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When the night fades into the day and he must once again rise to face the day as Adrien Agreste, he is sure he has begun to dream. Consciousness is being Chat Noir, being bold and brave and a strong. He is a shadow in the night, a stray alleycat whose home is the streets of Paris and he is free to roam his domain.
Becoming Adrien Agreste is shrinking. It is enfolding all of the things people admire in Chat Noir into a compact ring and turning endless black into shining silver. Chat Noir is night and Adrien is not even day. He is the sun perhaps, steady and patient yet always seeming to flee, hidden from sight by mere clouds. Adrien is cursed to hang in the cosmos of space and wait for the planets to rotate around him, never being allowed to interact with them, forever fixed in space.
His only consolation is that the sun grows. Slowly, ever so slowly, but it does. One day perhaps, he may be a red giant. At least he will be closer than he is now. At least.
Until then, he promises himself that Adrien Agreste is a mere illusion.