"MEILI"

Adrien was a bit surprised to see the short old lady that opened the door. He'd heard from Alya about Marinette's family reunion and he had expected to find her grandmother Gina and, other uncles and aunts from her father's side and, maybe, her busy granduncle. He had no words, it was just so surprising the presence of this snow-haired person...

"Ah… Uh… Nihao?" He greeted a bit insecure about what language should he use to communicate.

"Oh! Nihao young man" the short old-lady responded in Chinese "What can I do for you?"

"My name is Adrien, I just came to see Marinette, there is this homework we must due about a movie and we had agreed to watch it today..." for some reason the old lady's smile made some traces of shyness invade his serenity.

"Oh! I see. Come in, come in! Let me call her. She must be occupied with her cousins" The lady indicate dhim to come inside and proceeded to call up the stairs: "Meili!" she said. Adrien heard how a distant conversation ended and some giggles could be heard. "She will be coming soon"

Adrien's expression showed confusion for a brief moment of thinking:

"Meili?"

Barely half a minute later, Marinette came into the frame.

"Did you call mèmère?" The girl did not need an explanation once she spotted the green eyes and blond hair in the scenery, but her grandmother gave her one:

"Oh, this lovely young man has come to see you"

"Oh! Sorry Adrien, sorry Adrien! I can't believe I forgot!" She apologized multiple times with her face as red like her kwami's and tried to stutter an explanation through her nervous babbling all the while Adrien tried his best to convince her she had nothing to apologize, that he understood if she was occupied. All that in a never ending circle.

"Say, why don't you two, children, go upstairs and watch that movie with the others, while me and my brother-in-law make dinner? Your parents will be back soon" suggested Marinette's grandmother.

"Really, mèmè?"

"As long as you all, children, behave… and you tell me more about this handsome boy later! I didn't know you had a boyfriend, Meili!"

"Merci beaucoup, mémé!" prized the sweet black haired girl before telling Adrien to follow her. Adrien's head felt heavy with the questions blooming in his mind (the young model knew Marinette could not understand spoken Chinese, so she wouldn't know what her grandmother had just said, he wondered if he should mention something), he just had to ask, but it would have to be reserved for later.

It was a nice experience meeting Marinette's four cousins: Ning, Juan, and Xiang (the three girls) and the boy called Ying. They were all around their age (give or take some months). The four giggled and whispered-chatted in Chinese while they thought he couldn't hear nor understand: "Is he cousin's boyfriend? He sure is handsome. She's got a good eye! I wish he was my boyfriend!"

"Meili" grandmother's voice was heard when less than half of the movie was left to be seen. "Would you please come and help us with something?" The girl excused herself before pausing the movie and leaving. Adrien then heard how the other relatives giggled and openly made fun of her (in a playful way, of course):

"Try not to break a pan again, Meili!" One of the girls teased her as she went downstairs, the designer stopped for a moment just to playfully glare and threat them:

"Shut up, you or I'll go all 'Mrs. Lovett' on you four!"

"Children, no fighting!" Grandma's voice came with a very grave warning tone.

"Sorry, lao-lao!" The language switched again among the cousins, Adrien wondered if he should say something or just feel guilty about how funny this whole situation was getting.

"Listen to her, Meili!"

"Shush! You idiots, grandmother's going to get mad!"

"She stumps over her own feet, Lao-lao!"

A thought came to him and Adrien started to feel awfully awkward:

"Meili...?"

"I can't believe grandmother!" one of the girls murmured out of the blue. He looked somewhere else, pretending to not understand and hoping them not to realize he was evardropping. "She keeps calling her that, she should have stopped after so many years"

"I read in some book that, if you call your child with a name that is the contrary of his defects, tose will disappear eventually" The one closest to Ying (the boy cousin) commented.

"Can it be applied to the real life Godzilla?" The remaining girl added trying to contain a laugh.

"What has Godzilla done to you?" The first one retorted back, and took a pillow to hit the other, who couldn't keep her laughter at bay.

"Oh! Not again!" Ying complained as he tried to avoid the girls' current talk. "Everytime you start this is the same! 'Maily this, Maili that'"

They laughed again and didn't stop until she came back with a tray of fresh cookies.

"Meili, how did you met Adrien? Does he call you 'clumsy' too? Please don't kill me, Meili!"

"Meili?"

The rest of the afternoon was nothing but the rest of the movie, some notes and explanations about what the homework was about, Ultimate Mecha Strike III, cookies (lots of cookies for the blond cookie-monster) and more whispered comments from the other cousins (that, at some point, explained they were not direct cousins, their parents were).

"Ok, so your grandfather had six brothers?"

