Stopwatch | Miraculous Ladybug | Soulmates AU

T- 31 days

Salut and hello there, new and returning readers! Welcome to Stopwatch! This book will be a bit different than my usual books in that it will be a lot shorter. The chapters will be at most a third of the size I usually write (Meaning they will be somewhere between 500 - 1,000 words instead of my usual 3,000+) and there will be a lot fewer chapters. Chapters will be released often no matter what. Anyways, I'll let you get to the story. After all, the stopwatch is ticking!

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Marinette DuPain-Cheng was a simple girl. She liked school, for the most part, she liked her friends, she liked helping her parents in the bakery, and she liked to sew. However, there was one thing odd about her. Unlike everyone she knew, Marinette didn't care much about her timer.

You see, when someone is born, they have a timer on their wrist counting down the days until they meet their soulmate. Most people obsess over knowing when they'd meet their soulmate, but Marinette didn't. She didn't think it that big a deal. Marinette wasn't a loner, she wasn't sad, she just didn't care about the whole soulmates ordeal. In fact, she usually kept her mark covered by a red and black bracelet that she and her childhood best friend had made together. However, one day, she must have taken it off. Perhaps she lost it. Or maybe it was fate.

~|~|~|~|~ Wednesday, July 17th ~|~|~|~|~

Marinette yawned as she sleepily opened her eyes to the sunlight streaming through her bedroom windows. She sat up and yawned, stretching her arms behind her back and above her head before slumping down lazily. 

"Marinette!" She heard a voice from downstairs call. 

"Yes, maman?" The navy-blue haired girl called back.

"We're leaving!"

Marinette immediately leaped out of bed and ran downstairs to say goodbye to her parents. They were going to America for a few weeks for a huge business opportunity and would be leaving Marinette in charge for that time.

Marinette kissed her father's cheek and then her mother's. "Goodbye maman, goodbye papa! Have fun!" She bid farewell as they walked out the door.

"Remember sweetie, bakery opens at 7 am, closes at 5 pm. You can close it whenever you need to though, and don't forget-"

Marinette giggled. "I know mom, I have it all under control. Don't worry about it. Now go have fun!" Her mother smiled and walked away with Marinette's father following.

"Au Revoir!" Marinette called as her parents got into their car and drove off to the airport. Once the car was out of sight, Marinette looked around and realized that she still hadn't even gotten dressed yet. She walked to the back of the bakery and up the ladder to her room. When she arrived up her trapdoor, she went to her closet and reached out with her right arm to open the door. However, when she reached out her arm, she noticed two things that made her eyes grow wide like two large blue pools of shock. 

The first thing she noticed was that the red and black bracelet that she wore every single day was missing. She had worn that bracelet every single day no matter what since she was 10. It had never come off her wrist before

The second thing she noticed was her timer. The last time she had stolen a glance at it was when she was 13 and Chloe, who had been in her class for three years in a row, had tried to steal her bracelet. Back then, though, her timer was still a very large number that she didn't much care. However, she wasn't 13 anymore, and her timer was now at a much smaller number.

"What?!" Marinette yelled. She was absolutely shocked. That was one month away from today. She would be meeting her soulmate in one month from today.

𝟥𝟣 𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