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Five feet, two inches – a little slight to the right, no, to the left, or, or, or…
There is a storm brewing in his stomach, a bubble of anxiety tearing him into shreds, into different threads, and he is unravelling, unravelling, unravelling… He is unravelling, but he is the best spy in Westalis, so he clings, he clings, he clings, and he follows like a red string pull of nausea, and belly filled with acrid pizza.
Twilight clutches at his wrist like a talisman, and he whispers, whispers, whispers – please, please, please as he follows Yor, as he tries to track her movements with his eyes, and beckons to her like a husband would, like a siren to a sailor. But Twilight has miscalculated – in this dance, in this fandango, in this game of chess where his pieces are being consumed and digested, he is the sailor, and she the siren.
Yor flashes him a smile – a sweet smile, a smile hazed, laced with the intemperance of inebriation, and the consequent desire to perform, to outperform, and Twilight? Twilight is unravelling, a cesspool of miscalculations, and overconfidence, a zealousness that he is now paying the price for. He clings onto his wrist once more, feels the skitter of a heartbeat that once pronounced something undying as though it is a practiced language, and hopes, hopes, hopes that he finds his center, right there with her, beside her.
But in this unravelling, he is but a thread that has lost its way. He tries to weave through the crowd that has menacingly grown, trying to find a wedge, any place where he can slip so easily as Yor easily slips past his fingers. He sees her being dragged towards a corner, wrists clasped in Chloe’s hold, Yuri behind them in tow as though he is being pulled himself. There is a slew of tantrums, an ire that almost bursts into flames as he tells her off for stealing away his sister, and yells at her to stop offering drinks.
And he has to agree with Yuri Briar – Chloe should stop handing Yor wine no matter how enthused Yor seems. A villainess, and Loid hopes that Yuri pries them apart just in time for him to find his place back to Yor like a dutiful husband.
Twilight clings onto his watch once more, its weight growing, growing, growing, the tick, tick, tick that would not provide ease becoming fervent, like a monotone display of displeasure at the pace that he is going. He pushes past a train of men, and women, but the situation is unravelling, spooling right in front of him as he loses track of her once more.
Boisterous laughter pushes through in the barrier of his thoughts, and then he is being pushed away, pulled away into the ocean he desperately wants to get out of. He hears another muscle in his stomach lining sputter like an engine put into an offense as he becomes face to face once more with this self-proclaimed pizza man, who has doused each slice with more than an ample amount of oil. Twilight feels a medical bill being handed over to Handler the next morning, and the taste of saline as Director Wilker hands him another slice and claps his back.
There is that burgeoning taste of acid as gas passes through like a spawn from the underworld, and he clings onto the crust as though it will do something to aid him in this seemingly impossible quest. He sees Yor from the corner of his eyes hanker down on another bottle, and the bile teases the back of his throat, and leaves him sputtering like a man desperate for air.
He is unravelling.
“Leave the poor man alone,” someone calls out, a junior, he doesn’t care to name as Twilight takes a bite of the pizza, mindful of what refusal does.
He cannot have the Director of the SSS look into his forged family all because he refused another slice of pizza. He will not explain to Handler why Operation Strix failed because he did not accept a disguised, and disgruntled SSS head – over his dead body (he will be dead anyway once Yor says something she is not supposed to).
He also cannot have Yor prancing around with wine in her lips, and tongue, and with an audaciousness he cannot quite place.
The situation is unravelling, and so is Twilight, but he is the best spy in Westalis, and a loving husband, so how does he excuse himself from this situation that is Director Wilker droning on and on about tomatoes?
Twilight takes another bite of his pizza despite the protests his churning stomach has been making, despite the bile that is definitely going to cost him a sick day. He reaches to scratch the back of his neck as he smiles sheepishly, attempting, attempting, attempting to make conversation while keeping a keen eye on Yor.
“The tomatoes you used in the pizza are great,” he remarks, hoping to add something into the conversation that has droned out in all places, whilst the rest of the SSS agents attempt to keep him in check.
Wilker barks out laughter – a laughter that is sheepish, seemingly humiliated as he colors himself a dust of pink. “Eh,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders as he looks over at Twilight. “I just bought this at the store – I mean,” the director is crimson as he stands to attention, “I brought this from the store – yeah.”
What a terrible liar, Twilight thinks as he keeps his expression the same, and then, “It’s great.” Twilight is anything but a terrible liar. “Do you mind if I give my wife a slice?” He asks even though he is already reaching for one.
Wilker perks up like a light bulb that has suddenly remembered its purpose – all bright, amber incandescence bathing everything golden in an idea Twilight hopes, hopes, hopes isn’t what he thinks it is.
“Oh, I want to meet the missus! Yuri Briar’s sister, right?”
