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It’s not at all unusual for Yor to walk into her studio apartment and find a singular rose waiting for her on the dresser. There were never any notes accompanying the flowers, but Yor never needed one to know what the message would be. The message was always the same.
He was in town.
There was never any regularity to his visits. Sometimes she would have the rose appear in her apartment every other week as he came into Berlint only to leave shortly after. Sometimes she wouldn’t have a whiff or petal to indicate his presence for months at a time. It was during those long quiet months where Yor found her thoughts lingering on his presence longer than usual. She lingered over thoughts of his well-being, if he was safe, if the Secret Police had finally captured the Westalian spy.
It wasn’t a line of thinking that brought her shame, even if others thought it should. But she had known the man for years and understood him and his mission almost as well as she understood her own.
Yor set down her lunch pail and purse on a nearby chair and approached her bureau slowly.
Over the years, they had established something of a code to the roses. A yellow rose meant he was in town, and that she should be careful when working jobs for Garden, just in case their paths crossed. It meant he didn’t have the time to meet her. The pink rose meant he was there, but he needed to finish his mission first and would be late to their usual meeting place. When it was a red rose, it meant that he was waiting for her at their usual place.
She wasn’t sure what a full bouquet of red roses was supposed to mean.
Yor gathered the bouquet and looked it over to ensure that there wasn’t anything else unusual about the flowers. She counted twelve red roses, accented by baby’s breath and greenery. Plain paper was wrapped around the bouquet, rather than some of the more elaborate, romantic options that most florists pushed when someone bought a whole bouquet.
A small flush spread across her cheeks at the thought of him giving her a bouquet with romantic intentions. She shoved down the feeling that bubbled up from her stomach and hurried to get the flowers into a vase before she left to meet Twilight on their little hilltop.
Whatever had him leaving a full bouquet of flowers must be rather urgent.
Twilight was sitting on their bench, smoking as he stared vacantly over the Berlint skyline. He didn’t move to watch her approach, but as Yor came to stand alongside the bench, he let out a steady stream of smoke and said, “I hadn’t expected you to arrive for a little while yet.”
Yor settled down onto the bench next to him and idly picked at the absent lint from her coat.
“You left me multiple roses,” she answered. “With greenery. I needed to make sure that you were alright.”
Twilight let out a breath. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it underfoot.
“I suppose I went a little overboard with the full bouquet.”
Yor couldn’t keep her smile entirely inside. “Just a little.”
Twilight pulled out another cigarette and put it between his lips. He absently flicked his lighter and held the flame to the end of the filter. When the tip began to glow, he closed the lighter and slipped it back into his pocket. Yor watched as he leaned forward, cigarette in hand, and rested his elbows on his knees.
Yor wet her lips. She gripped her coat above her knees. The questions she wanted to ask were ones she had asked before, but she hesitated to open her mouth. There was always a reason why he met with her between missions. Usually, the intent was just to allow him to decompress and process what had happened over the course of his work. Occasionally, she would ask questions about what had happened, or what his next mission would be. Twilight was always cagey about answering them, but this time Yor sensed that he might give her full answers.
She glanced around to ensure that there was no one else to overhear the following conversation.
There wasn’t anyone nearby. There hardly ever was.
“I swept the area prior to your arrival,” Twilight said. “And I’ve been jamming any long-distance microphones. You’re clear to speak.”
Yor took a deep breath and forced her fingers to relax their grip on her coat.
“Do you have another operation coming up?”
Twilight hummed a confirmation and brought the cigarette back to his mouth. He took a drag and let it out slowly.
“It’ll be right here in Berlint, so you might run into me from time to time,” he said. “Although, it might be better if you pretend that you don’t recognize me when we run into each other at the market.”
Yor noticed a few things immediately. First was the bitterness in which he spoke. Twilight always made a point to keep the way he felt about certain elements of his work hidden from others. For him to be so blatant about how he was feeling regarding this mission with her, meant that whatever WISE was having him do was extraordinarily distasteful to him.
The second thing she noticed was his assumption that they would cross paths during the times outside of their covert work. Mostly when he was in Berlint, he spent his time as someone else. Or he was stopping by for meetings with his handler or with informants. For them to cross paths at the market meant—
“Are you going into deep cover?” Yor asked. For a strange reason, her heart started to beat harder in her chest.
“On top of everything else they assign me,” Twilight muttered.
Questions burned in Yor’s throat. All of them vying for the privilege to be blurted out first. She expected the question of what type of operation he was running, or how long he was supposed to be in Berlint to be the winners overall. But instead, the question that came out was—
“Why would we have to pretend not to know each other?”
For the first time since she sat down, Twilight looked at Yor. Yor only somewhat surprised to see how dark the circles under his eyes were. His eyes themselves were bloodshot. His suit, something she had always seen him wear immaculately, was wrinkled and his tie was hanging loosely around his neck. The first couple buttons of his dress shirt were undone. For the first time, Yor saw the hollow of his throat.
Yor swallowed and forced herself to return her gaze back up to his face.
He made no indication that he’d noticed her eyes wandering.
