Today was the day Marinette was finally going to do it.

She was going to ask Adrien to the Valentine's Ball, a Valentine's Day dance that was being held by their school this year.

Nobody, minus Chloe, had asked him yet, at least according to Nino, when he came up to her and Alya before class to ask Alya to the dance yesterday.

Last year on Valentine's Day, she had gathered some of her Ladybug courage and wrote him a love letter and sent it to him. There was just one problem. She had forgotten to sign it. So even if Adrien had read her poem, he wouldn't know it was from her.

And whats more, last year, her dream very first kiss didn't go as planned either.

Instead of getting to share her first kiss Adrien, last Valentine's Day during a battle with Dark Cupid, as Ladybug, she had kissed Chat Noir to break Dark Cupid's spell, to save everyone.

And even though she hated to admit it to herself, she had liked it, just a little bit. It was a good thing that Chat didn't remember, or she was certain he would have become even more of a flirt than ever before.

But this year, she was determined to have the perfect Valentine's Day.

All it took was her going up to Adrien, actually managing to get a sentence out properly in front of him, and asking him to the ball.

It sounded much simpler than it actually was.

But, with Nino and Alya's help of course, she was going to do it.

Marinette arrived at school to see Alya standing next to Nino on the front steps, frantically waving her over as soon as the brunette spotted her.

She didn't even get halfway to the steps when the eager journalist, who had already given up waiting for her to come over, reached her, Nino on Alya's heels.

"Girl, Adrien's already in the classroom. It's empty. Now hurry up and get in there before the rest of the class go in. The bell's gonna ring in 5 minutes!"

"Good luck dudette." Nino gave her the thumbs up, as Alya grabbed both of them by the arm and hauled them towards their classroom.

Adrien had been sitting at his and Nino's shared desk rehearsing what he was going to say to his Lady later that night, when an out of breath Marinette had burst through the classroom door, startling him, bringing him out of his thoughts.

He smiled at his friend, "Hey Marinette. Are you OK?"

"Y-yeah Adei- I mean Adrien."

Marinette often confused him. Sure, she was friendly to him, she had even made him a Santa hat for Christmas, but she would hardly talk to him and whenever she would, she was always stuttering. It puzzled him, but it had also worried him why he seemed to have this effect on her.

"Um... Adrien? You she- I mean see, I was wonderzi- wondering," she began slowly, "Would you go to the Valentine's Ball with me?" she eventually blurted out.

He looked into Marinette's hopeful eyes, and he suddenly felt very sick. He didn't want to upset Marinette, but he had been planning to ask Ladybug to the dance later that night on patrol. After the Horrificator incident, he was almost certain that Ladybug went to the same school as him.

He thought Marinette was amazing, but he only thought of her as his friend. His true, one and only love was his partner against evil, Ladybug.

And suddenly all of her stuttering and hardly talking to him made all the sense in the world.

Marinette had a crush on him.

Now, he truly felt awful about himself.

He knew what he was about to say was going to crush Marinette's heart.

And not only was he going to break his friend's heart, which he really didn't want to do, but he was pretty sure that Nino, and most definitely Alya, were going to kill him for it.

He gulped hard. Here goes...

"Marinette, you're a great friend, but I just don't feel the same way. I'm so sorry Marinette, truly."

He watched as the bluenette's face turned bright red, her usually bright smile dropped and her eyes suddenly pooled with water.

All because of him. And he hated himself for it.

"It's OK." she muttered mournfully, staring at her shoes, but he knew full well it wasn't, "Excuse me.", and before he could do or say anything else, she dashed out the way she came, right past a very angry looking Alya and Nino, who had apparently been standing outside the classroom door and looking in the window the entire time.

Alya didn't need an explanation.

She just took off running after her best friend.