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It was already pretty late when I came home from my job. My second job that is. The Shopkeeper had called me at the office earlier that day and asked me to take care of some gang. Loid was on a business trip until the evening of the next day, so I called Franky and asked if he had time to watch Anya, luckily he said yes and I could make my kill.
"Mama!" Anya exclaimed when I entered the house.
"Hello Miss Anya, shouldn't you be in bed already." I looked over at Franky, hinting to him, that he should’ve put her in bed
"Anya was being a spy and spies don't need sleep!"
"Everyone needs sleep, even spies," I told her and at the same time realized how tired I was myself. "I'll take Anya to bed, thanks for watching her Franky."
"No problem," Franky said with a sigh. "I'll take myself outside."
I tucked Anya to bed and told her goodnight. She quickly drifted off and once I was sure she was fast asleep I quietly got up from her bedside and closed her door.
I really wanted to go to sleep myself, but before I did I needed to wash my dress. I always try to keep it clean but sometimes you just can't stop the blood from getting on you. I went to the bathroom sink and filled it up with warm water. I put my dress in to soak for about 10 minutes. While I waited I sat down on the couch.
"Yor?" Someone shook gently my shoulder. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times before I realized where I was.
"Are you alright?" Loid asked me with a concerned look on his face. "Why are you sleeping on the couch?"
"Because I-." I didn't know, why was I sleeping on the couch. I tried to recall what happened yesterday but I was so tired I barely remembered anything. "I think I fell asleep before I even made it to my bed, I guess," I awkwardly chuckled.
"Okay, that's a relief, I thought you were sick." Loid smiled.
Wait. Loid? "What you doing here, I thought you'd only get home tonight?"
"I wasn't planning on being here tonight, but we finished earlier than I expected."
"Oh, okay."
"I'll make breakfast soon, I'm just going to take a quick shower first, you can go wake up Anya."
"Okay." I was still a bit in a daze from waking up as I waddled over to Anya's room. I heard the shower turn on and it hit me. I remembered what had happened yesterday evening. My dress was still in the sink. Loid was in the bathroom and had probably seen it.
"Shit!" I exclaimed. This was not good. Normal wives don't leave their bloody dresses in sinks. Scrap that, normal wives don't even have bloody dresses.
I paced back and forth through the hallway. What was I going to tell him? What was I going to do?
I knew he wasn't dumb, so I couldn't just lie that it was my blood or something, he wouldn't believe me.
I nervously stayed in the hallway, waiting for Loid. I felt my face getting hot when the shower turned off. The bathroom door opened and Loid looked at me. He had seen it, he definitely had, even though his face was hard to read, I could tell.
I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what.
Loid looked behind him, I followed his gave over his shoulder and saw the sink. My black dress floating in red water. He looked back at me. "We'll talk about it later, okay?"
I looked at the floor, embarrassed. "Yeah."
It was a painfully silence breakfast. I was so stressed I barely ate. Loid didn't eat much either, probably because he was disgusted by my dress in the bloody water.
"Are Papa and Mama fighting?" Anya asked.
"No!" Both of us yelled in sync. We looked at each other and quickly looked away.
Anya had always been good at reading the room but would exaggerate it most of the time. Usually, she would say that Papa and Mama are flirting. We would always deny it, but Anya would roll her eyes because she knew that it was a bit true. Even though the relationship between me and Loid is fake, sometimes it does feel a bit real.
"Yor?" Loid asked. Immediately my face felt hot.
"Y-Yes?"
"Since Anya is staying at Becky's house today, why don't we go on a date?"
"Date? Now? I- I mean we could, b-but now?" I said with a shaking voice.
"Yeah, I'll drive us somewhere nice after we drop Anya off."
So that's what we did, we drove Anya to Becky's house and then Loid brought me to the beach.
"The beach?" I asked as I tried to listen to the waves to calm me down. Loid turned towards me.
"Yor, why-"
"Wait," I cut him off, "Let me talk first."
I didn't want to hear him talk about it, I didn't want him to know who I really was, and most of all I didn't want our lives to change.
"I'm sorry, Loid. I should have told you before I did this whole thing with you, but it's a secret group of assassins and you were a stranger and I didn't want to scare you. And later I didn't know how to tell you, not that I don't trust you or anything, but I haven't told anyone, not even Yuri."
I felt like crying or running away, but I had to stay strong. Loid looked at me, I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
It stayed silent for a while. He took a step closer towards me... and another one, until he was just a few inches away. My heart started to beat faster and faster, but that was normal, right?
He slowly lifted his hand and moved it towards my lower back.
“Wha-What are you d-doing?” I ask nervously. He pulled out my stiletto’s
“I should have noticed you kept these around.”
