This oneshot is dedicated to:

My artistic friends: shishitsunari, angiensca, northmelody, sadrienagreste, pozolegirl, kawaguardian, geel1nes. Seeing your artwork on my dash makes me very happy and inspires me to hold a pencil and fill up my sketchbook. I love your art very much!

The squad: sadrienagreste, tei-gen, gigiree, miraculousturtle, adjit, runningoutofink, checkeredtablesloth. You guys are awesome! I love our conversations on LINE and I hope we'll continue being awesome together in the year ahead (:

magical-awesome-kid: I love you so much, girl! I am so glad I got to know you through the ML fandom. You are so sweet and thank you for being so supportive!

heartpanorama: Michelle! I love our conversations on twitter and you know how much I love music so I adore your singing and compositions. Please know that I am very much looking forward to your future works!

xstardrop: Serena! Oh gosh, I am very happy to know that I inspired you to write fanfics! Your writing is superb and I love your work! Please continue writing!

I hope all of you would enjoy my horrible take on fluff. -runs off to cry in a corner-

Have a great Christmas, everyone! I love you all!

Mistletoe? I Think Not

It is that time of the year again.

It is not like Marinette does not like Christmas. She appreciates the effort the school social committee puts in in organizing a Christmas social at the end of each year. They were fun, but often disastrous, because mistletoes are everywhere.

Every few steps and you will find a mistletoe right above your head. Although the school hall is large enough to accommodate the entire student population, it is still pretty crowded and chances that you will bump into someone underneath a mistletoe is extremely high.

A glance around the room and you will see teenagers with their lips glued to each other. You can totally tell whether the couple liked it by their facial expressions before, during and after the kiss.

Some were ecstatic. Some were downright disgusted. Some even suffered a few slaps or punches from the girls. Marinette is genuinely surprised that the school principal allowed the social committee to host the event year after year despite all the violence going around.

Due to these socials, Marinette was extremely adept in avoiding the mistletoes. In fact, she avoided them like the plague. The first time she attended the social, she was under a mistletoe with a boy in glasses. He was handsome but when he brought his face closer to hers, she had freaked out and responded by head-butting him, shattering his glasses in the process. The boy hated her ever since. That incident was also the time she started hating on mistletoes. She refused to kiss anyone and vowed to reserve her lips only for the person she truly loves.

Marinette had already lost her first kiss a long time ago when she kissed Chat Noir, who was under Dark Cupid's spell, to bring him back to his senses. That was when she was fourteen years old and Marinette could remember that she was in complete denial at that time, refusing to believe that it was an actual kiss because the other party was not conscious of it and because she did it on a whim.

She is eighteen now. And over the years, she had fallen for her partner because of his selflessness and courage. She does not know when it happened but she finds herself blurring the lines between Chat Noir and Adrien, the love of her life, when Chat Noir became more reserved and less flirtatious around her, often keeping his distance and not trying to find out who she is behind the mask, although he still, very often, tells her that he loves her very deeply. They were just so similar to each other!

It has been close to a year after she revealed herself to Chat Noir. Her heart had swelled to the point where she could not take it anymore that she broke down crying in front of him, telling him that she loves him back and that she could not distinguish him from Adrien anymore. She had transformed back to her civilian form and hugged him tightly, wishing that he would not be too shocked to discover that the girl he called "Princess" is Ladybug all along. Imagine her surprise when he chuckled, hugged her back just as tightly, and said, "I already know who you are, Princess. You also won't have the need to confuse yourself anymore because… Adrien and I are one and the same."

It has been close to six months when they started dating. Although they had both confessed their love for each other after Marinette revealed herself, they thought that it would not be right to jump into a relationship right away so they decided to take it slow and go on a few dates to get to know each other better.

They had managed to keep their relationship low profile, not even Alya or Nino knows about it, but all was thrown out of the window when Adrien shot down Chloé's invitation to go with her to the dance, proceeded to hold Marinette's hand and broadcast to the entire class that Marinette was his date. Marinette was utterly horrified at the revelation but at the same time extremely elated that Adrien did that and she finds herself falling for him all over again.

They had arrived at the school together, wearing matching outfits that Marinette had designed for the two of them and the girls had shot Marinette daggers when they walked through the school entrance together. It did not take long for Marinette to get separated from Adrien when the girls pushed her away and made a circle around him to gush at his appearance. It was Adrien's first social event. He had missed going to previous ones due to schedule conflicts.

Marinette is actually glad that he missed them because seriously, the mistletoes are everywhere in the hall. The social committee has really put in a lot of effort in hanging the mistletoes. She just hopes that Adrien would not be forced to kiss anyone – she doubts he would anyway – even if he is under a mistletoe with another person, because he is extremely loyal to her and that makes her smile.

Therefore, when she arrives at the hall without Adrien, she exercises her many years of mistletoe-dodging skills to maneuverer around couples on the dance floor to get to the table where all the food is.

When Adrien finally managed to get out of the human circle and spot Marinette being a wallflower in the hall, he quickly pulled her to the dance floor. However, instead of him leading the dance, Marinette had expertly made the two of them dance to places where she previously spotted to have less mistletoes than others. Adrien found it amusing and could not hold back his laughter when he questioned her strange, yet adorable, behaviour.

"Have you seen how many mistletoes are there, Adrien? It's insane! How long did it take the social committee to hang all of them anyway? I swear they are slowly increasing the number of mistletoes every year that soon, the entire room will be filled with mistletoes!"

"Do you not want to kiss me, Marinette?"

At that, Marinette snaps her head back at him, her eyes wide. She had spent the entire time looking at the ceiling because she was being wary of the mistletoes. "What?! No! I mean, yes! Of course! I fantasize about that every single day. Oh shoot, I probably shouldn't have said that and you probably shouldn't have heard that. Please delete that from your mind, right now. I know we haven't actually kissed – although I really want to – but we promised to take it slow and I don't want it to be forc—"

"You know we don't need things like that, Marinette."

And her breath hitches as he leans down to lightly brush his lips against hers. It is only a gentle peck but Marinette's heart soars anyway, her face a brilliant shade of red.

"Mistletoe or not, I will kiss you anyway."