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Yor had never cared to question the quirks of these Eden Academy gatherings until about ten minutes ago, when she and Loid were ushered into the hotel room by the attendant. It isn’t that she’s suspicious of any possible misdemeanours—in fact, she’s certain there’s nothing to be suspicious of, especially not when they are surrounded by so many VIPs—but Eden Academy has never been short of surprises.
This time, it’s a special first-years retreat, and the invitation is extended to the parents. Loid had made Yor and Anya spend a gruelling week preparing for anything that could possibly happen. Unfortunately, the one person he’d hoped would show, Donovan Desmond, had not deigned to appear. (At least that explains his mood at dinner—Yor was starting to worry it had to do with the way she spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Blackbell.)
“It’s okay, Papa,” Anya had muttered, startling Loid as he began to sulk so deeply, with his face between his hands, “’m sure Sy-on boy’s dad’s just busy. You’ll get anudder chance to see him! Bond said so!”
“Bond,” Loid had repeated incredulously, “said so, hmm?”
With a squeak, Anya’s mouth had snapped shut, as though she’d let them in on a secret they weren’t meant to know. And Yor had tried her best to stifle a giggle through the entire conversation, despite how ridiculous it had sounded.
As soon as they were done with dinner, the students adjourned to their designated rooms while the parents were led to their suites on the top floor. Now that the attendant has left them alone, the silence is all at once much louder and the room seems to have grown smaller.
Yor glances at the only bed in the middle of the room, and then at Loid—who blinks back at her with the same, unaffected look. Slowly, red starts to seep onto his face. In tandem, Yor’s own cheeks grow evenly warm.
“Ah,” Loid begins, “not to worry. I thought this might happen, which is why I brought…”
He swiftly pulls out a roll-up mattress from their overnight bag and lays it on the floor by the foot of the bed. In an instant, Yor splays herself out on the mattress. It’s not that much bigger than the ones she and Yuri used to sleep on as children back when they had lost everything; in some strange way, it reminds her of home.
“Ooh, wonderful!” Yor clasps her hands in relief. “Good thinking, Loid. This’ll do nicely.”
Loid gives her a strange look. “This is for me. You’ll take the bed, of course.”
“Huh? No, I couldn’t possibly—!”
Loid’s frown deepens, and Yor stops herself. Oh. She’s being rude! Here he is, trying to be nice and accommodating, and yet she’s trying to cut in so impudently. She really ought to be more careful about what she says. The last thing she wants to do is hurt Loid’s feelings, especially since they’ll be spending the next few evenings alone in this room. Yor peels herself off the mattress at once.
“All right, if you insist…” Yor mutters, hands tangled at her stomach, and almost immediately, Loid brightens. She drops her head toward the floor. “Thank you!”
Yor should have seen this coming. This is twice now that she’s been blindsided—first the room arrangement, and now the hotel bathroom. She opens the vanity cabinet for the third time now, as if its missing contents would magically reappear. No such luck. Where are all the towels?
Okay, Yor tells herself as she paces the bathroom, shivering. Okay, don’t panic. Just reassess the situation. You’ve taken a shower, you’re all wet, and… there is not a towel in sight. Not a single one. Where could they—
Ah. That’s right. Yor vaguely recalls a pair of towels in the middle of the bed, elaborately folded into swans. She had been far too resolved to avoid looking at the bed altogether that she’d failed to remember. What would the Shopkeeper think of her carelessness? This is so unlike her.
Yor wipes at the frosted glass pane on the door and peers through it. The room seems empty. From the corner of her eye, she notices the curtains billowing into the room—Loid must be on the balcony. Now’s her chance. If she’s quick enough, it will take about two seconds for Yor to tiptoe out and snatch the towel from the bed, and make her way back into the bathroom. Here goes nothing.
With a deep breath, she pulls the bathroom door open. To say that the door starts creaking would be an understatement. Yor would liken the sound to a screeching train, or one of those famous screams in a Hitchcock film. But it’s too late to abandon her strategy now, so she scrambles out of the bathroom and makes a lunge for the bed—just in time for Loid to step into the room from the balcony and glance up at her.
There is a long silence in which, for a single, awful moment, Yor abruptly realises that she is stark naked, and wet, with no way of covering herself. She thinks she sees Loid’s eyes flicker downward before he, too, seems to register what it is he’s looking at. Then slowly, his jaw drops open.
