Three months ago...

Adrien's eyes flew open and instantly a wicked smile ripped across his face. He threw back his covers and jumped from the bed, rushing towards his bathroom.

This was it, he was finally sixteen, he would finally get a soulmate mark! He practically smashed into the door-jam in his haste to get to the mirror as he simultaneously tore his pj shirt over his head and started to discard his pants. But as he grabbed the waistband his eyes caught on the vibrant pink splatter on the inside of his right wrist. He gasped dramatically and slowly raised his hand up in front of his eyes.

A spool of thread with the end through the eye of a thin, silver needle. Blinking, he groaned at the vagueness of it. He worked in fashion, it could literally be anyone he's ever met or ever will meet. This was ridiculous. He'd never figure this out, and he'd be alone for the rest of his life and-

"Oooo, Pigtails, huh?" Plagg said nosily as he munched on a wedge of cheese.

Adrien stopped dead. "...What?"

"You know, the girl who's always talking about designing, Pigtails?"

"You- You think my soulmate's... Marinette?"

Plagg popped the rest of the cheese in his mouth and swallowed it while before belching. "Call it kwami intuition." He snickered before flying off.

Adrien starred after the kwami with wide eyes and mouth hanging open before he turned to his mirror to meet his own incredulous look.

"Marinette?"

He showed up to school early, even though Marinette was always late, and waited in the locker room. He stood by her locker, bouncing between his feet and religiously fidgeting with his sleeve. Alya arrived and did a double take of him by her best friend's locker before her face split in a sly grin and she continued to her own locker. She left soon after, without so much as a word.

Nino came in next and wished him a happy birthday, slapping him on the back as he passed to his locker.

"Whatcha waitin' for, dude?" He asked.

The blonde shrugged. "Oh, uh, nothing really."

Nino raised his eyebrows but didn't comment on it. "Ready to head to class?" He asked.

Adrien cast an anxious gaze to the door but knew she wasn't going to show up on time.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Let's go."

...

Adrien became more and more disheartened as the day wore on. Marinette had barely been able to get out a 'Happy Birthday,' much less anything else that could have led into conversation about his soulmark without him offering up information she obviously didn't want.

And what if Plagg was wrong? What if when Marinette got her soulmark, it was for some other boy and he had gotten his hopes up this whole time that sweet, funny, cute Marinette w-

Hold up.

What???

Since when did he think of Marinette like that?

Adrien stopped and pondered this before realizing that he had always mentally thought of Marinette like that. Ok so, maybe he had the tiniest bit of a crush on her. That's fine, right? He's allowed to like Marinette. Basically everyone in their class has at some point. In fact, he was pretty sure there were at least three people- Alya included!- that were half in love with Marinette right now!

Maybe four. If he was counting himself.

Shit.

...

Ok, by this point he's convinced that even if Marinette is his soulmate, it'll never happen. There's plenty of people who don't care about soulmarks and go off and marry whoever they please.

He had tried to bring up his mark at the end of the day, and Marinette had gotten flustered before practically yelling something he couldn't understand, and running off towards the bakery.

Adrien groaned, letting his head fall back.

"Hey, dude, it's ok. She's just... Having a weird day. She'll be back to normal soon," Nino said. He lightly punched his shoulder and gave him a big smile. "We wanna see your mark."

Alya grinned and nodded enthusiastically, phone out and at the ready to take a video.

"I've waited three years for this!" She whined. "Hurry up, Sunshine."

Adrien sighed and rolled his sleeve up, revealing the soft pink tattoo.

Alya gasped violently and nearly dropped her phone, juggling it around before catching it.

"But-! But-! But-!"

"Brooo," Nino breathed. "Is that-?"

"His soulmate is M-!" Alya shrieked, cut off by Nino as he lunged and covered her mouth.

"Shh! Don't announce it to everyone yet!"

"I can't believe she ran off before she could see it!" Alya hissed.

"I'm not going to say anything," Adrien supplied. At their horrified looks, he added, "At least not yet. I'm going to wait for her birthday. I don't... I don't want to be wrong, you know? That would be really embarrassing. Plus," he reached up and started to run at his neck. "I don't think she'll be very happy. Why else would she run away when I tried to show you guys?"

Alya and Nino shared a look before looking back to him with eyes too wide to be innocent, and gave identical shrugs.

This would be a long few months.