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It was just one Q&A live stream for the Ladyblog. Its one of those rare days where there is no akuma. He and Chat decided to join Alya for a special Q&A session. They both answer safe questions like what’s their favorite color or food and deflect questions that might expose their identity.
“Okay, next question by a user named ladybugishubando, I see Ladybug looks Chinese, is Ladybug Chinese?” Alya looks at the live stream questions. “That’s a great question”
“Well, ladybugishusbando, that could expose my identity too much so I’m not going to answer that. But I can say I have Chinese lessons and speak fluent Mandarin Chinese”
“I take Mandarin Chinese lessons too, so we’re in the same boat, Bug” Chat says.
Text started to flood in, mostly fangirls, even some in Mandarin Chinese.
“Okay, last request before the special guest have to leave and the live Q&A closes.” Alya looks at the clock. It’s quite late already.
Chat Noire translate one of the comments, “Can Ladybug and Chat Noire do the Nanami trend?”
Alya and Chat looked at each other in confusion. “Nanami?”
“Oh that trend, it’s from that anime, Kamisama Kiss, basically this Chinese voice actor has decided to show his range in voice acting and use different voices like sultry to cute to say Tomoe’s infamous line"
Ladybug cleared his throat. A sultry tone in his voice that is unlike Ladybug’s usual voice saying in Japanese. “Do you need me to save you? Nanami~” he added a wink. “You try it Chat.”
Alya and Chat Noire Blushed at Ladybug’s imitation. The whole live chat exploded and hordes of fan girls started to flood the chat room. “Whoops” Ladybug looked surprised.
“I think we need to leave now” Chat stood up and leave through the window.
“Have to go now,” Ladybug stood at Alya’s window. “Bug out” he saluted as he disappears into the night. The live chat keeps getting flooded but one caught Alya’s eye. She may not be able to read Chinese but there’s a familiar line of text in the chat room.
“Is that a link?” Alya wonders as she types in the link into a search bar.
It lead her to a YouTube Channel.
———————————-
“Morning coffee for my favourite Ladyblogger” Nino places a bag.
“Hey, Nino. Remember that Q&A I had before?”
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Every fangirl just flooded the chat room”
“Well, someone sent a link saying that Ladybug sounds like a popular YouTube channel.” She hands Nino the phone to show him the video
“An ASMR roleplay channel?” Nino jokes. “Yeah, if Ladybug has an ASMR Channel, I will eat my hat”
“We had Max analyzing it.”
“Judging by this clip and the YouTube Channel’s most popular voice clip. We can see that they have a 86% similarity.” Max pulled his data and shows it to Marin who was sipping his coffee
“What’s the channel name, by the way?”
“Oh, it’s in Chinese. I can’t really pronounce it.” Alya says as she passes it to Marin
“Lemme see” Marin takes the tablet from Alya as he took a sip and instantly chokes.
It was his channel. HaiMingASMR. His ASMR roleplay channel. And they have identified it as a possibility of Ladybug.
Shit. He is gonna have to delete the channel, move back to China, work in his uncle’s restaurant as a busboy and never be a fashion designer forever and if he goes back to China, Chat Noire would have to work alone to defeat Hawkmoth. And Paris would have to go under utter..
“Hey, what are you guys doing?” Adrienne broke Marin’s train of thought.
“It’s this channel.”
“Oh I know his content!” Adrienne claps her hands in excitement. “He sometimes have French content or English ones too but it in his secondary channel. He even has Italian ones.”
Everyone stares at Adrienne. “You like this kind of thing?”
“Yeah, I was bored and found this guy and I find his content entertaining, why?”
“Interesting, do you know that this channel is suspected to be Ladybug’s”
“Really? But they sound so different.”
“How would you know?”
“Alright, class, back to your seats” Miss Bustier walks in the room and interrupts the conversation before it can get any further.
Marin is panicking in his seat, what if people really think that this channel is Ladybug’s and it gets doxxed and his secret identity gets revealed?
He need to solve this quick. His thoughts were interrupted again, this time by an akuma alert. Talk about saved by the bell.
“Oh, I need to get this for the Ladyblog” Alya is temporary distracted by the akuma to think about the similarities between Ladybug and Marin’s channel voice.
———————–
“So what are you going to do?” Tikki asked as he groan in frustration.
“Well, I can’t delete the channel or admit this is mine as Marin because it’s now under suspicion as Ladybug’s identity.”
Marin sighed as he looks at Tikki eating cookies and his channel again. His eyes turn to the mask he wore during the audition for the Ladybug Music Video for Clara Nightingale. He picked it up amd looked in the mirror.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t do it under another disguise.”
He grabs the mask and start customizing it.
He then typed in, Q&A with HaiMing
——-
“See, I told you he isn’t Ladybug. He said he is now in Taiwan and studies in an international school.” Nino points at the video
The video shows a boy in a white shirt and slacks, a blue mask covering his face.
“Why can’t I reveal my identity?” He was reading the questions in Chinese but French Captions are available.
“Alright, Chinese law states that minors with online profiles have to hide their faces for the safety of the minors.”
“See, Alya” Nino points at the video “This shows that a lot of people have the same voice”
“I was so close and it’s just a wild goose chase” Alya groaned.
Marin grinned internally, thank goodness he had Trixx with him.
He made Trixx make an illusion that he is in a room of a Chinese household and the mask he wore is enough to hide his identity.
Since HaiMing is assumed to be not in Paris, this would also remove suspicion off of Ladybug.
—–
It was one of those rare nights where there’s no akuma in sight.
“Hey Chat” Ladybug landed next to Chat Niore.
“Hey bug” Chat sighs
“Is there something wrong?” Ladybug sat next to Chat, looking at the stars.
“Do you think we know each other under the mask?” Chat leaned her head against Ladybug’s shoulder
“Maybe, maybe not” Ladybug shurges.
Chat sighed. “I thought I almost found your civilian identity you know.”
Ladybug looks at his partner. “Chat, look at me” Chat lifted her head off of Marin’s shoulder. “I promise you, once this Hawkmoth thing is over, I will reveal my identity to you”
He gives her a small kiss on her forehead.
Chat smiles and leaned her head back on Ladybug’s shoulders as they watched the night sky.