Chapter Text
“C’mon, man, please! This place is such an unsexy trash heap, she’ll never think to look for me here!”
Luka blinked down at XY from the Liberty’s deck. Straight down, because the other boy was currently dangling from the side of the ship. How had he even gotten there? Tried to jump? They had a plank, but he hadn’t bothered to ask Luka to lower it. Luka probably wouldn’t have known he was there if he hadn’t watched his face smush against his bedroom porthole.
The smart thing might have been to ask “what are you doing here,” or maybe even “what makes you think I’ll do you any favors?” But XY would probably have an easier time answering questions when he wasn’t hanging on by his manicured fingertips.
“Fine.” He reached a hand down to haul him up.
“Woah!” XY exclaimed at being yanked on deck. Luka didn’t know why he was surprised. He weighed almost as little as Marinette.
He dusted off his purple jacket with a sneer. “Gross, I think I touched a barnacle.”
“We don’t have barnacles.” Only because Officer Roger made them scrape the hull once a month, but still. “You mind telling me why you’re here?”
“Pshaw, yeah.” He plopped down in one of the folding chairs and crossed his feet on the table like he owned the place. Unsurprising, considering his attitude said he owned everything. Including his music and Marinette’s designs.
Even though they’d appeared on Bob Roth’s show in the end, that sting never entirely went away. Maybe it was because it was his first (and only) time being akumatized, but the negative emotions still hung in the air like a discordant note.
Or maybe it was because music was meant to come from the heart, and Luka wasn’t convinced XY even had one.
He sighed and shook his head. It wouldn’t do any good to confront the boy again and risk another akumatization.
He settled down cross-legged in the chair farthest from XY, where he could still keep an eye on him, but not hear his obnoxious humming quite so clearly. Maybe working on Marinette’s melody would soothe some of his irritation away.
He was only three chords in when XY started talking.
“Do you know that blonde girl from the hotel? The mayor’s kid?”
Luka blinked blankly.
“Her name’s er—Cole? Clover?”
“Chloe? I think Marinette’s talked about her. Why?”
“Aaaaanyway, that girl’s been on my tail ever since we started staying at the hotel. She’s probably my biggest fan.”
“Good for you,” he replied in monotone, strumming a few more chords. Maybe a D minor would work there…
“No! Awful for me! She wants to take me out for pasta. I don’t even like pasta! Or girls!”
Luka blinked at that last bit. “Can’t you just tell her that?”
“Ugh, I wish.” He sighed, flopping his arms over the sides of the chair so they dangled against the deck. “Dad says I can’t come out because it’ll be bad for my image. The only thing I’m good for is my pretty face.”
He said it like it was a fact. Something about that turned Luka’s stomach. He couldn’t imagine hiding being bi from his family. Juleka knew she was lesbian practically since she was born, which made it a bit easier too, and it wasn’t like their mom cared either way.
“Music should be about who you are on the inside, not just the way you look,” he said. “Hiding such an important part of who you are must make it difficult to hear the melodies in your heart.”
XY snorted. “Not sure what kind of hippie crap you’re talking about.”
Why was he even bothering? They weren’t friends. But still, this was the longest conversation he’d had with anyone outside of Juleka’s friends in… he couldn’t remember.
“Why did you tell me this, anyway?” He asked, shaking off the thought.
“You asked why I was here. Duh.” XY dug some wax out of his ear and flicked it on the deck.
“But you said—nevermind.”
Unsure how else to react, Luka readjusted his guitar and tried to pick up Marinette’s melody again. But his fingers stumbled over the strings, refusing to press the right frets.
What did it mean that XY had come out to him of all people, when he otherwise wasn’t allowed to? Didn’t he have anyone else to share his struggles with? Or was he just trying to draw on Luka’s sympathy to keep him from kicking him off the boat?
Probably that last one. After all, it didn’t seem like XY even knew this was Luka’s house when he showed up.
“I thought you were supposed to be good,” XY scoffed when Luka butchered another chord.
“I’m just playing the song in your heart. It’s not my fault you’re out of tune.”
The boy blinked, as if no one had called out like that before. Luka hadn’t even meant to, really—he should’ve just kept his mouth shut and let his music do the talking.
“I think my heart song needs more bass drops.”
“Wh—that’s what you’re concerned with?”
“Uh, yeah? Your heart might be a boring guitar solo, but I’ve gotta have some kind of beat.”
Luka just sighed and shook his head. “Play your own heartsong, then.”
If that was supposed to make XY shut up, it failed miserably.
“Huh. Sounds like your weird hippie stuff again.”
Luka didn’t point out that he had been the one to argue what his heartsong would sound like in the first place.
