❛love letters ❜ (finished)

꒰ ׂ ۪ five ⪩⪨

'Dear M'Lady, I saw you reading Fahrenheit 451 yesterday. I don't know anything about the book, but you sure looked pretty hot reading it. You looked so focused... It was cute. From Cat Noir.'

"He's getting bold," Marinette announces, dropping his latest letter on top of his laptop. He picks it up and scans it like he has no clue what he's looking at, reads over the words twice like he didn't fret over them for two hours before he sent it.

"Very bold," Adrien comments, swallowing. "Maybe more confident. Hey, I was thinking about that—you know, how you said most guys would talk to you? Maybe this guy prefers to be anonymous."

Marinette seems to mull that over, swishing her vanilla latte around in her cup. Adrien has a brief fantasy of kissing her and tasting it on her lips—he loves vanilla and Marinette, absolutely nothing could go wrong with that. "But I don't know any shy guys."

"Maybe you guys haven't spoken," Adrien shrugs, inwardly wincing. He partly wishes he could stop leading her away from the right answer, but at the same time, he feels the thrill of the secret every time she acts like this.

"Yeah, but..." Marinette trails off, scowling. "Wait. I was reading that book last Friday."

"Were you?" Adrien asks, making his face indifferent while he files through Friday's memories.

"Yeah!" She shakes his arm with a big grin. "I was reading it in the lounge room at your dorm! While you were showering!"

"Before we went to... Oh." And yeah. Adrien didn't even think of that.

"That means he's in your dorm."

"He could have been passing through..."

Marinette narrows her eyes. "You're throwing me off every lead I have."

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, a bad habit he got from Marinette herself. "There's no 'leads'. This isn't an investigation, it's just some secret admirer."

Her brow pinches and her lips turn downward. "That was rude," she tells him, blatantly. "Maybe he's just 'some' anonymous guy but he's being a hell of a lot nicer than my so-called best friend right now."

And that—well, Adrien almost feels like screaming. She moves to stand up, but he latches onto her wrist and yanks her back down onto his bed, accidentally making his laptop fall on the floor. He doesn't look at it. "I'm sorry."

Marinette blinks at him.

"I'm happy for you," he tries again. "I just don't want to see you get hurt. I mean, we don't know a lot about this guy."

"I know he likes me," she points out. "He's the first one in a while that hasn't only liked me for the physical perks of a relationship."

Adrien winces a little, his stomach-turning. Just thinking about other guys looking at Marinette like that or treating her wrong... It makes his mind nearly white-out with anger and jealousy. Pursing his lips, he reaches out and tugs Marinette to his chest. "I'm sorry," he says again, softer, "I'm happy for you."

"I know you are." She sits back down next to his and Adrien's chest tightens. He loves Marinette so much he feels like he's going crazy with it sometimes. They've been best friends since they were 15, and all four of the years following have been the best of his life. "I just wish I knew him."

"Maybe he doesn't want you to. Maybe you make him nervous," Adrien says, somewhat daringly.

Marinette hums softly thinking that over. "Heeey," she says suddenly, turning towards him smiling. Adrien's chest aches. "When's the last time we've had a movie night?"

"Two Saturdays ago," he replies with a grin, biting the inside of his cheek. She's still close to him; if he leaned forward two inches and bent down a little, he could be kissing her.

"Let's do that. That sounds like a good idea." She pauses for a second before reaching up and fixing Adrien's shirt sleeve where it's folded over. "I miss you, you know?"

Adrien knows. Adrien knows so much, it almost hurts. "Yeah," he agrees. "We haven't seen a lot of each other this term."

It's been busy, to say the least, what with Marinette's latest courses being on the opposite side of campus from Adrien's. She stops fidgeting with his sleeve, her eyes slowly making their way up to his face. He feels self-conscious, and he lets himself believe that her eyes caught at his lips. (They didn't, probably. Wishful thinking and all that.) "Let's watch a movie," she says. "That one. With Natalie Portman."

Adrien grins at that, pinching his knee idly. "Natalie Portman, huh?"

Marinette rolls her eyes, and Adrien almost leans forward a kisses her right then, throwing caution to the wind. "Yes."

"You don't even like her," he says smugly. "Are you trying to suck up to me? What do you want?"

"I just want to be nice," Marinette whines childishly. Adrien's heartbeat spikes dramatically. "But you're being so smug about it, I think maybe I could just call up—"

"Noooo," Adrien laughs out, wrapping his arms around her and nearly falling backward on his bed. "Never let me go!" he shouts, nearly snorting when Marinette punches him in retaliation, and—

Well, Adrien knows that rule about every action having an equal and opposite reaction. And the opposite reaction of sitting up straight is lying down, and that's what happens. Except... Marinette is on top of him.

Adrien almost squeezes his eyes shut until it all goes away—it's strikingly similar to a dream he had a junior year—but Marinette huffs out a laugh right against his collarbone and yep. His eyes are wide open.

He could say a million things, but instead what comes out is, "You punched me."

Marinette leans back, folding her arms across his chest and staring up at him serenely. "Shocker," she deadpans.

Adrien tries not to think too hard about the fact that Marinette is lying on top of him. It fulfills maybe one-fourth of his fantasies. "Shut up."

"You shut up," she shoots back.

He has to physically bite his tongue to keep from saying 'make me.' "No, you."

Marinette laughs again, shaking Adrien's chest. He feels warm. "Movie night?" she questions, sitting up and fixing her hoodie as if she didn't just make his life worth living and ruin it at the same time.

"Yeah," he manages, sitting up straight and sounding annoyingly breathless. "Yeah, let's."

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