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She wouldn’t admit to it if you asked her, but Lila Rossi has a rather strange hobby. You see, despite her great collection of wigs, contact lenses and disguises she rarely has reason to actually switch it up from the three she uses for her mothers or to even act too different between them. Sure this is kind of a necessity if she wants to keep her operation afloat, but as many tales have told over the years, the great evil of being safe is that it gets really really boring.
Which brings us back to Lila’s hobby. You see, she really wants to flex her costuming and character building prowess, and her best solution for this was using an online wheel-picker to choose attributes for her to play then setting up anonymous dating profiles for them. Sure it seems inelegant to the outside observer, but it made sure she never accidentally typecast herself. Or at least she swears by that explanation. And it isn’t like it leads to too much too often, anyway. It was usually a few pictures uploaded, chatting with people for a day or two and then the account of the hour went cold and she began the cycle anew.
Usually being the operative word. Because lately, something rather peculiar has been happening with her.
It started close to the usual script and about two and a half months ago. The wheel declared her identity to be a cold, aloof anime fan and aspiring filmmaker, which seem to have attracted the attention of a rather “genki” type of girl (which here means very cheery and energetic, according to Lila’s research). She looked to be her age, had blue-ish twin tails and most of her pictures involved her posing in a strawberry pink dress and in front of various magical girl merchandise. Lila wasn’t sure if it was just her pretentious artsy side talking but she kinda appreciated the contrast she had with the tomboy look she’s chosen for this excursion.
And while talking about contrast, despite being complete opposites and Lila honestly not being certain if she overplayed the “cold” part of her equation, the girl stuck around talking to her. In hindsight Lila could’ve noticed that this went on way longer than her usual charades did but sometimes the sheer fascination of where an experiment is going makes you lose track of time, or at least that’s how the girl insists it happened. But long it went on, until the girl on the other end insisted they meet up with each other in person before even considering the prospect of dropping their little situation.
The piéce de résistance of the whole sorted affair came when the two actually did end up meeting. It was a nice chilly afternoon at a cozy little café and the two sat across from each other. The scene would’ve been nearly idyllic if Lila’s partner hadn’t decided to start their conversation with a veritable carpet bombing.
“My name’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Yours?”
“P-pardon?!” Lila managed to choke out before descending to a brief coughing fit despite not even having sipped into her mocha yet.
“I just wanted to ask you about your name. Don’t tell me you’re that shy~” The girl, apparently Marinette, clarified while dragging that last y oh so obnoxiously long just like she tended to in text.
“My apologies, it’s just that you share a name with…” she trailed off a bit to finally drink some of her mocha and find a suitable description to the Marinette she knew “with someone I’m acquainted with, basically.”
After a moment filled with nothing besides Marinette’s face contorting into that special fifty-fifty mix of an earnest dumb smile and a cheshire that effortlessly gets Lila to consider taking hand to hand classes, Lila hastily tried getting back to her script.
“My name is Fleur Rosa, I have recently moved here from the outskirts of the country so I haven’t got a chance to get into a school. What about you?” It was originally just to sweeten her up but now these small questions gained a lot of weight.
“Ooh your name’s so flowery it’s cute!” Lila- pardon, Fleur, reflexively scoffed at the compliment, but her partner kept on bulldozing by “I’m in my final year of Sylvain art school. Tho they haven’t been teaching us how to do manga the jerks”
“I mean manga is japanese comics so it would be kinda hard to do them for a french girl, no?” Now as much as one half of her was this close to making her brag about her acting this in character under pressure out loud, another part of her trying to figure the girl out. Because in hindsight the resemblance was uncanny. And those comments…
“Oh come on, there’s a style to it! I thought you would understand” Marinette continued with an exaggerated pout. Right, she was still there and talking and stuff. But like, she had to have caught on right? Or did she just genuinely didn’t notice they were doing the same thing?
“I do get it. I’m just not sure you get how artstyles work.” Yeah, slowly move toward the idea of breaking it up by playing into conflicting opinions. Fleur was now pretty certain Marinette just genuinely didn’t know who she was dealing with. Honestly it was some wonder she wasn’t busted faster given she was doing this mess with her own name.
“Alright alright, I’ll let it go” Marinette said with a playful giggle, finally delivering the mental left hook to match her earlier right. “You wanna have a watch party later or something? Found a subtitled musical version of Death Note yesterday. Seems like something you’d have a fun time ripping to shreds lol.”
