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Luka saw Marinette as his best friend, which was about as far as he’d gotten with it at the time. It felt like they hadn’t known each other for long, but they’d grown incredibly close despite how different they seemed on the surface.
They were both passionate creative forces, they created as a way of expressing affection to others, they had the same musical tastes, they liked similar people to the point of sharing friends, they’d done projects together, and they did their best to help those they cared about. He didn’t really believe in destiny or anything, but he did think that people could be drawn to each other in the same way that music could draw onlookers to a musician playing on the street.
That was what he’d assumed happened with her boyfriend, though Luka had never met him face-to-face nor knew Marinette prior to her dating. All he knew was that her boyfriend must’ve been incredibly lucky to have dated his funny, smart, and adorable friend.
Then, she broke up with the guy, and the real depth of Luka’s feelings shook him like a cymbal struck by an overly-enthusiastic drummer.
He loved her, and he felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. Perhaps it was because she was “off-limits” before and it was some attempt to protect himself, or that he’d never felt it with anyone but her, but once he recognized it, he couldn’t stop.
At first, he deemed it as something to feel guilty over. She’d just gone through a break-up, and he didn’t want to make his interest obvious at risk of making her uncomfortable. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she wanted to stay far, far away from romance by then, so he tried to comfort her while still being considerate of her space.
However, for reasons he didn’t understand, she was making that very difficult.
Stuffing the clothes she’d changed out of into her bag, Marinette sat down on the floor and sighed in relief. “Thanks again for letting me sleep over, Luka. I don’t know why everyone can’t just be normal about this.”
His heart couldn’t be normal at the sight of her dressed up in flowery pajamas with her hair down, but that wasn’t what she was talking about and she didn’t need to know that. While idly smoothing out the wrinkles in his blanket, he replied, “You’re welcome here any time, Marinette, especially if you need to get away from the world for a while.”
“I really do.” Her fingers raked through her hair in defeated frustration. “Everyone’s been treating me like I’m glass or something. I never thought I’d get sick of my favorite cake, but Maman and Papa have made it every day since the break-up. I don’t want to look at a strawberry ever again!”
Mentally crossing off his original idea of giving her strawberry-shaped earrings as a birthday gift, Luka asked, “So they’re not listening to you?”
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up, feet barely lifting off the floor as she trudged over to him. Hands pressing into his mattress, she pouted at him. “Everyone thinks I’m lying about being okay. They keep saying that it’s fine, I can talk to them about how upset I am.”
“But you’re not upset.” It was an observation more than a question, as he’d had to admit once the shock of her break-up wore off that she genuinely didn’t appear affected by it.
“I’m not. It's—”
Marinette paused, tapping on the bed in thought as she tried to string words together. Her eyes darted around the room in search of something, then eventually settled on his guitar against the wall. Pointing at it, she lit up with an epiphany and said, “It’s like that!”
Oh no, she was speaking his language. This girl would be the end of him.
She walked over at it, gesturing at it with both arms. “Have you ever gotten a new guitar—well, of course you have, but one where you were excited about it until you finally had it?”
He nodded. He’d been through more than he could recall off the top of his head, so such a scenario was inevitable.
She tried to make a motion like she was actually holding a guitar, which served her point well enough despite looking adorably awkward. “You thought it’d sound really good, and it’s… after a while, it’s just okay, but you put so much into getting it. You think you just set your hopes too high, so you try tuning it again, and sometimes it sounds better, but it’s never where you want it to be.”
He sat down on the bed with a frown, patting the spot next to him in a show of comfort. “Is that what’s been happening the whole time? You weren’t happy?”
“I was… alright with it, I guess?” Dropping her hands down to her sides, she went over and gratefully sat next to him. She remained upright for a few seconds before letting herself fall back onto the bed, arms spread as she stared at the ceiling. “I wanted it to be different, but I feel like that sounds greedy or selfish or something.”
“You should be allowed to be greedy or selfish or something,” he countered, putting a hand firmly on the bed for support as he turned his upper body and leaned back to look at her. “What’s the point of a relationship if you aren’t happy?”
He wondered if he was saying something wrong given his dog in this proverbial race, but she smiled at him and said, “I know. I know I should know too, but it was my first.”
“No one should expect your first to be the one.”
Her smile twitched in amusement. “I know that too, I’m just tired.” She waved an arm around. “I want all this to blow over already.”
“It will. Give it a little more time,” he said, doing his best to channel some optimism into the conversation.
“Mm,” was all she hummed in response, but it wasn’t dismissive or noncommittal. He figured that she was simply through with the conversation.
Slowly, she turned onto her side, facing his pillow as her legs came up to get on the bed properly. He nearly flinched when one of said legs brushed against him, pretending not to have felt anything at all while she made herself comfy and fluffed his pillows.
Having already laid out a spot on the floor to sleep, he slid himself to the edge of the bed to get up. His hand was the last thing that would’ve left the surface of the mattress, but Marinette called out to him just as his fingertips were about to come off of it.
