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When Leon looks at the reflection in the mirror—all starched shirt, pressed suit, and shined shoes—he can hardly recognize himself.
Instinctively, he tugs at his suddenly-too-tight collar, feeling himself slowly breaking out in a cold sweat. All things considered, he feels like a lamb headed for slaughter rather than the man of the hour, as he's been called multiple times tonight, when they aren't calling him the luckiest man of the night, of course.
He doesn't feel all that lucky, to be honest. Yes, he's going to be awarded a medal by the President himself, who actually went to the trouble of establishing a whole new award just for him. But it's all part of the grand political masquerade that Leon has been entangled in, anyway—an elaborate performance, one meant to boost the President's own image and standing. He just happens to be a puppet being maneuvered through the scene.
It's unbearable, Leon muses, fixing his gaze on the small crowd witnessing the so-called best moment of his life just to avoid making eye contact with the President. The moment the medal is bestowed upon him—a most prestigious noose—camera flashes nearly blind him altogether.
Amid the noise and the light, he spots the impossible: a woman in red.
For a moment, he thinks it must be a figment of his imagination, or a trick of the light. But then the applause dies down and his vision adjusts, and she's still there, standing at the very front, bold and defiant.
Realistically, she shouldn't be here. Even disregarding her multiple arrest warrants, this is an invite-only event. But if there's one thing he knows about Ada, it's that she has a knack for taking the forbidden as a challenge.
There's a small, intimate after-party, during which Leon dutifully fulfills his social obligations, complete with smiles and handshakes, all the while feeling an invisible force subtly tugging at him, drawing him toward the one presence on the other side of the room, one he's desperate to ignore.
Inevitably though, the schmoozing comes to an end, and he finds himself face-to-face with the last person he expects to see at this moment and yet the one person he wants to see the most among this crowd of faceless, nameless strangers.
"You clean up nicely," she says by way of greeting, the champagne in her flute sloshing slightly as she does.
There are a thousand things he wants to say to her. You shouldn't be here. Too obvious, too redundant. I'm glad to see you. Too vulnerable, too revealing. Why have you come? A question to which there is no answer, not one that's readily given to him, at least.
So instead he settles on returning the compliment. "I could say the same about you."
Ada smiles, a weak, half-hearted thing. "Can I ask you something?"
"Oh, so now you're the one asking the questions."
Ignoring his jab, she continues to swirl the flute in her hand. "Are you happy?"
A loaded question, wrapped in three innocuous words. It's a good one, though. Is he? Has he ever been, since that night? Since her?
Not for the first time, Leon is at a loss for words. He always seems to be around her. After all, how can words possibly convey the enormity of what he feels for her?
Finally, he lifts his gaze to look at her. Already he's memorizing the way she looks tonight: tragically beautiful, devastatingly ethereal. Secretly, he wonders if he'll ever have this again.
"As happy as I'm allowed to be."