"She's just a friend."

Four words. That's all. Just four small, simple, and (at the time) true words. But little did Adrien know just how much that would affect his life, relationships, and safety, and how much he would regret it.

However, this is not where our story begins, because for you to understand, I must take you back to a few days earlier, as an unsuspecting Alya made her way up the school steps, fingers rhythmically tapping her phone screen. She was updating the Ladyblog on an akuma attack that had happened last night. Dubbed "The Spoiler" for being akumatized while pissed off that someone spoiled her favorite show for her, she wreaked havoc on the citizens of Paris by "spoiling" their lives. She would make some strangely specific predictions about random bystanders' lives, then use her remote to make them come true. Ladybug and Chat Noir naturally defeated them, though not before chat found himself wrapped up in a ball of yarn laced with cat nip. She had taken some pics of Ladybug and Chat being all flirty and intimate, and Alya was in the middle of writing another "LadyNoir" post to go with when she heard a familiar voice.

"Alya! Dude!" Nino shouted as he raced towards Alya. She giggled quietly to herself. Nino and Alya have been dating for five months, give or take a few weeks. She never saw herself dating Nino, but after that whole Ladybug-locking-us-in-a-cage happened during the Animan attack, they have been smitten with one another.

When Nino got closer, she smiled up at him with her big amber eyes. "Hey Nino! How's-"

"We have a problem," Nino cut her off, out of breath, and looking slightly completely terrified.

Alya was taken aback. Nino never cut her off, and certainly had never looked so concerned.

"What do you mean 'We have a problem'?" she mocked, seeing Nino's face break for a second as he tried to stifle a giggle. No matter what, she always got to him. That's why, even though he didn't want to admit it, he was totally in love with her. "Is it an akuma? *gasp* Is Ladybug here?!" Alya added excitedly.

"One, if you're excited at the possibility of an akuma just to see Ladybug, then you're crazier than I thought. And two, …. You'll just have to see," Nino answered, grabbing Alya's arm and pulling her inside. It happened so fast she didn't have time to protest him calling her crazy. Only blush.

Nino made his way over to a small gathering of students: Juleka, Rose, Max, Mylene, Ivan, and someone else she didn't recognize. He had shoulder length hair dyed blue, bright blue eyes, a gold hoop earring in one ear, and wore black jeans, a graphic tee with a shark on it, and a black leather jacket partially covering the shirt. Each forearm was lined with different types of bracelets and bands of all sizes, materials, and designs. His face lit up as he saw Nino walking towards him.

"TURTLE MAN!" he shouted, and sprinted at Nino, wrapping him in a bear hug so intense Alya was afraid that they were going to fall over. Luckily, Nino braced himself, and eventually reciprocated the hug.

After a period of way longer than a normal bro-hug, Alya cleared her throat. "Care to fill me in on what's happening here, turtle man?" Alya asked sarcastically.

Nino finally came back to the mortal plane and broke the hug. While keeping one arm around him, Nino introduced the mysterious man, "This is Luka, Juleka's older brother. He's an old friend of mine who I haven't seen in years. He used to go to school with me- well technically he was in the grade ahead of me, but we hung out all the time-he was an honorary member of our class, we would spend so much time together- especially with-"

"I'm Alya by the way," Alya interrupted Nino's mini rant. Nino blushed hard as Alya pointed out his rambling. It reminded them both of a certain pig-tailed friend of theirs.

"Ah, Alya. It's an honor to meet you. And I must apologize for Nino. He never did quite know how to handle himself around beautiful women such as yourself," he replied with a wink.

Alya let out a laugh while Nino continued to blush harder. "Well, Luka, you are quite the charmer. If I wasn't already with Nino, maybe I'd go for you."

The look on Nino's face was hilarious. Never before had he felt so confused, angry, flabbergasted, and on the verge of laughter ever. He loved his girlfriend, but she was a bit much at times.

"While I'm honored that you think that, my heart belongs to one very special girl," said Luka almost dreamingly. Alya started to smile at this obviously sweet boy, interested in getting to know him better as a friend if he stuck around. Especially since he seemed to be such good friends with Nino. Alya looked over at her boyfriend, but found him looking…worried? Nino was always very laid back and not a whole lot got to him, so him looking upset was very odd. Alya then remembered what Nino had said about them "having a problem." Before she could think of a way to end the conversation, Nino did it for her.

"Luka, I'd love to keep catching up, but I actually needed to talk to Alya privately about something," Nino said somewhat suspiciously. Thankfully, Luka didn't notice, as he was scanning the entry-way for some reason.

"Hm? Oh, no-yea go ahead. Besides, I still have one more person to go see. Catchya later dude!" Luka responded absentmindedly as he walked off. Again, inexplicably, Nino looked like he had gotten punched in the gut.

"Nino, what's going on? Why do you keep looking like your hamster just died?" Alya asked as she stepped in front of her boyfriend to face him.

Nino took a deep breath, and explained: "That was Luka, Juleka's older brother. He used to live here when we were kids, until he moved away three years ago." At this point Nino held up a finger as Alya was about to interject. "Before he left, he was the most popular guy at school. Everyone loved him. He was-and is-smart, funny, charismatic, and talented. When he left, a lot of people got hurt. Some worse than others."

"Then why are you acting like this?" Alya interrupted. "If you were such good friends and everyone missed him so much, why are you acting like this is a disaster? And what is this problem you were talking about?"

Nino was about to answer, but stopped. His eyes were looking above Alya's head. His face went pale. The room was suddenly silent. Alya turned around, and began to understand. Because what she saw, what Nino saw, the reason the whole world was silent, was Marinette, frozen in place, an unreadable expression on her face, staring back at an equally silent and unreadable Luka.

As Luka made a slow, tentative step towards Marinette, Nino leaned down to Alya to fill in the blanks. Whispering, he said, "There is our problem. You've been trying to help Marinette with Adrien because Marinette is in love with him. The reason she needs your help is because she can't function around Adrien. The reason she can't is walking towards her right now."

Alya didn't know what she was feeling, but knew she didn't like it. She stayed silent, staring at Luka as he walked toward Marinette, while Nino continued, "Marinette loved Luka long before she knew Adrien. From when we were kids to the day he left, she loved him. And he loved her back. When he left it broke her. I'm not sure how Mari feels now, or how she's going to react even, but I know how he feels. He's going to win her back. No matter what he has to do, he still loves her and is not letting go."