❛love letters ❜ (finished)

✰𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚗 ✰

'Dear Ladybug, the days I don't see you are the worst of my life, melodramatic as that sounds. I'm almost sure that I'm in love with you. From Cat Noir.'

"You think he really loves me?" Marinette asks, flipping through the remainder of the paper. "I mean, it just seems unlikely. Since we've never met."

"He says you guys have talked," Adrien reminds her. "It's possible." He's been working on the whole 'getting jealous of himself' thing. He thinks it's going well. Marinette only shrugs in response, watching Adrien as he works through his chemistry. At some point, her eyes on him will become too much and he'll have to put his pencil down so she doesn't realize his hands are shaking.

"I just want to know who he is," Marinette whines, laying her head on the table. They're in the library and, by far, are the loudest people present. The librarian has given him dirty looks at least three times.

"He'll tell you." Adrien sets his pencil down, only to dig through his bag for a calculator. "I mean, no guy would go through all that work and not get the girl."

Marinette hums as her answer, but she doesn't stop staring at him. Adrien focuses on breathing deeply, and they sit in silence.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't regret starting the whole 'secret admirer' thing. Not only is it the only thing Marinette can find to talk about, but it makes it that much harder to bite his tongue. He's almost admitted it to her three times now; once when she looked sad, once when she looked happy, and once when he was in a position that made it easy to kiss her.

"That one's wrong," she informs him, tapping a problem further up his worksheet. "You put the dots in the wrong places." He knew that.

"Lewis Dot Structures are dumb," Adrien states, erasing his work. "As if I'm ever going to be sitting around and think about what an element's Lewis Dot Structure is." True, but he still understood them.

Marinette chuckles, leaning her head on his upper arm. His body temperature jumps up by a few degrees and he smiles dumbly at his paper, but she doesn't notice either. "It's just working. Do it."

"Says the one who's naturally amazing at chemistry," So was he. She didn't need to know that. "And everything else, probably."

"That's a lie," Marinette refutes. "I'm not good at painting"

"You don't try anymore. You were great in ninth grade."

"That was then, this is now."

"I'm serious," Adrien says, deciding to take a break from his work. He turns towards her, raising both of his eyebrows expectantly. "Name five things you aren't good at."

"I'm not good at skiing," she lists, "or snowboarding."

"You've never tried them!" He shakes his head and laughs. "I promise, there's not one thing you're bad at. You have perfect genes. It's an outrage."

"I'm bad at killing bugs."

"Yeah," Adrien says, fondness so blatant and soft it could be cut with a butter knife. "Yeah, but that's because you don't want to kill them. Doesn't count if it makes you a better person."

Marinette scoffs, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I'm not good at... kissing," she decides.

Adrien doesn't blush. He hopes. He also weighs his options as far as replies go; ends up settling on, "Says who?"

"Well, no one's ever told me I'm good at it." She rolls her eyes, but Adrien takes personal offense. Of course, the love of his life is good at kissing. She's just not kissing the right people. For example.

"You're good at kissing," Adrien says. "There. Done. It's been said."

"But you haven't kissed me! It doesn't count. The same way I can't say that I'm not good at skiing."

And, well, Adrien's not sure how he's supposed to interpret that. Is it an invitation? He's open to invitations.

"Besides," Marinette continues, "you have to say that. I'm your best friend."

"I don't think 'best friend' and 'kissing' are really in the same boat." Adrien shakes his head, but he's smiling now. He's usually smiling around her anyways, even around the crushing feeling in his chest. He's a champ, honestly, they should give him a medal.

"You wouldn't want to marry your best friend?" Marinette asks innocently, picking up Adrien's calculator and entering random numbers. "I mean, I think that would be fun. To have a best friend and a husband in one."

"Are you saying you want to marry me?" And, oops, he's flirting with his best friend.

Marinette looks up from the calculator slowly, cocking her head to the side. "Are you opposed?"

"Well, I don't know," Adrien admits, leaning back in his chair. "I don't know if I should commit, since you're such a bad kisser."

She shakes her head with a smile. "I'm sure I'd learn."

Adrien's thought process is an endless stream of profanities and declarations of love. "Would you?"

"Given that I had a good teacher," she adds. "Which you probably aren't."

"But I'm an amazing kisser," he boasts.

"Says who?" Marinette leans forward, her body language reading 'oh, this is gonna be good.'

"Chloe Bourgeois, eighth grade," Adrien states proudly.

Marinette's eyebrows shoot up. "You kissed Chloe Bourgeois?"

"I know, right?" He laughs, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "It was at Ayla's birthday party."

"You kissed her at her Ayla's birthday party? Alya's one of my besties!"

Adrien shrugs. "Alya didn't see."

Marinette looks contemplative. "It makes sense, though. Ninth grade was when you started to get hot."

Adrien doesn't choke. Just. He's suddenly developed a very serious case of bronchitis that leaves him hacking up a lung. "Thanks," he manages to say, his eyes watering a bit from the coughing fit. "But I'm pretty sure I was always hot."

"I didn't know you were a good kisser according to Chloe Bourgeois, homecoming queen and most popular girl of the senior class," Marinette says contemplating that statement.

"So now the fact that I'm a good kisser changes everything?" Adrien's okay with change. He adapts easily.

Marinette rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'm practically dying to know if she's right. Hey, I was thinking, we should go see that new movie sometime."

"Definitely," Adrien breathes out. And he doesn't think about kissing Marinette in the back of a movie theatre. He just doesn't.

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎&𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚕𝚕!

- 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝?

- 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚐𝚞𝚢𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚍?

- 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝙸 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚎?

𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 1094

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