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Laundry in the Forger household was almost always done on Thursday afternoons. Yor would always get home from City Hall early and get it done before Loid and Anya got home. It gave her the perfect opportunity to help out around the house, proving her worth as Loid’s wife and Anya’s mother. It also gave her the chance to clean up any excess blood from her clothing that she missed during her post-job clean-ups. And if Loid and Anya were home and wanted to help, Yor would usually have enough of a head start to hide any and all evidence of her night job. But usually it was just Yor by herself, with Bond resting at her feet as she folded. And that was the way she liked it. Nothing but pure domestic bliss.
This week was hectic. Berlint City Hall had asked its employees to stay late for inventory, and Shopkeeper had asked Thorn Princess to take care of clients almost every night. Yor was far too busy to get to the laundry on Thursday. Loid had offered to take care of it on Friday but was almost immediately called into the hospital to deal with an emergency patient. So, the laundry got pushed off to the weekend.
The whole Forger family was home, and everyone was available to do the laundry today. And Yor wanted nothing more than to do it by herself.
With the recent uptick in assignments, her black Thorn Princess dress was drenched in blood (not hers of course) and would obviously expose her as an assassin!
Yor threw her red sweater onto the top of the laundry basket, hoping that it would hide her stained dress from the rest of her family. Once she was certain it was hidden well enough, she took a deep breath and entered the living room.
All she had to do was stealthily make her way to the front door, get her shoes on, and quickly announce that she was doing the laundry and run out the door before anyone could even offer her a hand.
She made it all of two steps before Anya ran up to her.
“Mama! You’re doing laundry!?! Anya wants to help you!!!” She made grabby hands towards the basket, ignoring the fact that it was almost as big and as heavy as her.
This wasn’t good at all! Yor needed to come up with an excuse quickly.
“Oh no, dear it’s okay. Mama’s got this. You don’t need to waste your Saturday helping me.”
“It’s okay Mama, I want to help! And…I don’t want to work on my homework right now.” Anya grimaced and motioned towards the coffee table, which had her school supplies spread all over its surface.
Eden makes them do homework on the weekend? I don’t remember Yuri having to do that at Anya’s age. But maybe…I can use this!
“Listen Anya. Getting your homework done is very important and not something that should be done at the last minute!”
“Your mother’s right Anya.” Loid interjected from his place in the kitchen. Perfect! Loid was backing her up! Now all she had to do was head to their building’s laundromat before anyone else could interrupt her. She took a few more steps towards the door before Loid stepped out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his pants.
“Although, she still has all of tomorrow to get her homework done.” Oh no. “And doing household chores is a great learning opportunity.” Loid, please.
“And besides,” Loid stood right in front of her, staring into her eyes. “I would like to help you as well, to make up for not being able to do it for you yesterday.” He smiled sheepishly at her.
“Oh...” Yor started, resistance crumbling as her heart started beating faster in her chest. Maybe all that extra work was starting to get to her! “I guess it would be fine.”
Yor immediately regretted her words, she was going to have to leave the Forger family for sure this afternoon! But her husband and daughter’s smiles eased the blow a little bit.
Loid grabbed the laundry basket from her arms and Anya immediately grabbed her left hand, both leading her to her doom.
In the laundry room, Yor was still desperately trying to come up with a way to clean her dress without Loid or Anya noticing the stains. She had tried to think up plans the whole trip down, and she could almost swear that Anya was reading her mind based off of the weird looks her daughter was giving her.
Yor knew that she had only one last chance to hide the blood: cleaning it before her family saw it!
And luckily for her, their laundromat had a tiny little sink tucked away in the corner with a bunch of soaps and detergents next to it for anyone that needed to get something out before sticking it in the washer.
Yor felt relieved that she had found a way to ensure that she didn’t have to leave the Forgers! Now she just had to get herself and the dress over to the sink before Loid or Anya could see it!
Yor, with speed that could not be seen by the naked eye, grabbed the laundry basket before Loid even had a chance to realize that he wasn’t holding it anymore.
Loid’s eyes briefly widened before they returned back to their natural, piercing stare.
“I need to clean a couple of things at the sink first! See you both in a minute!” Yor started to speedwalk towards the sink. Victory was practically in sight!
“Have fun, Mama!” Anya called out. “Papa and I will wait until you’re done!”
