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[18 years later]
It was funny how well Marinette and Adrien worked as a pair of divorcee’s. It seemed like they co-operated even better separate than they ever had when they were a couple!
Which made it unsurprising when they arrived to Alya’s little informal high school/friends get-together as a unit in Marinette's car, with their three children all gathered as if they hadn’t gotten divorced less than a year prior.
The oldest was twelve year old Emma Athena Agreste-Dupain-Cheng, the downright spitting image of her late grandmother Emilie, with blonde hair and big green eyes, though she was a bit less…refined than her paternal grandmother, being dressed in baggy boys’ clothes with a number of scuffs and bruises from playground fights.
The middlest was a eight year old little boy named Louis Apollo Dupain-Agreste-Cheng holding his fathers’ hand, with blonde hair and big blue eyes that slowly wandered across the field they’d be spending the next few hours in. He was a quiet boy, and many mistook it for ‘shy’, which was hardly the case. He just frankly didn’t like people. Despite being eight, he hadn’t yet spoken his first words. There wasn’t a medical or diagnosable reason for it, he just didn’t seem to want to speak.
And the third, their youngest named Hugo Hephaestus Dupain-Cheng-Agreste, was a two year old toddler, also blonde haired, with a pair of big green eyes, and a propensity for running straight into trouble if not kept a constant eye on.
Emma seemed to not be having any fun as she sat cross legged and pouting at the picnic table they had chosen to chat at, sitting with her parents on opposite sides of the table with Auntie Alya and Uncle Nino next to them. Nino holding her little brother Hugo as he coo'd about how much he missed his 15 year old Jessie being so small, with Louis off cloud gazing in the grass.
“Oh, wow, is that Luka?” Auntie Alya whispered to her mother over Emma’s head. “When did he get those tattoos?”
“Y’know, you could just go up and ask him,” Adrien snorted, smiling as he looked over his shoulder to check out the rocker Alya had spotted, looking away from where he was watching Louis to make sure his airhead middle child wouldn’t wander into traffic to follow a butterfly.
Luka had somehow both changed, and looked exactly the same as they remembered the last they saw of him fifteen years ago, covered in tattoos and piercings. He’d changed , but it was more or less what they had all collectively expected him to look like as a 34 year old. “Where did he go anyway? He straight up vanished the minute he turned 18.” Nino asked curiously.
“Into the Order of the Miraculous,” Marinette said, fingers threading together under her chin as she gave an appraisal once over of the guy. “He’s a full fledged Guardian Monk now. Or, was, before he quit to return to civilization.”
“Is he? Wooow,” Nino whistled, impressed.
“ Wow indeed…” Adrien hummed, taking a bit of a longer gander at the tattoo'd brunette.
“Whose he?” Emma asked, squinting her eyes at the guy in question between Uncle Nino and her Papa's shoulders. He had long black hair, down to his butt, with green ink tattoos all over, one on his neck that went up his throat to look like a snake belly, with more snakes wrapped around his right arm, dark scruff on his face and he had piercings , a bunch of them, in his face and ears, his hands covered in rings and bracelets.
“The man who could’ve been your father,” Alya snorted with a laugh.
Emma inhaled sharply, eyes snapping to her father to search for any signs of jealousy.
“Her high school ex,” He confirmed, turning back to the table and simply smiling, looking at Marinette pointedly. “You might’ve gotten one that looks like you if it had worked out.”
“I still don’t understand how that worked out,” Marinette laughed. “All our kids look like him! Blonde is supposed to be weaker genetically than-”
“Blue?” Adrien drawled, grinning.
The conversation continued onward, Emma continuing to make a face like she’d smelled something rotten as she sat between her parents, though this time her gaze was focused on Luka as he chatted with some other high school friend of her parents…
-
Emma was not dumb. She knew what happened at these weirdo adult parties, grown ups got drunk and stupid!
