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In his lair, Monarch smirked. He called on Kaalki’s power and opened a Voyage portal. “Go, my mega akuma. Tarnish this broken heart!”
The black akuma flapped its wings in the portal and reached a back alley, quickly approaching the pills box in the hands of a girl; she sat on the ground hugging her knees, her face covered behind her legs.
“Hallucinate. I’m Monarch. How dare your family tell you that your pain wasn’t real? How dare they not understand that even if they couldn’t see what you saw and felt, it was still real to you? I give you the power to obscure people’s vision and show them their deepest fears, just like it happened to you. This way, your family will experience your pain and love you again. In return, you will get me the Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous. Do we have a deal?”
The girl’s head shot up, the ethereal mask on her face glowing in the dark and dirty alley as a smirk popped on her lips. “Of course, Monarch.” As the purple energy wrapped around her body, the girl was no more, and a thick fog started billowing on the ground, slowly but surely spreading out of the alley and into the road.
§§§
Marinette was late. Again. She hadn’t heard her alarm, and now she had only minutes to spare, as she expertly sprinted through her family’s pȃtisserie’s kitchen, grabbed a couple of croissants, and waved bye to her mother and father before dashing out of the back door.
Tom and Sabine shook their heads and smiled. Marinette would never learn.
But as she ran the short distance that separated her parents’ boulangerie from Collège Françoise Dupont, Marinette was surprised to see smoke billowing on the ground and touching her feet. She stopped for a second and looked around, but her surroundings were clear, so she raised an eyebrow and kept running.
She had just reached the Collège and walked up the steps, however, when she felt the annoying sensation of water on her feet. Furrowing her brows (why was water there? The sky was clear!), she looked at her feet to see that the smoke had left the place to water that seemed to be slowly raising its level. She opened her little purse and looked at Tikki inside of it.
“What’s wrong, Marinette?” the kwami asked from the purse.
“It’s weird,” she muttered in reply. “There’s water on the ground, but the sky is clear. What on Earth…?”
“I can’t see anything from here, but you need to hurry, or you’ll be late for school!” the kwami said, causing Marinette to gasp and resume her running activities. She walked through the gate of the Collège and dashed on the stairs to get to her classroom. But when she opened the door and turned around, her heart froze, all blood draining from her face.
Icy blue. Those icy blue eyes filled her whole vision. Sitting down at the front row, right where Adrien would typically sit, was the vision that had haunted her nightmares for the last few months.
Chat Blanc.
What was Chat Blanc doing in her classroom? Her terrified gaze locked with those icy blue eyes, but she forced herself to look around, her heart in her ears, to understand what was happening. All her classmates were sitting in their seats, and everyone had turned into a statue. Marinette screamed.
“Marinette!” Chat Blanc said. “Are you alright?”
Marinette’s breathing got erratic, her gaze darting around the room, trying to find an escape route, but she couldn’t find any. She blinked and looked down at her hands, now covered with her polka-dotted suit. She lost all recollection of where she was and what she was doing as panic took over.
“N-no, you’re wrong! I’m not Marinette!” She saw his white mask crease at the top as he furrowed his eyebrows and felt her face draining all blood. “It’s impossible; I never told you anything!”
That’s when she started hearing familiar voices echoing in her head, one sounding similar to Mlle Bustier’s, the other like Alya’s. She saw a blurry vision of what looked like a statue of Alya just behind Chat Blanc and one of Mlle Bustier, where he usually sat at her desk, starting to move, and she blinked forcefully, shaking her head in surprise. For a millisecond, she saw her normal classroom, Alya and Mlle Bustier getting closer to her and, for some reason, Adrien where a second before Chat Blanc was standing. Still, her vision got blurry again, and the figure of Chat Blanc superimposed on Adrien, and the statues on the living figures of Mlle Bustier and Alya, as a splitting headache resonated inside her head.
“Marinette? Are you alright?”
“What’s wrong, Marinette?”
“GIVE ME YOUR MIRACULOUS!” Chat Blanc’s voice shouted in her head, covering the other voices she could hear. Her breathing started getting erratic; her hands ran to the sides of her head. “We're gonna fix everything!” the voice repeated. She jerked her head up, realising suddenly that she had crouched over herself and lowered her guard, and when she did, she saw Chat Blanc just next to her, and she jolted away, a loud squeak escaping her mouth.