“Yor!?” Loid freezes, one foot in the room, and one hand gripping the glass door. “What—”
“I’m—I’m sorry!” Yor feels her cheeks heat up instantly. In her chest, her heart starts pounding loudly enough to be a war march. What she would give for the floor to open up and swallow her whole right now. “I’m so sorry!”
“N—no, I’m sorry!” Loid, ever the gentleman, swings round, pivoting on his heel. “I promise I didn’t see anything. But, ah, is everything alright?”
Yor’s face is practically burning at this point that she thinks her head might explode. She grabs the towel from the top of the bed and retreats into the bathroom. As she lifts her hands to fan her hot cheeks, she cries out, “Fine! I’m fine! I forgot my towel, that—that’s all. Ha ha! I’m good now!”
Pressing her back against the door, Yor slides down until she’s sat on the bathroom floor. Her face is calming down a bit, but what would really do the trick is some alcohol to make her forget any of this ever happened. Or maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just stay in here for the next three days.
“Um, Yor… if you’re done, I could use the bathroom, too.” Loid calls out. Startled, Yor knocks the back of her head against the door. Owwww. “I’m sorry, never mind! It can wait!”
“Yor, I’d like to apologise again,” Loid says, after the silence has worn on. It had been a nice silence, too, and Yor mourns its loss. “For… earlier.”
Yor twists her fingers together over the duvet as she lets his words sink in. The only light source in the room is the fireplace—chipped tiles, so Yor can somewhat catch the sounds of the sparks bounding against it—and it’s dim enough so she can’t see anything beyond it.
She’d made for the bed as soon as she left the bathroom, and stayed underneath the covers the whole time Loid was showering. Only after Loid had settled himself onto the roll-up mattress did Yor finally dare to peek her head through the duvet.
“There’s nothing to apologise for, Loid!” Yor presses her hands to her face. Is it too late to call for a nightcap? “Let’s just… move past that! I’d much rather we never talk about it at all!”
“Right.” Yor hears his blanket rustling as Loid shifts, and she twiddles her thumbs together. “If… that’s what you’d like.”
There’s an emptiness in his voice that could break a heart more frangible. What it does to Yor’s is squeeze at it, just briefly. What was this called again? Angina? Arrhythmia? It won’t be enough to kill her, but it’s a strange sensation all the same. Yor can’t fathom why Loid would be so affected by what she’d said. Unless…
Yor’s hands fly up to her mouth. Oh. Here she goes, being impudent as ever! Loid hasn’t spoken much about his first wife, but what if they had spent a lot of time talking intimately about things, and he hasn’t been able to since her passing? And now he’s finally about to open up again, only for her to put a stop to it. Yor instantly feels her face heat up just at the thought of talking intimately about anything with Loid, but this is a duty she must perform. She must find the courage to get him talking again. Maybe if she opened up first…
She lifts her hands up and slaps them, hard, onto her own cheeks. It resounds through the room. Keep it together! What kind of wife would you be if you were to shut Loid out during his time of need?
“Yor?” Loid calls. “What was that?”
Yor exhales. “I like roses.”
“Uh… what?”
“My family was not very rich,” Yor continues, occupying herself by staring at her right hand, which seems intent on trembling, and won’t stop no matter how much she wills it to. “We didn’t have a big garden. But there were always rose bushes just outside our house, and every summer I would watch them bloom. I’d sit out in the sun and stare at them as if it would make the roses grow faster.”
Loid laughs softly. It gives Yor some confidence to keep going. “After my parents passed, the roses stopped growing.”
“I’m sorry.”
Yor shakes her head with a smile, before realising that Loid can’t actually see her. “It’s all right! It was a long time ago.”
“Roses, huh…”
Something in his voice makes Yor’s cheeks warm up again. Time to change the subject, then. “I—I’ve also never set foot outside of Ostania! I’ve always wondered what it’s like, but—”
“I’ll take you,” Loid says. “Wherever you like.”
His voice has somehow dropped a whole octave, and the earnestness in his words stuns Yor into silence. There is a pang of something both painful and pleasant in the centre of her chest. Since her parents’ passing, Yor had long abandoned the thought of leaving the country, and with the Garden operating solely within Ostania, there was just no way. She would never admit it to Yuri, but Yor has always felt slightly jealous whenever he spoke of his travels across Westalis and even Hugaria.