“Because I doubt my wife would be comfortable with the relationship we have.”
Yor felt her blood pressure rise when he spoke of their relationship. It was unusual, certainly, but any relationship between an assassin and a spy would be unusual. Not that she would call what was between them a relationship.
There was that one time when he’d taught her how to kiss a person, but that didn’t really count. Surely.
“You’re married?!” How Yor managed to keep her voice from shrieking, she wasn’t entirely certain, but there was nothing she could do about the way her face changed from her usual pale complexion to vibrant vermillion.
Twilight laughed and leaned back against the bench. He ran the hand that held his cigarette through his hair.
“Not yet. But I have less than a week to get married and have a child before my next assignment begins.”
“Wha—?”
“Finding a child to play the part won’t be difficult, I only need to go to one of the many orphanages in Berlint and pick out the child most suitable to my needs. But finding a wife? Within a week? Not likely.”
Yor’s brain whirred as she processed just what Twilight was saying. She couldn’t imagine why his handlers would assign an operation where such an intricate deception would be required. Twilight had explained to her once, after much prodding from Yor, that he disliked working missions where he had to interact with children. He couldn’t easily understand them and found them unpredictable.
A couple of traits that had the potential to expose him.
A risk factor that would only increase with a spouse and child living in the same apartment as him. Yor supposed that Twilight might be lucky enough to find a wife within the short time frame his handlers had given him. But then she thought about all that time where they would be living together. No doubt his handlers wanted him involved in his child’s life, it had to be a clear point to his mission, and Twilight would execute it faithfully. He would be the best father and husband, because the mission required him to be so.
But when the mission was done…
Yor wasn’t ignorant of the types of missions he was given. She knew how he used and manipulated people to get what he and his bosses wanted, only to discard those people after their usefulness reached its end.
Sympathy for Twilight’s as of yet hypothetical family filled her. Depending on how he brought her into the marriage, his wife might be prepared for a sudden dissolution of the relationship, but a child?
The memory of Yuri crying after the deaths of their parents filled Yor’s mind. The grief she had come to terms with after her parents’ deaths stung sharply as she imagined another child being ripped away from their parents.
She moved before she had the opportunity to process what she was doing. For only the third time during their friendship, outside of when they fought and sparred, Yor touched Twilight.
Twilight’s frustrated grumbling ceased, and he stared down at her hand on his knee. He blinked a couple times before he lifted his gaze to meet hers.
“Yor?” He asked. He hesitated before he said her name. Even though she had told him her name for their moments on this bench, Twilight always hesitated before her name passed his lips.
“You should marry me.” It was a statement. The idea had barely begun to form in her head when she spoke the words into existence, but now that they were out there, now that she thought about what her idea would entail, the stronger her conviction grew that it was the right option for them to take.
“You should marry me. Think about it. I’ve raised a child before. We know I can’t cook, but I could keep an apartment nice and tidy. And I already know about your job, so you wouldn’t have to worry about avoiding suspicion with a spouse when it came to some of your hours working.”
The crease between Twilight’s eyebrows grew deeper the longer Yor spoke. She wasn’t sure if he was formulating the argument against her idea, or if he seriously considering it. She pushed forward.
“And the arrangement could benefit me as well. My brother’s been asking me about getting a partner lately, and an arrangement like this could really put his mind at ease. It could help me blend in to avoid attention from the SSS too.”
Twilight turned away from Yor and stared back out over the city skyline. The sun was beginning to set, casting a red hue over the buildings.
“It would be a temporary arrangement. Do you think you could bear to place a kid back in an orphanage at the end?” His voice barely made it above a whisper.
A short bark of a laugh escaped Yor. Her hand tightened around his knee.
“I think a better question is if you could bear it.”
Twilight avoided making eye contact with Yor for a few moments before he turned slowly to meet her gaze. It was a display to show how disinterested he was in the topic, but Yor knew him well enough. She knew that each second was carefully calculated to give off such an impression.
This was the reason why he had left that bouquet. This was the point where he was stuck.
Using and manipulating adults was one thing. A child another.
“And I won’t let you go too far,” she said. “I swear that I will put that child’s safety over you.”
It was perhaps a strange thing to promise, especially since she had just proposed marriage, but this was what Twilight needed from her. Someone to balance out his mission-first drive.
Twilight searched her face for any sense of deception or lack of conviction. She remained as she was, even though her heart was beginning to pound loudly in her chest. Even though Twilight hadn’t agreed to her offer yet, she couldn’t help but start to imagine what it would be like. Twilight and her, and a little boy or girl to hold their hands as they walked down the street. Listening to an excited child as they told her about their day.
It felt right. Like a missing piece of a puzzle being found.
Yor sat still, keeping her hand on his knee as she turned out to look over the city. The red hues of everything grew stronger, and shadows were beginning to crawl up from the ground. It wouldn’t be long before everyone would be making their way back home for the night.
Twilight’s hand dropped down to cover Yor’s. She didn’t need him to say anything for her to know what he meant, but when he spoke, a rush of butterflies in her stomach swept through her.
“Yes, I accept your proposal. I would be honored to become your husband.”