“No! What’s happened to you, Chat Noir?” she shouted, and for some reason, the akumatised boy opened his eyes wide and cringed.
“I-I’m not Chat Noir—” he started, but Marinette cupped a gloved hand at the side of his face.
“You will always be Chat Noir to me,” she whispered. Then she lowered her gaze and added, “Mon doux chaton. I would never be able to do it without you. You’re not like this. Kiss m—” But as she said that, she felt hands cupping at the sides of her head, trying to take off her earrings. She couldn’t see anything, so she reacted instinctively, yanking away, her eyes shut and her arms flaring around to prevent whoever it was from touching her.
“Marinette!” That sounded like Alya’s voice. Why was it resonating so loudly inside her head? It was moving across her brain like the ball inside a pinball machine, depositing a sharp pang of pain each time. “I need your earrings!”
“Never!” Marinette muttered. “You’ll have to take it from my dead body! I’ll never give you my Mir—” But she felt two strong arms wrapping around her and a hand covering her mouth to prevent her from continuing to talk; as much as she tried to struggle and free herself, she wasn’t able to, so she started to panic because she couldn’t feel her earrings anymore.
“It’s going to be alright, Milady,” she heard Chat Blanc’s voice echoing in her head, but it was only a whisper, so why it felt so loud? Was he the one that was holding her? Did he take her Miraculous? She couldn’t feel her earrings anymore! That was a disaster; it was the end of the world! She couldn’t allow him to make the wish; he couldn’t allow him to recreate the universe! She started to scream and wiggled, trying to escape the hold keeping her still, but as she was doing so, the magic ladybugs ran around her, and she blinked to find herself wrapped in the firm hug of…
“Adrien?”
She blinked again and tried to move her head back to look at the person hugging her and keeping her still. But the more she tried, the more the person tightened his hold.
“Marinette?” Adrien said in her ear. “Are you back with us? Can I let go?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded and gulped awkwardly as Adrien tentatively released her from his hug, and she could look around. They were in their classroom, and it was empty. “What’s going on?” she managed to ask. Her gaze darted around until she met his eyes, and the intensity in those pools of green looking back at her made her face feel very hot. She flushed and lowered her gaze.
“You were under the influence of an akuma,” Adrien said, but Marinette’s hands ran to her earlobes, and she suddenly realised that her earrings were gone. Her heart sank as her eyes widened. Adrien smiled softly. “Alya took them. Scarabella had to fight alone.” He looked away, his cheeks dusting in pink as he continued, rubbing the nape of his neck with his hand, “because I was here with you.”
Marinette’s eyes widened; she met his gaze as if she were looking at him for the first time, darting to his right hand and focusing on the silver ring on his ring finger.
“You—” she whispered, her heart in her ears as she held her breath, her gaze fixed on the ring on his right hand. Fascinated, she moved her hand—oh, yes, her bare hand; she wasn’t Ladybug any more. Had she even been Ladybug today at all? Everything was so confusing! Anyway, she slid her hand to grab hold of his right hand, her fingers moving to stroke gently his Miraculous. Because it was his Miraculous, there was no denying it, not after she had seen Chat Blanc in his place and had heard him calling her Milady.
Marinette sucked her breath in—hang on a second. What? She felt all blood draining from her face as her heart skipped a beat and her eyes widened in shock.
She was still rubbing his ring when she dared shoot a shy glance at him, and her heart started beating again. Well, more racing madly. “You called me—Milady?”
He looked up, his hand running to his nape and a forced smile stretching his lips. He also sucked his breath in. “Uuuuuh, well, after what you said before I managed to cover your mouth, I think I have no doubts.” His gaze jolted to meet hers. “Am I wrong?”
That was it. Adrien was giving her a way out. She could say he had been mistaken and tried to lie her way out of this massive pickle she had thrown herself in. Rationally, she knew that it was the right thing to do. She had to protect her identity. But first of all, Marinette doubted that Adrien would believe her lies, not this time. And in the second instance, there was a vast difference between words (or thoughts, in this case) and deeds. So Marinette did the only thing that felt right. She lowered her gaze and shook her head slowly, unable to control her voice.
Adrien simply nodded. “I thought so,” he admitted, and Marinette felt her face getting very hot under his scrutiny. “I don’t think anybody else figured you out, but you were lucky that Alya and I were there.”