“I’ll have to fight him,” Emma announced as she peered at the tattoo’d man from the pirate spyglass that was attached to the playground next to the reunion, eyes narrowing when she saw him talking to Louis. Fat good that was gonna do, Louis was mute! “For my Papa! He’s not getting anywhere near Maman.”
“Ems, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Her cousin Aiko said, brow furrowing as she leaned on the same section of playground the spy glass was on, seeing the man very clearly without it as he was seemingly talking at her other cousin Louis.
“You don’t think anything I do is a good idea,” Emma said pointedly.
“Because you never have a good idea!” Aiko insisted, exasperated. “That guy is like 200cm and jacked . In no way would you ever win a fight against him.”
“Which means he’s slow.”
“ Emma.”
“Look, I can’t just stand by and watch my Mom’s old flame steal her from my Papa!” Emma insisted, looking at her cousin. “I know he’s cool and jacked, that’s exactly the problem! My dad is a total dork, he’s a teacher and wears sweater vests for cryin’ out loud! That guy came in on a motorcycle! ”
“Emmaaaaa~!” Aiko groaned. “Your parents are happy , why are you bothering them? They live literally across the street from each other.”
“Why live across the street from each other when they could be in the same bed again?” Emma snorted, stepping away from the spy glass as she spotted Luka going to go to the snack table to start cleaning up. The family portion of the afternoon was ending, and Emma knew she and her little brothers’ would be dropped off at her grandparents’ so her parents could go get drunk and stupid in peace.
“Like when you used to call me at 1 AM, hiding in your closet because you could hear them screaming at each other?” Aiko drawled, rolling her eyes as she followed her cousin down the slide.
“It’s like you said, they’re happy now so that’s no longer a problem.” Emma insisted simply, stomping over to where the leather clad former-monk was boxing up the leftovers of their potluck, Louis sitting on an already empty and clean portion of the table.
“They’re happy because they’re not together ,” Aiko muttered under her breath, though if Emma heard her, she didn't show it. Aiko went along with her, following if only to immediately run to tell her uncle and auntie that Emma was fighting again when it inevitably all went wrong.
“Hey! Mr.Tattoo!” Emma said, approaching the (admittedly) very tall man, hands on her hips as she craned back to look at his face. “I need a word with you!”
Luka, for a moment, didn’t pay her any mind, humming to himself as he continued to clean up.
“Hey! Guy!” Emma continued, strafing around Luka to get right in front of him.
Luka simply picked her up by her armpits, and put her behind him before he kept cleaning.
“H-hey!! You don’t put hands on little girls!” Emma said, incensed.
“I must’ve been at the monastery too long,” Luka hummed serenely, smiling at Louis as he oh-so-kindly helped clear the dessert table by stuffing his mouth with the last leftover cupcake. “I don’t remember little girls being so rude.”
Emma huffed, scrambling to stand on the bench beside the table so she was (somewhat) eye-to-eye with the guy, though still having to look up at him with just how goddamn tall he was. “I need to tell you something important.”
“How about a ‘Hello’ first?” Luka offered, setting aside what he’d been packing up and holding a hand out to Emma, leaning on the table with his opposite hand. “I’m Luka Couffaine, nice to meet you.”
“Emma Agreste-Dupain-Cheng,” Emma sneered, not taking his hand at all.
“Oh? You’re Louis’s older sister,” Luka mused thoughtfully. “Marinette’s kitten?”
“ And Adrien’s!” Emma added, pointing at Luka's nose. “I just wanted to inform you that my Maman’s off the market, so stay far away.”
“Is she?” Luka hummed, glancing in Marinette’s general direction as she attempted to offer help to clean up, though Alya was insisting that she, Rose and Luka had it handled. Louis, his chin on the table as he stared at the exchange, just kept looking back and forth between his sister and the stranger.
“Yes,” she insisted. “By my Papa .”
