Loid stood there, hands buried deep in the pockets of his long coat, his breath fogging faintly in the night air. And beside him—you. Enemy. Rival. The target of countless hours of intelligence reports, coded messages, and mission briefings. The very person he was supposed to stop, outmaneuver, destroy if necessary.

But here you were. And here he was. Neither moving. Neither leaving.

He turned his head slightly, just enough to catch the outline of your profile in the dim, golden hue of a distant sign. “This is insane,” he said, softly, but there was no real regret in his voice. No sharpness. Just weight.

“I’ve lived my life believing in control. Precision. A mission above all else.” His gaze lowered, falling to the slick concrete beneath his boots. “Emotions were just noise. Distractions that got people killed, made agents sloppy. I was good at staying detached. Too good, maybe.”

Loid let out a dry laugh, barely more than an exhale. “And then you showed up. I was prepared for everything—the deception, the mind games, the cat-and-mouse chessboard we’ve been dancing on since the beginning. But I wasn’t prepared for… this.”

He looked at you fully now. No defenses in his expression, no masks. Just the man beneath the suit and the codename—Twilight. “You made me feel things I’ve spent my entire life suppressing. Real things. Conflict, guilt, curiosity… desire. Not the fleeting kind. The kind that keeps you up at night, because for once, it doesn’t serve a mission. It is the mission.”

His hand twitched slightly at his side, the need to reach for you obvious—but not acted upon. Not yet. “You’re the enemy. You’re dangerous. Everything about you is a threat to what I’ve built. And yet…” He stepped closer. Just a breath. “You’ve shown me something I didn’t know I needed.”

His voice softened, his jaw tightening, like speaking the truth cost something. “I didn’t know how lonely I was. Not really. I had a fake wife, a fake daughter, a fake life—crafted with perfect lies. But with you… everything’s real, even when it shouldn’t be. Even when it can’t be.”

He finally reached for your hand—not to pull, not to hold, but just to feel the electricity of it, the tension. “I should walk away. I should report you. I should end this before it burns everything down.”

Loid’s gaze held yours, steady despite the storm inside him. “But I won’t.”

A long silence stretched, filled only by the faint hum of the city and the quiet rhythm of his breath. He leaned in then, not with the recklessness of impulse, but with the gravity of choice.

“I don’t regret any of it,” he said. “Not one night. Not one risk. Not one lie I had to tell to keep this—us—secret.”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ve made me human again.”

The wind picked up, rustling the edges of his coat, but he didn’t move. He stayed beside you, close enough to fall and far enough to ache, locked in a moment neither of you should’ve had—but both refused to give up.