Chapter 10

                                    

                                          
"Seriously? Ugh! I am so going to fail this mathematics test!" Marinette muttered, slamming her head onto her desk as Adrien, who was beside her, quickly finished reading some math equations. Marinette didn't hate mathematics, in fact, she was fairly good at most topics, but for some reason, this particular simple equation wasn't clicking into her mindset.
                          
"No, you aren't." Adrien grinned, pointing at the equation in her school notebook, "Try using a simpler order of operations, the one you're using right now is making the problem harder than it should be."
                          
"Easy for you to say." the blue-eyed girl rolled her eyes, proceeding to chew on the end of her pencil as she squinted her eyes to somehow try and look at the question more thoroughly, "UGH. I just can't think!"
                          
"OK," Adrien slowly let the word stretch out farther than it should have, flipping the page of their textbook to try another equation. "Try this then. Solve for x: 2(3x   4) - 3(x - 1) = x - 1. So, x=..."
                          
"Negative six," Marinette uttered with ease, the blond nodding in approval, "But that was an easy one. Come on, like, anyone can solve that."
                          
"See." the teenage model smirked, patting her shoulder sympathetically, "You are not going to fail the test. I'm sure you'll do great, Princess."
                          
"Princess?" Marinette raised an eyebrow, giving Adrien one of those looks when she knew the word, but couldn't remember from where.
                          
"Yep." he smiled, popping the 'p'. Somehow, when he was around Marinette, he just felt like letting his feline counterpart's side a little loose. The only other people he acted more like the dorky alley cat was with Nino and Ladybug. But Marinette was somewhat growing to be a closer friend to him, closer than she ever was before. It was as if fate somehow approved of Nino and Alya suddenly wanting to spend more time together, leaving the two the choice to hang out.
                          
Fate or no fate, he liked it. He didn't want to cut it short after this weekend. 
                          
"Adrien?" his thoughts were immediately interrupted by a very irritated sounding Marinette, who was frantically waving her hand in front of his face, "So do you know the answer to question two? The area of a rectangle is 72 square metres. The length of the rectangle is twice the width."
                          
"Six metres," he replied absentmindedly, a smile tugging on his lips on account of his cordial thoughts.
                          
Marinette huffed, closing the textbook with a slam, the green-eyed boy having to shift in his seat due to the impact, "Huh? What were you saying?"
                          
"I can't believe it!" the girl whined, pulling at her hair that was out of its usual pigtails, "You weren't even paying any attention to what I was saying, yet you still answer correctly! Is this a normality for humans? Or are you inhuman or something?"
                          
He chuckled, then gave a Chat-like wink, "I dunno. Am I too dreamy to be existent?"
                          
Marinette blushed beet red at this, gulping at his smooth suaveness. Woah. Is this normal? Please tell me Chat Noir didn't hypnotize this poor soul! What did I do to deserve two dorky pun-loving blonds in my life? What, universe, what?
                          
"U-Um..." she stuttered, looking down, not daring to meet his gaze. She constantly twirled her finger in her midnight blue locks of hair, "I-I..."
                          
"Hey, kids!" came the cheerful voice of Marinette's father as he opened the trap door to her bedroom, popping his head up into the room, "Want to come down for a snack?"
                          
"Sure." Marinette quickly agreed, scrambling out of her chair as Adrien did the same, adjusting the blazer over his shoulders.
                          
They walked down the stairs, entering the sweet-smelling kitchen where Mrs. Dupain-Cheng was stacking some dark chocolate and strawberry macaroons on a plate, decorating them with some rose petals around them.