Help Me Remember

Chapter 7

It was a lovely evening in Paris. The clouds were puffy and low, and the setting sun tinted them with pastel shades of pink, yellow, and orange. The air was cool, but it wasn't cold. Perfect.

"So, how has your day been? Nathanäel asked timidly, his hands in his pockets.

"Fine." Marinette responded. "I didn't really do much. You?"

"It was all right, I suppose. I did some artwork and that's about it." Nathanäel held the restaurant door open for Marinette. They had arrived at a small pasta restaurant. They sat down at a round table and ordered.

"So... can I see some of your drawings?" Marinette asked while they waited for their meals.

"Uh... s-sure!" Nathanäel's face turned a shade of red that almost exactly matched his hair as he began frantically flipping through his sketchbook. He'd love to show Marinette some of his work, but the problem was that most of the drawings were of her. He finally found a few that were different.

"This one is just a sketch of a bracelet I saw. I thought it'd be cool to try and draw." He shrugged and handed the page to Marinette.

"Oh, cool!" she said. "It looks great."

He flipped through and found some illustrations of Ladybug and Chat Noir. They were well-drawn and perfectly colored. He'd spent many hours creating them. He passed the book to Mari.

"Ladybug and Chat Noir." He smiled proudly.

Marinette looked through the illustrations of the heroes. A girl in a red and black spotted suit with a blonde boy in a black suit and cat ears, leaping from a building. A close up of their hands, doing a fist bump, with the background of the city of Paris at night, the lights seeming to actually glow on the page. The two of them brandishing their weapons, a staff and a yoyo. Chat Noir kissing Ladybug's hand, a look of surprise and annoyance on the latter's face. The two of them smiling for a camera. Finally, a kiss between the two.

The drawings stirred something inside of Marinette. An unidentifiable feeling that felt familiar and warm. A memory tugged at her brain, struggling to form. She tried to remember, but the thought was just barely out of her reach.

"These look amazing." Marinette said in awe. "You're really talented."

Nathanäel blushed harder, his face now even redder than his hair. "Really? Thank you." The food arrived and Nath paused after a few bites of his Alfredo pasta. "They saved my life several times, you know. You even helped them save me once, when I was akumatized."

"Really?" Marinette set down her fork. "Huh. So could you tell me more about them?"

Nathanäel pulled out a few loose pieces of paper. One of them was a painting of a butterfly. One side of the insect was pure white, and the other was black and purple.

"This is an akuma." He said. "If someone is feeling a negative emotion, such as sadness or anger, a villain called Hawkmoth sends one of them." Nath pointed to the dark side of the butterfly. "They're sent to the person, who becomes a supervillain. We call this being akumatized." Nathanäel flipped back to the Ladybug and Chat Noir drawings. "Chat Noir has a 'cataclysm' superpower. It allows him to touch an object and destroy it. Ladybug has a 'lucky charm' power where she is given a common object that she uses to help her somehow. She purifies the akuma." Nathanäel gestured to the white half of the butterfly painting. "That's about it."

Marinette felt strange. "But...who are they really? Under the masks?

Nathanäel closed his sketchbook. "That's the thing: nobody knows."