Author's Note: Here it is~ I hope the plot point makes sense :P If it doesn't, there will be another author's note at the end that will explain it a bit better :P
Chapter 26
It was February 13th, the day before Valentine's Day. The holiday where couples take the time and celebrate their relationship and each other. As well, the event gives the single people an opportunity to express their love to the person they admire and hopefully become something more with that person.
At school, all of the students were all hard at work on their assigned exercises while the teacher was out making photocopies for the next day's work. All except for one young man. Adrien Agreste. He stared lovingly at Marinette and watched as she wrote in her notebook, his heart full of admiration for the woman.
"Look at her Nino, isn't she beautiful?"
"Dude," Nino nudged at Adrien's side and winked at him. "You must have got hit hard with cupid's arrow."
Adrien began to blush, but tried to shake it away. "I'm just a little excited about tomorrow is all. It is Valentine's Day don't forget!"
"I haven't forgotten dude! I already have plans to spend it with Alya!"
"Finally going for her I see." Adrien teased as he nudged back at him. Nino just laughed and agreed. "Yeah man. I figured it was about time. I plan on kissing her tomorrow too."
"Seems like I wasn't the only one that was hit by cupid's arrow."
Nino just chuckled and shook his head at Adrien's joke, feeling slightly flustered by it. "So what do you and Marinette have planned?"
He shrugged his shoulder. "No idea yet. I haven't asked her out yet. I'm planning on asking her out after class."
"Ask… her out?" Nino began cocking his head in confusion, which in turn made Adrien confused by his reaction. "Yeah… I'm asking her out. Like, asking her out on an official date. I don't understand why you're confused."
"Dude, I should've told you this earlier but here in Paris we don't exactly 'ask' anyone out."
Adrien's expression dropped in light of this new information. "What?"
"What we do here is we chill with the other person for a while then if someone kisses the other then they become an official couple."
"Official. Official." That word rang through Adrien's head. His face went pale as he finally realized what he did to make Marinette so distant towards him. The scene became vivid in his mind as he recalled the incident, which happened during his phone call with Marinette.
"So, Adrien, I guess this means we're official now, huh?"
"Official?"
"Oh umm… well… you know… our kiss… Just… yeah."
"I'm not following."
"…"
"Marinette?"
"It's fine Adrien, don't worry. It's nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh yeah, don't worry, don't worry. I'm good. Just something silly I was thinking is all. No need to concern yourself."
"Well, if you say so."
"So… what umm… what did you… get for Christmas…?"
"Dude? Dude?" Nino said, waving his hand in front of Adrien's face, trying to snap him out of his trance. "You okay dude?"
Adrien shook his head and finally snapped back to reality and turned to Nino. "Nino… I… I… I didn't know that's what it meant!"
"Dude, chill, chill! It was an honest mistake. You're a transfer student after all. There's no way you could've known. I bet Marinette realizes this too."
The pieces were finally starting to come together for Adrien. To Marinette, a kiss meant more to her than just a warm and passionate moment between two people who the other had crushes on. To her, it meant the beginning of an exclusive relationship. But due to his ignorance, he didn't understand the full impact on his actions and he must have accidentally shattered Marinette's heart when he didn't realize they were an official couple. That must have been why she was so distant to him too. Even though she knew it was an accident, his ignorance probably felt like a stinging rejection to her and being around him only made that feeling worse.
"Dude… I have to make this right with her!"
"Yeah man, it's never too late. Just ask her to spend Valentine's Day with you like you planned and then explain your situation. She's pretty chill so I'm sure she'll understand. Then, if you do want to make it official, kiss her again and make it officially official!"
Adrien nodded, a determined smile spreading across his face. "That's what I'll do!"
The two returned back to their studies. Adrien began speeding through his work so that he'd have nothing holding him back for when the class bell rings.
However, little did he know that someone else had plans of their own.
Nathaniel, one of Marinette and Adrien's classmates, arose from his seat with his sketchbook firmly in his hands. Sitting on top of it was a little heart shaped card with the word "Marinette" written on it. He took a deep breath and began walking down the stairs, intent on approaching Marinette.
Adrien noticed him and the card on top of his notebook and immediately stiffened up defensively. He whispered underneath his breath, "Oh no."
"Hey, hey there M-Marinette." the red head began, shuffling his feet and rubbing the back of his head from nervousness. Marinette turned around and flashed him a friendly smile. "Hey Nathaniel!"
"So… as you know, Valentine's Day is tomorrow and umm… I made something f-for you."
Adrien narrowed his eyes at scene and began whispering underneath his breath. "Oh no you don't."
He clicked his fingers just as Nathaniel grabbed the card to hand to her. It slipped out of his hands and floated down towards the ground.
"Oh s-sorry about that Marinette."
