Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kagami thinks she hates him.

Not because of his abused hair that’s redyed and redyed again and again, or the uncanny electric blue contacts he hides his eye color under, or the ripped jeans or the painted nails or all the reasons she could never bring him home to her mother.

It’s also not because of his personality. Not because of the soft spoken words or the easy going shrug of his shoulders. Not because of the way when she scorches the world when she touches it- he lets it flow around him like water. She’s used to laid back boys, (his twinkling eyes of mischief a treat all for herself) who’d rather break their spines before growing one.

(She’s also used to high strung girls. Envying the way that Marinette seemed to manifest in this sort of boundless energy. Fingers grasping at everything, bluebell eyes squinted at the fibers of a sweater Kagami wouldn’t have even noticed. She envies the way she makes it seem like a good trait, when Kagami has only ever seen herself made of faults.)

She hates his indecision, though.

“Your problem is that you never made her choose anything. You never forced her to do anything she didn’t want to do. You never gave her any sort of ultimatum. That is why you lost her.” She tells him, practicing her fencing moves to try and get some of the rage stuck somewhere deep inside of her out. An itch you can’t scratch. An ache you can’t shake. It infuriates her, and the cycle continues.

She hates Luka because he’s nice. It was very nice of him to never make Marinette choose anything. It was very nice that he was always understanding and passive and never made her feel guilty about anything. (Because she always felt guilty enough about everything). It was undeniably nice and kind of him to let her lay in his arms and wish they were someone else's. It was very nice that he never made her feel at fault for forgetting and misremembering or messing up.

But it wasn’t good for her, and that’s why he lost her.

“I don’t think anything I could’ve done would have kept her. She’s in love with someone else. I can’t change that.” He says with another one of his famous infuriating nonchalant go-with-the-flow shrugs. She hates him, she reminds herself. She hates him.

“Besides,” He continues, brows furrowed as he gazes at the ground, “I did give her one, technically. I asked her to tell me the truth. And then..”

“That doesn’t count.” She cuts in, her voice sharp enough to hurt and nothing like his. Her voice is all jagged charcoal lines and his is all beautiful watercolors and it never fails at making her feel inadequate.

She feels herself faltering. She corrects it.

“I need you to be honest with yourself as much as me, here.” She says, attempting to crush her charcoal voice and charcoal heart into a fine dust so that she might be half as sincere sounding as he is, “If after Truth, she had told you she couldn’t tell you anything. If she had told you she couldn’t tell you the one thing you asked for, but hadn’t broken it off herself... Would you have broken up with her?” She glares into his eyes. Her almond brown meet his unnaturally bright blue and he doesn’t even try to win. He looks down before she even thinks of blinking, and she knows he won. She hates him for his cowardice. She hates that it’s not cowardice, to him. Because he’s never had to be brave.

“No. I’d never make her leave.”

“But you never made her stay, either.”

“I could never make her do that.”

“But you could make her choose to.”

Silence fills the air. Apprehension. A blank canvas. Charcoal and paints scatter the floor- or something. She’s not good at metaphors. She’s not creative enough. She’s never been enough.

She hates herself more than she could ever hate him.

“Do you still love him?” Luka asked, quiet in a way only he could be. One that got her to turn and look at him. Really look at him. Really see the faded dye in his hair. The blushed oak look to his face. The jaw still soft from boyhood. The eyes hardened and sharp in the way of a man. His calloused fingers with nicks and scars. The thin lined mouth of a boy and a man who’s had to learn how to keep it shut. Not because he’d get in trouble but because he wouldn’t and that scared him. The curled fists of someone who spent their whole life forcing themselves not to throw a punch.

“Of course I do.” She says, a whisper so small she’s not sure it’s coming from her. “But I think I can love other people, too.”