A/N: I wrote this a few months ago but haven't uploaded here for a while. I'll be uploading all the fics from back then until my most recently written one over the next week or so.
"Come on, girl, I can see them already." Alya exclaimed, pointing to two boys sat in a nearby cafe as she dragged Marinette by the arm.
Marinette let out a small shriek as she was suddenly pulled to the right by her best friend.
The two girls approached a table where two guys who looked her age—although then again, almost everyone in the world looked her age—were mid-conversation.
The darker-skinned male stopped chuckling at whatever his blond-haired friend had said when he saw them, his face breaking out into a grin.
"Alya!" He exclaimed, getting up and pulling out the chair next to him.
Alya let go of Marinette's arm and sat down in the chair, her friend pushing it in afterwards.
Spotting Marinette, he pulled out another chair and did the same thing for her, offering her his hand to shake a moment later.
"I'm Nino," he greeted as they shook hands, "and I'm guessing that you're Marinette."
She nodded, smiling back at him. He sat back down in his own seat next to Alya, wrapping his arm around her shoulder which she then leant on.
So this was the boy that had captured Alya's heart.
It had now been one year since Alya had started to age again now and a month since she met the mysterious boy that she had said was her soulmate.
Marinette remembered the first time they'd figured out that it was happening to her. Alya had suddenly grown a few centimetres within the space of two months, something that shouldn't have been possible.
And that's when Marinette found out that Alya had started dating a boy she'd met in a nearby club. She told her that he was the DJ there and had been nothing but courteous and polite when they eventually met.
After many quiet dates together, the two had started dating—neither of them realising that they'd kickstarted their aging again on that first night when they met and their hands touched as a drink was exchanged.
Marinette, however, hadn't been so lucky so far and was still stuck at the age of eighteen for now. She's tried searching for her soulmate, but it was to no avail.
Just last month, she would have been celebrating her twenty fourth birthday if it had not been for the magical soulmate bond that tethered her to the age of eighteen until she finally met the one she was destined for.
Marinette didn't care who her soulmate may be. Male, female, non-binary, genderfluid. It didn't matter who they were; she had already vowed to herself to love them (unless they liked doing drastic things like mass murder, of course).
She desperately hoped to find her soulmate soon though so that she could start aging again and experience life fully without feeling like she was stuck with no hope of ever finding them.
Her gaze shifted from her now-aging friend and her lover to the green-eyed boy sat to her right, catching his attention as he then turned his head to look her in the eyes.
"Hello," She timidly greeted with small and shy wave, "I'm Marinette."
"I'm Adrien," he introduced himself, smiling at her in an attempt to ease her obvious anxious thoughts at meeting him.
Marinette felt her face heat up a little when she properly took in his appearance. His sandy blond hair shone in the sun's rays, and his emerald green eyes twinkled like stars.
"So, technically speaking, how old are you?" Marinette blurted out in her nervous haze, slapping a hand over her mouth a moment later, "I'm so sorry. That was rude of me."
Marinette hung her head down in shame. You can't just meet someone new and automatically ask how old they really are!
Alya giggled at her misfortune, turning back to her conversation with Nino a moment later.
"It's okay! I don't mind at all, really." Adrien reassured with a smile.
He leant in towards her and whispered into her ear. "I'm turning three hundred and twenty nine next month."
"What?!"
Her startled cry caught the attention of a few people nearby who turned their heads towards them to see what all of the commotion was about.
Adrien nervously chuckled, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. "I guess I'm just not that lucky, huh?"
Her smile faltered at his self-deprecating tone. She couldn't even imagine having to live that long without meeting her soulmate. He'd been stuck at eighteen for the past three hundred and eleven years!
"Wow. I thought Alya technically being fourty was bad," she chuckled, trying to lift his mood. "Hopefully you'll find them someday. At least you'll have many amazing stories to tell."
"Yeah, I guess so," Adrien replied, shrugging, "but, until then, I'm stuck the way I am now."
Marinette surged forwards and wrapped her arms around him in a comforting hug, trying to channel any good luck she had into him so that he could finally move on from this point in his life.
He returned the hug, feeling safe in her arms despite the fact that he'd only known her for all of five minutes.
Little did they know that in that moment that their touch had caused the aging process to kick into gear again.