Luka huffed, amused as he once more offered Emma his hand, which she did take this time, and swinging the almost-a-teenager back to the ground, sitting on that same bench so he was still somewhat eye level with her. “I think you might be mistaken, Ma’am.” He expressed, still trying to be gentle and kind with the girl. He tilted his head towards Louis, still standing with his chin on the table, and chocolate frosting on his nose. ”A little birdy told me that your parents got divorced a couple months ago.”
“A little-?! Liar, Louis doesn’t talk.” She scoffed. ”And it’s just a rough patch. They’re going to get back together any day now. I’ve seen it, front row!”
Luka sucked a breath through his teeth, wincing slightly. “Oooh, well, if you’re sure…”
Emma blinked, looking at Luka suspiciously.
Luka patted her head. “You don’t have to worry about a thing with your Maman, kitten. Trust me, I’m definitely not looking to rekindle anything with my first girlfriend. And besides, I’ve already got my eye on someone else at this party.”
Emma huffed, shoulders squared and head held high. “Good! Know your place, and it’s definitely not beside my Maman!”
“It most certainly isn’t,” Agreed Luka with a chuckle, standing to his full height. “Oh, hello Adrien, it’s been a while.”
Emma looked, and saw her father approaching, his thick rimmed glasses looking dirty because Hugo had been grabbing at his face, and button down shirt and cardigan combo slightly rumpled from playing, a classic unfashionable Dad, with Hugo covered in sand from playing at the park. “Luka! It has!” He greeted, turning Louis around and doing a quick wipe on his son’s face to clean the frosting off. "Look at you, Lou. It's like you forgot where your mouth is. It's called a cake hole for a reason!"
Luka snorted, smiling slightly as Adrien tended to his children, then cleaned his glasses.
For a moment, Emma let herself hope that her father was coming for a brawl when he finished with Louis…but as he got closer, he hugged Luka, and the hope died as she huffed. “Kids, your mothers’ ready to get going, alright? Don’t keep her waiting, get those feet clean and noses running! ...Er, wait, reverse those.”
Luka, once more, choked back what seemed to be a loud guffaw.
“But, Papa, what about you?” Emma asked, confused as Louis simply started to march off towards where he saw their mother, holding Hugo's hand to lead him away. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I’m sure I can catch a ride with someone else.” Adrien hummed, unconcerned as he took Emma’s face into his hands, laying down a big smooch onto both her cheeks. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetpea. Love you.”
“Paaapaaaa!” She whined at the fatherly affection. But, she left with a softly grumbled ‘I love you too’, going to join her mother, happy in her victory against Luka Couffaine!
“She’s a real charmer,” Luka chuckled.
“Yeah…Sorry if she was bugging you, Luka. She’s a spitfire, that’s for sure.” Adrien sighed, smiling still as he helped clear the table. “And she hasn’t quite gotten over the divorce yet.”
“I can tell,” Luka hummed. “She came over to threaten me against approaching her mother.”
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry, Luka!” Gasped Adrien, hands covering his face. “I’ll bring it up to Marinette and her therapist.”
“Yeah, well…I’m just glad she didn’t go and tell me to stay away from her father .” He said smoothly.
Adrien glanced sidelong at the man. “Hm…Good to know…Say, does that motorcycle you rode in on seat two?”
Luka smirked as his flirtations were reciprocated. “It does. I even have a second helmet.”
-
Marinette loaded up her children, Emma sticking her earbuds into her ears the moment she was in the car’s front seat so she didn’t have to squish into the back with her brothers.
Marinette pulled one earbud out of her daughters’ ears. “Emma, lower the volume on those things,” she scolded. “If I can hear it while I’m in the back buckling in your brothers’, it’s too loud!”
“Moooom! Abyssal is meant to be blasted and you won’t let me use the car speakers!”
“Because that music scares Hugo.” Marinette sighed. “Lower it down, missy. Way down.”
Emma grumbled, obeying but not happily as she lowered her music.
