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“Do you believe in love?” asks Ryūko, perched next to Ladybug atop the Eiffel tower.
“Love?” Ladybug looks at her, at the riffling of her hair as the wind sweeps through it.
“Yes. Do you believe in love, Ladybug?”
“I guess… I do.”
Ryūko smiles, peering down at the city below, kicking her legs out over the edge. “What do you think love is, Ladybug?”
“I…” starts Ladybug, though she closes her mouth a second later with no idea what she could say next. What is love? If only she had a way to come up with a good answer for something like that… “I think… love is doing good,” she says. “I think… in general, love is to do good things to people. And then… yeah. You do it because you like them.”
“Do you have to like someone to love them?”
“Um.” They are heroes, aren’t they? Don’t they show love to the people they save? Ladybug definitely doesn’t like everyone she saves. But is that a different type of thing? “I think it helps,” she says, very aware of how dull and empty it sounds. “Yeah, maybe. But maybe not.”
Ryūko sighs, but she sounds pleased. “Do you think love is forever?”
Ladybug kicks her own legs. Here at the highest spot in Paris, there is no risk of anyone listening in; still, it’s a very personal topic. And the person she’s speaking to is, well…
“I believe love changes,” she murmurs, just loud enough for Ryūko’s enhanced senses to pick up over the wind. “It’s so many things. Because there are so many ways of doing good, and… and you can start off loving someone as a friend, but later you can love them as a partner. And there are lots of different types of love between that, too. I don’t think love is permanent like it’s just there… but I think if you love someone, then that matters forever. Even if the type of love changes.”
Ryūko puts her hand on Ladybug’s. “I like that,” she says, smiling serenely into the oncoming night. “It’s honest.”
Flushing slightly pink, Ladybug smiles. “Not very eloquent, though.”
Silence falls between them. It’s a silence that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t ask to be filled. As the sun sets over Paris, they watch with quiet breaths and held hands.
“Do you love me, Ladybug?” asks Ryūko, just as the last of the sun disappears over the horizon.
Ladybug smiles. Finally, an easy question.