Ladybug had just arrived at her terrace, the time was a little past midnight. Her transformation wore off and she was back to being Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Her little ladybug kwami, Tikki, twirled in the air several times before she floated over Marinette's shoulder.

"Another great job Marinette!" She said as she nuzzled into the teenager's cheek.

Marinette gave a small chuckle, holding the small kwami in her hand.
"Thanks Tikki, there's some cookies on the desk so you can snack on."

Tikki nodded quickly and rushed inside as Marinette opened the trapdoor down to her room. She went down the ladder and into her dark room. She passed by her desk and turned the lamp on, watching Tikki enjoying a chocolate chip cookie. Marinette giggled quietly and grabbed a pink marker that was sitting on her desk and went over to her bed.

Marinette flopped down onto her bed with a tired sigh, rolling up the sleeve of her long sleeve pajama shirt. As if on cue, green ink slowly appeared on the inside of her forearm.

"It's truly bittersweet to leave you on such a beautiful night like tonight." The handwriting was neat and seemed to almost glow as she read it. She exhaled a little and gave a soft smile, bringing her marker to her mouth and holding the lid in between her teeth as the marker popped out. She passed her hand over her arm several times and the green ink disappeared, allowing her to have some place to write.

"Unfortunately, I don't have as much spare time as you do." Marinette's handwriting was usually large, but when it came to communication through skin, she learned to minimize the size of her writing to fit a longer message. She watched as the pink ink started to fade off her skin, adding a few seconds before the green ink started to appear again.

"Surely you could spare some time for this Caturday?"

Marinette couldn't help the snort that slipped out of her lips. She passed her hand over the green ink and quickly scribbled back.

"Caturday?"

"It's a day of the week where I get your full attention."

"And what day is that?"

"It's every day and I must say, you've been pro-cat-stinating a lot."

Marinette let out a laugh and she brought her hand to her lips to silence herself when Tikki looked up at her sleepily from her desk. She passed her hand several times over the green ink, bringing her pink marker to write.

"Good night Chat Noir." She wrote this slowly and with strokes as gentle as if she was doing calligraphy. She stared at the pink ink for what seemed like forever, long enough that she decided to get up and turn off her lamp, pulling Tikki's blanket over her kwami's tiny figure.

Marinette went back to her bed and laid down, pulling her blanket over her, noticing the pink ink was still on her arm. "He must have fallen asleep." She spoke to herself quietly, blinking slowly.

Marinette felt the ghost of the touch of a marker on her skin and she looked at her arm groggily, raising it to see his final words in the moonlight. "Good night, my lovely Ladybug." Marinette let out a smile before letting her arm drop down to her side and fell asleep.

The next morning, Marinette woke up with a new message on her arm.

"Good morning my lovely lady! Hope you wonderful day today and hopefully we can partake in Caturday today."

Marinette could literally almost see the smirk that her partner possessed when he wrote that on his arm for her to see. Marinette had the urge to reply back, but her kwami forbade her to do so.

He looked down at his arm, noticing that the green ink had disappeared from his forearm. He was hoping, praying, that maybe he would get a response before Plagg were to notice.

"Adrien, you're not expecting a reply, are you?"

This made the blonde's shoulders jump and he quickly pulled down his sleeve, shaking his head. "Of course not! I was just checking that I didn't get anything!" Adrien Agreste chuckled nervously.

The black cat kwami narrowed his eyes at the boy, humming suspiciously before going back to his piece of camembert.

An invisible red thread connects two people who are destined to be together from the moment they are born. This string can be stretched or tangled, but it can never break. Despite the time, the place, and despite the circumstances, the string will never break.

As the gods tied these red strings to the pinkies of everyone, they were given a special form of communication - once the mates grow to be the age of fifteen, the soul mates are brought even closer together through the power of being able to talk to each other through marking their skin.

As for Ladybug and Chat Noir, they were destined to meet and become partners to fight akuma crimes in Paris, therefore a red string was predetermined with the true identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir. But fate had other plans and decided that they could not know each other's true identities, their kwami's have set rules for their communication.

"You know better; you can't send any messages once the new day starts." Plagg says, munching on some cheese as Adrien got prepared for school.

"There's a patrol tonight, so after patrol, you can talk to each other if you want." Tikki mentioned before she went into Marinette's purse to head downstairs.

Marinette listened to her parents the day of her fifteenth birthday as she was told of the new form of communication. Her mother showed her by picking up a pen and writing a small love note on her forearm and her father showed his forearm, and lo and behold, the same message was being written on his.

"Who knows, you could be lucky. Your soul mate could be close to you, or the two of you could be far apart. Whatever the case may be, the two of you will be destined to meet, despite whatever circumstance."

Marinette was thrilled - she was hoping to run upstairs to her room that night and draw all over her arm to determine who and where her soul mate was, but as soon as she was about to, Tikki stopped her.

"Tikki? What's the matter?" Tikki remained silent as she floated in front of Marinette.

The two of them just recently had joined forces a couple months ago and she already met Chat Noir. Marinette wondered as her kwami stood before her before her features dropped into disbelief.

"No... Tikki, please, don't tell me that... Don't tell me that Chat Noir is who my red strings are tied to!"

Tikki hesitated to respond before she nodded and Marinette gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry Marinette." Tikki quickly started. "B-But there is more than just one string of fate! I was destined to be paired up with you, so we have a string between us too! Just like Chat Noir has a string with his kwami too! Red strings doesn't necessarily mean that you will fall in love, it's just that you two were destined to meet!"