Just as Marinette was helping Louis get situated, Kagami got into her car’s driver seat next to Marinette, Felix taking the time to change their youngest childs’ diaper. Aiko was on her way to join her family in the car, having turned back because she’d forgotten her bag on the playground.
“Hey, Mari-chan?” Kagami called once she was finished with Hugo, the door closed. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Hm? Yeah, sure, what’s up?” Marinette asked, turning to look at her former sister-in-law, stretching slightly to ease the tension of bending so much. Such was the life of a mother.
“Does Emma know why you divorced? Aiko said she was being sour about it today.”
Marinette chuckled. “No, she doesn’t. I mean…how do you tell your daughter that you married and had children with a gay man?”
“Oh, she’d hate him for life if she knew,” Kagami winced. “When are you going to tell her?”
“We both agreed that we’d wait until it was a little… less fresh.” Marinette said. “So, when she stops trying to Parent Trap us.”
“Well, I hope it’s soon, because I think Luka over there is getting a bit friendlier than usual,” Kagami hummed, looking ahead and into the park, where Luka and Adrien had given up all pretenses of cleaning and were just chatting besides the banquet of cold and half finished food.
“That man works fast,” Marinette snorted, amused. “Good luck Adrien. Hope Nino’s famous three cheese dip isn’t gonna ruin his night.”
“He’s French, they were built to eat cheese.” Kagami huffed, amused herself. “See you at the bar?”
“Nah, I have work in the morning,” Marinette sighed, shaking her head. “But send me any videos of Adrien being drunk out of his mind, those are hilarious.”
“Noted, will do.” Kagami smiled, rolling up the window as Marinette got into her car, driving her little family home much to Emma’s joy.
Her Maman wouldn’t be getting drunk and stupid around Luka!!
Emma was fast asleep when a motorcycle drove into the neighborhood at 6AM, Luka dropping off a mildly hungover and slightly rubber-legged (but very satisfied) Adrien Agreste to his house just across the street.
[One Year Later]
“Emma, Lou, you remember Papa’s friend, right? Luka?” Adrien broached the subject over breakfast.
The now thirteen year old was chowing down on some fantastic pancakes made by her father when he started to sound nervous. Louis, as per usual, was quietly beside her as he ate.
“…Yeah?” She’d seen glimpses of the man ever since that reunion thing a year ago, but as promised, he was seemingly only over to hang out with her Dad on the days Emma and Hugo were at their mothers’ across the street, she often saw his motorcycle in the driveway, probably doing whatever it was middle aged guys did when they hung out. Drink beer and watch football or whatever.
He didn’t try to come near Maman, though, so Emma hadn’t yet acted.
“Well…Luka and I are together,” Adrien said, sheepish.
Emma almost choked on her mouthful of pancake. “ What?!”
“Volume, volume!” Adrien winced, motioning for Emma to quiet a bit. “It’s been long enough, Emma, and I’m telling you this with the blessings of your mother. We divorced because of me, and I’m sure your mother will argue it was her because of course that woman must shoulder all the problems in the world but- no, no. Sorry, separate issue. Point is, Emma, I am gay, and I can really see a future with Luka. I know that it’s…hard, and all, but he really makes me happy and I know you'll like him too if you just gave him a chanc-”
“That son of a bitch!” Emma groaned, head bowed as fingers combed through her hair gripping at the roots.
“Emma!” Adrien said, brow furrowed. “I-it’s a lot, I know, but-”
Emma stood, her chair scraping against the kitchen floor. “You’re ruining my life!!” She announced, stomping out. “I’m going to Mom’s!”
“Emma Athena Agreste-Dupa-”
The front door opened and slammed.
“...That name really is just too long,” Adrien sighed, shoulders slouched as he reached for his phone to inform his ex-wife of the current teenage tornado of hormones and rage was coming her way. He glanced up, seeing his son still chewing away. “Do you have anything to say about this?” He asked Louis curiously.
