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It’s kind of an accident.
Which…that in and of itself should’ve been a clue, right? Chat always thought if he and Ladybug were to date, it would be on purpose. It would be because she saw him anew, and asked, and of course he would say yes, because what other answer could he give to the only girl he’s ever loved?
But their relationship is entirely accidental, with the two of them stumbling into it, slowly but surely.
A lot of it is like what the two of them have always been. Ice cream at Andre’s, except Ladybug doesn’t quite deny the idea that the two of them are a thing, and Chat laughs about it later because the notion is just kind of ridiculous. After all this time, what are the odds?
But then it keeps happening. And there are other incidents, too. Like the time the two of them are laying down in the park, and they make flower crowns for each other. And the time they use the space power ups to stargaze on the moon, and she looks at him fondly as he rambles about star life cycles and how the sun is going to eventually swallow them whole, but they won’t be alive at this point. He doesn’t even know why she’s listening to him prattling on about the heat-death of the Earth, it’s a pretty morbid topic.
He doesn’t want to get his hopes up too high.
“What are we?” he asks her one day. They’re at a temporary outdoor art gallery — Ladybug heard about it from a friend, she says, and the art does look nice. “What have the last few weeks been?”
“Scarabella said some stuff that put things into perspective for me,” she answers. “I…I think it’s kind of me apologizing. For everything, but especially the most recent incident.”
He tilts his head. “What do you mean, the most recent?”
“I never meant to make you feel like I didn’t trust you.” She sighs. “We should go somewhere else for this.”
And so they do.
“The problem isn’t that I don’t trust you,” she says, pacing on the rooftop they selected for the Emotional Vulnerability Conversation. “It’s that I’m worried that I may trust you too much, and I’m afraid that it’ll hurt me.”
“At that point, doesn’t it kind of circle around to being the same thing?” he asks, and he feels even more helpless than before.
“No, no,” she says, waving her arms around. “I just…I don’t trust me.”
“You should.” He gently nudges her. “I trust you with my life.”
The worst part is that he isn’t even sure if he’s telling the truth when he says that.
“I know you do,” she says. “And I feel like I’ve been…taking advantage of that too much. Taking for granted how you would always go along with my plans. I just…I needed her to pull me out of my own head.”
It’s been what he needed to hear for a long time. But now that she’s saying it, he isn’t sure how genuine it is.
And how strange it is — he would give up his life for her, but he can’t trust her to tell the truth.
Then again, he’s always been one for sacrifice.
“And…” she says, hesitating, “on a more personal basis, I’ve really enjoyed these last few weeks.”
“I have too,” he says. That part is true. That part is definitely true. “Sorry I spent forever talking about the heat-death of the Earth. I promise it isn’t all morbid. Astronomy is just…something I really enjoy.”
“You don’t have to feel sorry, Chat, ” She places her hands on his shoulders. “I think it’s really cool how you know so much about the stars. I’ve never really thought about them as much before, my expertise lies elsewhere.”
He nods. “It’s not for everyone. I’m glad you think it’s cool. I don’t get to talk much about my knowledge with other people often.”
She removes her hands. “You deserve to be listened to, kitty. And…to answer your question earlier, about what we are — that depends on what you want.”
“I think you know what I want,” he whispers, stepping closer to her. “But your feelings matter, too. I don’t want you to love me because you feel obligated to.”
“That goes…that principle goes both ways,” she says, and why would she say that? “My feelings have changed. I have a better perspective now. And…I can’t date the other boy. So I think that I might love you. Maybe.”
It’s the words he’s wanted to hear for so long. Why doesn’t he feel happier?
He smiles — it’s merely an attempt to make her happy.
“I can work with maybe,” he says, moving to hold her hands. “We can work with maybe, and for now just go with ‘we love each other, and that’s all that matters.’”
“That sounds good,” she says. “Great, actually.”
She ducks her head, and steps away. “But…no one’s allowed to know, yeah?”
“Definitely not,” he says. “I mean…I understand why not. But this is a you-and-me thing. No one else has to be involved.”
She nods. “I agree. Like you said — you and me against the world.”
“You still remember?” he asks.
“How could I ever forget?”
And every word that comes out of her mouth just complicates things further. Because they’re every bit what he’s needed to hear, what he’s wanted to hear for so long.
But does he want it? But does he still want it?
