"I'm having a great time, but a lot happened today I'm not totally sure I have the full story?" Sabrina asked the group, pausing to take a sip of her smoothie.

There were glances all around, but Chloe was the one to finally answer.

"Well, long story short, Lila is a no-good, backstabbing liar and meanie, but we all recognize that now so we're not going to put up with it anymore," Chloe said matter-of-factly while crossing her arms.

"I'm definitely glad to hear that," Sabrina smiled, looking around the table at what she would have previously considered an unlikely group of allies. "But what was going on with the akuma …?"

Marinette and Kagami both looked a little embarrassed, so Nino started.

"Look so I was outside the school talking to Marinette when Kagami showed up…"

"No no no, we have to start from the beginning," Kim interrupted.

"That is the beginning!" Nino laughed

"No let me tell it," Kim insisted. He took a big slurp of his smoothie and then launched into telling the story.

"Ok, so it all started at a game night at my house. I had just heard that my best bro Nino had broken up with Alya, and at the time I didn't really know why they split up, but no matter what the reason, I knew I had to help cheer him up!

"I texted Marinette to see if she was game to hang out for a game night, and I know what you're thinking, 'But Kim, isn't Marinette bff's with Alya?' and my answer to that is one, not anymore — we'll get to that later — and two, Marinette has been friends with Alya for like, six months, but she's known me and Nino since we were all like six years old, so we have seniority and therefore dibs on Marinette in the breakup."

"Kim that's not how breakups or dibs work—" Marinette interrupted.

But Kim was unfazed and continued his dramatic retelling.

"It doesn't matter because Marinette did agree to come to game night, on the condition she could bring a friend. I said as long as she does't bring Alya she can bring whoever she wants. Now I thought she would bring someone fun…"

Kim trailed off looking at Kagami, but quickly recovered.

"… by which I mean she totally did! She brought Kagami, who we can all agree is an objectively fun person…

"Uh, anyways, so the four of us were at my place playing Ultimate Mecha Strike, but like with four players the screen is really small so eventually we got tired and took a break, and I was like, you know what would be fun? We should play Truth or Dare."

"Ok so I got first turn so I dared Nino—"

"Kim is this all relevant to the story?" Nino interrupted, looking a bit embarrassed.

"What, you don't want me to tell them about…" Kim raised his eyebrows.

"I wan't you to get to the point!" Chloe interrupted. "Or more importantly, the part where I come in!"

"Ok ok fine," Kim conceded.

"Truth or Dare is a story for another time, but all you need to know Sabrina is that at the very end, Nino asked Kagami a truth to say who in the world she would most like to kiss, and Kagami like, with no hesitation just says 'Marinette' like it was super obvious, which, now that I think about it maybe it was. And then of course it was my turn to dare someone so I dared Marinette to kiss someone in the room and of course she kissed Kagami because she wants me to be poor."

"Wait, what?" Sabrina interrupted.

"Kim failed to mention that he had bet against me and Marinette getting together," Kagami clarified.

"Hey, at least I got 20 euros out of it," Nino laughed.

"Thank you for believing in us, Nino," Marinette smiled at Nino.

"Also, Kim, not to be rude, but I don't think you know how to play Truth or Dare," Sabrina told him. "The turns don't work like that."

"Hey we played by house rules, and it was my house so I made the rules!" Kim defended himself. "I'm a pro at Truth or Dare!"

"You are skilled at Dares, but you are weak at Truth." Kagami told him matter-of-factly. "Which is why I think I should take over telling this story."

"Well if you think you can tell it better…" Kim grumbled.

"I can," Kagami told him.

"After Kim paid Nino the money Nino earned in their bet, Nino had to go home, so Kim left the room to walk Nino to the door.

"Marinette and I were alone, and we expressed to each other how happy we were to discover that our feelings for each other were mutual. We agreed that although the boys' wager about our romantic lives was entirely inappropriate, we were grateful that they had set the conditions for us to finally get together.

"Marinette pointed out that she had noticed Kim and Nino growing very close over the years, and that she suspected that they might have feelings for each other as well. I pointed out that now that Nino was available, we could return the favor by helping the two of them realize their feelings for each other. Marinette agreed that they would make an excellent couple; however, she was concerned that after so many years of being friends, they would never admit their affections to each other or themselves.

