#rosemari

Her own imagination is more than enough to distract her from thinking about how her heart is stuck in her throat.

“Ugh,” they hear a voice call. Rose pauses in her excitement, and she turns to find Chloe Bourgeois standing behind her, her face curled in disgust. Marinette grips the table tightly, afraid of what was about to happen. “Are you still going on about soulmates?”

Rose perks up at that, forgetting that Chloe’s response would be cruel. “Don’t you just think about knowing that someone out there is branded with something that symbolizes you? And that person is destined to love you with all their heart?”

Chloe scoffs, and Marinette feels her heart start to fall, knowing that something bad was about to happen. Just the day before, she’d heard Chloe insult a soulmate couple two years older, telling them their life was a sham and their relationship would fall apart.

“You don’t actually believe someone would love you, do you?” she cackles, and tears begin to gather in Rose’s eyes. “You’re probably going to be searching for your soulmate forever, you know. They’re going to see you and run to the other side of the planet.”

Mylene reaches for Rose to comfort her as Chloe walks away, but Rose shakes her off, running towards the bathroom instead. With a heavy heart, Marinette swallows the “I would never leave Rose!” deep down, disappointment choking her as Juleka goes after Rose instead. Marinette finds her heart weighing her down as she gets up too, throwing a shaky smile Mylene’s way before heading towards their classroom.

Chloe is preening at her desk inside, and Marinette feels rage spill out of her, two minutes later than it should’ve.

“Why did you do that?”

Chloe turns to look at her, her eyes immediately rolling at the sight of Marinette. “Go away.”

“No! You can’t just go around being a- a-”

“A what?” Chloe laughs.

“A bitch!”

Silence. Chloe stares at Marinette in shock, eyes bulging out of her head and mouth wide open. Marinette trembles where she stands, knowing that she’d just used a bad word. She’d be in trouble later, she just knew.

“How dare you?” Chloe says, and her voice is trembling a little, Marinette can hear it.

She runs out, away from the school and her crying soulmate, away from Chloe, all the way to the bakery. She bursts inside, startling her parents. They rush to her immediately, tender hands and gentle voices comforting her. Marinette’s crying, tears flowing freely at the tattoo on her arm, and the tatoo on Rose’s arm, and the tears she’s seen leaking out of Rose’s eyes.

Her parents are with her all night, scolding her for saying a bad word and then offering her favorite snacks.

“You’re my soulmate,” Marinette confesses the next day. It feels wrong to, like something is desperately itching to ruin everything. The wind is off-kilter, the clouds are ominous. But Marinette’s mind is replaying the image of Rose running away, and this is the first thing she can think of that can prevent it.

Rose is smiling, soft and hesitant and tentative. “How do you know?”

Marinette pulls up her sleeve quietly, letting Rose wonder in amazement at the detailed flower. Her hands reach to touch it softly, and Marinette shudders at the thrill she feels at the brush of skin.

“Do you know what the earrings mean?” Rose asks, looking Marinette in the eye, and there’s hope, wonder, excitement in there, glimmering with a promise Marinette isn’t sure is hers to make.

“No, I don’t,” Marinette says, and it’s an ugly truth, an admonition that My heart belongs wholly to you but I have no clue if yours is destined for me as well. There’s a pain there, pain at being 12 years old and living with the knowledge that she might be made to live heartbroken for the rest of her life.

And it hurts, it hurts so much.

Marinette wonders if, when the time comes, she can handle Rose finding her real soulmate.