As Nathaniel bent down to pick it up, Adrien snapped his fingers again, this time causing Nathaniel's sketchbook to slip out of his arms. With yet another click, the contents inside spilled out and scattered all across the floor.
"Oh no, no, no! This can't be happening!" Nathaniel said as he desperately tried to collect the loose sketches.
"Hey Nathaniel!" Chloe cried out from her seat, capturing the class's attention. "You know where an artist like you belongs? On Fumblr!"
A couple of the other students began to laugh along with Chloe as she mocked him. Nathaniel looked around the classroom in a panic. In reality, it was just Sabrina and Kim that was just laughing with her but to him it felt like the whole class was against him. He was embarrassed and the longer the laughing continued, the more intense the feeling was for him.
"Here Nathaniel, let me help you." Marinette said as she bent down and began collecting some of his drawings for him. He turned and looked at her, noticing a bright and sincere smile on her face that gave him a sense of worth and comfort. However, he could still hear the laughter that was being directed at him which only fed more to his embarrassment.
He took the pages from Marinette's hands and scooped up what he could from the ground and began running out of the classroom, feeling unable to be around her or in the class.
Adrien had to admit, he didn't intend for things to go as far as they did. All he wanted was for Nathaniel to slip up and be too flustered in front on Marinette to interact with her, not make him the laughing stock of the class. He felt guilty for what he had done, but he justified to himself that it was necessary to do. He told himself under his breath "No one is going to take my princess away from me."
"Poor Nathaniel." Marinette said with sympathy. She turned and glared at Chloe, who was still giggling. "That wasn't nice Chloe!"
"Oh please, he should be more careful if he didn't want to be made a fool of!"
All Marinette did as a response was sneer at her, and then turned her attention to the floor. She began collecting the loose pieces of paper that he had accidentally left behind, intending on going after him to return them and checking up on him.
Her curiosity got the better of her and she looked at a couple of drawings as she picked them up. A lot of them were sketches of her in various different angles and poses, all very flattering to her. There were a couple of others too of other classmates like Alya with a flower crown and Adrien with a pair of demon horns. No matter what drawing she saw though, she was amazed by his talent.
The last piece she picked up was the valentine that he was going to give her. She saw her name written on the front, surrounded by various little hearts. She opened it up and found that inside were little doodles of her head as well as Nathaniel's and it said "Will you be my valentine?"
"Nathaniel…"
She added the valentine to her collection and began racing out of the classroom and catch up to him. She looked back at Alya and said to her "Tell the teacher what happened! I'm sure she'll understand!"
"You got it girl!'
Adrien watched as Marinette sprinted out of the classroom, a frown quickly spreading across his face. He wanted to go after her and ensure nothing would happen between the two, but he knew it would probably look suspicious if he did chase after them. For the time being, he went back to his work and carried on with his plan as normal. He trusted that things between the two wouldn't develop. After all, he knew that she had no interest in Nathaniel whatsoever.
About twenty minutes later, the bell rung which indicated to the students that class had finished for the day and they all could go home. Adrien immediately sprung up from his seat and raced out of the room to track down Marinette. Despite having faith that nothing would happen between her and Nathaniel, he couldn't help but worry.
He ran around the school, trying to find a trace of either Marinette or Nathaniel. Eventually, he found the both of them outside of the building. As soon as he saw them, however, he dropped his backpack in shock. His eyes were gazing on a sight that he couldn't believe he was seeing. Marinette was currently in the middle of an embrace with Nathaniel.
Nathaniel pulled away and held her hands in his. "Thank you Marinette. May I pick you up at seven o'clock?"
"Seven o'clock sounds lovely Nathaniel!"
He smiled with delight. "I'll see you tomorrow then, valentine!"
Author's Note: Hey everyone~ So as I mentioned twice already, just wanted to explain about the whole "official" thing :P
I actually was linked a Tumblr post by my close friend (that I sadly can't find anymore X_X) that actually said that the French have a different way of "dating". Like I had Nino explain, apparently you hang out with a person for a while and then if you kiss them, you become an official couple~ I googled its legitimacy too and it turns out that it is a thing~ So I wanted to incorporate that in the story~
So since Adrien's a transfer student (from the Crossroads/Hell but he claims America) I thought that maybe he didn't know what a kiss really meant to Marinette :P So when he didn't know that it meant they were official, I felt like Marinette would become too flustered/embarrassed to tell him and felt like rejection to her, and even though she knows that he didn't know, she can't help her feelings ^^;
The Tumblr post too actually mentioned too that that's why Adrien in the show is so insistent against Chloe kissing him (because that would make them official apparently) and why a kiss between Marinette and Adrien may take longer than expected :P
I realize that there was the Ladybug and Chat Noir kiss in Evil Cupid but I feel like they got away with it because it was to break a spell :P
I hope that this is all making sense and that I'm not just adding to the confusion XD;;
I'll try and explain it better in a future chapter if there's still confusion :P