"I can't believe this!"

Adrien paced the alley angrily, trying for the third time to contact his father; when the call failed, he angrily threw his phone back into his bag on the ground.

"Whoa! Watch it!" said Plagg, flying out to hover near Adrien's ear. "No need to take your frustrations out on me."

"I reminded my dad about this fencing competition four times—four times!" Adrien raged, brandishing a program from the contest. "I asked Nathalie about it at breakfast, and she promised that she'd already written it into his schedule! So where is he?!"

"I don't know. Probably off at some stupid fashion show or something," Plagg said, drifting down onto his shoulder.

"Exactly! He's the one who signs me up for all these—stupid activities! Probably just to keep me out of the way so that he doesn't have to see me," he added bitterly. "No wonder he doesn't show up when he says he's going to."

"I keep telling you, your dad's a jerk. Why do you keep expecting him to act any different?"

"I don't! I just—I just—" He suddenly sighed and leaned against the alley wall, his shoulders slumping. "It's not fair." He sounded tired, but his voice was still thick with anger.

Plagg looked up, saw the mixture of fury and sadness in Adrien's eyes, and felt like he had to say something, despite himself. "Look...I know it's hard, but, uh...try to look at things positively. It's not like—agh! Adrien! Adrien!"

"What—" he began, but it was too late. The butterfly that Plagg had spotted—black with patches of an unnatural purple glow—had flown right into the fencing program and disappeared, turning the paper black with evilized energy. Instantly Adrien's eyes hardened, his back stiffened, and Plagg flew off his shoulder with a look of horror on his face.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—"

Adrien was only dimly aware of his friend, however; there was a second voice, one that only he could hear, echoing inside his mind and demanding all of his attention.

"How disappointing," the unctuous voice said. "Here you are waiting once again, and your miserable father is...wait a minute." There was a slight pause, and Adrien felt the distinct impression one gets when they're being carefully examined. "...Adrien?"

"Yes!" he said without thinking. "What are your commands?"

"Snap out of it!" Plagg said, grabbing Adrien by the ear and shaking him with all of his pitiful might. "Adrien, can you hear me? Adrien? ADRIEN?!"

"Why are you—um, this is about your—your fencing competition, isn't it? The one that your...father didn't show up for?"

"That's right!" Adrien said fiercely. "And I was so distracted by him flaking that I couldn't concentrate and blew the whole match!"

"This is gonna be like the Taipei Incident all over again. Do you KNOW what the other Kwamis will say if I let this happen twice in one century?!"

"This...really meant a lot to you, didn't it?" the voice in Adrien's head said softly.

"Yes!" Adrien said again, hands balling into fists. "So how should I deal with it?!"

There was a long pause, silent except for Plagg's vague moaning. Finally, the voice in Adrien's head asked, "What am I doing with my life?"

"Pardon?" Adrien said. Then, tentatively, "My lord?"

"Huh? Adrien?" Plagg said, suddenly noticing the way that Adrien's posture had slumped again. "Are you actually snapping out of it?"

"Never mind. Just...rip that program in half and forget about it."

"Okay, sure..."

Adrien quickly tore the evilized fencing program in two, then suddenly swooned, falling back against the wall as the halves slipped from his hands. Plagg's eyes went wide as the akuma emerged from one of them, fluttering off into the sky; with each flap of its wings it seemed to shake off a bit of its dark energy, until it was just a pretty white moth glimmering in the afternoon light.

Adrien groaned, pushed the hair away from his face, and shook his head. "Did I...just black out for a minute?" His eyes—now soft and kind as usual—slowly focusing on his floating companion.

Before Plagg could think of an answer, Adrien's cell phone rang. Still looking a bit woozy, he stumbled over to his bag and retrieved it. "Hello?"

"Adrien...ahem. It's your father. I just rechecked my schedule and it seems that I missed your fencing competition, didn't I?"

Adrien's face quickly regained a bit of its sullen hardness. "Yeah. You did," he said, not bothering to keep the accusatory tone from his voice.

"I'm...sorry. Listen—to make it up to you, why don't you meet me at the restaurant in Le Grand Paris? We can have dinner together, catch up on some, uh...father-son bonding time?"

Adrien blinked, let his mouth hang open for a few seconds, and then realized that he should give some sort of actual response. "Really? Um—sure! That'd be great! I think I can be over there in about fifteen minutes! Bye!"

Plagg continued to stare, confused, as Adrien threw his phone back into his bag, a wide smile on his face. "That was my dad! He apologized for missing my meet and wants to have dinner to make up for it! We can catch the next bus if we hurry!"

"But—what just—huh?"

"Come on!"

Adrien grabbed his confused friend, gently stuffed him into his bag and took off running out of the alley.

Author's Notes: Dedicated to Toonertoon on Deviantart; for some reason her Akumatized!Adrien picture inspired this and then she encouraged me to actually write it.