"To solve this, I suggested we execute a three phase plan I had read about that was designed to get two people who didn't know they were in love to realize it and to actually fall in love."

"What kind of self-help book did you read that in?" Sabrina asked curiously

Kagami paused, so Marinette answered for her.

"It was in a Manga, based on a Shakespeare play…" Marinette admitted, unable to hide her grin at how cute she thought Kagami's plans were.

"And it was an excellent plan," Kagami countered "It worked, didn't it?" she gestured to the two boys sitting across from them.

"You're right, it worked perfectly," Marinette conceded, taking a sip of her smoothie to hide her giggles.

"Wait, I think I missed this part, what was this three phase plan?" Chloe butted in.

Kagami continued explaining:

"Phase 1: I meet Marinette after school. While Nino is still within earshot, I tell her that I suspect Kim is romantically interested in Nino and that Nino would be smart to go out with someone like Kim. Nino overhears this, and as we know from his betting history, he is an excellent judge of probability outcomes, so he therefore would now have a high chance of accepting an offer for a date from Kim.

"Phase 2: At school Marinette enlists the help of her classmate Alix Kubdel. She passes a note to Alix, knowing that Kim will be too curious not to look over Alix's shoulder and read it as they sit near each other. The note says that Nino has a huge crush on Kim and wishes that Kim would ask him out.

"Phase 3: Kim asks Nino out on a date, and Nino, who is now confident Kim really likes him back, of course accepts, and the four of us set up a double date to come to this smoothie cafe on Friday, which is of course, today.

"Oh. My. God." Chloe responded. "That is a Dupain-Cheng-level crazy plan. You two really are made for each other."

"Yes, everything was going perfectly according to plan, but unbeknownst to us, while we were making plans for the double date we were overheard by none other than Lila Rossi."

Chloe made an audible gagging noise and there was a general grumbling from the rest of the members at the table at the mention of Lila's name.

"Thursday night, when I was in the car being driven home from fencing practice, I received a text message from Lila informing me that I should not trust Marinette.

"I of course did not put any stock in this comment and ignored the message, but Lila followed it up with a second message saying that she had just left the Dupain-Cheng Bakery and she had seen Marinette there with Adrien, and that Marinette had taken Adrien up to her room.

"Marinette, you didn't!?" Sabrina exclaimed.

Marinette opened her mouth to defend herself, but Kagami held up a hand to silence them both.

"Sabrina, please let me finish the story before you attack my girlfriend." Kagami said.

"Right, sorry," Sabrina apologized.

Kagami continued.

"I am not proud of it, but I will admit that in this instance Lila had outmaneuvered me. She identified my weakness, my jealousy of Marinette's previous affections for Adrien Agreste, and exploited that weakness to her advantage. Lila insisted that if I didn't believe her, which of course I didn't, then I should go see for myself.

"And that's exactly what I did. I directed Tatsu to reroute to drive past Marinette's home so I could see for myself if Adrien was really there with her. When I got to the house it didn't look like anyone was inside the bakery, so I got out of the car to walk around the corner to get a better view of the terrace on the roof.

"When I crossed the street, I saw that Lila was still there and she… well she convinced me to climb up on some construction scaffolding to get a better look…"

"Who are you!?" Kim interrupted. "I cannot picture you doing that."

Kagami tightly rolled her lip in, but continued.

"It was not my proudest moment. But I needed a better vantage point. And once I was higher up I could clearly see the terrace, and at that moment I saw Marinette on her roof, kissing Adrien."

"What?!" Sabrina interrupted. "What did you do?"

Kagami took a deep breath before continuing.

"At that moment, I wanted to go up to Marinette's room and confront her, but I did not have the courage. I was feeling very hurt, and just wanted to go home. Also, Cat Noir showed up to tell us to stop climbing on the scaffolding."

"LOL, BUSTED!" Kim laughed.

"I did think it was a bit hypocritical coming from a boy who regularly climbs on rooftops, but I was leaving anyway so I did not argue and instead went back to my car. I didn't contact or see Marinette until the next day when we were supposed to meet after her school got out to go on our double date." Kagami finished.

"ok ok ok now we're at the part I started at," Nino chimed in. "I wanna tell the story from here."

Kagami nodded her head for Nino to take the floor, and Nino begin telling his side of the story.