But Marinette didn’t let him finish. She took stronger hold of the hand she had already grabbed; Adrien stopped talking almost instantly. “What did I say?” she asked.
“You called me chaton and,” he muttered, pursing his lips, “when I told you that I wasn’t, you told me that I would always be Chat Noir to you.” An awkward silence fell between them, Adrien looking confused and embarrassed, his hand firmly resting on the nape of his neck as he shot her some tentative glances. “You were talking about a disaster, the world ending, and you asked me where my akuma was. You told me that you couldn’t do it without me and…I just joined the dots. It couldn’t be any other way because…I can’t do it without you, too, Buguinette.” When he heard her sucking her breath in, he frowned. “Care to tell me what was all that about?”
She slowly breathed out the air he was holding in her lungs and grabbed the bottom part of her face with both hands, pursing her lips. Adrien was displaying the most worried frown she’s ever seen on his face, and Marinette didn’t blame him. She was hallucinating, so she probably didn’t choose her words carefully. He had been raw and curt, replicating exactly what had happened that day, letting her fears take over. Luckily he and Alya had been there, or the consequences of her mistake could’ve been world-changing.
“Haha…” She laughed so nervously that it didn’t sound like laughter but more like the shrieking sound of a saw cutting through glass. “That’s a funny story,” she started, but a quick look at Adrien froze her.
“You didn’t look amused earlier,” he told her.
She deflated, slumping her shoulders. “No, you’re right. It’s not funny. At all.” Her eyes filled with tears, her gaze meeting his, her brows furrowing. “I made a mistake once, and it caused you to get akumatised.”
His frown deepened. “I’ve never been akumatised.”
“Not in this timeline, no.” She sighed. “But some time ago, I used my Miraculous to leave you a present for your fifth name day.”
A flash of understanding gleamed in Adrien’s eyes. “The beret,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Marinette admitted, her shoulders raising to allow her to hug her arms, making her look even smaller than she really was. “It was a present from me, not from your fans in Brazil. I’m sorry I lied to you, but it was the first thing that came to mind.”
A small smile curled Adrien’s lips as his gaze caught hers again and stretched immediately after when her cheeks dusted in pink, and she looked down. “It was an excuse hard to believe, to be honest. It took me five minutes to check online and realise there was no such thing.”
“You knew?” she interrupted, but he smiled some more.
“No, I thought it must’ve been a small fan club.” His smile changed into a little smirk as his eyes filled with mischief. “I didn’t expect that Ladybug would lie to me. And, by the way, I didn’t expect her to give me a beret with hearts embroidered as a present.” His smirk widened when the pink on Marinette’s cheeks upgraded to a deep shade of red.
She cringed. “Yeah, haha.” Again the glass-scraping saw-like laughter. She covered her mouth with her hand so that the following thing she said came out all muffled, but he heard it. “That’s another funny thing…”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay, you’re right. Not funny.” She raised both hands in front of her face to admit defeat. “The girls tried to get me to confess to you so many times, but things were always going wrong. I had spent ages making that beret, and the plan was to give it to you as Marinette, but your housekeeper didn’t want to let me in, so I decided to transform and enter your room and leave the present on your pillow with a card signed by Marinette.”
Adrien’s eyes were wide open, the boy leaning forward from his sitting position, legs crossed on the ground, his shoulders and back so tense that they could’ve snapped any minute. “Confess? Even then? That long ago?” he whispered, his gaze searching for hers, causing the girl in front of him to flush an even darker shade of red. “There was no card signed by Marinette…” he then concluded.
Marinette cringed again. “No, I erased my signature because…of what happened next. I had originally left the room without realising that you had come in as I was leaving. As I was returning to my meeting point with the girls, Bunnyx appeared on the rooftop I was on and brought me to this horrible future where you had been akumatised.”
Adrien’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“You had destroyed the world,” she said, her hands cupping over her mouth and muffling her words. “Even cataclysmed the moon. You…were all alone, completely white, with blue eyes instead of green. I will never forget those eyes; they were so cold and full of madness. The city was under the water; nobody was around; who knows, maybe you cataclysmed the world’s entire population, I don’t know! But I know for sure that you cataclysmed Papillon.” Then she glanced at him, her heart skipping a beat as she added, “And me.”
