The practice hall was empty now. The moonlight cut through the high glass windows, slicing across the wooden floors like spotlight lines.Marinette sat on a folded costume rack, legs swinging, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands.
Kagami stood across from her, arms crossed, back straight.
Still. Waiting.
"I'm not going to ask again," Kagami said quietly.
Marinette looked up. Her eyes were wide. Nervous. But not running.
"…Ask what?" she whispered.
Kagami exhaled through her nose. Soft. Almost frustrated. "What this is." She gestured vaguely between them. "Between you and me. The kiss. The looks. The way you smile like it scares you. I need to know."
Silence.
Marinette looked down at her lap. Her voice barely made it out.
"I didn't plan this."
"I know."
"I still have feelings for Adrien. But I think… maybe not the kind I thought I did."
Kagami stepped closer, slow and sure, the way she always did. "You kissed me back."
Marinette flushed, but met her gaze. "Because I wanted to."
A long pause.
Then Kagami said, "Do you want to do it again?"
Marinette nodded.
Kagami leaned in, slower this time. Asking, not taking.Marinette met her halfway — a soft, lingering kiss under moonlight, no audience, no script.
No act.
When they parted, Kagami pressed their foreheads together and whispered:
"This is real, isn't it?"
Marinette smiled, breath catching. "Yeah… it really is."
Gabriel Agreste stood in front of the glowing containment vault in his secret atelier, hands behind his back, spine iron-straight.
The butterfly-shaped Miraculous glinted ominously in its glass dome.
Nathalie's voice echoed from behind. "The new akuma signals you've sensed… they're different."
"They're stronger," Gabriel said. "Rooted in confusion. In emotional instability."
He turned slowly, adjusting the cuffs of his pristine white suit.
"I've waited. I've watched. Adrien's walls are finally cracking."
Nathalie hesitated. "…You're going to target him directly?"
"No," Gabriel said smoothly, dark eyes glinting. "That would be… suspicious."
He tapped the digital projector. A scene unfolded: Adrien on stage with Luka. Then with Marinette. Then Marinette with Kagami. A kaleidoscope of messy emotion.
Gabriel smiled coldly.
"Why touch the flower, when you can poison the soil?"
Later that night, Marinette wrote in her sketchbook. But she wasn't designing. She was journaling — something she hadn't done in months.
"Dear brain,I think I'm in love. Not with Adrien. Not in the way I thought.With Kagami. And it's terrifying because she sees through me — all the versions of me — and still chooses to stand beside me.I don't think she needs Ladybug.I think she just wants me.And I think I want her, too."
Across the city, Adrien stood on his balcony — not as Chat Noir. Just as Adrien.
He held his phone. Stared at the message thread with Luka.
Last message:
Luka: "Still thinking about the stage lights?"
Adrien: "Still thinking about you."
Adrien exhaled, soft and real.
Then looked up at the stars.
Something was coming.
He could feel it.