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The Sunday afternoon sun was shining brightly on the pavement, the trees, and the people soaking the first warmth of spring. The town square of Berlint was bustling with kids eating hot potatoes as it made the perfect snack with the cold breeze and warm sun. Right where the kids were eating, a big, white dog suddenly ran past them. The sudden shock of something so big running past the poor kid, knocked the snack out of his hand, and he landed on his bum. But the dog did not stop to look back, he seemed to be on a mission. Catching the eyes of the on-lookers now, everyone searched for the owner of this destructive dog.
“I wonder who would let their dog run about like that!” One lady in the town commented, and the others nodded in agreement.
“Probably some kid!” someone else said, followed up more nods. Everyone looked up, suddenly as the voice of the owner suddenly came.
“BOND!” screamed a tall, blonde haired, blue-eyed man. With his hair down, in a black jacket and gray tracksuit, he didn’t look a day over thirty. Certainly no one thought, this man had a child.
“Maybe, the dog is just a bit out of control. You know how they are these days,” said the same woman, now mesmerized by the owner, running towards the dog. The man suddenly lunged onto the dog, and caught the flying leash to grab a hold of him.
“Finally,” he said, struggling to keep a hold on the leash, “Bond, stop it!”
Why is he being like this? He has been agitated since morning, did something happen? Think Twilight, think! Twilight thought.
Inside Bond's brain, an image kept forming, of a dark room, with drawn curtains and a pink-haired girl lying in the middle, something brownish-red was creeping from behind her. Next to her were two golden stilettos or knives, Bond’s vision blurred. What did it mean? He did not know the answers, but he could not wait around to find out, so he kept struggling to get off his leash and make sure Loid Forger is home, before disaster falls.
x
The lovely spring afternoon’s sun rays did not reach the Forger’s living room. With the blackout curtain drawn, the warmth of the outside word ceased to break through. In the middle of it all, sat Anya Forger on her little chair, with her pink hair all ruffled up, and notebooks spread out in front of her – this was her biggest enemy. The last boss, as she kept calling it in her head.
Fractions
“Anya…is in a pickle,” she grumbled to herself. After her disastrous answers in Math class, Anya was grounded by one of her – unnamed, currently out for a walk, which she begged to join with her big and white dog – adoptive parent.
“Anya, if you finish ten of these questions, I will make you hamburger steak,” Loid Forger announced. Nothing was heard after he had mentioned Hamburger steak, however, as duty called for Twilight and Bond – something WISE has been requesting for more and more, the studies were left in the capable hands of Loid’s loving, caring, and definitely not an assassin wife.
“Yor, the hospital has an emergency,” he said hurriedly, “this patient…used to have a dog just like Bond…yes, he did. So, I must take Bond with me also! He might be able to help.” He lied. Yor nodded and helped him with his coat, just as he was about to go, Loid turned around to find Anya giggling at something.
“You better study up, Anya. Yor-san will be looking over your Math homework today,” he said, much to Anya’s horror, turning towards Yor, his lips broke into a soft, small smile, “I am so sorry to put this burden on you Yor-san, but can you please look after Anya’s homework, this one time?” A smile so effective, that if flashed to any of the ladies at the Berlint town square, it would have made them trip, standing up.
But Yor just smiled back, nonchalantly.
“Of course, this is not a problem,” she said, waving him goodbye, “be careful!”
And now, Yor was in the kitchen brewing up hot cocoa for Anya, as she was already half-way through her homework. A feat definitely to be celebrated. But for Anya, the battle has only begun now. After mastering basic fractions, through Bondman’s secret technique of loading a gun, Anya was racking her brain to find a solution to additions of fractions.
Inside the kitchen, Yor was humming an old song while brewed hot cocoa for two. Standing in front of the stove, Yor was feeling a warmth that she had only felt a few times over her life and it had nothing to do with the proximity of being near gas. In simple words, Yor was content.
Wow, I helped Anya understand fractions! She felt exactly how a mother would feel when her child accomplishes with her help, but she did not know the name of this feeling. She has had this feeling before, when she was younger and it was Yuri who would be making her feel this way. While an unnamed feeling, and an unseen emotion that resembled pride was brewing in the kitchen, fear and panic gripped the living room.
Mother was of no help in fractions! Can I trust her with yuu-nits conversation? The little telepath thought. Because the nature of her mother’s actual job was so gruesome, learning fractions from her had unlocked several fears in Anya, which she could not currently comprehend or even acknowledge. But these last five questions were imperative to get – this was a mission she could not fail.