“Keep them around?” I repeated, “I mean, yeah just in case, but I don’t plan to hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it.”
“Deserve?”
“Well, asked to, I guess.” I tried to explain, but it all just sounded bad. “Look, I started my assassin job for Yuri, I couldn’t work, I was too young to get hired, so I needed something.”
Loid kept quiet.
“I should've told you, but if I did you wouldn’t have chosen me as Anya’s mother, would you?”
Loid sighed. “You’re right, I wouldn’t.”
‘No one can know.’ That’s what the Shopkeeper always told me, but here is was telling my fake husband. Well, probably fake ex-husband now.
“I’m taking, you want me out the house now?” I asked just to be sure.
Loid thought for a bit. “I don’t know... You’re a great mother for Anya.”
I couldn’t help but smile a bit. I always doubted my motherhood skills and him reassuring me always made me feel better.
“She got so attached to you,” he continued, “so, I don’t think it’s a good idea to just kick you out.”
I smiled at him. “That means a lot, thank you. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
He gave me a caring look, for once he was easy to read. “Don’t know what to do without me, huh?” he chuckled.
I realized how what I said could be interpreted. “What I mean is that we, uh, live together, you know, and- and divorce takes a lot of time and effort.” Usually I wasn’t bad at lying but I knew that Loid could see right through me. I couldn’t live without him and Anya, I was too used to it.
“You know,” Loid told me, “before I met you and Anya, I didn’t have that fun of a life, I would work until very late and leave very early, because the more time I spent at home, the lonelier I felt, starting this family made my life better, even though we aren’t a real family.”
Loid said exactly what I was feeling, except his story didn’t add up. “Before me and Anya, you had her with your ex-wife didn’t you?”
Loid smile faded. “I did.”
“Loid?” I looked him in his eyes. I hadn’t told him who I really was, but apparently I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been telling the truth. “What is the real story?”
Loid covered his face with his hands. “I can’t tell you, it’s-”
“Secret,” I finished for him. “I know how it goes, but I told you my secret, so you can trust me with yours.”
Loid grabbed my hand. “No, Yor. I can’t”
Ouch. That hurt. Not telling me, sure, I could understand that. But telling me I couldn’t be trusted, that was too far. It made me mad. I pulled my hand out of his. “I can’t see you right now, okay?” I told him, tearing up. “I’m going to stay somewhere else tonight. Don’t forget to pick up Anya.”
I turned my back and started running.
“Yor, wait!” I heard behind me, but I didn’t look back.
I knocked on the door and it swung open.
“YOR!” Yuri said with a big smile.
I hoped he wouldn’t notice I had cried. “Hi.”
“Is he here?” Yuri looked behind me to see if I was alone.
“Loid?” I felt like crying again, thinking of him. “He’s not here.”
“Good! Come in.” I walked over to Yuri’s couch and sat down, he sat next to me. I laid my head on his shoulder.
“You okay, sis? Did Loid hurt you?”
I couldn’t tell Yuri what had happened with Loid, he would totally freak out. “Just tired and I missed you. Can I stay here tonight” I lied.
Yuri gasped. “Of course you can! I always have room for you!”
I sighed. “Thanks, Yuri.”
The rest of the day was like a big blur, Yuri talked and I tried to listen, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Loid.
I knew I cared about him, but I didn’t think it would be this much. I felt betrayed. Even if our romantic relationship wasn’t real, I thought our friendship was. I could trust him with my life. I would’ve told him about the assassin job if the Shopkeeper had allowed me to. I thought he trusted me too, but I was wrong.
“Yuri?”
“Mm?”
“Do you think Loid and Anya miss me?”
Yuri sighed. “Unfortunately, yes, even though only I am allowed to miss you and love you. I must admit they probably do miss you.”
“Thanks, Yuri, you’re the best.”
He smiled big. “Better than Loid?”
“Tonight, definitely,” I told him.
He laughed. “Take that Loid!”
A wave of tiredness overtook me. “I’m going to bed, thanks for everything,” I said while I got up and walked to Yuri’s spare bedroom
“Anytime.”
A knock on my door woke me up.
“What?” I asked.
“Can we come in?” Yuri asked.
“Huh? Yeah,” I said and the door slowly opened, “Wait, who’s we?”
There Loid was, standing behind Yuri.
“Can we talk?” he asked me.
“Do we have to?” I asked while I buried my face into my pillow.
“Yes.” I felt him sit down at the bedside. “Can you give us a moment, Yuri?”
Yuri stayed quiet for a bit, but eventually said yes. “but don’t you do anything else than talk,” he added and closed the door.
No one said anything for a long time, but Loid finally started.
“I… had a pretty hard time growing up with the war,” he told me. “I lost some people who I cared about.”