Marinette took a sip from her own order with a cutesy smile while Fleur’s mind swerved so far into damage control mode she had to ignore for a moment that this chick seriously said “lol” out loud. Sadly she couldn’t even ponder on whether or not this proved that Marinette knew her alter-ego of Lila, as her giggle indicated Fleur may have been a bit too obvious with her furious confusion.
“Knew you’d love it. So what do you say? Wanna check it together?” She winked. Fleur was this close to losing it but she had to compose herself. Even if, honestly speaking for once, the offer didn’t sound too horrible.
“It sounds quite lovely I must say, but…” she trailed off for a bit, and maybe it was just the infectious energy of the role Marinette played, or that they talked too much, but the idea of rejecting her felt a bit hard, strangely enough. Still, it felt like she was starting to catch onto her operation so there was not much else to do.
“I don’t think this is gonna work out” she sighed, and continued on before having to deal with Marinette making puppy eyes “I just- I’m not sure I can handle your energy too well in person. I’m so sorry.” It was rather inelegant but it had to do.
There was no response, not a legible one at least. She smiled and tried saying something but the words were bent out of shape by her tears. Then she went to the bathroom and Fleur took this as her exit cue.
And sure, it felt a bit painful of a memory but in retrospect it was simply baffling for what it would wind up starting not long after.
She tried to keep going with her little acting exercise afterwards, because of course whatever Marinette was doing back there couldn’t hold her back, but she found the routine had changed.
For the next twenty three tries, with so little fail she would’ve been proud of herself in any other context, Lila would get too deep into the conversation until her partner demanded an in-person date, she’d go on the date to find her partner was actually some permutation of Marinette Dupain Cheng and then she’d hastily break it off.
She still isn’t sure about how it kept happening, or if she is she refuses to tell. Perhaps it was something about the way the other girl played her role and kept up the talk that just lured Lila in. Maybe Lila just wanted to go out more and the girl subconsciously played on that. Or maybe she was just on an improbable losing streak.
But, approaching the date after that, making it number twenty five by Lila’s count, she had an epiphany.
Marinette was teasing her!
It made so much sense from her perspective. Marinette must’ve somehow figured out what Lila was doing and got in on the action. That’s why she bothered so much with acting so different but still gave her real name every time. She was playing her own roles and a game of chicken with Lila at the same time. Which would mean that Lila has been letting herself lose twenty four times so far! Well no more! With the idea seemingly perfectly clear in front of her, Lila was determined to defeat Marinette.
This was the mindset that Lila, or for the duration of that evening Épilobe Gialla, arrived at the fancy restaurant her date had picked out for them.
Honestly the place was very large, if the Marinette of the hour wasn’t waving her over to get her attention, Épilobe would have probably spent an hour trying to find her among the endless identical tables with red tablecloth and four seats.
The girl herself fit the aesthetic like a glove, with a large dark dress featuring small red accented pieces looking right out of the closet of a princess, her hair tied in two drills tastefully resting in front of her shoulders and her face adorned with some exquisite make-up. Honestly if the wheel’s choices didn’t lean into a valley girl mood for Épilobe she would’ve openly despaired at what she’s chosen to show up in.
Sure, the yellow cocktail dress and black blazer combo seemed nice on paper but between the blonde seventies wig with pink accents on her head and the cutest princess of the french monarchy seemingly made manifest in front of her, nobody could blame her for feeling a little ill-suited for this place. Regardless, the role demanded the outfit and she had to deliver.
“So we like, finally get to meet for real? You’re totes cuter than in your pictures! Name’s Épilobe Gialla bee-tee-dubs, but you can call me Gi if you want cuz that name is totes weird.” Épilobe felt her skin grow just a little bit tighter with each bit of this unique vocabulary coming out of her mouth but she had to remind herself this was for the sake of not just expanding her horizons but to get Marinette to quit first. And personally inconveniencing Marinette triumphed over her personal comfort always.
“T-thank you, I suppose, Gialla. My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng and I have to say you are quite above par yourself” She was visibly getting nervous, no doubt perplexed that Épilobe talked like this in real life too. Perfect.
“Oh-em-gee your name is so pretty actually! But like, how’d you even get on that site princess?” That last one was a weird slip of the tongue on her part but as long as she could keep the lead on the conversation she could deal with that.
“Oh? Well I suppose it’s- hold on a second.” she paused as the waiter brought them their menus. After approximately five minutes worth of eternal silence (and some squinting as Épilobe tried to figure out how to best misinterpret the variety of foods in front of her) Marinette spoke up again.
