Dearly Despised, (I love you)

Flashback

"I see your daddy still dresses you."

At least he knew how they still stood.

But back to Lila – back to the week after the new girl's lies tangled her up into akumatisation. Some of those lies being to impress him. For what reason? Well, he supposed his looks made a fair argument. Except Lila actually knew little to nothing of the enigma that was Adrien Agreste. Sure – he was a celebrity with an amusingly incorrect Wikipedia page whose public interviews about which colour was his favourite and which chocolate he liked best (dark) were a few clicks away, but he wasn't just that (*cough* Chat Noir *cough*). She seldom understood anything past his status and became obsessed there-on-out with becoming his girlfriend.

(Even after Volpina pretended to dangle an illusion of him off the Eiffel tower, but whatever; he was still irresistible.)

The first case occurred at lunchbreak the next day. Adrien and Kim loomed over the tragic chess board as Max and Nino opposed it – one nameless player adjusting his cap between moves so erratically the clip might've been causing a rash on his forehead, and the other with steepled fingers not breaking a sweat. Adrien was "paying attention to the game" with as much truth one might say he wasn't "thinking back to Ladybug in his room", but he probably had a better understanding of what was going on over Kim, who, like a puppy, would jolt upright and look around the library as if he saw something.

Which Adrien soon found out was because he did. 

"Gahh!"

"Shh," Lila cooed, acting like stealing a literal person and shoving them behind a shelf was nothing. "I was just saving you."

Adrien squinted, mad, searching through the modern history textbooks to see only Kim looking around and questioning his sanity. "Saving me?"

"Yes! You looked bored out of your brain watching that lame board game. I mean, who wastes their time staring at a checker—?"

"I love chess."

Lila's running mouth slowed, forming a guileless 'o' shape as her grip on Adrien's arm loosened. "Oh. Yeah, um, actually I was trying to act cool because..." she covered her face with a hand, "—ah! This is so embarrassing, but... I really love chess and I used to be quite good at it. In fact when I was travelling in England to do missionary work they held a state competition and I won! The other competitors were so good though! I'm sure you're much better than me, Adrien. In fact, would you help me brush up on my skills? What about at your place after school?"

It took quite a lot of his power not to snort.

"I have a photoshoot," he said, lying, because she seemed to like that.

"Oh... that's too bad. I know! What about tomorrow—?"

"Adrien!" A gusto sigh of relief came as his saviour. Adrien whipped around a second before Kim jumped him. "I thought some akuma had taken you! I need you to tell me who's winning!"

"It's Max."

"Still? You gotta come look at the board now—"

"It's Max," he repeated, yanking his arm from Lila. "Let's go back."

"Can I come?"

Adrien looked down at her, producing a certain grating look especially reserved for Marinette, but it hindered not one sparkling ounce of keenness under those heavy bangs.

He should have known then that he wasn't ridding her any time soon.

-

"Adrien!" she called a day later in morning greeting across the courtyard.