Twilight hears another tearing he will be billing WISE for. Yes wants to roll out of his tongue so easily, so smoothly, mindful of the director’s temperance when it comes to rejection, but the word dies down like ashes as Chadwick Curtis comes swooping in like an answer to his prayers.
It’s quite funny sometimes how the gods jest – a saving grace in the form of a man he desperately does not want within the vicinity of his wife.
Chadwick Curtis slings an arm around the director’s shoulders, and steers him elsewhere. “I don’t think it would make sense to introduce the pizza guy to his wife.” And then he is handing the director wine, the way Twilight would not hand over wine to Yor.
Twilight watches as he steers Wilker out of sight, and then he is turning on his heel to find the woman that is now out of his sight. He sees Yuri’s arms working themselves upwards, heavenward as he says something about Yor, and alcohol that is only met by Chloe’s laughter like she is the devil’s advocate.
Twilight studies the distance between the both of them, and feels Yor’s gaze drill him into a lavender haze he desperately shakes out of – ten feet, ten strides. It should be easy – like a sailor anchoring himself back to his siren, back to the sea where he is supposed to ask her to calm the tides.
Gratitude passes his lips as though it is a language he speaks so clearly well, the fluency cathartic, despite the weight of it, like each thank you is waiting for the shoe to drop. He clutches onto his wrist, his pleas fervent, his smile winning as he slides his palms on Yor’s shoulders.
“Aren’t you tired, Yor?” He asks her, earnest, as earnest as he can as he tries to gather his unravelling into knitting needles that barely clink.
Yor stutters something, and Yuri retches blood into the sink that Chloe ignores as Twilight slides his palms up and down, up and down, up and down her shoulders. There is a tremor in each of her vertebrae, and he hopes he is not overdoing things to the brink of ruin. His wrist watch sits on him something heavy, and it’s asking him to cut to the chase as Yor whirls around to face him.
Her cheeks are dusted crimson, as rubied as her eyes, as dark as the wine that she has been nursing. But beneath the tremor, there is a certain resolve he decides not to look too much into as he rests his hands on the spaces where her neck and shoulders meet. She glances up at him, her breathing suddenly steady, her eyelashes fanning the dust of red on her cheeks that has now gradually turned pink.
“Ooh, you’re the best couple,” Chloe croons from beside them much to Yuri’s chagrin, and another nail to his coffin as he coughs something ugly.
Yor blinks up at him with the darkest of reds as though her eyes are cups of wine themselves, a shimmer from the bathe of the light indicating a sparkle he cannot quite comprehend. There is that tear within his stomach once again, and the tear sounds a lot like her name, but within it, beneath it, it also feels as though she is stitching something into his bloodstream – herself, or something more, something else he cannot quite fathom that brings birth to wings that feel like nausea, but kinder.
“Loid?” She asks, gentle, and it sounds like a gentle sea rolling as though the siren call had always been something quiet, something sure as the world dials back into a blur where the focus is the moonlight, and the stream of midnight in her hair.
Loid – Twilight blinks down at her, the objective suddenly forgotten, unravelling as his thoughts feel like a yarn unspooling. From beside them, Yuri complains about public displays of affection etiquette, which Chloe remarks as something healthy and normal that he needs to wrap his head around.
Right – the objective. The weapon that Franky created that will tranquilize Yor. The tranquilizer hidden in his wrist watch. Yor’s – no, Franky’s tranquilizer; the tranquilizer that will tranquilize Yor, and subdue her enough for them to get themselves out of this situation. Franky’s tranquilizer.
Wait – why does he feel guilty…?
Twilight feels something ugly in his stomach, something being unstitched, a nausea that he very well knows as guilt guised in dread that wrenches something within him. He tastes the bile once more, teasing the back of his throat in this menacing reminder, and his conscience clutches at him as though it never was a stranger.
Yor still looks at him with softened eyes, and a small, resolved smile – and how could he?
Time stills, and the wrist watch discontinues its bemoaning as he returns her softened gaze, and asks the skitter in his ribs to quiet; that he is doing this for her sake apart from his. The weight feels like molasses, and unconsciously, he moves one hand away from the crevice between her shoulder and neck. He settles it by her forearm, the weight now lodged in his throat, his tongue suddenly tied and dried.
Somewhere, something crashes, and a slew of complaints air themselves out like an exhale. There is a commotion that he should be wary of, a warning of some sort that brings life to the weapon that Franky had devised, the ask to act now than later a pendulum of need that swings, tries to dig him out of this grave he has unconsciously buried himself in.
He has to act, but he is unravelling.
“Are you okay?” He asks instead when his voice finds him, when the weight is too cumbersome, when the need to act becomes menacingly heavy like molasses refusing to let go.
Yor offers him funeral flowers in the form of the flutter of her eyes, and he is lost, lost, lost, and the objective is nothing but a tranquilized little thing that settles at the way he is touching her. His wife reaches for his hand just as Yuri is pulled away by Chloe, and his breath loses their place once more in his lungs as it forgets to expand.