The last hamburger steak was three days ago! We don’t know when we can get a golden opportunity like this one again! Her motivation did not go astray, focusing solely on the end goal of her mission, she knew she would find the means to get there. Something she had learnt from her secretive not-a-very-cool-spy dad – the end justifies the means. The stakes were higher than ever before.
Yor placed both of their hot cocoa down.
“Anya-san, let’s take a small break now? What is up next in your homework?”
Without much effort, Anya had put away her study materials and focused on her hot cocoa.
“Addition of the fractions,” Anya replied truthfully. After a quick cocoa break, the duo got back to the grueling task at hand.
“So, what’s the next question Anya?” Yor asked, kneeling down, as she made herself comfortable next to her daughter. Anya pointed to question #5 on her book, waiting for Yor to read it.
Vincent walked 3 ¾ km on Monday, 4 km on Tuesday and ¾ km on Wednesday. What distance did he walk in all?
“Hm, what do you think we should do first, Anya?” Yor asked.
Scratching the pencil in her hair, Anya focused hard on the numbers.
Why would someone walk only ¾ km on a single day, were they trying to run away from someone and get killed. Oh! The poor guy, Yor’s internal monologue suddenly.
Horrified, Anya thought it would be best to answer the question as fast as she could.
“Get the lower numbers same?”
“YES! Anya-san you got it right. Now the number is 4 already for both of them, so how would you proceed from this?” Yor figured out asking how something is done helps Anya the most while answering questions.
“Cross, cross with 4!” exclaimed Anya. Anya began writing rapidly in her notebook, counting on her tiny fingers as she went. Yor watched her, a warm feeling returning in her chest.
“7!” Anya exclaimed loudly, her eyes wide, face flushed with excitement. “Let’s do another one!!”
Happily, Anya went on doing more than 5 of her questions.
During one of the questions, Yor got out the knives to explain how a fraction splits things.
“Basically, if I jab this knife into the middle of the table, the table will be divided into ½ and then if I further jab this other knife in to the ½ of the table, then it’ll be ¼ of the original table!” She said excitedly, thinking internally, similar to how I would disembody someone, if I cut them in half from the torso, it’ll be ½ of their bodies left, and then…but wait now they still have their heads – no, no, that’s not a perfect half…
Anya’s jaw dropped, glad all they had to experiment on was a table and not a person. After what felt like hours, but was really just forty-five minutes, Anya’s head started to wobble.
“Anya, can’t…power level zer–” she said, her wobbly head landed on Yor’s shoulder. Every hair on Yor’s body stood up but instantly the warmth feeling came rushing back, calming her nerves down. She quickly wrapped a blanket around herself and her asleep daughter, deciding to move in just a few minutes.
x
Unable to get a hold of Bond, Twilight’s mission had to be postponed. Although, now as he was entering his apartment, Bond had stop acting weird and was truly looking guilty of behaving the way did before.
“I’m hom–” just as Twilight entered the Forger’s residence, he was met with an unexpected site.
Despite the blackout curtains drawn, the sun rays peaked through from behind, illuminating the living room inside. In the middle of the room on the coffee table, were the two people he had felt behind embracing each other, asleep. Yor in her red sweater, slept peacefully with a small grin on her face and Anya slept with her mouth agape, with a little drool falling out. Twilight was dazed – unable to move to avert his eyes from the scene in front of him.
His heart raced faster, with every single step he took, his eyes wanting to burn the image within his brain. Something inside him told him to stop looking, stop whatever this feeling he had but he didn’t, he couldn’t. Just as he was upon the sleepy duo, his heartbeat to unknown speeds, occasionally skipping a beat or two.
It was Yor, who woke up first, her eyes weary from the sleep and hair ruffled up from sleeping in a weird position. She looked up, her gaze blurred, Who is this… As her vision returned to her, she suddenly got up.
Twilight’s heart couldn’t take it anymore. His face was flushed as if he was spying on something he wasn’t supposed to.
With the shockwave of Yor’s sudden movement, Anya also woke up. The serene moment, broken.
“Is the world ending?!” Anya screamed, but spotting her father she said, ”oh you’re back!!” Bond appeared near her, licking her, “and you too!!” She hugged him.
Twilight gave her a weak smile, his main priority was to get his heartbeat in control.
“We did the homework!! Mama, tell Papa how good I was!!” Anya said excitedly, eager to show Loid her progress.
“She really did exceptionally well, and even went ahead and finished up more work than she needed to!” Yor chimed in, handing in the notebook to Loid.
Now that his heart had calmed down, he took the notebook with no hesitation, hopeful to see the progress both of them talked about.
“Fractions?”
They aren’t on the syllabus.
This time his heart truly gave up.