Louis looked thoughtful for a moment, finishing off his last scrap of pancake and taking a long drink of his apple juice. “Luka’s nice. I don’t mind him.” He shrugged, sliding off the chair and going back to his room to play.
“Oh, well, I’m glad at least one of my children doesn’t mind.” Adrien sighed, relieved as he added an addendum to his text that Louis said he was fine with-
“Oh my god, Louis, you spoke !!” Adrien gasped, running after his son to hug him. “Your first words!! Say Papa, c’mon, pleaseeeee?”
Louis, though, remained quiet as he was grappled by his father.
-
“Emma-” Marinette tried as her daughter stormed into the house and marched straight to her bedroom, door slamming hard. “Oh dear…” she sighed, brow twitching.
-
Louis snuck into his mothers’ house as she was on a call with both her father and the family therapist, talking about ‘The Plan’ to tell their kids and what to do now that Emma was imploding.
Quiet as a mouse, he went upstairs to his sisters’ room.
Sliding the door ajar slightly, he saw only a lump on his sisters’ bed, quaking lightly as she sobbed. He crawled towards her on all fours, parking himself on the floor, near where he was hearing her soft sniffles.
He sat there, reaching into his pockets and pulling out a handful of snacksize chocolate candy, and placing one onto the bed as he opened one himself to eat.
He ate three before Emma peeked, seeing the chocolate and pulling it into her blanket cocoon to eat, leaving the wrapper on the bed.
Louis took the wrapper, added to his little pile of garbage, and put a new chocolate onto the bed.
Emma took it quicker the second time around.
The pair of siblings sat in silence as they had their chocolate.
“Why don’t you like Luka?” Louis asked curiously, bunching all the wrappers into his pocket to trash later.
“Since when do you talk?” Emma grumbled miserably beneath the covers.
“Since this morning, and I don't like it already,” He sighed. “Why?”
“Because!” Emma exploded, sitting up and tossing the blanket aside. “Mom and Dad aren’t supposed to see other people, they’re supposed to be together!”
“You heard Dad, didn’t you?” Louis said, looking at his sister from the floor. “He’s gay .”
“That-” Emma’s cheeks inflated slightly. “...I didn’t hear much after ‘he and I are together’...I don’t get it, they are happy together, Dad doesn’t have to be freaking gay when he’s got Mom! We’re a family, we’re supposed to stick together!”
“...” Louis didn’t say anything, merely taking out another piece of chocolate to eat, putting one on the bed in offer to Emma.
“...Well?” Emma asked, flicking the chocolate off her bed. “Don’t stop talking now .”
“The only one not ‘sticking together’ is you ,” Louis said pointedly.
“Wha-? That’s- it's different .” Emma insisted.
“Papa’s been happy,” Louis said, picking up the chocolate again and tossing it behind him to Emma. “Mama’s been happy. They smile at each other more now than I ever remember them before. You just don’t want your family broken up and you’re too stupid to realize it’s not even brok-” Louis broke off as Emma yeeted the chocolate at Louis’s head.
“ Maman!! ” She shouted. “Louis called me ‘stupid’!!”
Marinette was at her door in a flash. “Louis, you spoke?! And you had to insult your sister ?!”
Louis just sat there, entirely unamused as he was led out of his sisters’ room for a talk about using kinder words now that he was speaking.
-
Luka had gotten his hair cut and dyed in the year since he met Adrien again. It was now merely arm-pit length instead of butt-length, and the ends were a throwback to his younger years, being dyed cyan.
He arrived on his motorcycle to the Agreste House to find his boyfriend loading up his sons into their car seats. “Hey, how did-”
“What do I call you?” Louis asked from within his booster seat. “Papa’s already Papa.”
“Erm, Lou, that’s a bit-” Adrien blushed.
“Appa,” Luka returned, leaning on the car slightly. “It’s like ‘Papa’, but in Korean.”