“Luka.” She waited for him to look at her, an arm awkwardly hovering over the half of the bed they’d been sitting on. Her hand then came down, hitting the spot resolutely while she made expectant eye contact.
He stared blankly, his gaze devoid of any understanding. She looked away as her hand awkwardly shifted back and forth, unintentionally rewrinkling the blanket.
“We can sleep here together, right?” she asked. “There’s enough room.”
His body stilled. “…What?”
She shut her eyes and whined, letting her head fall down onto one of the pillows. “You don’t have to sleep on the ground, and I’m too sleepy to argue with you about who gets the bed. Can’t you just sleep here too?”
He stood in place, suddenly skeptical if this was some sort of test. He’d thought he’d been good at keeping himself at a polite distance to her, but perhaps she’d caught on?
Yet, she genuinely seemed to want him to lie next to her.
He turned to her, leaning over the bed to gauge her reaction. “Are you sure?”
She blinked slowly at him, looking unfairly comfortable and sleepy despite her forward question. “I thought you told me to be selfish and greedy?”
He didn’t have an argument for that. Staring at what now seemed like such little remaining space left on the bed, he could only say, “Then let me take the wall side. It’ll be easier for you to get out if you wake up in the middle of the night.”
With a snort, she relented and shuffled off to the side, “Okay. Just climb over me.”
…Climb?
Her expression was entirely innocent as she laid there, her raised brows silently questioning if there was an issue. It was quite the opposite, honestly, and if he had one at all, it pertained to his own knowledge of the situation.
Technically speaking, Marinette had more experience in dating than he did. Despite being considered the most mature amongst his friend group, he did not have experience with girls from a romantic perspective, so he didn’t want to make any assumptions about how fine she was sleeping in the same bed as a guy.
As him.
Putting a knee up onto the bed, Luka pushed himself up and put an arm out to the side of the bed she wasn’t on. He caught her eyes being fixated on him out of the corner of his gaze, but she diverted them as soon as he tried to make eye contact with her, her hands busying themselves in an attempt to get the blanket out from underneath her.
She’d done so by the time he’d laid down next to her, and she sat up briefly to get the blanket over both of them. She was a little shyer once they’d gotten under the covers, but it didn’t stop her from looking all cozied up.
Meanwhile, his heart was threatening to beat out of his chest.
As he watched Marinette slowly drift off - or at least pretend to - he briefly considered that what’d happened might’ve just been a girl thing. Rose and Juleka weren’t dating, but they’d snuggled up in bed before and thus it might not’ve made a huge difference to a girl whether it was another girl or guy sleeping with them. It just depended on the person whether it was platonic or romantic.
(He would wake up later with Marinette’s arms around him in a full cuddle, and Juleka and Rose would get together soon after.)
“I’m taken.”
That was the tenth time Marinette had told someone that, which was becoming increasingly perplexing to Luka unless she’d somehow started dating again without him knowing. It was natural for people to start approaching her with a desire to ask her out since she was single, with this particular one being shameless enough to do so unprompted when the two of them were just hanging out on a bench in the park.
While he already understood if she was avoiding romance, her method made him curious.
The guy who’d asked her out darted their gaze over to Luka, then shook his head and walked off, begrudgingly accepting the refusal. Luka, finding it as good of an opportunity as any, turned to Marinette to ask, “Do guys not know how to take ‘no’ for an answer?”
She put a hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle before pointing out, “You’re a guy too.”
He shrugged it off with a smile.
She hummed, mulling over his question anyway. “It’s not that—I mean, yeah, some guys can’t, but that’s not why.”
“Were you just used to it?” he wondered, then clarified, “Telling people you’re taken?”
She crossed her arms, throwing one leg up over the other and proclaiming jokingly, “I wasn’t taken. He wasn’t good enough to claim me.”
He pretended to be serious, though the suppressed laughter made his voice waver when he replied, “Of course. Sorry.”
Tipping her head to the side, her smile widened as she looked off into the distance. “Anyway, I said I was taken because it’s true. I might not be dating him, but I, ah…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I still like a guy, so…”
“Oh.” Oh.
He wondered how he could’ve missed that. Besides her ex, he was pretty sure that he knew all of the people close to her, and it was unusual for her not to keep him updated on something so important.
Her brows furrowed worriedly. “Is there something wrong with that?”
He shook his head. “No. I was just surprised. I’m happy for you, really.”
He meant it. Marinette was a romantic, so it seemed too sad for her to not be able to find love.
“Really?” She put a hand on the bench and leaned towards him. “But my first time went so badly.”
“That wasn’t your fault. It just didn’t work out,” he argued. “I thought about it when you told me you were dating someone too, but any guy would be lucky to have you.”
“Even you?”
Luka paused, because the answer was obvious yet he was briefly stunned to have been directly brought up in the conversation. Marinette noticed the silence and pulled back, waving her arms about as she tried to elaborate.
“Well, you know! People say that but they don’t always actually mean it. They just want to make the person feel better—not that I think you’d do that!”
He supposed he could’ve lied about it, given a vague answer, or skirted his way around the topic altogether. She would’ve been disappointed, maybe apologized for asking something strange and making him uncomfortable, then they’d move on as if nothing happened.