Yep, I knew that feeling.
“I always wanted the war to be over. I helped in every way I could.”
I turned my head to look at him. He looked like a young boy, slumped over, nervously fidgeting with his hands. For the first time since I’d met him he didn’t look neat and proper. He noticed me looking at him and turned towards me.
“I lied, Yor, I’m sorry.”
“You can tell me the truth, Loid. I promise to keep it secret. After all, I’m good at keeping secrets.”
He sighed. “She’s not my real kid,” he said softly. “I adopted her, I never had another wife.”
“Wait, that’s it? You couldn’t tell me that?” I was confused, it’s not something to be ashamed of. Adoption is a good thing.
“There’s more, but I just can’t tell you here.”
I sat up in the bed. “Why not? Do you not trust Yuri?”
“We’re enemies,” Loid whispered.
I laughed. “You know the whole fighting for my love thing is a joke, right?”
Loid sadly chuckled. “Not what I meant, let’s just get out of here.”
“Okay.”
I got out of bed. Fixed myself up a bit in the bathroom, not that I could do much with the stuff Yuri had lying around. I thanked Yuri for his hospitality and left with Loid. We got in his car and he started driving.
“Where’s Anya?” I asked trying to break the awkward silence.
“She’s walking Bond with Franky.”
“He’s a good friend, you know, looking after her as much as he does.”
Loid laughed. “Yep,” he agreed, “but he only does it cause I pay him a lot, and because Anya’s important.”
“I think, Franky cares more about you, than about Anya.”
Loid took a deep breath. “Anya is important for everyone.”
I looked at Loid with admiration. “You really love her, don’t you?”
Loid glanced over at me and parked the car at the side of the road. He turned towards me. “Yor, I’m going to be completely honest with you, okay, and whatever I say, please don’t freak out or walk away or anything.”
I started to get a bit nervous. “Uhm, yeah, I promise.”
“Anya is part of a very important plan,” he started. “You know Damian Desmond is in her class right?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Well, as you probably know, his father is Donovan Desmond.”
I didn’t know where he was going, but I just listened carefully.
“So he’s the Chairman, as you may know. He’s the one responsible for the war.”
I started connecting the dots. “Okay, so you want him to stop the war and want to do that via Anya?”
“Exactly! The only place he ever shows his face at the Imperial Scholar meeting,” he explained.
“And that’s why Anya is trying so hard to be an Imperial Scholar.”
“Yep.”
“Okay, but there’s one thing I don’t understand, why are you doing this, isn’t this something some politics guy should be doing.”
“Well, they’ve been trying for years and got nowhere,” Loid said, with a noticeable irritation in his voice.
“But you’re still just a random psychologist.”
Loid looked at me with such a serious look, that made me sweat. “Yor, promise me you won’t tell a single soul about this.”
“Like I told you, I can keep secrets, believe me, Loid.”
Loid whispered something I couldn’t hear. “Sorry?”
“It’s not Loid, my name’s Twilight.”
It took me a second to process what he meant. The name Loid was fake, just like the rest of the story. I wondered what was real at this point.
“I’m a spy,” he continued, “My code name is Twilight.”
He stayed quiet, giving me some time to take in everything he just told me.
“Loid.., or Twilight-”
“Loid is fine,” he corrected.
“Loid,” I continued, “Does it feel bad?”
The question seemed to have caught him off guard a bit.
“The lying to everyone, the fake life, does it feel bad?”
He thought for a moment. “I didn’t at first, I didn’t know Anya of you, and I was used to it, you know, this is not my first mission.”
I nodded.
“But I got used to Loid,” he went on. “It doesn’t feel like a fake life anymore. I always told the spies in training that the most important part, was that spies don’t feel emotions, but as much as I don’t want to admit it, I really do feel emotions around the two of you.”
It made me feel good, knowing not everything was fake.
“Every time Anya laughs it makes me happy, and when she does well in school I’m really proud.”
I smiled. “I’m glad, she always tries to make you proud.”
Loid grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes. “And when you run away, I feel worried and stay awake the entire night wondering if you’re okay, thinking of places where you could be, so I can talk to you the next morning.”
It made my face feel warm. “Loid…”
“Everything I feel when I’m around you is real, Yor.”
I awkwardly laughed. “You make it sound like you feel weird things when I’m around.”
He smiled at me. A smile that felt real, more real than it had ever before. “I do, Yor, when you and Anya are with me I feel loved, which I haven’t for a long while.”
I smiled.
“I’m glad I married you, Yor. Even if you sometimes kill people.”
I leaned over and planted a kiss on Loid's forehead.
“I’m happy I married you too, Twilight, even if you also kill people sometimes.”