Marinette tried to imagine herself trying to fall in love with Chat Noir - the flirty, handsome, pun loving cat - she quickly shook her head.

"No." She told herself as she headed to school that day. "The only person I would love to have my red strings tied to would be -"

"Adrien!" Her friend, Nino, called his friend who was coming out of his car. There he was, the blond boy who looked like an angel, the popular model, the one whose pictures she had all over his room, the one that she wanted her red strings to be tied to.

"Marinette." A voice pulled her from her train of thought.

"Alya, good morning."

"So, have you looked at my Ladyblog? There was an appearance of the two last night!" Her friend, Alya, was the one who ran the most popular blog that followed the popular superheroes of Paris, the Ladyblog.

Alya was a big fan of Chat Noir and Ladybug and it killed Marinette to hold a secret from her close friend, but she couldn't have her best friend know that she was the one who rescued Paris from danger.

As Marinette and Alya headed to the classroom, Nino and Adrien lagged behind.

"It's interesting really. I do wonder who my soul mate is, but whoever it is, they do share a big passion with Ladybug." Nino chuckled as he explained to Adrien what he would find on his arms or his legs sometimes.

"I wonder how many people would want their red strings tied to Ladybug?" Adrien wondered aloud.

Nino scoffed. "Who wouldn't want their red strings tied to Ladybug?" The two of them laughed it off and headed inside. Little did Nino know that Adrien's red strings were tied to Ladybug.

Class began and Adrien couldn't help but let his mind wander off about Ladybug.

He was glad to get the explanation from Plagg when he turned fifteen - his red strings were tied to Ladybug, the most amazing, powerful girl he ever knew. Adrien was desperate to draw on his arm not even seconds after he heard the news, was nearly devastated when Plagg told him that he couldn't do it during daylight.

"You'll have your time to meet. It's not now, so don't rush it." Plagg had said.

Adrien gave a sigh, his eyes looking down at his arm. He craved to hear from his lady, he wanted to write a love note to her, ask her how she was doing, what she was doing, but he knew he was going to get scolded by Plagg if he did. Not only that, but it would expose Ladybug's true identity and could potentially put her in grave danger; and that was the last thing that Adrien wanted to do.

Lunch came around, Marinette and Alya sat around the cafeteria, Marinette listening as she listened to Alya rant on about the previous night's akuma attack, before an obnoxious laugh interrupted them.

"Just look, I assure you, Adrien's red string of fate is tied to me." Chloé Bourgeois, the daughter of the mayor of Paris was boasting about something... Again.

"Where is Adrien anyways?" Alya asked, looking around the cafeteria and not finding him or Nino anywhere.

"Look, just watch." Chloé popped off the top to a red marker and scribbled on her arm. Whatever it said, it didn't matter to Marinette- it was probably something dumb and sappy. When a response came, there were gasps and sounds of astonishment. "Hello my dear." Scratchy blue writing on her arm that didn't look like it came Adrien. But Marinette was gullible.

"You really think that Adrien is her soul mate?" Marinette asked, her fork of food dangling in front of her mouth.

Alya let her palm fall flat on the lunch table, making Marinette jump and look at her friend. "Are you really believing that one's story?" Alya whispered to her under her breath. Marinette's eyes widened as she realized what she had said. "The guy is probably some rich snob who just humors her."

"Is someone sad because they don't have a soul mate?" Chloé's voice went through the crowd and everyone was looking at Marinette and Alya.

Alya tsked. "Shut it Chloé!" Alya said to the blonde standing before them. Chloé laughed, her follower Sabrina giggling behind her.

"Aw, poor Marinette, she has no red strings to tie her to anyone. She's just going to end up an old lady, all by herself with a bunch of cats." Chloé spoke in an arrogant and condescending way.

Marinette rolled her eyes. "I'm sure your poor soul mate feels so bad because his significant other only talks about another boy." Marinette huffed, bringing her fork into her mouth.

"Besides, while you have some poor snob, Marinette's red strings are tied to the one and only Chat Noir." Alya retorted and Marinette began to choke. "Marinette?!"

Chloé and Sabrina laughed and scoffed. "She wishes." They countered.

The bell rang and it signaled that the lunch hour was over. Marinette was chugging a bottle of water that Alya had gotten her, trying to settle her coughing fit she had after choking.

"C-Chat Noir?"

Alya giggled. "What? He's the hottest superhero of our time, besides Ladybug. Wouldn't you want your strings tied to that heartthrob?" She asked.

Marinette didn't answer, only continued to drink her water and fanned herself. If only Alya knew she hit the nail on the head about their strings.

Marinette's mind began to wander - Tikki had said that there are more than just one red string. That could mean that her ties to Chat could be strictly professional and she could have another red string tied to...

Marinette's eyes wandered the boy who was sitting in front of her. Without thinking, she brought her pen to her hand and began doodling on her fingertips.

Unbeknownst to her, the boy in front of her felt the ghost of a pen touch to his fingers. He watched as the flowers sprouted and bloomed from his fingertips towards the palm of his hand.

Two managed to find a loophole through their kwami's rules - they said they couldn't send messages to each other but they didn't say they couldn't draw or doodle. So whenever they found themselves bored in the middle of the day, one or the other started to doodle.

Adrien let out a soft smile as he found his arm soon to be covered in flowers. He noticed that his lady was very artistic and he felt like he could sit down and watch her draw for hours beyond hours.

Adrien felt lucky that how strings were tied to Ladybug. Marinette, on the other hand, dreaded her ties with Chat Noir.