"Look so I was outside the school talking to Marinette when Kagami showed up to meet us for the double date. And I'm not the best at reading Kagami's emotions so I didn't realize she was upset until Marinette tried to hug her and Kagami pushed her away and started very aggressively yelling at Marinette for betraying her and playing games with her heart, etc. etc., and some of it I didn't understand because it was in Japanese, but she was really going in on it and at one point she mentioned Lila showing her proof that Marinette had cheated and that really upset Marinette, understandably.

"I'm freaking out because I've never seen Kagami this emotional, and Marinette's in tears now denying everything about this thing with Adrien, but Kagami is so worked up and I'm thinking for sure one of them is going to get akumatized.

"But it all happened so fast, I guess Hawkmoth didn't have time to send out a butterfly, because neither of them got akumatized and then Kagami stormed off to her car and Marinette ran back inside crying.

"oooh, I remember this part, this is where I come in!" Chloe interjected.

"Right," Nino continued.

"So Kim and I are just standing there kind of shocked, and Chloe comes over to see what's going on. We catch her up to speed and she immediately knows: yeah Marinette didn't cheat, Lila is up to something. And Kim was a little hesitant because at this point he didn't know what a crazy pathological liar Lila was, so I told him about all the times Lila has manipulated the class and targeted Marinette, and also I explained that Alya believing Lila over me and Marinette was a huge reason why we broke up.

"But Kim is amazing, so of course he believes us, and he wants to help fix what's going on with Marinette and Kagami. At this point Kagami is getting into her car, and Rose came out of the school and said Marinette is in the hallway crying, and after all this talk about Lila and with Marinette in tears I just got really angry.

"I marched right down the steps to confront Kagami and give her a piece of my mind. I was so mad that she would slander my best friend that way, and in front of the school like that! So of course now I'm yelling and she's yelling and then Alya comes out and thinks now is a good time to tell me to calm down which has the opposite affect, and Kim is trying to get her to back down but then…"

Nino stopped.

"And then what?" Sabrina asked, on the edge of her seat.

"And then he got re-akumatized into bubbler," Chloe explained, only laughing a little.

"Bubbler 2.0," Nino corrected. "And I was awesome, I was throwing bubbles and doing flips—"

"Nino you don't even remember what happened," Marinette teased.

"And should that stop me from telling a good story?" Nino joked

Marinette rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Fine then," Nino said. "You tell it from here then, you're the one who met Ladybug and Cat Noir after all!"

"Riiiiiiight—" Marinette said, trying to remember the cover story she told her friends. "Right, right, I can totally tell it! No problem at all!"

Marinette knew she would have to watch what she said, as she had spent most of the time during the akuma attack transformed as Ladybug.

"So I was inside when Nino was akumatized, and I heard all the commotion outside,"

Not a lie!

"I ran down the hallway to try and get a better view of what was going on, but there was a ton of commotion because everyone was running away. I thought Kagami had gotten akumatized, but I heard people shouting they saw the Bubbler and I was super confused. I went out a side door, and I ran into Cat Noir"

She had actually run into Cat Noir when she was already transformed as Ladybug, but her friends didn't need to know that.

"I kinda explained to him what was going on, at least what I knew, which was that Kagami and I had gotten in a fight because she thought I was still in love with Adrien, which I'm not, and I figured Kagami and Nino must have gotten in a fight after I left. And Cat Noir…"

Marinette paused to let out an exasperated sigh remembering this part.

"Cat Noir was confused because apparently even he thought I was still in love with Adrien!"

"Even Cat Noir knew?!" Kim interjected. "Was Adrien the only one who didn't?"

"Cat said he thought even Adrien knew that Marinette had crush on him, and just didn't want to say anything because it would 'be awkward'."

Of course, Cat Noir had told Ladybug this, not knowing that Ladybug was Marinette.

"God, what an ass," Chloe chimed in. "Marinette, you dodged a bullet on that one, I'm glad you finally saw the light on Adrien's wet-sponge personality."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Marinette muttered. It had taken a while for her to get over Adrien, but once she had, she had quickly started to notice his flaws, particularly his 'playing dumb' act.

"Anyway, Cat Noir also told me that apparently he had found Wayhem and Mirelle making out on my balcony last night, and apparently Lila had come up with some insane convoluted story to convince them to do this?"

Sabrina's jaw dropped. "No Way!" she shouted. "So that's who Kagami saw?"