“Dad wouldn’t want to hear something like that, anyway,” he mumbled. “Can’t top the charts with mushy junk.”
“Is that all you care about? Being number one?”
XY looked at him like he was stupid. “Yeah. Why else would I make music?”
Something in his gut twisted. It was just so wrong, to hear someone talk about music like that.
“Because you enjoy it? Because it lets you express yourself?”
XY snorted. “Maybe that works for you. I can’t… it just doesn’t work like that.”
“Have you tried?”
“Yeah!”
Luka jumped at the anger in XY’s voice. It was nothing like the nasally drawl he was used to.
His blue eyes flashed with regret before he settled back in the chair. “...Sorry. That wasn’t very cash money of me.”
XY? Apologizing? What kind of nerve had he touched?
“...It’s okay, I guess,” Luka mumbled back.
XY scoffed and ran a hand through his gelled mess of hair. “This was stupid.”
“What?” This whole situation was stupid, but probably not for the reasons XY thought.
“You’ve just—you’ve got all kinds of ideas.”
“Yeah? So?” Not everyone’s head could be as empty as his.
Luka received another of XY’s are you stupid stares, which was pretty ironic considering which one of them had been hanging off the side of the boat a few minutes ago.
“My dad, no matter what he says—he hates ideas.”
Luka shrugged. “Sounds like he doesn’t know much about music, then.”
“No, he knows everything about music. What sells, what doesn’t. So when he said my original music sucked—I knew he was right.”
“That’s…” That’s terrible didn’t cut it, just like it hadn’t cut it earlier. He shouldn’t care; it wasn’t like he owed XY his sympathy. Heck, he didn’t even like him.
But when it came to having your music rejected… he could only imagine what it would be like to have a family member deny such an important part of his soul.
He might have said that out loud, if the moment hadn’t been broken by a voice from the street.
“XY! Where are you? Stop being utterly ridiculous and come back! You said you were going to show me your new song!”
“I didn’t say that,” XY hissed, pressing himself flat against the chair.
Luka sat up a bit straighter to see the blonde girl searching the street, her ponytail whipping back and forth.
“I’m guessing that’s Chloe,” he said.
XY clasped his hands together and made a face that was probably supposed to be puppy eyes. It would’ve worked a lot better if he stopped making those duck lips.
“Don’t rat me out, man, please! I know you don’t like my music, but you wouldn’t make me—”
“Please, just—shut up.” Luka rubbed his temples. XY was going to give himself away by talking that loud.
For once, he actually listened. Chloe’s shouts rang out for a few more seconds before she decided he must not be at the riverside.
XY heaved a giant sigh. “Pretty cash money of you to hide me. I’d better get back now. Got some new holograms to touch up.”
“You make your own holograms?”
“Pshaw, no. Dad has people for that. They like seeing my gorgeous face while they’re at it though.”
Yeah, he should’ve seen that coming. He didn’t know why even now, he kept holding out hope that XY would show some trace of the real music inside his heart. Maybe he really was just a tinny pop beat—but when he’d spoken about his dad, he almost sounded like he had a soulful rock ballad hiding under the surface.
Probably just wishful thinking.
XY stood up, brushed off his butt as if the Liberty’s “unsexy garbage” clung to him, and looked over the railing.
“So. Uh. How do I get off?”
Luka rolled his eyes. At least he hadn’t jumped off into the river.
“Let me get the plank.”
When he got done rolling the walkway over the edge of the boat to the street, he straightened back up and jumped.
“Didn’t anyone teach you about personal space?” He glared at XY, whose blue eyes were just inches from his. They might’ve been pretty if they weren’t so close he could barely see.
Then, as if this day couldn’t get any weirder, XY planted a smooch on his cheek.
“What the heck are you doing?” Luka moved to wipe the spit off his face, but XY grabbed his wrist first.
“I just increased your face’s net worth by like, a billion euros! As thanks for getting me out of that jam. If you’re gonna wipe it off, at least sell the rag on ebay or something.” He winked.
“I should’ve left you on the side of the boat where you were hanging.”
“But you didn’t.”
XY, being… himself, almost fell into the river while throwing his hand sign from the plank.
Luka snorted and shook his head. At least watching him make a fool of himself was entertaining.
“See you next time I need to hide from Cole. So probably like, tomorrow.”
“I didn’t invite you back. I didn’t invite you the first time.”
“Like you’d say no to the number one chart topper in Paris.”
“Number two.”
“Still not a no. See ya, Lucky!”
“It’s Luka!”
“Luke, right!”
Luka groaned. That boy was the human equivalent of an out-of-tune trumpet.
But his eyes still followed him down the street until he was out of sight.