Alya won't catch on too...right?

"...nette, hello? Earth to Marinette!"

Marinette pulled herself from the depths of her own thoughts to find she'd been staring at Adrien for god knows how long. It had obviously been a while because he was staring right back at her.

Marinette turned toward Alya who'd been trying to get her attention. "What's up Alya?" She asked, trying to play off the fact she hadn't been listening to her for some time.

Alya sighed and put her hands on her hips. "Alright girl. We've gotta talk. What is it with you and Adrien?" She paused so could stand and emphasize her words with gestures. "You two have been acting weird for a while now." Alya squinted at Marinette while she awaited Marinette's excuse.

Marinette looked down. "Alright, I'll tell you…"

Of course Marinette wasn't actually going to tell Alya what was between them. She'd had a plan from the beginning and it was about to expire, so the timing couldn't have been better.

"Adrien and I — and the rest of the class of course — have been planning a surprise party for your birthday."

Alya's suspicions all dissipated. This wasn't at all what she'd expected.

"I… Uh..." Alya, the star reporter, was at a loss for words for the first time since Marinette had met her. "There's got to be something else! Who have you been texting in class then?"

Marinette bit her lip, she had to find a way out of this one. "Okay, so I was texting Adrien…" She trailed off, nervously tapping her fingers together. "We were just trying to organize decorations!" Marinette explained, following it up with her signature Dupain-Cheng awkward laugh.

Of course her laugh gave her away, but luckily Alya decided to let it slide this time. Alya would just have to wait until after the party, when Marinette and Adrien were still texting during class and Marinette's excuse was no longer valid.

Before Alya could return to her spot beside Marinette on the bench Adrien and Nino appeared beside her.

"Hello boys." She greeted them.

Nino threw an arm around Alya. "Hey babe. What are you two talking about?"

Alya crossed her arms, "Oh, just that you've all been planning a surprise party for my birthday." She let out a sly smile.

Nino's expression was one filled with shock. "Marinette! How could you? We were so close!"

Nino reluctantly accepted defeat. He knew it wouldn't be easy to keep secrets from Alya. He'd prepared himself for if she found out early, but with only two days to go he thought they might actually be home free.

Adrien, on the other hand, wasn't really as surprised as Nino. He suspected Marinette used this as a distraction from talking about her relationship with him.

"Actually, speaking of that…" Adrien started, "Mari...nette," He corrected himself before Alya noticed, "I need to talk to you." He reached out to take her hand and led her away before she could object.

Marinette wasn't sure what to think. Was his enough to give them away? This hadn't happened before, right? Adrien leading Marinette by hand through the school. Sure they'd held hands and led each other around before while on dates, but not at school.

They stopped at the top of the stairs, just outside their classroom.

"What are you doing?" Marinette asked, confused as to why he suddenly whisked her away.

"Mari I think we should tell them the truth."

Marinette took a step back and looked up at him confused. "What? No! Why should we do that?"

"Why shouldn't we?" Adrien was quick to respond. "It's been a month and I think everyone's starting to catch on to us. Wouldn't it be better if we told them?"

Marinette squeezed his hand and bit her lip. He was right, but she enjoyed the weird game of hide and seek they'd been playing with their classmates. Avoiding their friends and sneaking around to spend time together.

Why didn't she want to tell everyone again anyway? She knew it had something to do with him being Chat Noir, but she just couldn't place it.

"Can we talk about this later? Maybe you could come over after school and we could watch more Sarah Universe too." Marinette asked with a sly grin. "They dropped another bomb of five episodes." She nudged him in the stomach with her elbow.

"I wish. You know I have Chinese lessons today."

Their conversation was interrupted by the bell signaling the end of the break.

"I'll text you." Adrien told her as he looked around to make sure no one was nearby before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

Went on a friend date to the movies yesterday and was very tempted to pull an Adrien from last part while she was in the bathroom lol