“Do you want me to get you a bottle of water?”

“Luka, I’m fine.”

“You sure? You haven’t been looking well even when we were on the train-”

“I said I’m fine,” Marinette suddenly snaps at him, pushing his hand away just as he was about to wrap an arm around her shoulders to give a friendly nudge. 

"Woah," Luka utters in surprise and Marinette looks away, her brows knitted together. A strained silence falls over them. "I see. You can always tell me what's bothering you, Doctor DC." 

Everything. She answers in her mind. Everything and everyone is bothering me, especially you and...Adrien. 

Ever since arriving at the hotel for the medical conference, Marinette just cannot seem to grasp anything that's running in her head.

She could not believe that she's been troubling herself with this matter for the past few days. 

She's spent years building this wall to stop herself from being so feeble and naive, yet her efforts are proving to be futile. She may be strong-willed, but it does not mean that the heart is as well. It’s tiring and so weak of her. 

She’s trying to see him as a fellow colleague, perhaps even as a friend. Luka may have been someone that truly meant the world to her, but now that times have changed she can’t continue to think that way. It hurts, she’s aware of that, and she just wants this weekend to end without anything that could affect her professionally and personally. 

And she has never prayed so hard to not see Adrien here. 

His stubbornness may have brought a lot of good things for the past 10 months they have worked together and she has always been in awe of how hard-headed and headstrong he is, but if he chose to be stubborn and went against her warning about attending this conference, then Marinette is clearly going to lose her wits. 

“Doctor DC?”

Luka’s voice breaks her train of thought. She faces him, her anger toward him dying down as she has had time on her own to think of things. “Yeah?” 

He shows her a slight grin before swiftly wrapping an arm around her shoulders and bringing her close to him before letting go and dropping his arm to his side. “Are you feeling a bit better now? I got your room key already. You’re on the floor above mine. How about we go to our rooms and rest for a bit before heading to the convention hall?”

“T-That sounds nice,” she utters softly, her stutter coming back due to the surprise given by the sudden skinship. 

She doesn't know what to feel because it brings this strange sense of comfort and familiarity, and at the same time it tenses her. Of course, Luka would act that way. He’s always been like that to her even before they were romantically involved, scratch that, he was like that to all their fellow residents. She refuses to read into that action much. There was nothing connected to it. Nothing. 

Luka accompanied Marinette to her room first. She didn’t want it, but he insisted. “Though, I won’t be going in! I swear on myself and the proper rules of work ethics,” He teased her which earned him a laugh from her. 

"You can actually rest for a few hours since your panel starts at around four in the afternoon," he reminds her as he hands her a copy of the programme. He leans on the doorway just as Marinette takes the piece of paper from him. "You want me to call you at least two hours before four?" 

Why is he acting this way?

How does he do this? Marinette could not help wondering. How could Luka act so nonchalantly around her? Is he not as affected as her or is he good at hiding what he is truly feeling?

Marinette knows that she’s good at that as well, but it puzzles her with how much better he is doing at it than her. She’s at a point where seeing his face brings a whirlwind of unexplainable emotions. 

“Well, I mean, if that would be okay with you,” She starts, a small grin crosses her face. She’s thankful for his offer. “I can also handle waking up on my own, if ever.”

Luka chuckles. “That’s good, I’ll take note of that.” He then backs away from the doorway, ready to head to his room on the other floor. “Then I’ll see you at the hall around 30 minutes before your panel?” He looks away for a second, but instantly his eyes widen. Out of surprise, he suddenly exclaims, “Nurse Adrien? I’m glad to see you here!”

Marinette froze in place the moment she heard the name she dreaded. “What?” she spat under her breath and took a step out of the room to see it through her eyes. And there he is, standing beside two other nurses, Nath and Nino, before the door of a room to her left. It seemed like they just exited their shared room. 

Oh, God. She should have known that this was coming, yet she had a bit of hope that in no way it would happen.  

She has thought wrong, yet again. 

The three nurses stop before them and Marinette and Adrien lock their gazes on each other for just a moment before looking away at the same time. She tried her best to hide the scowl on her face but her attempts are being proven futile. 

“You also brought Nurse Nath with you,” Luka continues, unaware of the growing tension between the other doctor and one of the nurses. “And,” he turns to Nino standing beside Adrien, “you must be Nurse Nino? Nurse Adrien told me that you’ll be joining him along with Nurse Nath.”

“Yes, Doctor Couffaine.” Nino brings out a hand for him to shake. “It’s great to finally meet you, doctor.”

“Ah, I’m just an ordinary employee of the hospital as well," Luka says with a tone of dismissal. "There is nothing special about me at all. In fact, the person we should be in awe of today is Doctor DC. She was one of the few panelists who were invited to give a talk out of the thousands of doctors in Europe." 

She screws her mouth into a tight line and grunts in acknowledgment. “It’s nothing, really,” she mutters. “Don’t listen to Doctor Couffaine. He’s just spewing out nonsense.” She throws another glance toward Adrien, not aware that Nino caught that small interaction. 