"Can't even recognize your own girlfriend?" Chloe teased in what was probably a joking tone.

"In my defense," Kagami offered, "it was very dark, and Lila had also gone through the trouble of dressing them up in clothes identical to Marinette and Adrien's, which I don't even want to think about why she has those."

"So creepy," Nino commented.

"Jeez," Kim breathed out. "I can't believe I never noticed how crazy she was. Are we sure she's just a pathological liar and not a full-tilt sociopath?"

"Jury's out," Chloe replied.

"So yeah," Marinette continued a little awkwardly. "After that, Cat Noir met up with Ladybug and they went off to fight the akuma, and I um… I stayed hidden. But after the fight was over, Ladybug came back and found me, because she had to tell me something."

Nino looked at Marinette suspiciously. "Ladybug came to find you after a fight? Why?"

"Well, uh, she wanted uh to tell me what Kagami had said," Marinette stuttered.

Kagami's face blushed bright red.

"Ladybug told me she found you fighting off the Bubbler on your own with only a broomstick, with no powers or anything" Marinette said.

"She also said you told her you 'wouldn't leave Marinette' because you still wanted to protect me, even though you thought I had betrayed you."

"Awww, how sweet," Sabrina cooed.

"I am deeply sorry for hurting you," Kagami replied somberly. "I never should have trusted Lila before you."

"You don't need to apologize again," Marinette told her as she took her hand in her own and squeezed it lovingly. "We've all been fooled by Lila at least once, I'm just glad we were able to overcome it."

"Well, all of us have been fooled except me," Chloe reminded the group. "I would never fall for her utterly ridiculous tactics. I'm just glad you all finally came to your senses and see what Marinette and I have been saying since the beginning!"

"Well we can't all be superheroes like you, Miss Queen Bee," Marinette laughed lightheartedly. "Why don't you finish the story from here?"

"Gladly," Chloe replied.

"So of course I was there during the entire akuma attack, but while I was waiting for Ladybug to give me my miraculous, I went to go protect Sabrina but of course mister Bubbler 2.0 over here had to get me stuck in a bubble."

Nino sheepishly gave an apologetic smile, but Chloe didn't seem actually that mad about the incident.

"Then after Ladybug saved everyone and threw her lucky charm, she and Cat Noir left, and Marinette came out and was over with Kagami, and Kim was helping Nino. So I went to go find Sabrina, and I found her not far away with the other girls in our class."

Chloe took a loud slurp of her smoothie and then continued.

"But then, as if she hadn't done enough already, Lila starts trying to get the other girls to believe it was my fault Nino got akumatized, which is utterly ridiculous, so then I was defending myself and trying to tell the other girls what Lila did to Marinette and Kagami, but of course she had them all under her thumb so no one was listening.

"And then, Lila starts trying to tease me about my supposed crush on Adrien, which is so old news and I am soooo over him. But luckily Sabrina stood up for me and told Lila to back off."

Chloe paused to smile fondly at Sabrina.

"So Lila tries to be a smart alec and sarcastically says something to Sabrina along the lines of, 'oh if you're so in love with Chloe why don't you two just make out,'

"And I thought, you know what? I don't care what any of these scrubs in the class who only follow Lila around think, and I definitely don't care what Lila thinks, so I thought, why hide my feelings anymore? So when she asked why we don't just make out, I asked Sabrina and she agreed and we did just that, we kissed right there in front of the school in front of everyone."

"It was a really good kiss," Sabrina chimed in, blushing.

"It was," Chloe confirmed. "I should have done that ages ago, I can't believe I waited this long."

"Wait, who asked who to kiss?" Marinette interrupted.

"Chloe asked me," Sabrina answered.

Kagami huffed and withdrew a 20-euro note from her wallet and gave it to Marinette.

"You two are just as bad as us!" Nino teased.

"So anyway," Chloe continued, "then Sabrina and I left the loser squad to their gossiping or worshiping Lila or whatever they do, and went over to you guys because I knew you were immune to her B.S."

"And then we made a double-date a triple-date, and now we're all here!" Kim finished, raising his (now empty) smoothie cup for a toast. "To finding true love!"

"To finding true friends," Chloe added, raising her own cup.

"To bringing down Lila Rossi," Marinette joined in.

The other three raised their cups as well as all six kids chorused,

"CHEERS!"