On the first day of December four more or less nicely wrapped presents were sitting on the desks of Adrien, Nino, Alya and Marinette. The cozy, warm feeling they radiated immediately infected all of their classmates with christmassy joy as they walked into class. Even Chloé's heart began to beat excitedly but of course she would have never admitted that.

Eager to open her present Marinette hurried to her desk with a bright smile on her face but stopped as she heard a high-pitched squeal behind her. Startled she turned around to look at Alya but her best friend herself stared into another direction. As she followed her gaze Marinette realized who the real origin of the sound was.

Nino stood in front of his desk and looked down at his present as he covered his mouth with both hands, almost crying.

"But… You haven't even opened it yet..." Adrien put his present that he had already grabbed excitedly back down so that he could calm down his best friend with light pats on the back.

"It's so beautiful" Nino whispered completely smitten.

It took him exactly four seconds to rip the soft package open impatiently.

Inside was a self-knitted orange and blue striped bobble hat with some sort of flaps on each side. Confused he inspected the holes and his eyes widened as soon as he realized they were meant for his headphones. "The one who did this must be a genius" he exhaled impressed.

Alya raised an eyebrow at him for the fact that he didn't instantly understood who his Secret Santa was but decided to concentrate on her own gift instead of scolding him for being an idiot. Without further ado she ripped the paper apart and opened the box inside of it, inspecting the treasure it contained with a bright smile.

"Wow, this thing is awesome, my very own journalist pass! I'm officially important now!" she proudly declared and pinned the badge with a photo and some personal information of her on her blouse. "I'll wear that every day from now on so if Ladybug crosses my way she may think I'm worth giving a personal interview to! It's the perfect plan!"

Marinette giggled and Adrien felt very proud that Alya liked the present he'd made so much as he began to open his own, poorly wrapped present. Confused he looked at the chaotic basket with a little awry patchwork blanket he was now holding in his hands. "What is this…?" he wondered and Nino next to him tried to act as innocent as possible.

"Maybeee… it will make sense once you have all of your other presents?"

Adrien smiled brightly at that without wasting a thought to the fact that Nino more or less had just revealed himself as his Secret Santa. "It sure will! That makes the whole thing even more thrilling!" he said excitedly, looking at the basket like it was his most valuable possession.

Proudly Nino beamed and Marinette had to suppress a laugh while opening her own small present.

Inside of it she found a short ribbon with two pendants on it: a small green paw and a little ladybug. Eagerly she attached it to her phone and held it up to the others. "Look what I got; Chat Noir and Ladybug charms for my phone! They're so cute!"

Nino gave her a thumbs-up and Adrien opened his mouth to congratulate her but was stopped by Madame Bustier's voice filling the room. "Good morning, students, let's start with today's class!"

During the whole lesson all of them inspected their gift further and waited for the break to come to brag and discuss about them.

And they did.

Marinette walked in on Alya and Nino who had headed to the cafeteria before her and they seemed to have a serious conversation. She already turned around to leave again but then she heard Nino saying her name. "…but also, Marinette!"

"Hey, did you call for me?" she asked as she joined them but froze as soon as she saw Nino's pale, wide-eyed expression. "Woah, hold on, what's going on here?"

Alya waved it off with a smirk. "Nino's having a crisis."

"I mean, like," he continued without even realizing Marinette had arrived, "she suggested I need a warmer hat but she was talking about a beanie not a bobble hat. So someone else could have used that as an inspiration for my gift. BUT there's also a high chance that it indeed is her! Alya help me I'm going insane!" He was sweating.

"Stop torturing yourself, Nino! This is meant to be fun! You still have three weeks to figure out who of us your Secret Santa is and you will even get more clues with every week. Relax, you're not supposed to know it by now anyways" she tried to calm him with a sympathetic smile.

"But Alya said…"

"Alya does not know everything, even though she loves to act like she does" Marinette interrupted him for his own sake and Nino relaxed a little, a small smile playing around his lips. Alya next to him stuck her tongue out at Marinette who blew her a kiss and chuckled. At that moment Adrien came up to them with a huge smile on his face.

"Hey guys, are you as excited as I am? I can't wait for next week!" he confessed happily and sat down beside his friends.

For the rest of the break they chatted animatedly with each other, Alya kept teasing Nino relentlessly and Marinette couldn't help but laugh wholeheartedly. Which was adorable, if you asked Adrien.