“No…” He gasped as he said that, but Marinette pouted.
“I don’t know what happened. You said it had been an accident. That I had broken your heart and, well—” She gulped and let out a painful breath. “O-our l-love had destroyed the world.”
When she looked at Adrien, his eyes were full of tears, his head was shaking, and his complexion was pale. She had never seen him that white in the face. “I would never—”
“You were akumatised! It wasn’t you! But you knew my identity; you called me Marinette and told me we were happy and in love until Papillon ruined everything. And I’m sorry, Adrien, I really am. I shouldn’t have kept you at arm’s length without explaining what happened, but…the experience terrified me! I had countless nightmares about it—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“For what?” she snapped at him. “One person traumatised over it was enough!”
“You shouldn’t have been left to deal with it alone. I could’ve helped you!”
“How?” The tears were now flowing from her eyes down her cheeks, but he was crying too. He cupped his hands on the sides of her face and looked her in the eye before wrapping her in a bone-crushing hug.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Minou. It’s me who should be sorry. I should have told you, but I was so scared!”
Adrien wanted to reply, but the noise of footsteps from the corridor outside caught his attention. He wiped his eyes and cheeks dry with the back of his hand and straightened his top before quickly getting up and stretching a hand at Marinette to help her stand. She followed his example, wiped her eyes dry and accepted his help.
“People are coming back to class.” Adrien sniffled. “Tonight, at our spot?”
Marinette only managed to nod before the door burst open, and Alya stormed in.
“Marinette! Girl, you’re okay! Adrien managed to get you back! I’m so glad!” She hugged her best friend and, as she was doing so, she skillfully replaced the earrings on her earlobes. Marinette’s warm smile as she touched her ears and the look they exchanged didn’t come unnoticed by Adrien but was overlooked by everybody else who reversed inside the classroom.
“Glad to see you’re back to your normal self, Marinette. That was scary; you started screaming and acting like Adrien was trying to kill you.” Mlle Bustier wrapped Marinette into a hug. Then, she looked at her again. “I saw on the news that the akuma gave hallucinations. It must’ve been terrifying.”
“Sorry for scaring you, Mlle Bustier.” Marinette looked softly at her teacher and then moved her gaze to Adrien, who was giving her a small smile. “And you too, Adrien. I should never watch horror movies again. That…werecat scared me to death.”
“Werecat?” Nino asked, he too reaching out to Marinette and wrapping her into a hug. “That was horrible, Dudette. It almost sounded as if you thought Adrien was Chat Noir.”
A stiff smile stretched Marinette’s lips, her hands waving nervously in front of her face. “Uh, what? Chat Noir? N-no, Nino, I just saw a black werecat monster in the room; it was from a film my dad was watching last night. Nothing to do with Adrien and nothing to do with Chat Noir!”
Even Alya smiled stiffly, grabbing Nino by the hand and pulling him back to their desk. “Yeah, what a stupid idea. Adrien Agreste being Chat Noir… just imagine. As if two people couldn’t be more different. Sit down, honey; you need it.”
Nino blinked a couple of times, looked at his friends in confusion, and rubbed the nape of his neck. “Yes, you’re right, of course. What a stupid idea!” He laughed nervously. “Sorry, mon pote.”
Adrien made a dismissive gesture, and they all sat down to resume their lesson.
§§§
When Ladybug sat next to Chat Noir at their usual spot facing the Eiffel Tower, the Iron Lady shone tall and proud in the darkness of the night, the complete opposite of how Ladybug herself was feeling. She had spent a long time in her room before transforming, brainstorming with Tikki, trying to make sense of what had happened that morning, and finding the courage to transform and reach Chat Noir—Adrien!—for patrol. But eventually, she’d managed to say the words and had zipped out of her room towards the Trocadéro. After all, Adrien knew where she lived. There was no running away from him anymore.
They spent some time admiring the tower shining against the cloudy sky, the moon peeking out of the clouds and smiling mockingly at them from above. Then, Ladybug took a big breath, and her expression changed into determination. She reached out for her yoyo and opened it to take out of it a red rose. She pursed her mouth tightly and bit her bottom lip before looking at the boy beside her and shoving the flower under his nose. The way he blinked and his gaze moved slowly from the rose to her face showed all his surprise.
“What—” he started to say, but she didn’t let him.
