I've fallen behind a little but I wrote 2 and a half drabbles today so I'm catching up again
Day 11: Are you...doodling Chat Noir?
"What the hell is that?"
At the sound of Alya's voice, Marinette slammed her arms across her pencil work and pressed down, desperately tried to fuse her skin to the paper to avoid giving Alya even a tiny chance of stealing the sketchbook out from under her. As per usual of course, it was impossible to hold out against her best friend.
Alya grabbed one corner of the book and pulled whilst leaning in to tickle Marinette with her other hand and the girl shrieked before diving sideways to avoid an onslaught. "That was mean," she pouted.
Alya completely ignored her as she looked at the sketch Marinette had been working on, face positively beaming at having come across a scoop like this. "Are you...doodling Chat Noir!?"
Afraid to make direct eye contact, Marinette mumbled into her chest, although in fairness, there wasn't any real words coming out to be understood to begin with. "You've been holding out on me girl! You should've said you were crushing on him!"
"Marinette's crushing on someone?" came Nino's voice unexpectedly. Finally looking upwards to see him sliding into his seat, Marinette was mortified to find Adrien was with him and looking at her curiously as if surprised by the whole thing. God, was she really such a platonic person in his life that he couldn't even imagine her being into anyone?
"I do not have a crush on him!" she said, somewhere between an irritated grumble and s terrified shriek. She could not let anyone think she liked Chat Noir and she certainly couldn't let Adrien think she liked anyone, otherwise he'd become even more oblivious to her potential as future girlfriend material.
"On who?" said oblivious boy asked, head tilted a little and Marinette found that he had such a look about him that she just wouldn't be able to feign ignorance. He was too much like a confused puppy. One who just wanted to be included in playing outdoors and was delighted to be offered the chance, but didn't quite understand why he couldn't just walk straight through the glass doors to freedom.
"Our Mari-bear here, has been drawing-" -Alya slammed the drawing on the desk for the boys to see- "our very own Chat Noir." Surprisingly, Adrien's legs seemed to give out under him as he crumpled into his seat suddenly. Marinette watched as Nino chided him for missing breakfast again, offering up a granola bar apparently kept just for such occasions.
After scarfing down the whole thing in record time, Adrien once again lifted his head and immediately locked eyes with her. She felt her face heat drastically at how intimate such a simple look could feel and determinedly tried not to fade off into another one of her daydreams. She could have even imagined that his own ears were rapidly turning pink if it wasn't for the fact that she was so used to projecting her own feelings onto others at times and knew she must be doing so again.
"You...like Chat Noir?" Adrien asked cautiously and Marinette decided she needed to be quick to correct him.
"No!" she said, "I just...wanted something to draw and...well people are always drawing the two of them, right? But then I didn't want to do another overly dramatic picture, 'cause there's so many of them looking like that and then I remembered-" -she smiled wistfully, her speech slowing and her fingertips tracing the edge of a sketch she'd made of a chibi Chat ridiculously over-stuffing his face with croissants- "I remembered how serious everyone was about when he saved me. And how reserved and serious he had to act until I spoke to the press about it. So...I figured I should try to show the more fun side of him, you know? The way he's meant to be – happy."
Adrien was still watching her when she finished, eyes blown wide and mouth open just a touch, the first hints of a smile appearing around the corners of his mouth. He looked like he might say something in a moment. Maybe he'd be inspired by what she said and-
"Uh huh, sure M." Alya interrupted her thoughts. "Sounds to me like someone got fixated after tall, dark and handsome saved her, and based on what you told the press, he let you in on a few secrets. Maybe let you know he's not too old for a crush on him to be creepy?"
"Alya! You've got it all wrong!"
Adrien swallowed his unformed words to watch as the two girls teased and argued with each other. The whole while he tried and failed to steady the uncomfortable rhythm of his heart as it tried to break out of his body through his ribcage.
