She wasn't oblivious. But that wasn't for lack of trying.
No matter how she denied it to herself, she felt the flutter in her stomach. She noticed how she smiled at Chat's over-the-top flirting.
She shoved it aside, covered it up with a smart remark, and moved along.
She focused extra hard on Adrien, reminding herself of every appealing aspect of his character.
It was just so much easier to like Adrien - there was so much less internal conflict, so much less worry over every possible consequence -
What's more, with him, she could be Marinette. She wouldn't have to be careful all the time with her every move, her every mannerism, to ensure her civilian identity remained secret.
There wasn't as much at stake.
She let Chat think she didn't notice the way he looked at her, full of respect and adoration. But she wasn't oblivious.
It was too real. He was too close to loving her, and she wasn't there yet.
She could get there.
But she wasn't yet.
It would be easier, she thought, if he put her on a pedestal. If he worshipped the ground she walked on and viewed everything she did through rose-colored lenses.
It would be so much easier if she thought it wasn't real, that his crush was no more than an unhealthy infatuation he would soon overcome.
But she was not oblivious. And she knew the truth.
He wasn't oblivious. He saw something on Ladybug's face, heard something in her giggle.
She felt something. It might not have been strong. It might not have been like what he felt for her.
But she felt something.
And it made him hurt even more.
In so many ways, she was so close. But even as she gravitated closer to him, she drifted further away. At the end of the day, she had a civilian life she was eager to get back to, and for very good reasons she didn't want him included in it.
He wished that his affections were only puppy love. He wished that he only had a boyish crush on her, that he would snap out of his lovesick fog one day after seeing some other pretty girl shoot a smile in his direction.
But he had no delusions. He did not know who she became without the mask. He didn't know anything about the people she loved or the ways she filled her free time.
But he had seen her cleanse akumas and save civilians. He had seen her leap fearlessly into the mouth of a T-Rex. He had called her out on her mistakes and seen her do her best to make them right.
He didn't know her name, but he knew her. She was as real as any unmasked person he'd ever met.
As real as himself.
Realer.
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