Faking ~ felinette

Chapter #5

"Wait!" a female voice repeated. He stopped and they caught up to him.

Marinette stood there panting. He waited until she caught her breath before speaking.

"I was just leaving."

She crossed her arms, "You can't just leave like that! Mylene didn't mean it,"

"You think that's why I left?" he demanded. He sped up. She didn't struggle to keep up the way she had with Adrien,she was surprisingly fast and athletic. She was in front of him in seconds.

He began speed-walking. They were silently racing.

First he was in front, then she leaped in front of him.

He felt a smile tugging at his lips.

They stopped at a door.

She wasn't even breathing hard, in fact, she looked ready to run a marathon.

She had a smug expression on her face.

He was certain his face was flushed from the exercise.

"Someone's tired," she remarked, with a smirk.

Felix hid his smile, "I'm not tired,"

"Don't lie," she said, moving closer to him. It was just an inch, but Felix could feel his face heating up.

"I'm not lying,"

She rolled her eyes and moved closer, their faces were less than a foot apart. "Felix, admit it. Marinette Dupain-Cheng just beat you in a race. You're just too sore to admit it,"

"You just got lucky," he said.

She giggled, "Lucky?"

He didn't say anything more. Neither did she.

Finally, she spoke in a more serious tone. "Felix, did you mean what you said?"

"What? That you won with luck?"

She swatted his arm, "You know that's not what I mean,"

He nodded, "Marinette, he's not going to fall in love with Kagami,"

She still looked uncertain, "Look, I can try and make him fall in love with you. If that's what you want,"

"You're joking. I mean, what are you going to tell him? There's no way he'd even fall for me!" she complained, near tears.

"Marinette, you're amazing. I just met you and I can already see that," he said sincerely, he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"You're just saying that," she mumbled.

He led her to a nearby bench, "Even if he doesn't fall in love with you, there's always other people,"

This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because she burst into tears.

Felix wasn't sure how to deal with that, so he just sat there. The bell rang, but she didn't get up.

"Marinette," he said, tapping her lightly on the shoulder, "The bell rang, we're going to be late."

She nodded to herself. She dug into her purse for a Kleenex.

After she'd wiped off her tears, she turned to Felix.

"Promise not to tell anyone about this?"

"I'm not a kid, Marinette. I won't tell him." he snapped.

"Promise?" she repeated, more urgently.

"Fine," he said with an eye roll, "I promise."

They got up in sync and began walking to the class. Marinette still looked like she'd been crying, so Felix wasn't sure how anyone would believe she was just plain late.