“Hm, we’ll see, then, in the panel later,” Luka utters, smiling at each person, still unaware of the disguised tension between them. 

------------

As always, Marinette did well in the panel. She never fails when it comes to answering questions from a group of professionals like her. What felt different with this panel then all the other panels she has been invited to attend for the past years is that she was distracted most of the time. She was good at hiding it, but it still does not mean that she would allow it. 

Seeing Luka and Adrien before her just…

She can’t even find the words to describe it. 

It was such a mess, internally. And she can’t continue the conference in this state. Thus, she must find a solution to this dilemma. 

“You sure you don’t want anything?” She asks Adrien as they sit across from each other at a coffee shop she found three blocks away from the hotel.

Yes, this is her solution. If this man is here to spend time with her then she’s going to give him the time he wants so that she can shoo him away for the rest of the weekend. 

“Nino and Nath might be wondering where I am now. Why did you decide to invite me here with you?” He coldly asks her, something very different from his personality, while having his arms crossed before him. 

Marinette leans forward to rest her elbows on the table then huffs, her scowl persisting, “You’re here this weekend to spend time with me, right? This is it.” She draws back to spread her arms a bit, “I’m giving you the time you want.”

Adrien scoffs, “Is that how low you think of me? Yes, I may want to see you, but I also want to learn from you. And now I’m being chastised for being at a medical conference in which I have every right to join?”

She throws him a jaded look of disbelief. “I should have known better,” she mutters, shaking her head, “I should have followed my gut instinct and prepared myself to see you.” She clicks her tongue in dismay and looks the other way, avoiding his dispassionate stare. “...You’ve never been good at following orders,” she grumbles under her breath.

Despite how she kept her voice low, he heard it and instantly took offense to them. “If we were at the hospital, I would listen,” he spits out throwing a cold, hard glare at her way. “This is something personal now and I don’t know what’s with you. We’ve been sailing smoothly this past month, you and I. Clearly, I don’t know what’s going on now.”

“Do you want an explanation for that, then?”

“I know I deserve one, Marinette.”

She scoffs, “Look at you being so haughty right now.”

“Me? I’m haughty?” He utters in sheer disbelief. He shakes his head, feeling his mood go absolutely down. “That’s it,” he mutters tiredly then suddenly stands from his seat.

Marinette looks up at him in surprise. “Adrien? Where the heck are you going?”

“Would you look further than the end of your nose for once?” He finishes, before walking out of the shop. 

Marinette’s jaw drops as she watches him leave. “What the heck?” She mumbles. “What the hell?!” She exclaims, even louder. She does not hesitate any further and follows him out of the place. Thankfully, he’s just there standing beside the entrance of the shop. She walks up to him and throws her hands in the air. “Why did you leave all of the sudden?” She questions him angrily. 

Adrien suppresses an eye roll and shifts a bit to the side. “I just didn’t want this to turn into a fight. It’s clearly on its way and I can’t fathom the fact that we’re really going there.”

“Adrien, I’m really just trying to talk to you-”

He retorts, “You’re talking to me and you're also accusing me of wanting to join the medical conference because I just wanted to spend time with you? I told you countless times that I'm not here just for that. I am a nurse, I want to learn more about my field as well.”

Just as Marinette was about to retaliate, the sound of something heavy falling to the ground with a loud yelp is heard by the both of them. They immediately face the direction of where the sound came from and to their shock, find an elderly woman on the ground, rubbing her right ankle while a bike lays beside her, its wheels still turning. 

Without thinking twice, they rush to her. Adrien is the first to arrive before her. He kneels and tries to get her attention. “Excuse me, ma’am?” The old woman gingerly faces up to meet him in the eyes. “Does it hurt anywhere, ma’am?” He asks.

“A-Ah, I’m fine…” The old woman sighs and tries to move her right leg which causes her to let out another howl in pain. 

“Ma’am,” Marinette chimes in, “if you’ll allow me to check on your ankle. I think it’s clear that you’re injured-”

“I said I’m fine!” The old woman snaps at her. She then starts to angrily grumble incoherently under her breath.

Serious looks cross their faces as Marinette and Adrien glance at each other. The fresh wounds from their argument seemed to have healed for a moment as they focused on this new problem at hand. 

Because before personal problems, they always place the problems of their patients first.

Adrien immediately proceeds with introducing themselves, “Ma’am, I am Nurse Adrien and she is Doctor DC.” He brings a hand up before Marinette as a gesture of introduction. This time, he has now obtained the full attention of the old woman. “And if you’ll allow us, we would like to take care of you for the time being.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for waiting patiently for this chapter. I thank you all the more for your prayers ♡

I hope you enjoyed this chapter even if it is a bit short! I'm trying to get back into the grind of writing mlb fanfiction.

If you are a fan *coughsimpcough* of hwang jun-ho from squid game, I made a fanfic of him :) i've been simping over him for weeks and i knew that i had to make a fanfic.

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