Fingers trembled on shaky hands, and not for the first time, does Marinette wonder why she does this, from the lack of a real signature to the difficult pain of putting her feelings into words that sound pretty and might catch Adrien's eye. She doubts that he wrote that poem for her now, and she wonders if really this is wasted time in wasted space.
She sighs, but when she pulls back, she sees a glimpse of what makes this worthwhile. Fluttering in the heart valentine are words, genuine and true and loving. Marinette may come to doubt many things in her life, but she won't doubt her heart, at least not this time. She sees a glimpse of something soft there that she hopes leaves something akin to joy or even affection in Adrien's heart, and she smiles even though worry had clogged her veins just moments before.
Marinette doesn't know why this is tradition now. It just is. She carefully writes words that would sound delicate, poetic, and fluffy, but she never counted herself as much of a poet before. Her eyes close, and she feels the next letter shape without seeing it take form.
'Adrien,
I don't have the words to really face you,
but I wanted to tell you that I appreciate the little things you do,
and that somehow I've come to love your friendship,
the way that you speak to me, as if you understand that my words don't always come easy,
and I'm grateful that I ever got to meet you,
and I hope beyond myself that you have a really great Saint Valentine's Day.'
It is not signed, and she doesn't plan on signing it. Somehow, it feels so uninspired compared to the model and the words that had flowed last year. Marinette eyes the heart now, and wonders if hearts are easily tricked into being subdued or if maybe she has no words for this. She stares at the pencil marks, wondering if her letters flowed nicely enough and looked pretty enough.
It was a distraction from the words that somehow felt distant to her, and she wondered if perhaps as the years went by, the friendship between them would only fuel the poetry of the words. She hoped so. Marinette didn't doubt that next year, she'll find herself in the same spot, composing a poem to tell him how she feels all over again, with no signature to declare her identity. In its own way, it was like Marinette hiding that she was Ladybug all over again, and she feels that slip into what could easily be another secret identity, though this secret is far less extreme.