Marinette and Adrien texted back and forth occasionally for the next few days, but neither of them went out of their way to set up a time to meet up again. Marinette was able to avoid Alya trying to set her up for the next few weeks under the guise of getting a routine established for the semester.

That only lasted about three weeks into the semester until one evening when Nino and Alya went out to dinner to celebrate their anniversary. Marinette was chopping up vegetables to make herself some fried rice when she heard a knocking on the door.

She assumed that it was her neighbor across the hall Aurore, who left a spare key at their apartment after she got locked out for the second time in their first week. She opened the door without looking through the peephole and was surprised to see that Adrien was standing on the other side of the door with a bottle of wine.

"Hey," she greeted, trying not to look as surprised as she felt, "what's up, Adrien?"

"Nino and Alya invited me over for dinner," he said with a smile. "I assumed that they told you, but I can go if you want." He pointed back down the hallway he came from and Marinette considered letting him go.

"They're actually out celebrating their anniversary tonight, but you're welcome to join me for dinner if you want to." She stepped out of the doorway so that he could enter. "Do you like fried rice?" She was gently motioning him to come inside and he took it as a solid of an invitation as he was going to get.

"Sorry about my projects," she said, "I wasn't expecting to have anyone over, so I've been doing work out here instead of in my room." He looked her over and she was wearing a pair of green joggers with a black t-shirt. The shirt had a chest pocket that had a little cat head poking out of it. The joggers were covered in sporadic amounts of black that were reminiscent of Chat Noir's Cataclysm.

"Fried rice sounds great," he said with a little blush. "I guess this is for you, if our friends aren't going to be joining us." He handed her the bottle of rosé that he walked in with and she smiled. "Is there anything I can do to help you make dinner?"

"Thank you. Uh, if you wouldn't mind chopping up the green onions that would be great," she told him. She found herself momentarily pausing because she hadn't cooked with anyone except for Alya or her parents before. Usually cooking with them was easy and barely required any talking because they just seemed to know what to do. "Do you want some wine?"

"If you're having some, I'll take some, otherwise I'd be okay with just having water." He moved to the cutting board that Marinette had been using before he arrived at the apartment. "It's weird that they told me to come by when they're not even here," he mentioned off handedly while he was slicing the green onions.

Marinette poured Adrien a cup of water and placed the wine into the fridge. She placed the cup in front of him while she started cooking up the chicken she was going to put into the fried rice. "You're right," she responded, "are you sure they said for you to come by on September 3?" Adrien could hear the gentle sizzle of the chicken in the pan.

"Yeah. Alya was the one who texted me that I should come by on the 3 for dinner at 19h. I asked if I could bring anything and she told me that I should bring a bottle of wine." He shrugged a little when he finished explaining and Marinette came to a revelation.

"Oh my gosh," she muttered under her breath, "I can't believe her." Marinette rubbed at her eyes with her thumb and middle fingers. "This is a set-up," she explained, "Alya has it in her head that I need to move on from my ex. I bet she planned this in hopes that we would… I don't know, fall in love over dinner?"

Adrien couldn't help but to laugh. "Really? You really think that Alya would set this up just to make the two of us go on a date?" Adrien looked over to her and she had a surprisingly familiar serious look on her face. He didn't know where it looked familiar from, but he could have sworn he'd seen the same look before.

"Trust me," Marinette sighed, "with Alya, it would be more surprising if she hadn't come up with a plan to set us up on a date." Marinette turned back away from him to continue the cooking just as Adrien finished slicing up the rest of the vegetables that were sitting next to the chopping board.

"Huh." That was all that was said for the time being. Marinette didn't seem happy about the idea of being set up on a date, but it was possible she just wasn't happy about being surprised with the idea of being set up on a date. He brought over the chopping board of vegetables in silence, then went over to the sink and started to clean up the dishes they'd been using.

It didn't take very long for Marinette to finish cooking and she took out two bowls to serve the fried rice for both of them. She offered Adrien a seat at their small dining table and he sat down. "I'm sorry if I gave off the wrong impression before," she began while she was assembling a forkful of fried rice.

"The wrong impression for what," he asked, tilting his head inquisitively at her.

"I think you're a great guy, but I'm really not interested in looking for a relationship right now. I don't mind hanging out with you and I was happy to have you for company while I was cooking tonight, but I really don't want to accidentally lead you on. Alya just keeps trying to find me someone to date even though I've told her that's not what I want right now."

"That's rough, buddy," Adrien quoted from Avatar and Marinette giggled. "I'm sorry she won't let you just be single."

"She's only trying to set me up because she cares about me," Marinette relented, "I know that, but there are only so many times that I can tell her I'm choosing to be single before it starts to become annoying."

"What if you just give her what she wants," Adrien suggested. Marinette raised an eyebrow at him, silently requesting for him to explain himself. "What if you find someone to pretend to date? Just find a fake boyfriend, or girlfriend to make her stop trying to set you up. She doesn't seem like she would suggest you cheat on someone, so if you're already in a relationship, she would probably leave you alone, right?"

Marinette leaned back in her chair, considering Adrien's suggestion. She'd lied to Alya about bigger things, and also about smaller things. "I wouldn't want to do that to someone," she told him, "I would feel bad about making someone lie for me, especially since Alya would definitely try to get information out of them."

"So fake date me," Adrien suggested with a shrug. "I feel like if you start 'dating' someone and I'm not, I'll become her new project and I don't think I'm ready for a relationship either. Plus, I'm already trained to deal with getting questioned by reporters." He kind of chuckled and Marinette gave him a scrutinizing look.

"Really?" she questioned, "you would be okay with pretending to date me?" Adrien nodded with a soft smile on his face.

"I like to consider myself a helpful person," he told her, "so if I can help you by just hanging out with you more, I'm down. Trust me, I'm not going to be like… insulted that we're not in a real relationship or anything like that."

Marinette smiled. "Well, it sounds like we have a deal, then, boyfriend," she said, extending a hand to Adrien.

"Sounds that way to me, girlfriend." He shook her hand, solidifying their fake relationship. They spent the rest of the evening talking and joking with one another. They played some Ultimate Mecha Strike after Adrien mentioned it was one of his favorite games and they figured out the details of their fake relationship.

The two of them ended their evening together with a hug and les bisous. A little while after Adrien left, Marinette got a text from him. 'I had fun with you tonight. Let me know when you're free so we can hang out again.' It was a perfect message for Marinette to show Alya when she talked about her new 'boyfriend.'