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Chloé woke up to the sound of Sabrina calling her name.
“What?” said Chloé. Bright blue eyes peeked back at her, distorted by thick-rimmed glasses. She shook her head and relocated her brain to reality, which was significantly more frustrating than it should be. “Why are you bothering me?”
Sabrina flinched. “You were daydreaming. And muttering to yourself…”
“Feh,” said Chloé. “I’m allowed to do that. My words are wisdom and my daydreams are masterpieces.”
“Of course! You’re the best, Chloé,” said Sabrina, in the voice she used when she was afraid of having her privileges revoked. “No one can deny that.”
Chloé frowned at her. “What was I muttering about?”
Because she remembered her daydream. More or less. She hadn’t been sleeping — she’d been idly drifting, because the library was such a boring place to be. It ought to be outlawed. By law. Maybe she could ask Daddy to ban all libraries, so the teachers would send them to do group projects in some place that was more appropriate. A mall, or a hotel swimming pool, or a sunbed on Île aux Cygnes. The possibilities were many, and tantalising.
Anyway: her daydream. She had dreamt about Ladybug again, that much she was sure of. Ladybug’s strong arms around her, carrying her from the wretched streets to the golden heights.
“You’re safe with me,” said daydream Ladybug and winked. “I’ll make sure no one can touch you… except me.”
“Hmph,” said Chloé. “Multiple akumas have touched me already, because you were too slow.” Even in her reveries, she couldn’t let herself be a pushover.
But Ladybug pushed her over anyway by saying, “Then show me where they touched you, and I’ll touch those places with my own hands. I’ll make you all mine.”
“Ladybug—!”
Reality-Sabrina sighed. “You talked about kissing under golden stars. And you talked about back massages.”
Yes. True. Those had also been part of the daydream. “And?”
“And you said her name. A lot.”
“Well, of course I did.”
“It was so… sensual.” Sabrina looked down. Her eyes weren’t the same blue as Ladybug’s — maybe if she wore contacts, she could be adequate. A pigtail wig that looked like Ladybug’s hair shouldn’t be too hard to get a hold of, either.
Then again, what Sabrina really lacked was confidence and chutzpah. She was too meek to be Ladybug. That was why Chloé was always Ladybug when they dressed up to play superheroes in her room, and Sabrina was just the alley cat. That, and also… it was nice to be Ladybug every now and then. It was like touching her, or hugging her, without actually doing that.
“You should have me for a superhero partner, Ladybug,” said dream-Chloé. “Not that raggedy puss.”
“Partner,” echoed Ladybug. From her spot on the floor, she smiled cheekily up at Chloé, who was lying on her stomach over the side of the bed. “And what would you do, if we were partners?”
“I’d be the best partner you’ve ever had. I’d hunt down Hawk Moth and take him out, immediately.”
Ladybug giggled. Weirdly, she wasn’t wearing a mask, but it was definitely her. “And what would you do to me?”
“I would support you in everything you do,” said Chloé. And then, because she was still herself, she added: “But I’d expect even better from you, Ladybug.”
“You don’t understand,” said Ladybug. She reached up a finger. Slowly, she started to twirl a strand of Chloé’s hair around that finger, and Chloé could hardly breathe. “What I want to know, Chloé, is… what would you do… to my lips? To my body?”
Chloé’s heart beat like a rock slide. “… anything you want.”
“I’m always sensual,” said real-Chloé, turning up her nose. “Sensuality is in my blood. I can win over anyone I want with my charms.”
“Of course, Chloé,” said Sabrina. She was ever so slightly pink now. “A-anyone would be lucky to have you. Even her. You’re the prettiest girl in all of Paris. It’s just…”
“What? It’s just what?” Chloé was starting to feel annoyed. If she was going to be interrupted from her fantasies, Sabrina owed her not to drag it out like this.
“It’s just… that… well…”
Ladybug in the reverie also had her mask off later. Her full face was fetching, and annoyingly familiar, in a way that Chloé couldn’t place. But her eyes were still the same colour, the hair the same shade and style — except bound up in simple hairbands and not in ribbons. It was still beautiful.
“I’m the best kisser in the world,” Chloé told her.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to be the second best,” replied Ladybug. She wasn’t even in her Ladybug outfit anymore, but in simple commoner’s clothes. Of course, she didn’t look bad — because how could Ladybug possibly look bad? — but the getup did look lowly on her. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with an expensive trip to the mall.
However, the face needed no fixing at all.
“Let’s see how good you are, then,” said Chloé. Her dream breath caught ever so slightly as she drowned in the lakes that were Ladybug’s eyes. “Let’s… let’s…”
“As you wish,” said Ladybug and leant in. Their lips met in a fireworks.
“Out with it,” said real Chloé.
“I didn’t know you had feelings for her,” said Sabrina.
“What? Ladybug? Of course I have feelings for her,” snapped Chloé. “She’s the second prettiest girl in Paris.”
Sabrina grimaced. “No. Not her. Marinette.”
Chloé felt her eyes bulge out. “What? Dupain-Cheng? That’s ridiculous — utterly ri-dic-ulous. I’d never have feelings for her in a thousand years!”
“Well, um… it was Marinette’s name you were moaning…”
It was a horrible conclusion for daydream-Chloé to come to: Ladybug was very nearly as good at kissing as her. Possibly as good. The thought alone made her shiver.
Then again, it made her shiver less than kissing Ladybug.
“How was it?” said Ladybug as they pulled apart.
Chloé meant to say, “Acceptable,” and maybe she even did — but now, in hindsight, maybe it was true that the face opposite her looked a lot like baker girl’s…
Real Chloé pulled herself back out of her memory with an acidic, “Eugh! I was dreaming about kissing her? Preposterous!”
“We’re, um, also surprised,” said Sabrina.
“… we?”
Sabrina pointed to the chair next to Chloé. “We’re working on a group project together, remember?”
Chloé turned her head — and saw Dupain-Cheng, sitting there like a gaping-mouthed beet, staring back at her in obvious horror.
“I, I, I have to go,” said Dupain-Cheng, and pushed herself out of her seat with enough force to send her chair tumbling backwards. Then she ran out of the library with nigh-demonic speed.
“Feh,” said Chloé. “She’s not pretty at all. She’s not even close to Ladybug.”
Sabrina winced. “If you say so, Chloé.”
“Of course I say so. I’m always right.”
And nothing was learned — by Chloé — that day.