unexpected feelings | marichat

chapter twenty-six

marinette's pov
at this rate, i was never going to get over adrien. i was doing just fine, honestly, but then i saw him with kagami. and something inside me cracked once again. i was happy for them, really, but... it still hurt. not to mention how i nearly fainted when he put his arm around me. yeah, kudos to me for not turning into a huge, gooey pile of marinette.
"ugh!" i complained, pulling up the grimoire on my ipad. there was no time to ponder over how i still loved adrien, or what i felt for luka, or even the weird butterflies i was beginning to feel around chat noir. yeah, what's that last one all about?
there were more important things to focus on, starting on decoding this thing just as master fu was trying to do before losing his memory. he'd made it pretty far, actually, his small annotations still visible on the shared file, but there was still a lot to work with.
lucky for me, it was summer, meaning no school to make this whole ladybug thing more stressful than necessary. yay me! right?
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i awoke to a loud knock on my door. "shoot," i mumbled, unsticking my cheek from the paper i was making notes on. i must've fallen asleep while decoding the grimoire.
"marinette? your parents said you were in here!" chat noir said, opening the trapdoor. i clicked on a random tab on my computer, hiding the ipad under a notebook. a romance anime began to play, the loud voices of the two characters booming throughout my room.
"oh! heyy chat!" i said, attempting to pause the thing. it just got louder. chat tilted his head before grinning fully and entering.
"i LOVE that show! they're just purrr-fect for each other, don't you think?" he asked, his eyes twinkling. "though they are pretty stupid. how is it that they don't see it?"
i laughed. "you watch this? i never knew that the suave, totallyyy lady-killing chat noir could be such a nerd," i teased. he rolled his eyes.
"hey, you watch it too, you've got no room to tease me."
"yeah, you're probably right. especially since i was, umm, i got so obsessed with it at some point that i, kindaaa made a whole replica of the gorgeous dress in episode 15," i said, quickly mumbling the last part. chat's eyes widened.
"you have to show me that! i'll use my impeccable fashion skills to judge it."
"well... it's not even THAT good.. see, i rushed it, honestly its not-"
"i'm gonna stop you right there. marinette, you are incredibly talented. some may even say the most meow-velously talented of all time. i will not stand here and let you put yourself down when you haven't even showed me the dress! now go, put it on," he said, giving me a gentle shove.
"fine! but you better promise not to make fun of it, it's somewhat of a work in progress," i smiled, walking towards my trunk and pulling it out.
"i can't wait to see it!!" he exclaimed excitedly as i changed behind the large room divider i had. i tightened every last ribbon, straightened every single wrinkle, making sure nothing was out of place.
not that i needed to look good for chat noir or anything. i took one look in the mirror and decided it looked good. or, as good as it was going to get.
i found chat noir spinning on my chair when i walked out. the sight made me smile. "you're gonna throw up if you keep spinning!"
"oh, come on marinette, you know i-" he looked up at me and stopped dead in the middle of his sentence, the chair coming to an abrupt halt.