“Appa,” Louis tried, then sitting back and returning to his iPad. “Okay, Appa.”
Luka smiled hopefully as he slid his middle and pointer finger through Adrien's belt loop, pulling him a bit closer. “So I guess it went well?”
“Louis obviously doesn’t mind, and Hugo’s a three year old so he was pretty unmoved by the announcement,” Adrien sighed, lips quirked into an uneasy half smile/grimace as his brow furrowed, hands on Luka's chest. “Emma, took it…harder.”
Luka frowned, taking Adrien’s hand and pulling him out of Louis’s earshot, standing near the boot of the car. “I should’ve been there, Kitty. I wish you had let me apologize for last year when I met her. I still …” Luka sighed, reaching to hold Adrien’s face, holding their foreheads together. "I was such an ass when I first met her..."
He really hadn’t expected his relationship with Adrien to really go past a quick hook up after that party. He thought it’d be a funny little story, thinking back to the time a kid came up to him and demanded he not to pursue her mother, only to then bang her father instead.
But…Adrien was just as charming now as he had been when they were young, and one year later, Luka was hearing wedding bells whenever he thought of Adrien.
“She’d just try to claw your eyes out if you had been here,” Adrien chuckled humorlessly, green eyes darting nervously. “Maybe…Luka, maybe this was too soon…I-I just-”
“Hey, Papa!” A voice called.
Adrien’s head shot towards the driveway, where Emma was crossing the street. He jumped away from Luka like he had been shocked, facing his daughter directly. “Emma? Are you…okay…?”
She stared, looking quite unimpressed at Luka for a moment, before turning back to her father. “Mom said you’re taking us to a concert? Is it another one of your boring orchestra things again Uncle Felix makes us all go to?”
“Actually…” Adrien said, sheepishly. “It’s for Abyssal.”
Emma stiffened slightly. “...What, like, some cover band in a community centers’ parking lot or something?”
“The Dome Show, VIP section.” Adrien said.
"No...way, no way, how did you get tickets like those?!" Emma demanded. He had apologized for not being able to get them!!
"I didn't, Luka did," Adrien said, gesturing to Luka who waved somewhat awkwardly. “I mentioned about how I couldn’t get tickets for your birthday because they sold out so fast, and I suppose he knows one of the members?”
Emma’s eyes snapped to Luka, who was nodding.
“Aria,” he said, arms crossed. “I taught her the guitar when she came to the Temple, she was my student for five years before she left.”
“A….Ari…The Lead Singer Aria Zhen?!” Emma gasped. “No, no way , absolutely no- ”
Luka had gotten out his phone, and offered it to Emma as proof. On it was a picture of Aria Zhen in workout sweats with a similar snake tattoo to the one Luka had on his upper arm, though coiled around her leg and was most often hidden by her large combat boots, as they practiced some sort of martial art together. “I told her you a big fan and she wanted to meet you.”
Emma froze, her brain on absolute overload as she tried to comprehend what exactly was going on.
Louis rolled down his window, and shouted out it. “He says his name is Appa!”
Shaken from her shock, she tossed the phone back and cleared her throat with a slight cough. “Okay…Okay, cool, let’s go then. We should hurry or there’s gonna be traffic.”
“That VIP box is pretty big for just four of us with Hugo going to your grandparents,” Luka said, rubbing his chin slightly. “Think there’s anyone else who’d wanna join us?”
“Aito-!!” Emma shrieked immediately, stars in her eyes.
Adrien snickered slightly into a closed fist. Maybe he’d been a bit hasty on the ‘maybe’s back there, it seemed like Emma was quite easy to win over after the shock wore off!
Emma looked sharply to her father when she heard him laugh, eyes narrowing as she straightened herself slightly. “My cousin Aito is a fan too, if we could go get her.” She said stiffly. “ Thank you , Mr.Luka.”
“Appa!!” Louis corrected her from inside the van.
