless of times she would always avoid. And now, Chat Noir had managed to break down walls in merely seconds that had taken her years to build up. He had captured her heart so easily, and she had allowed it.

Suddenly, her eyebrows furrowed deeply together, and she met his gaze with a hard, horrific glare. Whatever her heart was telling her, she now ignored it. Though it would pain her to tell him such harsh words, it was the only way to chase him away, and save herself before it was too late. "Chat Noir, there is no way I could see you any differently. The only thing different between you and any other man I have ever met is that those men back there-" she points with her index finger, gesturing to the town in a particular direction. "-are legitimate human beings, while you are nothing more than a man/cat creature who lives based off of magical air! For god's sake Chat Noir, you are not even real, but only a figment of the imagination!"

She had not meant to go that far, but once the words had left her lips, she could not stop the flow. "And this?" she holds up his prize possession - the arrowhead he had given her as a promise for her to stay away and never return to his side of the wall. "If you thought this was some betrothal gift, then you are greatly mistaken!" she then tosses it to the dirt, both pairs of eyes watching as it falls in front of his feet. "Do not patronize me with trinkets, Chat Noir."

Without a word, Chat Noir bends down to pick up the arrowhead. He brushes off the bit of dirt that had gotten on it and holds it up between his thumb and index finger for her to see. "This arrowhead was a gift from my mother. One of her last sayings before she died was to keep this trinket-" the word practically tasted bitter in his mouth, and he spat it out with as much venom as he could muster. "-close to my heart." He met her eyes, his glare even harder than her previous one. "This is all I have left from the most important woman of my life, and yet, I gave it to you. I entrusted it to you. If that does not show my defined love for you, then I have no other words to say."

Her eyes went wide once again. Because, how in god's name could she have been so careless and so selfish? How could she say such terrible things to him, even though she meant none of those words? He had done so much for her, had given her everything he had, and she had practically just spat all of it right in his face.

"I may not be real, as you would define, but my presence before you is no figment of the imagination either." his glare is still ever so present as he meets her eyes, "But at least now I know, I am more real than you will ever be."

And then he turns his back to her, without another word, and disappears into the bushes. She does not even have a chance to respond before he is gone. She almost cries out to him, begging him to return, but she restricts her tongue. What was done was done, and no word could be taken back.

She turned as well, realizing fully that there was no going back to the relationship she once had with Chat Noir. He would most likely forever despise her now for her hateful words, and she would never see him again. Whatever they had was simply crushed under her shoe in less than five minutes.

With Chat Noir out of the picture, there was a sudden emptiness inside of her heart. Like a black hole that needed to be filled. An empty void. She would return home with no purpose, no determination, and no joy. For the first time in her life, Marinette would grieve over a man. She would allow her tears to fall for him.

Because despite what was said, he was right.

He was much more real than she was.

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped at it vigorously. All she wanted now was to return home and lay in her soft bed.

And that would have been possibility, if she had made it over the wall. But she had not been able to climb over. Because a brown, leather bag had been thrown over her head, suffocating her into a state of unconsciousness.

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