I'm so sorry that I haven't finished this earlier I've been really busy with school and I still wanted it to be as good as possible! It's too short for the time I took to write it, and it might not be very good, but thanks for waiting and for reading! I really appreciate you all! 3

Adrien woke up earlier than Marinette most of the time, mainly because of his normal schedule and he was early pretty often, whereas Marinette couldn't wake up on time even if her life depended on it, she was constantly running late. This made their mornings fairly odd in the beginning, but as time went on, they really had started meeting in the middle, they would wake up at the right time, not too early, not too late. But one day, Marinette woke up before Adrien, the sun was shining through her window. She looked over as he was still sleeping. For moral reasons, she didn't want to watch him sleep, but she really, really wanted to. She wasn't particularly an artist but she usually sketched outfits, so she was decent at it. She decided to draw Adrien sleeping, she wanted to engrave the beautiful image in her mind. He looked like an angel, the sun reflecting perfectly off of his soft, golden hair, and shimmering off of his eyelashes. The whole time she thought that she was being a creep, and felt really guilty. Even though she had all those feelings, she did it anyway, God, she thought, he's so beautiful. It was really just a rough sketch because she got too embarrassed to continue. Ugh, I'm such a creep. She set the paper down on her desk and left to go get ready for the day. The sound of the door closing woke Adrien up. He blinked the sun out of his eyes, which was really no use because he was surrounded in it.

He looked up at Marinette's bed and realized she wasn't there, he walked over to her desk and immediately saw the drawing, there were little hearts all over it. Man, this is so sweet, she's such a sweet girl. I- he flipped it over to the back, Marinette had written "Oh, how I wish he felt the same way about me." With many hearts around it. Does-does she really love me, for real, not just out of vanity? No. How could she? Why would she? Adrien just sort of sat there in the room, trying to decide what to think. Should he tell her that he saw the drawing? He had to decide fast because she was going to return soon. Man, Marinette is a really great girl. And, I mean, I doubt Ladybug will ever love me…

Before he could finish making his decision, she came back into the room.

"Oh, you're awake!"

"Yeah…"

"What are you holding… Oh no."

"Well, I-"

"I'm SO so so SO sorry! You must think that I'm a creep!" She was terrified, how could I be so careless? I should've put it away, he's going to hate me!

"No, I'm just confus-"

Marinette sunk down onto the floor and threaded her hands through her hair.

"Hey, it's okay! I think it's kinda cute!"

Adrien was panicking a bit, he didn't like seeing others upset, and he was afraid she would become akumatized.

"Uh… I like it?! Please, please don't be upset!"

"I just feel so embarrassed!"

"Don't be! So many other fans have done worse. Way worse"

"Fans?!"

"That's not what I meant!"

"No! If we're at this point, I need to clarify, I don't just like you because you're pretty. You have a good heart, you're a sweet person and when I look at you I-I, well I just melt a little bit inside, like an ice cream cone sitting out in the sun. You're… you're a warm ball of sunshine, and you care about people." She paused. "And I care about you."

They stared at each other for what seemed like ages, Marinette still sitting on the floor. Their minds were both spinning for completely different reasons. Marinette couldn't believe what she had just done, and Adrien, well Adrien was just a bit shocked. He didn't know what to feel, or how to feel it. He had somehow gotten it stuck in his mind, that because his father didn't love him, nobody would, and that nobody would look past his looks and fame. He knew that that's what he really needed to hear, and he knew that Marinette probably had no idea how much saying that really meant to him. Adrien knelt down to face level with Marinette, her eyes wide.

"…Thank you." He teared up and his voice wavered, "I really care about you too."

They stared at each other again, this time a sad stare, which neither of them knew why they felt so sad. It was completely silent, a surrounding silence, until their eye contact was broken by the call from Marinette's mother.

"Kids! Breakfast is ready!"

They immediately looked away from each other.

"Well… we shou-"

"Yes! We should go down!"

They laughed slightly and looked at one another awkwardly.

It was hard for Adrien to pay attention in class, the only thing he could think about is what Marinette said to him, about caring about him for real. He knew that people did, Nino and all his friends at school, his friends from his extracurriculars, even Chloe, but he never really absorbed that they did, having it said to him was like getting slapped in the face. And of course it woke him up, but it still stung, knowing that all these people love him and care about him and yet he still felt so lonely. Granted, not as much as he felt at home, but it was definitely still there. To keep his mind from wandering somewhere about something that he didn't want to think about, Adrien decided to wonder about what Hawkmoth's next plan was going to be. And it wasn't like he was going to be able to pay attention at this point, he didn't even know the topic of the lesson. I can't imagine that he won't try something big next, what does he have to lose? I hope Ladybug and I are going to be prepared for it, I bet we will. I really hope we will. I'm scared, I'm really really scared. He didn't realize how far he had zoned out until,

"Adrien? Adrien?"

"What?"

"Didn't you hear the bell ring, c'mon we gotta go."

I should've listened to the lesson, I'm gonna be so lost tomorrow. If it was any consolation to Adrien, Marinette had a bit of trouble focusing in class too. She was so busy thinking about how she actually told Adrien the things that she was feeling instead of just chickening out at the last second and making up some excuse as to why she didn't do it. It wasn't anything that she expected, but she never really expected that she'd ever do it.

It probably wasn't any consolation to Adrien at all, she wouldn't be able to explain what happened to him in class when they got back home. Maybe it wasn't very important.

Marinette and Alya left the classroom together,

"I have good news!"

"Oooh? What? Is it about Adrien?" She winked.

"For once, the good news is, yes! I, well, I told him."

"WHAT?! I need all the details?" She hugged her friend, "and by all the details I mean all the details."

Marinette relayed the events as well as she possibly could.

"Girl, I never thought you'd do it. I'm so proud of you!" The friends hug. Alya was happy for her friend but she really did wonder, were guys the only important thing in their friendship? It kind of seemed so. Whatever, everything's good right now.

"I never really thought it would happen either, and definitely didn't expect it to happen in the way that it did, I can't say that I feel bad about it."

"And you shouldn't! Now, let's go to lunch."

As per usual, the school day was uninteresting for both Adrien and Marinette. The whole day Adrien was thinking about his interaction with Marinette, and about how much he loves Ladybug. Or really, how much of a dream that him and Ladybug was. As the two were walking home,

"Hey, Marinette?"

"What is it, Adrien?"

"I, well, I think that the reason that I never realized my love for you was that I always saw you as only a friend. I really needed a friend. Now I know, I have tons of friends, and you are a great friend… but now I realize you can be so much more, we could be so much mo-"

Loud screams erupted from the distance. Somebody was akumatized.