“Go back to being mute!” Emma hissed, jumping slightly. “Oh, oh!! I need to get my t-shirt signed! And my poster- Augh! Papa, you couldn’t tell me this before your stupid ugly boyfriend?! It's like you wanted to ruin my life!!”
Emma set a land speed record running back into her fathers’ house, then to her mothers’ for yet more stuff she wanted signed.
Adrien chuckled, sighing as he leaned into Luka slightly as his daughter panic screamed into her phone as she told Aito to get ready at Mach 5 for the concert of their lives.
“Teenagers.” He sighed, rolling his eyes slightly.
Luka smiled, kissing Adrien softly before they too loaded up for the evening. "Downright terrifying."
"I hope you know what you signed up for," Adrien whispered softly, nose to nose with the guitarist.
"Of course I do." Luka murmured softly, eyes closing, leaning in, lips-
"Ey!" Emma shouted from the back of the van, quickly slapping on some make up in her compact mirror. "Lets' get a move on! Traffic! Aito's waiting!"
Adrien and Luka broke apart, smiling and laughing softly before they went to their designated front seats to pick up Aito and drop off Hugo.
At the concert, Louis had heavy duty headphones on and peacefully sipped his juice boxes as the world vibrated and strobed all around him, sitting pretty with Luka and Adrien at the VIP couches as Aito and Emma screamed their heads off and wept openly over their shared idol.
Another year later, Emma would be walking her father down the aisle at his second wedding with Luka in tears at the end, with Adrien’s ex-wife to administer the vows as their officiant, while Aria Zhen softly played a romance ballad on her guitar.
-
[Omake: Luka's first meeting with Louis]
“Hello.” A little voice startled Luka, causing the man to ever so slightly jump out of his skin as he whirled around, seeing nothing until he realized the voice was far lower.
A little kid with curly blonde hair and big green eyes stared up at him, his neck craned back almost vertically because of how close he was standing to Luka’s legs.
“Whoa, kid, that’s…impressive, not many people can sneak up on me like that,” Luka said, kneeling to get a proper look at him. “Where’s your maman and papa?” He asked.
“Maman’s there,” He said, pointing in the distance to where Marinette was getting moony-eyed over one of her former classmates’ newborns. “Papa, there.” He said, pointing to Adrien as he toddled alongside Hugo in the sandpit whilst chatting with another parent and their toddler.
“Oh, you’re their kid…” Luka mused. He'd seen them, and while he hadn't actively avoided them they hadn't yet had the chance to talk. “Is there something you need? Juice box?”
“Maman and Papa fought a lot, but now they’re dee-vor-ce-duh, when it was spring.” Louis said, head tilting from side to side like a metronome as he sounded out the difficult word. “That means they don’t live in the same house no more. I think it’s cause Papa didn’t love Maman in the right way.”
Luka’s eyebrow’s shot all the way up. “Erm…from the mouths of babes, huh…? Maybe you should go talk to your parents about this?”
“Papa doesn’t make the same happy sound as Uncle Nino does when he sees Auntie Alya at the pool.” Louis noted thoughtfully. “The one that comes from where he pees.”
Luka’s mouth hung open, a hand flying to cover it. “Hm…? Is…that so? Sound?”
Louis nodded solemnly. “You hear it too, right? The sounds.”
“Yep. Yes, I do, bud. I sure do.” Luka nodded, more than a bit shocked at what he was hearing from the Agreste/Dupain-Cheng child. Another person who could hear the Heartsongs?
Louis once more got in close, and practically climbed Luka like a mountain to whisper into his ear. “Papa made the happy sound when he saw you.”
“From…?” Luka asked, curious.
“From his butt.”
Luka made a slight choking sound, nodding slightly, heart throbbing hard in his chest. “Okay…okay, thanks for letting me know, Lil'man.”
Louis clambered back off of Luka, and went to peruse what was left of the sweets table, watching as his sister started to stomp over…