“Waiter, waiter! I would like a serving of foie gras please.” she said with such casual commandment it almost made it seem like she was a real high class girl. But her and the waiter both decided to focus their eyes on Épilobe who took an awkward second to realise she hadn't ordered yet.
“Oh oopsies, I’d like the Beef Burgie-thing please! Oh, and do y’all have coke here?”
“The Beef Bourguignon?” asked the waiter in a surprisingly reserved tone for how stupid Épilobe was intended to sound.
“Yeah that one! Thankies!” she waited a moment while the waiter left before turning back to Marinette with an annoyingly drawn out “Soooooooooo?”
“Oh, right. Apologies.” she paused to clear her throat a little, beginning to nervously fiddle with the cutlery. “I suppose it was more of a want for change than anything. My family has some expectation as to who I get to court, regardless of how well the two of us get along or…” she paused again, looking to the side for a second “Other incompatibilities. For lack of a better word, this has been my experiment on what it would be like to try the romantic experience on my own” she reached to somewhere on the right of her plate before sighing disappointedly, presumably realising she forgot to order a drink.
“You can have my coke when it gets here!” that hurried line got a weird look from Marinette prompting a course correction. “Sorry sorry, that was just like, a bit heavier than I was expecting. Thought you might need the refreshment. Sorry to be such a lame-o gee-eff.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary, the apologies I mean. You are quite refreshing yourself if I say so myself” she briefly let out a cute little ‘Ohoho’ as she realised her accidental wordplay. “I mean I can tell you aren’t really experienced in…” she gestured broadly “All this, but just you being this energetic and at least trying to help makes the thought of you leaving rather unbearable” she reached for the non-existent drink again. Something about her felt earnest but Épilobe couldn’t let herself be distracted for now.
“Oh. Oh Em Gee! You’re being like, so flattering right now! I’m sure any gal would totes kill to be with you, princess” the nickname slipped out again but this time she thought she might as well lean into it “You’re like, a disney girl made real!”
“Ah, um I appreciate your words.” she fanned her face with her hand. At this point Épilobe was shocked the girl didn’t pack an actual fan. Marinette was preparing for some sort of follow-up but their food arrived and she instead chose to focus on that.
The rest of the dinner passed without much more than glances at each other. Neither thought it’d be polite to speak while eating, or at least they considered the practice embarrassing so they did not. Besides, the food was evidently really good at this place so Épilobe got a little busy savouring its taste.
After it was over, the two walked to the exit together, fingers locked while Épilobe was racking her brain on how to deal a decisive finishing blow to this romantic soul beside her (helpfully distracting it from how this whole arrangement was making her feel).
But evidently that’s where the solution lied. Marinette chose to lean into the romantic side of the character but also evidently didn’t want to move things too fast. Hell, she couldn’t even go for a full hand holding yet! Which means that if things were to speed along suddenly, there’s no chance she could still keep it together.
“So this is where our paths diverge for now, I suppose. Thank you for letting me truly live for a day. I-” Her words, as well as her entire brain system, came to an abrupt stop as Épilobe grabbed her waist and dipped the two of them, then planted a firm kiss on her cheek.
“Consider this my parting gift.” she said as she helped the other girl stand up straight again and walked to the door. “Many thanks for today princess! You totally sent me!” she winked at Marinette before skipping out the door and down the street, leaving the other girl red as the accents on her dress and absentmindedly tapping the spot the kiss landed upon.
Lila’s win was confirmed merely a day later when that Marinette’s account messaged her something or other involving ‘finding her phone’ and ‘ceasing this unholy activity with their daughter once and for all’ and things like that. If she didn’t know better she’d probably be mounting a rescue operation for the girl, possibly involving climbing a giant tower with her hair, but better she knew and the rescue operations remained unmounted.
Still though, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some feeling of honesty surrounding Marinette that time. There was no concrete proof either way but a feeling kept tugging at Lila’s side, telling her that this was the real Marinette, that she waited all of school and twenty four dates to scout out Lila and come clean to her on the twenty fifth, only for Lila to squander that thinking its a game. That for one of the first times ever Lila did actual tangible damage with her games and in a true once in a lifetime event actually felt bad about it.
