The last thing Marinette was expecting to see at 8:30 am was Adrien Agreste's penis.

If anyone had told her that she would see, uh, well, his parts, before she had even been able to drink her morning coffee, she would have most definitely written them off as crazy.

Of course, that morning, she had been running late for class and wouldn't have had the time to listen to someone, even if they did have precognitive abilities and tried to warn her. It was her own fault, really.

…

Marinette rushed into the classroom, well aware that she was really pushing the limits of her easy-going, albeit enigmatic, professor by showing up nearly a half an hour late. It wasn't that she didn't care about the class- she really did like her drawing class, despite her increasing awareness that she was complete rubbish at it compared to everyone else. It was required for her course in fashion design and business, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.

However, today was the first day she would be doing life drawing. The class was about drawing, and it covered whatever her foundations class last year hadn't. Among those things included the nude figure.

She burst through the doors, upsetting everyone and everything. No exaggerations needed. The model burst into a standing position, causing an uproar among the sleep-deprived students, and the young British professor to just drop his head in complete resignment (not to mention his obvious hangover).

"Marinette!?" The model screeched, hastily grabbing a robe and bunching it up in front of his dick to cover any offensive bits. His actions caused unintentional agony among the students seated around him.

Marinette's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Then recognition dawned on her face. Despite the black plastic cat ears and face mask, she could have recognized Adrien Agreste's face anywhere. She had had a lot of practice from staring at him at school and in magazines like a total stalker during middle school.

"Adr-"

"Shh!" He yelled, waving his arms around, and thus, accidently dropping the bunched up fabric that had been covering any remaining modesty.

"What's with the getup?" Marinette asked, unable to control her giggling at his plight.

The professor, Jae-Hoon Davies, finally seemed to come to life. "Had you managed to come to class on time, you would have gotten a full, and discrete explanation. However, seeing as we are pressed for both time and patience, and by we, I mean me, though I'm sure your peers will agree- ew, that is way too much rhyming- you'll have to make do with an abridged version.

"Welcome to life drawing. Don't get your panties in a twist over this, the models won't be wearing panties, and you certainly won't be drawing any onto them. Ordinarily, you won't be so lucky as to have such a bootylicious model as M.Garçon, but you also won't usually find the models wearing costumes. We have allowed a special case for Monsieur Shyboy, due to his particular, erm. Situation.

"Anyway, don't get too used to his stupidly fortunate genes, as he's here today to help ease you into this. You should be fully prepared for saggy old people, fat people, thin people, all manners of people- except for children, since that's just inappropriate and I'm not going to prison for you lot. Satisfactory?"

Marinette nodded. Professor Davies was never able to give a short version of any speech. He also never scolded people- but in this case, he didn't have to. His words often insinuated enough, but with Marinette, he seemed to take a particular leniency to her. She suspected it was due to them both being half-Asian and upon the first day of the new term, a rather rude man shoved her making some remark about "dirty chinks" under his breath.

Before Marinette had even a chance to react, the wild-haired man next to her whipped out little glass marbles from his messenger bag, and began pelting them at the offending man.

"I'm not Chinese; I'm Korean!" He had yelled at the back of the rapidly retreating man. "And don't you ever call anyone a chink again! There's more where this came from!"

The rude man had slipped on the marbles, got up, and kept running from the onslaught of flying projectiles..

Marinette turned to the man beside her. She honestly hadn't noticed him walking beside her before he started his attack. "Uh… Thanks, I guess?"

"No problem," he had said, in stilted French. "Except, now I don't know what I'm going to make my students draw today."

"Wait. Are you Professor… uh, Davies?"

"Yeah, Jae-Hoon Davies," he had replied, running his fingers through his wavy hair. "I'm the new teacher from Chelsea… England," he added unnecessarily.

Marinette's brain short-circuited. She hadn't imagined her new teacher would be quite so spirited. Or short. Or skinny. "Oh. You're my teacher, then. I'm sure we can figure something out."

She had ended up helping him gather some flowers from the gardens, and ever since, he had quickly become her favorite professor, even more so than her textiles instructor.

…

When class had finally ended, Marinette was red-faced and sweating. Unlike the other students, it was not because of the hard work and desperation laced into their figure drawings. In fact, her drawing was probably the worst she had done yet, and she was ashamed allowing it to continue existing in her sketchbook, which was only due to the professor's discouragement of destroying works they weren't proud of, as it could still be used to mark progress.

The students quickly filed out, and Professor Jae-Hoon fled to find some asprin. She ended up being the last one in the classroom, packing all of her stuff in a rectangular plastic compartment before placing that into her book bag. She wasn't about to have a repeat of the time black India ink had spilled all over the inside of her bag, ruining it.

Marinette began leaving the classroom, flipping off the lights and nearly shutting the door before Adrien stepped out of the supplies cabinet, still masked.

"Oh, it's just you," he murmured, casually pulling off the mask and ears. "I mean, not just you! I just meant I don't need to hide wh- I mean, I uh-"

Marinette laughed at his expense for the second time that day. "It's fine, I know what you mean."

"Do you maybe want to, uh… Get coffee sometime? Together?"

"Sure!" Marinette answered, trying not to sound too eager and scare him away. She scribbled down her number onto the disgusting drawing she had produced, and ripped it away from the corner.

Adrien hesitated to leave. "So, I'll- uh, call you then?"

"Or text me! Either's fine, really."

In the darkness of the classroom, with Adrien a picture of awkwardness, rubbing the nape of his neck as he often did in middle school, he suddenly reminded Marinette of Chat, even without the mask and ears.

Marinette forced this painful thought out of her mind. She wouldn't dwell on Chat, and how she had driven him away. How she had been responsible for the death of her idol, Gabriel Agreste, and her nemesis, Hawkmoth, all in one day. How Chat tried to reach out to her, in one last desperate plea to share their identities. She had refused, blaming herself for how the events had transpired, and Chat, for once, did not take no for an answer. They had a huge fight- their first ever. When Marinette had tried to find him later, to apologize, he was already gone.

Master Fu was the one to tell her that Chat had to leave the country, and, not needed any longer, returned his miraculous. Marinette made the same painful decision a few days later, parting from Tikki for the first time in years.

Now Adrien was back from New York, and she felt so conflicted. She had been responsible for his father's death, intentionally or not, ruining his life, future, and reputation. She caused the stocks of the Agreste company to plummet, and left Adrien to pick up the pieces (which he had, of course, done a fantastic job of.)

Her mood suddenly spoiled, Marinette held the door open for Adrien, and parted ways cheerfully, despite the sour taste in her mouth.