As he sat there and looked into her shining eyes Adrien realized something that may have been obvious but was an important discovery for him: Throughout the whole Secret Santa event and its preparations he and Marinette grew closer with each passing day. She'd even finally overcome her shyness around him! Of course he had already liked her a lot before but now the time they spent together felt different. Better.

And even though he got to spend more time with her than he used to it still wasn't enough.

Luckily for him there was Chat Noir.

At the same day Marinette heavy-heartedly came to a conclusion as well. The more time she spent with Adrien, the more certain she got that she truly admired his presence, even if it was only as a friend. She had had a crush on him for over two years now and he hadn't shown the slightest bit of interest in her up to this day, so what could possibly happen to change his platonic feelings towards her? Maybe she should work on that 'just friends'-thing to be able to spend more, less awkward, time with him.

Determined Marinette decided that this would be her new goal, unaware about how terribly wrong she was.

To her own surprise and joy Alya's plan of catching Ladybug's attention with her new badge worked out perfectly.

Since the rules of Secret Santa Marinette Style™ forbade it to give a present to any other person than your giftee, Marinette had found a different way to make her best friend happy, paying back only a tiny amount the love and brightness Alya had brought into her life.

"That badge is pretty cool!" Ladybug gave Alya an accretive look who proudly smiled at her heroine. She puffed up her chest and presented the badge that read 'VIB – Very Important Blogger'. It looked objectively real.

"It is, isn't it? A friend of mine made it but I don't know who it was yet. Secret Santa, you know?" The she leaned in and whispered as if the following were top secret information. "I guess it's my best friend though. It seems she made another present too but I just can't imagine that the boys in the group are… creative enough to be capable of something like that, to say the least." She winked and Ladybug giggled, amused about the thought of Alya's surprised face once she'd learn the truth.

Chat tried very hard to keep a straight face. Aside from needing to keep his identity a secret he didn't know if he should be offended about what Alya just had said or if he should be proud about the fact that she thought Marinette's gifted hands had created something that was actually made by him.

Thinking of Marinette… He wanted to visit her again this evening.

Still musing about her feelings for Adrien and her resolution to let go of them Marinette stood on her balcony and admired the scenery in front of her. Somewhere along the line her thoughts wandered off though, to the wonderful moments she had spent here during the last few weeks. Most of these thoughts circled around the person who had accompanied her and who so suddenly had sneaked a way into her life and made himself at home there.

Yet again Tikki tried to talk to her about her feelings towards Chat Noir but Marinette wasn't ready just yet to face the inconvenient truth about the conflict she was in as Ladybug.

Maybe it would have been different if she had to work on gifts for Adrien. Maybe it was led by her decision to let go of her feelings for him. Or maybe Adrien hadn't had the slightest part to play in this.

No matter what it was, Marinette was falling for Chat.

"Princess! I'm here to wish you a happy Christmas Month!" Chat greeted her, startling her out of her thoughts about him. Nevertheless a bright beam appeared on her face because she was more than happy to see him. Amazed that his words had such a positive impact on her Chat couldn't help but smile brightly as well since her beam was quite infectious.

"The same to you, minou! It's good to see you." After hearing her own affectionate tone she advised herself to pull herself together as the last thing she wanted was to get as obvious and awkward around him as she'd done around Adrien. Relieved that Chat seemed to not analyze her words or voice she relaxed.

"You missed my claw-ver puns, didn't you? I knew it, you long for my cat-chy jokes and my tail-ent to make you laugh" he blathered and instantly wanted to slap himself.

Snap out of it Agreste, it's just Marinette! No need to be nervous.

But the scolding didn't help at all. His heart still beat rapidly against his chest and under his gloves his hands were sweating despite the chill weather. To his surprise Marinette laughed instead of shaking her head annoyed yet amused like he had expected her to.

"You are terrible, you know that? I would rather call your puns paw-ful to be honest. Maybe I should look for a new fur-end to spend my evenings with. " Teasingly she smirked at him while his eyes widened in disbelief.

"Did you just… Did you make…? For me?" An excited smile and a muffled squeal found their way to Chat's lips. Even though she had intended to do something nice for him she hadn't expected him to get that happy about only two horrible puns.

Not that she wanted to complain. His reaction was adorable.

"Consider it an early Christmas present" she laughed while motioning him to enter her room.

"It's the best gift you could have paw-sibly made me, Purr-iiin-"

She pushed him into her room. "Enough is enough!" she said barely serious before following him. Secretly she thought to herself that she could get used to that silly, loveable kitty curling up on her bed.

And he didn't want to leave it anytime soon either.