Ten minutes.

He had already wasted ten minutes on trying to think of what he could use in this classroom as a model for his new assignment that was due to be completed by the end of the school day. And since this was the last class for the day... he was becoming slightly anxious at this point.

With only twenty minutes left, the daunting tick -from the clock behind him- that came with each second that passed, made the assignment feel almost impossible to finish in time, without even any inspiration to work with.

He looked to his friend's' progress for some sort of revelation. Alix had decided to take off her sneaker and place it on the table to draw the laces in detail. Juleka resigned to recreating the image of some empty paint tubes with a marker. And Rose, well, she was kind of going by her own rules and decided instead of performing the task they were given originally she wanted to try folding paper swans from pages ripped out of her sketch pad. He thought carefully about what he could try doing, with his own artistic flair, but nothing came to mind.

Inspiration was always something that Nathanael struggled with. Usually, it came to him at random moments throughout the day while thinking to himself absentmindedly and then hits him like a train, allowing the creative juices to start flowing, and the cogs in his brain to start moving. However, the sudden burst of ideas would usually be short lived and would leave him unable to finish a piece that was once a very passionate project in his mind, but eventually became more of a choir than an enjoyable past time.

He looked around the room once again in hopes of finding an eye-catching muse, when suddenly a flash of light hit the corner of his eye. He turned to see sunlight emitting from the window on the left wall of the window, reflecting against dark blue hair.

Marinette.

Once again he was distracted from his work by the girl who stole his heart two years ago and didn't even have the self-awareness to realise the hold she had on him. Although that was hardly her fault, since he rarely ever talked to her beyond the casual 'Hello' or 'do you have a spare pencil I could borrow?'. Most of the time he spent the energy he saved for dwelling on his crush to just admiring her from afar.

He was very fond of her blue highlights. And, though he would never say so to another living being so long as he lived, he often wondered how they would look in contrast to his bed's pillow, with her hair sprawled across the white fabric. However, his admiration for her went far beyond typical teenage hormonal desires.

The way she smiled. They way she laughed. The nervous tone in her voice that rises whenever she is forced to speak in front of the class. The way all hesitance towards showing an ounce of confidence leaves her when faced with the wrath of Chloe Bourgeous. The way she managed to trip over everything in her wake without fail. It seemed no matter what she did, she always could catch his attention without any effort involved.

Her beauty was often the source of many of his artistic inspirations. He once painted the moon reflecting off of a wide ocean to try and recreate the colour of her eyes. As you can already tell, he had a habit of being a hopeless romantic at times.

He sketched his crush an endless amount of times and usually through the end products away in fear of someone discovering them.

The thought of drawing her once again for this assignment ran across his mind. He didn't have to show it to anyone he didn't want to. Only his teacher would see it when he handed it up and once he received it back along with his grade, he could quickly dispose of it, without leaving a trace for his classmates to see.

When glancing back at Marinette once more, he realised he would rather dedicate the next twenty minutes to capturing her concentrated stare, above anything else in the room.

Twelve minutes passed without any interruptions disturbing Nathanael from his progress when suddenly a cheerful voice pulled him out of his work bubble and back to reality.

"Hey, Nathanael!"

When Nathanael raised his head in response blue eyes met blue and for a moment he became paralysed.

"Uh..."

Marinette set her pencil case and sketch pad down on the joined desk, and sat closely to his left.

"I hope you don't mind me sitting beside you. People were getting a bit too loud over there to be able to think straight."

Nathanael finally pulled himself out of his state of shock and realised that his teacher was long gone from the classroom and the rise in volume from his peers was evident of that.

"Nathanael?" Marinette said, catching his attention and making him realise that he had yet to answer her.

"O-oh, it's fine. Don't... worry about it,"

He felt uncomfortable and nervous as if saying the wrong thing might make her recoil from him in terror. And so, he did his best to not say anything and finish his piece in silence.

Unfortunately for Nathanael, his plan to keep quiet to avoid any unnecessary conversation was short lived.

"What are you drawing?" Marinette suddenly asked, attempting to begin some small talk.

Nathanael then realised the dangerous reality of Marinette possibly seeing his sketch of her and began to panic.

"It's-uh-nothing!" he stuttered out while scrambling to shove the drawing into his bag, out of her line of vision.

Marinette seemed surprised at his outburst but quickly became apologetic, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude..."

Nathanael instantly regretted the way he handled the situation when seeing the worry and confusion in Marinette's eyes from his sudden outburst. "No, don't feel bad. It's just... just as bit personal, sorry."

Marinette smiled in unspoken understanding, "It's okay, I get it."

Wanting to escape the awkward aftermath of his actions, Nathanael tried stirring the conversation in a new direction, "What are you drawing?"

Marinette smiled for the third time then reached forward to nudge her fingers against a hair clip in the shape of a butterfly, which made Nathanael wonder how he never noticed her placing it on the desk.

"It's beautiful," he said, and he meant it. It had a beautiful pattern created with tiny handheld brush strokes, of the colours white and pastel pink.

Marinette beamed at his reaction, "Thanks! I made it myself."

The conversation moved on much more swiftly between the two from then on. So much so, that they had completely forgotten to finish their assignments before the end of class.

Well, fuck.

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