SLOWLY FALLING FOR YOU (α∂яιєηєттє)

Chap. 17

I bit my lower lip as I watched people walk past me. I looked down at the ground, remembering my time over at Alya's house. Surprisingly, Nino had been there as well, and when I had asked him, he said he had accidently blurted out about his feelings for Alya while they had been walking home together. Alya had looked shocked at first, but then she had said the words he had never expected her to say.

"What took you so long?!"

I had laughed a little as Nino told me the story, but I felt really happy for him that it had worked out. While he told me of how it had happened, I couldn't help thinking, "I wish that happened to me." When Marinette had accepted me as her friend, all I had seemed to focus on was making sure she realized what an amazing friend I could be to her, that I was worth keeping around. I never realized that while I did all that, trying to impress her and all, I'd actually fall for her a little, and hoped she would treat me as more than a friend. I had tried to keep my feelings aside and focused on making her become another one of my best friends, but after I kissed her on the cheek, I hadn't been sure I could face her again. Then she kissed me back and it gave me new hope that she may actually like me back.

I was never really the kind of guy who liked making the first move, so I guess I was waiting for her to make the first move. I decided that after a while, if my feelings for her had grown deeper and I'd fallen harder, and she still hadn't made the first move, I would first collect clues of her liking me back, and once I'd collected enough clues, I would make a move on her. The scariest part about this plan wasn't whether she was going to say yes or no. It was not knowing what we were going to become after making my move. I could be risking my friendship with her.

Alya had asked me a series of questions about why I was disguising myself, obviously figuring out that it wasn't for a wedding. Then I had blurted out that it was because of a girl. It felt embarrassing at first, knowing that she was one of Marinette's closest friends, but she hadn't laughed, nor had she made fun of me or anything like that. Instead she had smiled, and asked me a question. "Then why do you need a disguise if you already look good enough? Does the girl not like your looks, or does she just simply hates you?"

The question had stuck to me for a while, and to be honest, I hadn't known how to reply. I could just march up to Marinette and get closer to her with the way I looked, yet I disguised myself. For what? Before, it had been a test to see who would help out if they saw a helpless young man on the streets. Marinette had been the first to come up to me, and I guess that's when I really started to fall for her. But still, I wasn't disguising myself anymore just because of the test now. . . so why?

After getting my disguise done and we were back in the car, Felix had turned to me with all seriousness, and I remembered his exact words. "With your disguise, you can simply get closer to Marinette, find out whether she likes a guy or not and work your way up from there, trying to figure out who that boy is. Plus it would be easier for you to get to know her without getting all flustered, right?"  So, was that the reason why I did this? Just to make Marinette tell me of her feelings without actually letting her know that it was me, Adrien?

"Hey. . .it's you."

I looked up at the voice, my heart suddenly pounding harder and harder. I gulped a little, swiped sweat off my forehead, before putting on a brave face and getting up. "Hey, Marinette." I hadn't forgotten to use my deep voice, which was good because it really made me sound different from Adrien.

She suddenly stepped forward and took my arm, making me try hard not to blush, at least not too hard. She gave this insanely cute smile, before raising a finger. "I thought I told you that you were welcomed to my bakery at any time. What are you doing here? I thought you said. . .before you left on that day, you told me you had a place to stay."