Her worries were eased a bit when the next presumed Marinette arrived in her dms (What, just because she’s despaired doesn’t mean she’ll actually stop.) but they haven’t stopped. Luckily if there’s one thing Lila is good at, and she insists the number is way higher, it’s forming complex schemes while under pressure and on a short notice.
And thus the plan was born. The plan being, keeping the usual charade up for twenty four more Marinettes and not counting any other dates that might happen, then going to the twenty fifth as Lila to try and get through to whatever Marinette really had going on and very maybe earning her a princess.
She shook her head clear of that last bit and opened up her randomizer app, as her operation began.
And sure enough, twenty four Marinettes came and went back to back, the two girls continuing to change gimmicks and playing their little game. Sometimes Lila cut things off first, sometimes it was Marinette. Sometimes it lasted multiple days, sometimes it barely lasted for the one date. But that much didn’t matter anymore. For once, Lila was on the initiating end of revealing someone’s identity and trying to figure out someone’s motivations but that needed a connection to build between them first.
Even knowing it took several weeks, from Lila’s perspective it still felt a bit like she was just trying out “Fleur” then blinked and was suddenly in a bakery waiting for lucky number fifty. No gimmicks this time, and no name invented just for this either. This was the big leagues now.
She still hasn’t gotten used to being the one waiting. It wasn’t a first per se but it was a sixth at most so it still left her with her rapidly cooling mocha she brought in from outside and a lot of extra time spent on dumb trains of thought like this.
Then, finally, she appeared.
And oh kwami did she ever appear.
No actually, she decided, ‘appear’ as a phrase did not do this justice. The girl downright manifested into the bakery, presumably after either exercising or modeling for the statue of David and sat down in front of her in all her amazonian glory.
But that last part highlighted a bit of a problem. Because despite any gimmicks or costuming, massive physical changes take a lot of time and effort to acquire and sometimes are outright impossible, and the frequency of dates meant that Marinette always remained approximately the same height and build save for anything involving stuffed clothes and height extending shoes which only did so much.
And then there was this sunkissed colossus of Rhodes in a sports bra and shorts in front of her who while definitely very aesthetically pleasing was very much unobtainable for Marinette in the two days since they’ve last seen each other.
“Uhhhh hi?” The newest maybe-Nette said, clearly confused about why Lila was staring so intently at her stomach.
“Bwuh?!” Lila tried and failed to say. After a moment of gathering the parts of her brain that spilled trying to touch the girl in front of her she tried again. “Uh hey hi! The lila’s Name! I-I mean my name is Lila. Rossi. Lila Rossi. That’s how names work. How does your names work?” That was definitely functional but honestly not much better.
The other girl simply giggled “Like the name, honestly. Very colourful. Mine is Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” For all the lovely looking muscle on this Marinette’s arms, her actual left hooks probably couldn’t do half the damage to Lila as that sentence did. “Uuuuhh is everything alright Lila?”
“How? How did you get this…big?” While the questions and concerns in Lila’s brain were so numerous they got stuck on eachother, this one just managed to slip on through into the physical plane.
“I mean, I think it’s mostly genetics and training a lot since I got into collége. Why exactly?” Lila wanted to lie, say she needed a personal trainer or deflect with quick compliments but evidently what she wanted was out of the question.
“I- It’s that I met quite a few people who looked a lot like you, same kinda hair just without the red streak, same eyes, same name and same build so I kinda thought they were the same person? But I- you- bweh!” She was working herself up past the point of words “You’re so much hotte- taller and buffer than all of them and I- that shouldn’t be possible if you are all the same right? So what the hell is going on?!”
Marinette furrowed her brows for a bit before seamlessly latching onto the worst possible way of continuing Lila’s train of thought and misery.
“Honestly it is kinda weird now that I think about it.”
“WHAT DO YOU ME-” she took some deep breaths to at least stall her anger. “So you’re saying you met some too?”
“I mean yeah I think I’ve met one in a fancy dress, found one on the dating site that wanted to get me into some anime, a full time larper, a wannabe fashionista and one that was measuring me to build a fitness app or something. You know any of them?”
Lila wanted to say a lot of things. She wanted to say that she might've accidentally condemned Princess to a house arrest. She wanted to say that this is the fiftieth time she’s running this racket so it’s easier to find ones she doesn’t know. She wanted to say that despite the previous option she doesn’t recognise the larper Marinette. She wanted to ask if she could touch her abs. But amidst everything she could only make one noise.
One loud, anguished scream.
And that was the tale of how Lila made the first dates of fifty Marinettes a little weirder.