Marinette had run so fast that it took Alya a while to catch up. Though they've trained a lot together in the past, Marinette had always been superior at running. She finally caught up to the brunette when she ran into the dorms, into their room and flopped onto the bed.

"What's wrong girl?" Alya huffed out in one go. She was resting on her knees to try and catch her breath. "Why'd you run off like that?"

She said something but it was muffled by the pillow she had buried her face into.

"Can't quite understand you with that pillow in your face."

"He has blonde hair, Alya. Blonde. Hair." She groaned.

"Yeah…" She had caught her breath and flopped onto the bed beside her. "I saw. What about it?"

"He also has green eyes, Alya."

"Yeah. You're losing me, girl."

Marinette huffed and turned her head to the side. She lifted her arm from her side and picked up the picture frame from off of her side table. The picture inside it was of two people: a young boy and a young girl. They were standing by the water. The girl was huddled up against the boy's chest and the boy's arm was wrapped around her waist. He was making a peace sign at the camera with the other. They both had wide grins.

Looking at the boy in the picture, Alya caught on. "Hold on. You can't possibly think that."

"But what if he is Alya?" Marinette flopped onto her back and covered her eyes with her arm. "What if he's been under our noses this entire time?"

"Marinette," Alya slowly sat up. She also took her mask off. There was a different emotion in her eyes. Marinette knew what was coming. "Don't."

"It's been seven years."

"He's not dead."

Alya sighed and Marinette rolled over on her left side away from Alya's view, clearly done with the conversation. It's a conversation that they have every year.

"Marinette, I won't pretend that I knew him before he disappeared." The bluenette made a small flinch of movement. "But it's been seven years, Mari."

"I just can't believe that he's dead, Alya. He has to still be alive."

"If you say so."

"I have no idea what happened, Plagg. She just totally freaked out." Plague was leaning on the outside wall of his makeshift room snacking on camembert. He seemed aloof to the conversation before he answered.

"You said your hood fell off?"

"Yes."

"You know your eyes are visible through your mask, right?" Plagg deadpanned.

"What's your point?"

"My point is that she could've found out who you are."

Plague had a double take. "But how? She hasn't noticed before."

"You haven't shown your entire face before either. You couldn't have expected her to recognize you just from your voice alone. Puberty has done you a favor actually. Your voice was pretty squeaky."

Plague ignored the last comment instead to think of his situation. For as long as he's been here he never thought of what he would do if Marinette found out who he was. Hawkmoth is always the head problem, but what would he do? When they were younger they were inseparable, but he's never heard her say his real name while he's been here. Master Fu said she was grieving but he still has his doubts. What if she's forgotten about him? Or worse. What if she hates him?

"What am I going to do, Plagg?"

"Lie."

"What?"

"She doesn't know your identity. She just has a hunch. If you don't feed it, then she'll forget all about it."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Then there was a commotion. There was a stampede of clanking footsteps running towards them. Plagg, hearing the footsteps too, changed into his kwami form and hid inside his jacket. True to their ears, an army of guards stormed past them.

"It looks like they're heading towards the courtyard. Did something happen?"

"Follow them and find out, " Plague's voice was muffled from inside his jacket. "Finally some action!"

With a roll of his eyes, Plague followed after the guards.