“I’ve been so stupid,” she said, interrupting him.
“You’re not stupid, LB; why do you say that?” He picked the rose from her hand and stared at it, unsure what to do. He sniffed it; then, he turned around to look at her.
She gulped, her face losing colour as her shaky voice spoke the words she dreaded to say. “I fell in love with the same boy twice.” She glanced at him and then curled over herself as if trying to protect herself from being hit, her arms hugging her midsection and her hands rubbing her arms nervously. “I was so adamant I didn’t want to fall in love with Chat Noir after I saw the future with Chat Blanc. But then, Félix tricked me so well, and I started questioning the feelings I thought I had for Adrien, thinking that they were distracting me from being Ladybug and were clouding my judgement, forcing me to make mistakes. When Félix was able to trick me, I realised that I didn’t know Adrien—” She paused for a moment, her gaze darting from his face looking down to the rose she had given him to her hands. “—you…” Another pause. “I didn’t know you at all. And then you started trying to get closer to Marinette-me, and I panicked because I didn’t want to make other mistakes and maybe lose my Miraculous because I had gotten distracted.”
He started rolling the flower on his fingers, passing it from one hand to the other. “So there’s no hope for the two of us? There’s no possibility that you’d give us a chance?” He looked at her frown and sighed. “I…wasn’t kidding the other day when I told you I think a lot about you.” His lips stretched into a shy smile as he chuckled. “Plagg says that I’m disgusting. The truth is that I can’t think of anything else. I don’t know when I fell in love with you, Marinette, but I did. The mere thought of losing you breaks my heart.” His voice cracked as he said that, and when Ladybug looked at him, she could see tears shimmering under the moonlight down his cheeks. “I love Ladybug,” he continued as his voice cracked more and his breathing got laboured, “and I love Marinette. My heart is so full of feelings for you that I almost fear it could burst.” He chuckled. “I, too, fell for the same girl twice. We’re both massive idiots.”
Ladybug snorted. “Tikki and Plagg must be so fed up with all our melodrama. They knew our identities since we first faced Dark Owl!”
Even Chat Noir snorted and chuckled softly. “Don’t I know about it…Plagg has spent the afternoon lecturing me on how much of an idiot I was. And blaming me for his lack of sleep. I had to order him a batch of very well-aged Camembert for him to ‘forgive’ my stupidity. His words.”
Ladybug’s huffed chuckle changed into a giggle. “You did not—”
“Did too. I felt so bad for the poor thousands-of-years-old God having to listen to me pining over Ladybug for months and saying that Marinette was just a friend. Which, by the way, was just me lying to myself. And then recently, pining over Marinette about 50 times per day and dismissing Ladybug, saying that she’s an exceptional girl but just a partner. I’m so embarrassed!”
“YOU’re embarrassed!” snapped Ladybug. “I was kissing goodnight to all your pictures on my wall every night, learning your schedule off by heart for the next three years, making plans with my friends to kidnap you to confess my feelings and drawing charts with detailed plans on how to do all that in 50 easy steps. I rewatched your perfume ad more than 400 times.” She paused and cringed. “Okay, make that a thousand.” She blushed. “And the message you sent us the day your cousin cancelled the video we sent you, where you told us that you loved us? I listened to that even more times. I was obsessed with you, and as I said the other night, it made me act in the worst ways.” She paused there because her voice had cracked, and her bottom lip was quivering, making it hard for her to carry on talking. “When we faced Miracle Queen, I got jealous of you and Kagami kissing on the rive—”
“We weren’t kissing!” Chat Noir snapped, which caused Ladybug to gulp awkwardly.
“Even worse. I thought you were, and that clouded my judgement so much that I forgot to detransform before reaching out to Master Fu and Papillon discovered his hiding place. I also picked the Dragon Miraculous for no rational reason; I just wanted to take Kagami away from you.” She slumped over and hugged her arms, rubbing her right arm with her left hand. “Maybe had I thought more clearly and picked the Bee Miraculous instead, Chloé wouldn’t—”
Chat Noir put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to fall silent. “Don’t blame yourself for that. Chloé’s heart wasn’t in the right place; I can see that now. Had you given her the Bee, she may not have betrayed us then, but she would’ve done it eventually. She only did it to get people’s approval, not because she wanted to change.” He looked down. “She will never change because she doesn’t want to, deep down.”
