🙏🙏🙏

The war between Adrien and the mysterious gamer he only knew as ‘Ldybg’ had been going on for a good few months before he actually met her.

Every day he went to the arcade, and every day he stopped by his favorite game, Ultimate Mecha Strike 2, and every single day, he found that his latest high score had been beaten by ‘Ldybg.’

So, obviously, he spent every day trying to beat Ldybg’s newest high score.

He’d gotten radically better at the game once he’d had to repeatedly beat his resting high score, but, no matter how good he got, victory never lasted for longer than a few days—days he suspected the mysterious Ldybg hadn’t even been to the arcade, because they doubtlessly had more of a life than he did. 

It was slightly crazy-making.

Slightly.

Nino may or may not have been getting worried over how much time and money Adrien spent on that game, but that the possible danger to Adrien’s health was irrelevant.

What was relevant was that there was someone sitting in his customary seat, completely owning UMS2 while surrounded by a gathering crowd.

Like, he could barely spare a second to be pissed off about this mysterious person beating his latest high score so effortlessly, because watching their performance was hypnotic.

The character moved with a level of grace and precision he’d thought was impossible for a game of this quality, taking out opponent after opponent while the small, pale hands he could see out of the corner of his eye shifted positions on the controller with the ease of long practice.

He didn’t realize he was leaning over the back of the chair until one stray attack hit the player character and vaporized it.

“That was awesome,” Adrien said, the words falling from his lips at what felt like a great distance. His ears were ringing, the hair on his nape standing up, butterflies tickling the bottom of his stomach, and it didn’t really surprise him at all when the gamer filled in their name as ‘Ldybg.’ He grinned down at the person in the chair. “That was crazy awesome.”

The person looked up, and he caught a flash of wide blue eyes set in a very pretty face, a pink bubble forming at their lips, before they—she?—shrieked.

At which point Adrien realized he was really much too close, and backpedaled frantically, babbling, “Sorry, sorry!” as he went, and hit his head hard on the game behind him.

When he got his bearings back, his ears ringing much louder and the back of his nose stinging, Ldybg was doubled over the controllers, coughing uncontrollably in a red, black-spotted crop-top and black sweats (oh, Ldybg was Ladybug --- he got it now), with their (her?) friend thumping her back and laughing.

“Shit, I am so sorry,” Adrien said for the third time, hands hovering awkwardly as he tiptoed forward, not wanting to get too close (because screaming was kind of an extreme reaction to seeing someone closer than you expected and he didn’t want to step on any boundaries he might not know about), but at the same time too guilty to remove himself from the equation entirely.

Ldybg spat something into her hand and looked up, tears glimmering in her big blue eyes, and blinked at him, and Adrien froze.

Big blue eyes, plush pink bow lips, flushed cheeks smeared with the red paint she wore around her eyes, and Adrien nearly swallowed his tongue.

She was, without a doubt, one of the cutest people he’d ever seen in his life—and he’d seen a lot of cute people.

“Um,” he said intelligently, feeling his ears burn.

“Sorry!” she yelped, leaping up, and oh wow she was shorter than he’d thought. And even cuter. Help. “Did-did you want to thank? I mean, play you! I mean, thank you!”

“Pfffft.”

Oh hell.

Adrien offered his hand, determined not to laugh out loud. “Hi.”

Ldybg slowly reached for him, then stared at her palm with a comically horrified look, and switched hands in a hurry. This resulted in her very solemnly shaking the back of his hand while the flush in her cheeks darkened.

“Hi,” she offered in return, apparently determined to ignore their joined hands.

Help.

Adrien gestured to where she’d bumped down his signature, ‘ChtNr.’ “I’m Chat Noir. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

A moment of silence, and then Ldybg’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “You?!”

Adrien smiled, nonplussed. “...Yes?”

“Now you’ve done it, girl,” Ldybg’s friend whispered to her behind her back, and the scarlet paint on Ldybg’s face was starting to blur into the blush underneath it.

Ldybg herself emitted a very faint squeak.

“...What?” Adrien asked, worry starting to gnaw at the back of his brain.

“Hm? Oh! No, no, nothing!” said—babbled—Ldybg, face reddening darker. “You’re hot stuff—I-I-I mean good! At video games!! It been really fun to play you—I mean, compete!! With you, like, video games, not-not, um—”

“...Thanks,” Adrien said, biting the corner of his mouth as he tried and failed to not be utterly charmed that the Ldybg he’d put down hours to defeat was actually kind of a hot mess. “You too.”

(...And also tried not to stare below her neckline, because, um, emphasis on the hot. She wasn’t especially voluptuous, but her top amounted to little more than a sports bra and she was lean and compact and very, very pretty, and if Adrien hadn’t spent most of his life being polite to his fellow models, he was pretty sure he’d be stuttering worse than she was right now.)

Ldybg giggled, and as pitchy and breathless and nervous as the sound was, it still made Adrien’s stomach tingle and tighten pleasantly.

“So, uh...” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, wondering if it would be too soon to ask her if she was free this weekend—for video game talk, if nothing else.

“Yeep!”

Adrien’s head snapped up, and he found that Ldybg’s friend was digging an elbow into Ldybg’s side.

“Uh.”

Ldybg tugged on one of the ribbons decorating her ponytails and flashed him an awkward smile. “U-uh, I’m, um, w-w-would you? Like to, um, smoothies?”

“Smoothies?” Adrien echoed while Ldybg’s friend pinched the bridge of her nose.

“With me!” said Ldybg, waving her hand in front of her defensively. “Smoothie with me.”

Adrien thought that sounded kind of dirty, but then he thought a lot of things sounded dirty, and they usually weren’t. A glance at her friend revealed said friend looking to be suffering from extreme (secondhand) embarrassment, and a glance at Ldybg revealed a slow, dawning sort of horror on her pretty face.

“I mean—!!”

“Um,” said Adrien, before she could say anything worse. “Do you want to go out for smoothies sometime?”

“Yes,” Ldybg said, almost before the words were out of his mouth. “I-I would love you— love to.”

“Great!” he chirped, desperately ignoring the way his stomach had just flipped over. He fumbled for his phone, not entirely sure what he was doing, but exchanging contact info was what usually came after this, right? “Can I, ah, get your number? Or I could give you mine?”

Ldybg froze stone still, and then rattled off a number when her friend elbowed her again. Adrien wondered if he should invite said friend along for translation services.

In the end, though, he had Ldybg’s number on his phone and an open afternoon ahead of him and maybe they wouldn’t have to wait to go get smoothies, if Ldybg wasn’t busy...

“We gotta go,” said her friend, popping his happy bubble of hope. At the noise of protest Ldybg let out, she added, “Rush hour at the bakery, remember?”

Ldybg grumbled.

They left, but not before Ldybg flashed him a pink-cheeked grin that left his heart hammering, and when Nino got there to judge him pick him up, Adrien had taken up residence in the UMS2 seat and was still smiling dopily at the new number in his phone.

thank you for inviting me to join the discord server for ml gifmakers. i admit i am not vocal when expressing my love for people’s gifsets, but ever since i joined the server, it’s been a never ending screaming matches.

i love your editing style, how you are always experimenting with new things. it takes time, dedication and patience when experimenting, and it feels great when your effort bears fruit!