Thank you, Anya. Now if only Loid would follow along…
“Now Anya, we’re here to help Yor, not sit back and let her do all of it.”
Yor stopped in her tracks, just inches away from the sink. Why does he have to be so perfect and helpful now?
“But Papa, I don’t like the cleaning part…”
“Anya,” Loid started as he picked up his daughter and started carrying her towards the sink. “Don’t you want to help your Mama?”
No. No. No. She can help me any other time but this!
Yor started quickly filling the sink with water, hoping that maybe she could get the giant blood stain out before they noticed.
Anya shook her head. “But I don’t like getting my hands all wet.”
“Your hands get wet when you take a bath and you love taking them. Think of the soap in the sink as like a bubble bath of sorts.”
“But…” Anya looked like she was scrambling for another excuse.
“Seriously, Loid…I appreciate it, but I can do this all by myself. It’s really the folding that I would want help with...”
“But Yor, we’re here to help. And Anya needs to learn that doing things that she doesn’t like is a part of life.” Those bright blue eyes of his sparkled again, and Yor knew that Yor Forger was long gone.
“So,” he started once again grabbing the basket from her hands. “Let’s get started.”
“Yes…Let’s.” She hoped he didn’t hear the waver in her voice.
Loid grabbed one of the bottles of stain remover, and Yor in a desperate burst of speed flipped the clothes in the basket to hide the stain. If these were her last few moments of being a Forger, she wanted to extend those moments as best she could!
Loid started showing Anya how to remove stains from clothes, demonstrating on one of Anya’s dresses. She had last worn it when they all went out to eat and had missed her mouth more than a couple of times, getting spaghetti noodles all over herself. A few spots of tomato sauce had remained.
Anya was watching intently and did her best to copy her father’s actions. Yor found herself smiling, enjoying the domestic scene in front of her. Too bad I won’t be able to witness anymore after today .
For a second, she could have sworn that Anya looked up at her with fear. But the father and daughter’s interactions were so sweet that Yor forgot all about the bloody dress in the pile.
At least until Loid picked up the dress, revealing the scarlet blood stain across the dress’s chest.
“Loid…I can explain…” Yor started in a desperate bid to keep her family.
“Oh…you were on your period…” Loid nodded in understanding. “No wonder you wanted to do the laundry by yourself. I’m sorry for insisting that we help.”
It was all over and she was never going to see either of them again and she’d probably have to quit her job at City Hall because Camilla and the others would belittle her for being unable to keep a marriage for more than a year and-did he say period? Does he not know how they work?
“I-yes?”
Anya looked between both of her parents, confusion on her face clear. “But…that’s not why…” She snapped her mouth shut before trying again. “But don’t periods come from your butt?”
Yor could feel her cheeks reddening and she noticed that Loid’s were as well. This was not the best conversation to be having in public. And now she was worried that Loid would realize his mistake with Anya’s comment.
“You’ll learn more about them when you’re older,” Loid started. “And you are kind of close to where they come from.”
Yor nodded along.
“But the blood didn’t come from Yor’s dress.”
“That’s right.” Wait, what?
Yor raised an eyebrow in confusion and Loid pointed towards the basket.
He then leaned towards her ear to whisper in it. “Not to seem like a pervert, but I can see the blood on one of your pairs of underwear. The dress must have rubbed up against it and the blood got on it that way.”
Yor saw the underwear and internally sighed in relief. She had an out. She didn’t have to stop being Yor Forger!
“I’m sorry I got embarrassed and didn’t say anything about it before. I was worried about you or Anya seeing it.”
“That’s alright, Yor. I’ve seen it before but I understand that it can be embarrassing. And I don’t have a problem with Anya learning a few things earlier than normal. She is going to Eden after all.”
Anya beamed up at him as he quickly patted her head.
“As long as we don’t go too into detail just yet…”
“Of course not. Don’t worry Anya, I’ll teach you all about it when you’re older!”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good, then that means that Mama won’t ever leave me or Papa!”
Anya’s smile was contagious as Yor could feel her own growing larger. “I’ll be a Forger for as long as you both want me around!”
“Yay! Mama’s gonna be my Mama forever!”
As Yor looked at Loid with happy tears in her eyes, she couldn’t help but think that he agreed with Anya’s sentiment.