“And—with Anya, too, of course!” Loid exclaims suddenly. “We’ll make it a family trip!”
This time, Yor is the one to laugh first. “That sounds wonderful!”
Another hush falls over them, but it’s an easy kind of silence, which Yor is grateful for. She listens to the crackling of the fire, watches for the glow when the flame flickers, and feels the warmth of it settle somewhere in her chest.
“Yor,” Loid pipes up again, his tone a little hesitant; afraid, “have you… been in a bad accident?”
“Huh?”
“I…” Loid clears his throat. “Please forgive me, but I couldn’t help noticing earlier that you have… scars. All over. I only wondered if…”
Yor sucks in a sharp breath. She’d almost forgotten the incident that had led her to open up to him in the first place. She feels herself blushing scarlet as she recalls him seeing her very naked body, and quickly pushes the thought aside as she scrambles for an alibi. Okay, think. Skiing accident? No, I’ve never owned a pair of skis in my life. Loid would see right through me. What about martial arts? He’s already seen me training Anya, and Becky too, so it could work—
“You don’t have to tell me anything about those scars. It’s all right, I completely understand,” Loid says matter-of-factly. There’s a long pause. His suspicions seem to have worn off, so Yor lets her tense muscles relax. “But… about that tattoo above your—”
“L—Loid! That’s—!” Yor exclaims, and without warning, a pillow flies his way. She hears him grunt as it hits him. Ah, Yor thinks, there I go again, not knowing my own strength! When will I ever learn! “I’m so sorry! I just got so embarrassed!”
“No, it’s all right!” Loid blurts. “I didn’t mean to pry, that was very insensitive of me.”
As she pushes her hair back against the pillow, Yor twirls a strand round her fingers. She chews at her bottom lip as she tries to think of a good cover for it. The tattoo is symbolic of the Garden—all members have one, but the where of it differs, and so does the shape. She knows the Shopkeeper has chosen a poppy because of his family’s roots in Brussel, and the Director has a cornflower as a sign of his devotion to Berlint. And Yor’s is a rose—planted sagaciously on her hip, next to the gunshot wound on her butt—because of the very true story she’d just told Loid.
“One of my odd jobs while I was providing for my brother!” Yor mutters, turning the words over in her mind as they come. “There was, um, a huge demand for tattoo artists in my hometown, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try my hand at…”
She trails off when she hears Loid laughing. “Sorry, I don’t mean to…” he says hurriedly, “I wasn’t trying to get you to explain yourself. I just thought it looked nice, that’s all.”
That catches Yor by surprise. She glances down at her hands again, staring at them as she feels the warmth seep into her cheeks. The glow of the fire dances wildly as it comes into view, almost mimicking the way her heart is picking up its pace.
“I know I said I didn’t see anything, and I promise that’s true,” Loid says, clearing his throat again. Yor’s face is really starting to burn now. “But, um, Yor… I hope you don’t take this the wrong way.”
His voice has fallen in its pitch again, and warmth pools in the hollow of Yor’s stomach. “Okay.”
“You really are a beautiful woman.”
Yor’s breath hitches in her throat. Her mouth falls open slightly, and at once she’s very glad for the darkness of the room and how large the bed is, and the fact that Loid is at least six feet away from her. She lifts both her hands and presses them to her face, squeezing her eyes shut.
No matter how embarrassing this is, Yor cannot seem to suppress her smile, which keeps widening with every breath she takes. Get it together. This is your fake husband, and he is just saying the same thing that he did when he first met you… That—that’s all. No big deal. It’s all just a ploy. Remember. Personal gain. Assassin job. Murder…
“Yor,” Loid calls, surprisingly gentle, “you there?”
“Yes,” Yor breathes, still grinning a little stupidly, despite everything. “Mm-hmm. I’m here.”
“About tomorrow’s activity, I think we should try getting Anya paired up with the Berkshire boy.” Loid’s tone has switched back to business mode, and Yor is infinitely grateful for that. At least they can move past this embarrassment. She finds herself relaxing as he continues to drone on. “He’s the only one she hasn’t made a direct connection with, and I’m starting to worry that she won’t be able to…”