Yet, he’d never been able to resist engaging with her, and the truth was, “Then… yeah, even me.”
She perked up, smiling that cute little smile he knew so well that showed just a little bit of teeth. Pushing herself up off the bench, she pumped her fists up and said to herself in excited whispers, “Great, that’s great! Better than great!”
…What just happened?
After that odd response, the two hadn’t talked about the subject since. Luka wondered why she’d asked in the first place, but felt it’d be rude to question it, so it was left as a mystery for the time being.
Thus, things continued as they were, and that happened to entail him picking Marinette up from school one day. They were planning to stop by a video game store, as he’d expressed interest in trying out a game or two, and she’d taken it as a challenge to figure out what he might like.
She was so cute, and he had to stop thinking about it or risk getting into a bike accident.
Slowing to a halt in front of the school and putting a foot down to keep himself balanced, it wasn’t long until Marinette came out of the large double doors. Her face brightened when they made eye contact and she hurried down the stairs to meet with him.
She almost tripped on the way down, but steadied herself before he could rush over to help.
“Luka!” she exclaimed, throwing a hand up in greeting. With a wicked grin, she asked, “Are you ready? You’ll be an expert gamer when I’m done with you!”
Unable to care about how silly the smile on his face looked at her teasing threat, he tapped confidently on one of his bike’s handles. “I’m ready. I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t. You’ve always—”
“Yo, Marinette!”
The two glanced up to see a teenage boy stepping out of the school doors, a certain air about him that gave off the impression that he was trying very, extremely hard to act “cool.” It was blatant enough that even Luka had a hard time keeping a straight face.
Not that it would’ve mattered; the guy seemed to act like Luka didn’t exist, focused solely on Marinette as he approached.
“I saw that you weren’t leaving with anyone,” he said, Luka having apparently fallen from the status of anyone. “Do you want to go somewhere? I know a place that—”
“No thanks. I’m taken,” she swiftly replied, all with the exhausted tone of someone who had spoken those words more times than she’d cared to.
The student looked put off by the statement. “By who? I haven’t seen you dating anyone in school.”
Luka couldn’t see Marinette’s face, but she wasn’t responding - probably because it was none of anyone’s business - so he assumed that her face was doing all of the talking. The mystery guy stared back at her, still waiting for an answer, and eventually gave up when it was clear she wasn’t budging.
He left, and Luka eyed the slight slump in Marinette’s shoulders. Was it that exhausting fending off people’s advances all the time? He ran a thumb across his bike’s handle, trying to think of something to lighten the mood or distract from the weird interruption.
She spoke before he could, suddenly asking, “Do we not look like a couple?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but stopped when the question registered. “…Huh?”
She spun around to face him, visibly upset and fists tight at her sides. “We’re together all the time, and I thought we looked good even by color!” She threw her hands up. “Come on, people, it’s blue and pink, and we both wear white and black with them! It’s not like we’re actually dating, but the least they could do is put together that the guy I’m taken with is you!”
He had to hurry to steady himself when the leg supporting him became unsteady at the declaration, bending fast enough that he almost fell. The very cause of his shock went to help him, but he righted himself quickly if for no other reason than to look at her concerned face and ask, “I’m the guy you’re taken with?”
She straightened, tilting her head at him with a fingertip at her chin. “I thought you knew?”
“No?” he responded in breathless disbelief. “Why did you think I knew?”
“You said you’d feel lucky to be with me when I asked,” she reminded him with a pout. “We slept in the same bed together.”
“I thought—”
What had he thought? He’d made so many excuses back then due to not wanting to make assumptions about her feelings, but now they sounded like just that: excuses.
A rare sense of embarrassment overtaking him, he covered his face with his hands. In a weak attempt to understand any of it, he wondered, “Then… why didn’t we get together after I said I’d be lucky to be with you?”
“Oh, that's—” Marinette huffed. “—because I wanted to look taken by you first before I confessed properly! How convincing would it have been to say that you were the guy I was taken with when no one else believed it?! I wanted to—”
He could picture the wild gestures she must’ve been making as she tried to explain what he honestly couldn’t fathom. He was, quite frankly, too busy feeling like an idiot who’d missed all the signs she’d been giving.
Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hands and slowly raised the leg he had on his bike to get off of it. He told her firmly, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” and didn’t look whether his ride would be supported by anything or not as he let it go.
She stopped talking to blink at him. “Wha—ah!”
Her hand shot out for the bike handle closest to her, trying to keep it from falling, but he ignored it. He bent over, cupping her cheeks and asking tenderly, “Marinette, can I kiss you?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Can you… kiss? Right now?”
“I have time to make up for,” he said, unwilling to waste another second after they’d both been playing separate melodies despite the overlapping notes. “So can I?”
Her lips pressing together, she did her best to nod enthusiastically at him whilst he still held her face. Unconsciously or otherwise, her hand released the bike handle, but neither of them heard the impact as they brought each other closer in a kiss.
They’d remember that they had somewhere to be, eventually, though it would definitely take a while.