“I…” He trails off. How does he want to put this? “Do you want to go back to the art gallery?”
“That sounds great,” she says, and they head back to where they started.
This time, it’s even more like a date.
He takes a deep breath, and lets himself enjoy the time out with Ladybug.
Maybe it was a bad idea to turn to the Internet for advice. It usually is, but he doesn’t know who else he could turn to for stuff like this. Adrien sighs and looks at the screen.
He’s not sure where to look first. What even could he ask? What sort of questions does he have? This should be the best day of his life, and yet all he is is confused. He tries the Ladyblog first, but then he remembers — all the Ladynoir posts were taken down. So he doesn’t know where to look, until he stumbles onto the subreddit dedicated to the Akuma Situation, because Reddit is a place to find extremely specialized information and communities. He looks at the picture from Oblivio for ages, the image from Dark Cupid — true love, right? Right?
He can’t bring himself to believe it. He isn’t sure that he loves Ladybug like that.
So he searches up what romantic feelings feel like. He gets a lot of results, all of them poetic but none of them precisely matching what he feels for Ladybug, either.
But when he searches up friendship, that definitely isn’t it, either.
So, in a last-ditch effort, he searches up “different types of attraction”. Because he wants something to call it. So, so badly. What is he feeling? The first few results are about parks and stuff, which makes sense, but then there are some results in English, and he clicks on one, letting the translator work.
The first kind is sexual, which he doesn’t really care about, because while he’s aware of that he’s pretty sure that’s not what he wants from Ladybug. Besides, they’re definitely too young for it.
Romantic is the next one, and the more he reads about it the more he thinks that it’s not the kind of experience he wants with Ladybug. He doesn't want to marry her. He tries to picture the two of them at a wedding, and the situation is kind of ridiculous. He might want to hold her hand or something. Kissing wouldn’t be too bad, even. But he doesn’t want to marry her. He doesn’t want her to call him her boyfriend. That doesn’t matter to him.
And then he scrolls down further.
Sensual attraction. The desire to be touched.
That might explain a lot of it. He wants to be cared for by her. He wants her to care about him, so badly that it hurts. He wants to cuddle her. He wants to hug her. He even wants to hold her hand, sometimes.
Emotional attraction? That’s a weird one. Can you be emotionally attracted to someone without romantic feelings?
Oh. That makes sense.
That makes a lot of sense. Emotional intimacy…that would be cool. That’s maybe what he wants.
No, that’s definitely what he wants.
Partners. That’s what he and Ladybug should be. Not boyfriend and girlfriend — just partners. That’s always been what fits them best.
Always.
And that doesn’t have to change.
But…Ladybug wants things to change. Should they?
He thinks he’s had enough of the Internet for today. Enough questioning.
He shuts down his computer.
“Hey, Plagg,” he says, spinning around in his chair. “What…exactly is the thing with you and Tikki?”
Plagg scoffs. “Don’t use your relationship as a blueprint for your feelings. It can’t be defined by any human terms. Us kwamis don’t love in the same way you do.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Romance isn’t really our thing,” the kwami answers. “A lot of human stuff is silly. I don’t think you’d understand if I tried to explain it in kwami words, though.”
“Try it,” Adrien suggests. “I mean, I don’t think I’ll understand, but it would be funny.”
Plagg speaks, and Adrien recognizes the echoes of ancient Chinese, but a lot of things have shifted since then, and he doesn’t really understand it.
But it definitely isn’t funny. Plagg says the word that defines him and Tikki so solemnly that Adrien can’t find humor in it.
He tries to say the word back to Plagg. Plagg does laugh at him, that time, and says it again. This time, Adrien replicates the word more closely, and Plagg nods. “You’ve got it, kid. But no guarantees your lady will understand.”
“I don’t need her to be mine,” Adrien insists. “I think we could be fuhuqi .”
“Not quite right,” Plagg says. “But…closer.”
Adrien smiles. “I’m glad I’ve found something.”
But he doesn’t think a kwami-label will cut it for Ladybug.
What are they?
Hopefully not romantic. Even just as he realizes his feelings were never romance, her own have shifted — right when he didn’t want them to.
He still isn’t sure how much of it is real. If any of it ever was. But he looks at the pictures of them kissing, and he sees the passion, and he wonders why he can’t muster those feelings for her now. He wonders if he ever felt that way in the first place.