"Yes. My mom and her cousins were born during the "one child" policy, thus she's an only child" The artist said as she walked him down the stairs towards the street. "Sorry for having to put up with my relatives. I totally forgot about the movie, I think I got distracted with my cousins. I'll compensate you, I promise! I'll write most of the work..."

"It's not necessary, " he assured her. "Sorry I distracted you from your family"

"Believe me, sometimes, and especially with relatives like mine, some distraction is good for everyone. And, yes, I'm talking about my cousins" She then proceeded to mock them for Adrien's amusement: "'Meili blah-blah-blah, Meili daa-daa-daa'. It's a good thing we live in different parts of the world or we would have killed each other already!" She laughed to herself, since Adrien had stopped listening for some seconds.

"Marinette, can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Well…" He began with some insecurity in his voice and when they were finally out of the house he dared to ask. "Why 'Meili'?". The blue-eyed stopped his ascendance and looked at him in the eye with some blushing going on over her, usually, rosy cheeks.

"Oh… that…" the french-asian blushed deeply "I-I well.. you'll see… that's how mémére calls me" she answered. "My cousins used to have difficulties pronouncing my name when we were younger. They always ended up calling me other thing that sounded kind-of-similar, but was funny in Chinese. Of course, since I didn't understand, I always thought they were insultante me on purpose. So, for some time they tried to give me nicknames; the list is very long, my grandma has it written somewhere. I remember them calling me: 'duckling', 'panda' and other animals, but I still didn't like it. Until one day when mèmère said I just needed a Chinese name and, well..."

"She called you Meili?"

"Yeah, while most people take western names so that foreign people won't have trouble with the pronunciation, I had a chinese name that my family could pronounce. My grandmother said it was the perfect name for me, but never told me why..." The boy kept staring at her, a warm fond smile on his face. She got nervous. "W-what?" Questioned the blue-eyed.

"She's right" he declared and placed a loose hair behind her ear "...it is perfect for you"

The girl felt her heart beating weirdly (was not sure if it was too fast or incredibly slow), but kept her composure (somehow).

"Ah… Really… Hum… Thanks…" Adrien looked into her eyes with adoration and MArinette couldn't help but feel like she was paralyzed. Adrien's car's horn startled the two of them .

"I have to go…" The model announced, like wanting her to stop him.

"It's ok! I-I understand… Parents. It's almost dinner time, your dad will be mad" she replied with the blush still in place and her usual stuttering about to burst out. In the background, they could hear the other kids saying: "Just kiss already! If you don't do it I will! Not fair! Cousin's life is like a dorama! Five euros say we'll have nieces and nephews with green eyes! Seven euros say we won't live to tell the tale if you keep talking!"

The boy climbed inside the limousine and waved to the sweet designer-girl until she was too far and lost her from view. Then, he heard Gorilla grunt and fake a cough to indicate him he had to sit right and put on his sit belt. The boy did so and rested his head on the window, the memories from everything that had happened in Marinette's home danced in front of his eyes as if it was a movie.

"Meili…"

He closed his eyes involuntarily while his mind got lost in the single thought that had been pooping into his head that afternoon. A few days prior to this visit, he had been patrolling with Ladybug (Better said: Chat Noir had been patrolling with Ladybug). It was just another eventless night of jumping and parkour-ing through the city.

"Hey Chat!" Ladybug Called him as they landed on one of the Cathedral's bell towers "I just remembered, I'm probably not going to patrol with you this week. I have an important thing to do…"

"More important than protecting Paris, more important than spending time with your poor kitten, my Lady?" The cat retorted jokingly.

"Sorry, cute stray, but I got some serious business going on" The lady in red affirmed. "'M about to have one of those crazy weeks that you want to enjoy with all of your heart and also wish it to be over the whole time" She ranted a little. "I can hear it all already: "Meili get me this, Meili get me that, Meili is doing this, Meili…"

"Meili?" The lovestrucked boy smiled like he was the Cheshire cat. Ladybug facepalmed and murmured something among the lines of 'opening her big mouth'

"Don't get any ideas, tomcat. You won't get my real identity with that..."

"Oh my God! My Lady your name is so beautiful!"

"Don't get all excited, kitty. That's not even my real name. That's just how my grandmother calls me since i was a child, and… certain relatives when they're trying to annoy me..."

"Do you mind if I call you that from now on?" Ladybug glared at him and said a flat:

"Don't"

"Come on, my Lady! It will be only when we're alone...!"

The car stopped and Nathalie instructed him to go directly to the dining room so he could go to sleep early. The model obeyed with a smile and a dreamy expression as his brain finished the most complicated equation:

It was Marinette. She was his lady. Why hadn't he noticed before?

His father came into the dining table after some minutes just to find him drawing invisible chinese pictograms with his finger over the table:

Meili, "beautiful and graceful"

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Yami Horus: As I always say: any doubts, questions, comments, death treats? Please leave a review.