Ladybug was silent for some time, her hand reaching out to grab his on her shoulder and stroking it gently. “Maybe you’re right,” she eventually whispered. “But it doesn’t change the fact that my jealousy clouded my judgement, and we lost Master Fu for that reason.”
They both looked at each other and pouted, unable to put into words the avalanche of emotions they were feeling at the moment.
“Where does this leave us, then?” Chat Noir asked after a long pause. “You made a mistake, and I can see how that upset you. It upset me too to lose Master Fu, and I didn’t know him as well as you.” He sighed. “But you’re a human being, Buguinette. We all make mistakes—”
“I’m Ladybug! I shouldn’t make mistakes! I’m not allowed!” she shouted back at him. “If I make mistakes, the Miraculouses get lost, the wish gets made, the world gets rewritten.” She put both fists at the sides of her head, her body starting to rock back and forth, tears glistening in her eyes. “Or cataclysmed, whichever is worse.” Her voice cracked before she couldn’t take it anymore; she cupped her hands on her face, starting to sob.
He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to turn around to look at him. “Yes, you’re Ladybug. The greatest superhero of all.”
“Ha ha,” she interrupted him, her laugh void of humour. “Greatest my foot. I’m only a girl who can’t even tell her crush that she loves him. I’m a walking disaster! How can you say that I’m great?”
"You are the greatest. Greatest doesn’t mean perfect, Milady. Perfection doesn’t exist and whoever thinks that it does is a fool. But each time you fall, you rise again. Each time you can’t, um, tell your crush that you love him, you try again.” He couldn’t help it, his cheeks took fire, and his heart sped up in his chest. “Besides, you just told him, and more than once.” He glanced at the rose she had given him earlier, cheeks getting warmer. “Well, as long as your crush is still Adrien Agreste. Or Chat Noir!”
Then, he shot her an amused glance, and Ladybug looked back at him, embarrassed, her hands cupping her mouth and her eyes widening at the sudden realisation.
“Shoot. I did…”
He chuckled, his shoulder hitting her arm in a playful gesture as he placed the rose behind his back, where he held his baton. “I don’t see the world ending. Do you?”
He followed his words with a cheeky and toothy smile, his elbows pinned on his thighs and his tail flapping behind his back, almost having a life of its own, and moving at her side to stroke gently her hip. She glared at him and pushed him away.
“You—” she growled, causing him to let out a laugh.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist!” He laughed a bit more, allowing her to beat her fists on his shoulder as if he were a drum. She soon stopped doing it, though and started laughing herself.
“You’re…impossible!” she muttered between laughs; she laughed until she had tears pricking out of her eyes.
“But you love me,” he said, heart drumming in his chest, a cheeky smile stretching his lips as he took a playful pose. That was the moment of the truth—her answer was a confirmation that meant everything to him.
“Unfortunately, I do.”
She let out a sigh, but when she looked at his face and saw the beaming smile that lit all his features up and made his eyes shine, her face felt suddenly hot. She hid her embarrassment by grabbing his arm and resting her head on his shoulder, which he must’ve appreciated, she thought, based on the fact that he cocked his head to one side to push his cheek on her hair. She didn’t even realise how, but the next thing she knew, his hand was intertwined with hers, and his other hand was resting on top.
“That’s good because I love you too, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. More than words can say,” he whispered in her hair, kissing her forehead softly. “I love you just the way that you are.”
“I love you too, mon chaton.”
As a couple of tears brimmed her eyes, causing the glimmering Iron Lady to dance in her vision, Ladybug sighed happily and leaned more firmly on his shoulder. His tail had twirled around her leg, and she stroked it gently, then picked it up with her other hand and brought it to her lips to kiss it lightly, shooting a languid glance towards him. She eyed his lips, but he seemed just content looking at the Eiffel Tower glowing in the darkness. Only after what felt like an eternity he turned his head and looked at her, his frown showing all his confusion at the sight of her staring at him.
“Will you kiss me, you stupid cat, or should I start getting jealous of a tower?” She tried to say it scornfully, but the happy sparkle in her eyes must’ve given away that she was joking because he chuckled. And then looked at her. And down to her lips.
“Are you ready?”
He beamed when she nodded and smiled at him. And as their lips met, everything else disappeared. It was only him, her, and the love they could finally share.
Fin