Is he even capable of it, at this point? He’s so messed up that he might just be unable to feel it altogether.
He tries to explain some of his woes to Nino. It’s a pruned version, designed to cut down a lot of the things that would jeopardize his identity, but the core stays the same. He tells Nino that he’s been questioning his identity since his breakup with Kagami — that he’s not sure that he ever felt attracted to her in the first place.
“You should talk to Alix,” Nino says casually, and glances back towards Alya for some reason. “Not sure if she’d help you, but she…she’s not really into relationships. You might not be like her, but learning about her experience could be valuable.”
Huh. Adrien hadn’t even thought about talking to Alix.
He resolves to do that — during lunch, because Mme Bustier comes in then to begin class.
He spends the time waiting in tense anticipation for them to be dismissed from class to lunch.
And when it does come, he finds Alix straight away.
“What do you want?” she asks, and it comes out a little bit snappy, but the abrasiveness is pretty typical.
“Can we talk? I was told to ask you about something.” He raises his hands. “Nothing bad, just…slightly personal, and I’d prefer privacy for this.”
She’ll know his identity someday.
She doesn’t need to know it right now.
He could tell her.
Ladybug told Scarabella, after all.
And Alix is already destined to know, eventually.
But he’s not supposed to do it now.
So they walk off, and he does not tell her his identity, presenting the same version of the narrative that he presented to Nino to her.
“I’ve been thinking things over since Kagami and I broke up, and I’m not really sure if I was ever attracted to her in the first place. Sure, she’s pretty, and I enjoy having her as a friend, but I was doing some research, and I…don’t think it was romantic.”
“So what, you think you’re aro because of one experience?” Alix asks. “I mean, it could be that. Could also be that you just weren’t into her. I don’t know. That’s all in your head.”
“What do you mean, ‘aro’?” he asks. “What are you talking about?”
“Not experiencing romantic attraction,” she says, by way of defining. And then she starts to skate away. “That should give you something to chew over for a few days. Come back to me if you have more questions!”
Oh. A-romantic. Aro.
Hmm.
He types the search term into Google when he gets home.
He tells Google that he means aromantic, not aromatic, and reads through some of the results. Some of the results he gets resonate with him — not understanding romantic attraction beyond depictions of it, so thinking that something was attraction. That’s probably what everything with Ladybug was.
He doesn’t resonate with the people that have always felt a disconnect with romance — he’s always wanted connection, and romance was the ultimate form of connection.
But it’s not. But it really isn’t the ultimate form of connection, and that’s okay. It doesn’t need to be. And he doesn’t need to experience it.
He’s not sure if he really is aromantic.
But maybe, just maybe, he is.
He should tell Ladybug.
“I wasn’t a liar when I said I loved you,” he begins. “But I know now it isn’t the way I thought I always meant it.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, taking his hand. “I…”
“I’m starting to realize that the feelings I have towards you aren’t romantic.” And he leans away from her. Because to most people, non-romantic doesn’t include holding hands. “I mean, they’re so much more than friendship can describe, but they’re too…too different for romance.”
“I see that,” she says. “My kwami thinks I jumped in too fast when A-Scarabella talked to me. She didn’t say much to me, but I put the pieces together. And Tikki thinks that I jumped too far to prove to you, but in my opinion I haven’t done enough.”
“You’ve done plenty,” he says, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry I can’t love you how you want me to.”
“You don’t need to apologize for not loving, especially when our situations were reversed so long ago,” she responds. “And, you know, I think you were pretty good about how you took it.”
“Not really,” he says, “but believe what you will. I was clingy because I needed someone in my life, and you’ve always been…how should I put it? My light. The escape.”
“What have you been through, kitty?” she asks.
“Too much.” He hangs his head, and leans into her. “But I think…this isn’t a boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”
“No. It’s a partner thing,” he says. “Definitely a partner thing.”
“You know, the kwamis don’t understand romance,” Ladybug says with a smile.
“Yeah, I talked to Plagg about it,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “He suggested this word. I can’t really say it right. Ancient kwami language, or whatever. Untranslatable words evolved from ancient Mandarin.”
“Huh.” Ladybug stares off into the distance. “Untranslatable words aside, I think ‘partners’ has always been good enough to describe us. I can’t really imagine being anything else.”
“Neither can I,” he says, and she leans back against him. Complete, at last.