Chapter Text
There were a lot of things that confused Alya Cesaire. Nino, her boyfriend, and his insistence that Star Trek was better than Star Wars was one of the top contenders for most confusing.
Another puzzling reality was pineapples on pizza. That was low, even for Americans. Admittedly not quite as confusing as socks with toes in them. And then there was open faced sandwiches which she really didn’t get.
But when Alya thought about what was really the most confusing thing in the world, it was a no brainer. Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste’s relationship was the single most confusing thing in the world.
The two were thick as thieves and Alya’s closest friends besides Nino. The term that came closest to describing their relationship was “best friends”, but that just didn’t seem adequate enough.
They were more than friends. It was like watching a planet orbit the sun. They seemed to move and function in perfect tandem. They reminded Alya of her twin sisters, except the twinception was about twenty times as powerful with her friends.
Sometimes when Adrien looked at Marinette, Alya could swear that she had seen the same expression on Chat Noir’s face when he looked at Ladybug. It was intense . The kind of intense that said, “I would jump in front of a bullet for you.” It was the kind of intense that moved mountains.
Whenever she thought about it too hard, Alya’s head started to ache and she lost track of her reasoning.
But the impression remained. Adrien and Marinette were as close as any two people could be. Everyone knew that they just had to be dating. They just dated in secret to hide the relationship from Adrien’s father, who never approved of anything he didn’t explicitly orchestrate.
Alya was so sure of this that she didn’t believe Marinette when she denied it. It took a lot of vehement exclamations for Alya to start wondering if maybe they really weren’t together.
“Really, Alya. We aren’t like that,” Marinette repeated.
“Then what are you like?” Alya demanded, throwing her hands in the air. “I can’t figure you out! You say you aren’t together, but then you share food and clothes and sentences! You do basically everything together and you spend more time with him than you do with me! I’m supposed to be your BFF.”
“Oh, Alya, I don’t mean to make you feel second best or anything like that,” Marinette grabbed her hands. She looked up at Alya with a frown.
Alya’s mouth clamped shut. That’s not what she had meant at all. The last thing she wanted was to make her friend feel bad.
“What I mean, Mari is that it’s really hard to accept the fact that you aren’t together. You’re perfect for each other, everyone else can see it.”
Marinette relaxed, but she shook her head.
“Adrien’s dad... Even if I did feel that way about him, we couldn’t be together. Adrien’s stuck under his dad’s thumb. The last thing Adrien needs is for his father to pull him out of school, which is guaranteed if he’s given any excuse.” Marinette played with her hands, unable to meet her best friend’s gaze.
Alya frowned. She didn’t buy Marinette not— at the very least— liking Adrien.
“You sure you aren’t together in secret?” she asked dubiously.
“Very sure,” Marinette replied pointedly. Alya held her hands up in surrender.
“Alright, alright. Change of subject. Have you heard Jagged Stone’s new single?”
The conversation took off from there, but Alya left Marinette’s house with a wriggle of doubt in her mind.
If they weren’t dating, or at least together, what was with their connection? Alya wasn’t sure. What she wanted to do was drop everything and try to discover the truth herself, but she knew that she needed to give Marinette her space. There was a fine line between journalism and being nosy. The difference was usually if the people involved were your friends.