She nods, the midnight of her hair a tiny veil that he pushes away from the apples of her cheeks that are a stardust of pink. The pink deepens, and then she is reaching, leaning as though reaching for the silver of moonlight. Her hand comes to rest on his jaw, and there is something unreadable in her expression as she rises like the tide of a calm sea – so sure, yet so miniscule like a wave that barely makes itself known, but enough to pass through. Twilight feels himself being rocked into place, and then he is leaning as though affixed, his thoughts tranquilized by guilt and her eyes, and her lips that are suddenly shy away from his.
He feels her breath tickle his as though it is asking for permission to breathe life into him, into his lungs that have grown desperate to convert her as his oxygen. Somewhere, conversation piles, climbs into a crescendo of blurred things. A door closes from down the hall. Yuri cries on the floor as Chloe nudges him with her boot. But nothing, nothing, nothing can gather him back as he unspools, unravels himself in front of her.
The flutter within his stomach returns, and it’s the kind that is as quiet and as gentle as her like butterfly wings stitching themselves into him. It subdues the guilt, the need, and the bile in his throat suddenly feels like rose petals.
Yor leans, and unconsciously, like a red string pull, the hand that is weighed by the tranquilizer is lowered, and anchored at the small of her back to aid her. The red of her eyes flutter close, and then the breath he feels against his lips is now in him, breathing her in as she kisses him.
There is a quiet wane in his mind. A sudden pause that feels like a droplet against the pond. The rivulets start like something unfathomable, and he kisses her back quietly, reverently, like she is air that he is not trying to consume all at once. Yor sighs against his lips where the bruises have become gentle, and Twilight finds himself unraveling.
He sees a casket, a headstone, a grave dug out, a hearse, and her eyes as funeral flowers, and into this, he plummets, and something within him stops working as though the fight has left his bones. Yor pulls away after what feels like an eternity, and Twilight finds himself on his knees, in a daze.
“What,” he manages to puff out, quiet, questioning, unsure as his world spins, and forgets how to find, how to wound himself back to perspective, to focus.
Yor brings her hands to her mouth as a gasp escapes her, and then she is gathering him onto her the way she did the last time he had found himself in the same predicament. He is losing his edge. He is losing his mind. He is unravelling.
“Loid – oh!” She exclaims, and he falls sideways like a lame plant that has suddenly remembered gravity, limply sliding himself until he is settled onto her lap with barely any consciousness to hold onto. “Are you okay?”
“All my strength has left me – what is this?” He whispers to himself once more as though doing so will provide him the answers that he needs – as though it will answer why kissing her has taken all the fight that he has in him, as though it will help him comprehend how this has happened twice, never mind the first time he was disarmed was only because of a smile.
“I’m so sorry,” Yor says, exclaims as she presses her forehead against his, and he smells and tastes wine from her lips, from his lips. He is unraveling. “I thought you wanted to kiss me because you were leaning, and…” She trails off, and the red is back on her pallid like something burning as she pulls away from him by a fraction.
Twilight reaches out to her, his touch featherlight as it settles at the curve of her jaw. Somewhere, Yuri crashes out some more. “No, it’s okay – I’m just tired, I think,” he says as he feels his eyes become heavy, and something within him make their exit.
His stomach lulls into something quiet, something palatable, but within the calm is the flutter of butterfly wings within him, a stir that has bespoken something in his ribs, that tells him that it is okay. Yor runs her fingers through his hair, and then she is nodding, the crimson dialed down to the pink he has now come to realize is beautiful.
“I’m sorry for not being here sooner – oh, I can’t imagine how tiring it must have been for you,” Yor says as she lets out a sigh. “Let’s get you home?”
Loid – Twilight nods as he teeters from consciousness and unconsciousness that he can barely comprehend, and then there is just something blinding, and then her eyes that are soft and bright red. “I’d like that,” he tells her, the weight of it all – the kiss, the guilt, all of these things finally taking a toll on him.
He makes a move so minute in an effort to stand, but his legs have stopped working as the fight within him continues to be exhumed, and the only thing he feels is the weight of her lips on his, and each breath he has drawn where she is the air. Twilight wants to grunt out something apologetic, but he is quieted, the way his eyes have decided to flutter close, and then he is airborne in some way, some form, and maybe he is dead, dead, dead, but her hold against him is warm.
He hears her bid each of them farewell, Yuri’s answering whimper, and then silence, until silence becomes a song he has heard then under the same circumstances, yet different.
He is unravelling. He has unravelled once more, once again, and this time, he has unravelled because of a kiss.
And maybe then he will mind, he will doubt, he will bathe it with the guilt he has felt earlier, but now, he will allow it.
At the end of the day, they are out of the situation, despite it being himself ending up unconscious.
And that’s what matters.
Apart from Yor’s lips, and the fact that he loves her.