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"Is that a piano?" Ladybug said, squeezing rainwater out of a pigtail.
Dust clung to the keys. Chat Noir rubbed some off, then wiped his hand on his suit. "Yeah. I wonder if it's still in tune."
Picking at one of her ribbons, Ladybug crossed the gymnasium floor. Her footsteps and the keys he tested out echoing around the high walls, bouncing off the broken basketball hoop, ricocheting off the rusted goal post. No wonder there was a piano here — he knew nothing about this abandoned collège , uninhabited for what must've been years, but if the acoustics in the gymnasium had been as great as they were now back then, this probably had been the ideal place for recitals.
Ladybug had one pigtail freed by the time she reached his side.
He inhaled. Old lacquer and plywood flooring and raindrops sliding down Ladybug's hair.
"Well?" she asked, a little edge of impatience to her voice. "Is it in tune?"
Chat Noir snapped out of it, his thumb jamming down on a C .
Automatically, his nose wrinkled. "No. This one sounds wrong."
"Ah, that sucks." Her hand floated to the keys, too. "I wanted to flex on you."
Chat Noir raised his eyebrows. "You play?"
She simpered. "I can play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star better than any six-year-old could."
Chat Noir laughed. "A right shame. I'm sure I would've been blown away."
Curiously, she reached over and pressed down an F# .
He tried so hard not to notice the kind of look she was giving him. The one that he'd been giving her for over a year, now.
Chat Noir's heart fluttered, and he had to bite back the instinct to squeeze the tingle in his chest. He knew it like he knew the sun existed even after dusk, or how his bedroom looked even with the curtains drawn. A piece of knowledge he might not be able to explain, but deep down knew couldn't be wrong.
Ladybug liked him. She like -liked him.
He hoped. He hoped. Chat Noir hoped that her soft smiles meant something. That the way her touch lingered on his arm nowadays meant something. That the weight that always settled between their locked eyes meant something.
Something had shifted between them, and though he couldn't pinpoint when or where, he couldn't bear believing it meant nothing.
She made a shape on the keys and pressed down. A rich C rang out across the gymnasium.
Ladybug gasped. "That sounded right."
He narrowed his eyes. "But it shouldn't have."
"What? You thought I'd be bad at piano?" She huffed. "Thanks for the support."
"Oh, My Lady, you know I'd support you with anything," he said. "It's just that what you're playing should be a D. It sounds like the whole piano transposed itself down by two."
"Right. Yeah. I totally know what you're talking about."
He smiled. "I thought you said you could play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star ?"
"I'm not a music geek. Unlike some one, apparently."
"At least I can play more than a nursery rhyme."
"Excuse me!" She flicked her ribbon across his face, splattering water into his eyes, and he laughed. "So mean! Let me have this!"
"You called me a music geek."
"So?"
"You can dish it out but you can't take it?"
Ladybug pulled her lips into a moue. She pressed down a few notes — a G that should've been an A, a D that should've been an E.
"You're annoying," she said, not looking at him. "Go make yourself useful and untie the rest of my hair."
"You are insufferable, My Lady."
She grinned. "Good."
Nevertheless, he moved to stand behind her.
The moonlight poured through the skylight and scattered across her remaining ribbon. Chat Noir moved her pigtail aside and inspected the knot. He'd seen her do her hair before, fingers tugging and looping with practiced dexterity while she chatted or laughed or teased him for a bad joke he'd made.
She shivered when he touched her neck, shoulders stiffening.
Chat Noir stopped. Ladybug swallowed. Played a few idle notes. C, D, E .
What an inopportune time to realise he'd never been quite so close to her before.
His breath, sharp as he drew it in, was too loud in the empty gymnasium. They'd hugged a few times, but never long enough for him to get used to the bow of her shoulders, the baby hairs sprouting at the apex of her neck. He'd never touched her here before, this part of her that was so warm and vulnerable in a way he'd never expected.
The ribbon unfurled. Her hair came loose in his hand.
Those baby hairs. A dark fringe, as thin as thread, hanging over some stray freckles.
Without thinking, Chat Noir brought his other hand up, and brushed them, ever so tentatively, under his claws.
Ladybug smacked a hand to the back of her neck and whirled around.
It was like the gymnasium skylight had opened up and dropped a bucket of cold water all over him.
"I-I'm so sorry. I don't know why I did that." He stepped back, wanting nothing more than to dart out of those double doors, permanently opened, and hide in one of the ancient crannies of this collège. "That was weird. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have done that at all."
She didn't like him anymore. She couldn't like him anymore. Not after that.
He tried to read the truth off her expression but it was muddled, impenetrable, frozen with her mouth ajar and hand clutched to the back of her neck.
Then, slowly, she blinked. "No," she said. "No, it's—it's fine. Don't worry about it."
She turned back to the piano, pushing her hair behind her ears. The tips were bright with flush.
He couldn't bring himself to stand near her again. His heart was alight, every molecule in his body on fire — what if he did something stupid again?
Chat Noir went over to the side of the piano and rested against its body, where it would be harder for him to turn around and see her hair spangled with silver light.
"It's fine," she repeated before the silence could metastasise.
"I know, but I'm sorry."
"No, you're not understanding. I was fine with it."
The ripple of piano keys stopped.
Then Ladybug's hand was on his shoulder.
He dared to turn around.
"I liked it," she said. "I liked it when you did that."
"You… you liked it?" he said.
Gently, Ladybug lowered the piano lid.
Each of her footsteps thumped through his bones like a heartbeat. The echo of the gymnasium immortalised the hitch in his breath as she neared him, raising her head to look into his face.
She cupped his hands in hers, and brought them up to her cheeks.
"I liked it," she said again. And, carefully, she reached up to touch his cheeks, too. Her palms were smooth with dust. "I like doing stuff like this with you."
He searched her eyes. So blue and so open and so her .
"'Stuff like this'?" he asked, a waver in his voice.
It wasn't just a trick of light. Ladybug blushed and Chat Noir felt it burn in his stomach.
"Like this," she said.
And then her hand was on the back of his neck and she was on her tiptoes and they were kissing.
Kissing. Kissing. He was kissing Ladybug and Ladybug was kissing him and her mouth was so soft and infinitely better than he'd ever dreamt.
He gazed at the shape of her pinched brow and the freckles on the outskirts of her cheeks. Streaks of moonlight painting her wet hair. The tremble of her mask as she squeezed her eyes shut. He knew he should shut his eyes, too — that's what people did during a kiss — but he couldn't bear to look away. What if she pulled back, and he missed the look on her face afterwards? What if she didn't like it, and, blind to all cues, he didn't know to stop?
Her hand slipped into the back of his hair, and she broke from his lips, breaths heavy with fragments of her voice blowing across his face.
"You weirdo," she said, giggling, pressing their foreheads together. "Close your eyes."
She was insufferable in the best way possible.
They kissed again — eyes closed, this time — and Chat Noir didn't realise he'd been backing her up until she hit the piano. One of her hands fell from his hair to brace herself against the edge. He set both of his on her hips, leaning her against the piano, holding her still but not too still.
As if she'd flutter away if he wasn't careful. As if he wanted her to know she could flutter away if she wanted to.
Her lips slid against his and they breathed together, breathed each other, the two of them in tune against that out of tune piano.
Chat Noir knew it like he knew the sun existed even after dusk, or how his bedroom looked even with the curtains drawn.
She liked him. And she wouldn't be going anywhere.