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Stale cigarette smoke rose to meet the dewdrops clinging to the awning overhead—the aftermath of heavy evening rainfall and too many smoke breaks outside the liquor store. It was a familiar smell, one that he could never seem to escape.
Ash and rain.
The pollution of the city.
A neon sign in the store window flickered inconsistently, its vibrant blue and pink casting a blurry watermark on the wet pavement.
Leon had been frequenting this liquor store more often in the past month, a growing habit that he was self-aware enough to acknowledge, but not one he had the fortitude to shake. He didn’t drink himself into oblivion—he wasn’t that far gone, not yet. It was always just enough to quell the unwelcome panic in his chest, just enough to stave off the abrupt rush of memories past.
He couldn’t sleep again. Insomnia had been plaguing him for three nights now. A drink would help lull him to bed. It was an insufficient remedy, but it was what he had.
A spindly, freckled young man greeted Leon when he entered the store. The bald, gruff older man Leon had become acquainted with was not here tonight. It was not an unpleasant surprise, but he had gotten used to the man’s consistent presence throughout all hours of the night. While the city slept, the cashier would be here with a growing pile of cigarette butts as Leon stalked the dirty linoleum with heavy steps of shame. If Wayne held any judgment, he did not show it. Tonight, Leon did not have to consider the possibility of such opinions from this stranger before him.
“Where’s Wayne?” Leon asked the young cashier.
“I’m the new hire,” he said in a nasally voice. “Wayne wanted to work less nights.”
“Work less for what?” This kid looks like he’d get blown away by a sneeze, Leon thought.
“He wanted to spend more time with his wife.”
Wife? Even as he served those carousing the night, at least he had someone to go home to. Leon had no such home nor person to anticipate. That’s not true. I always look for her.
“Good for him,” Leon said.
He headed to the back of the store to grab his usual fix. The faint chime of a bell went off with the swing of the store door. Leon glanced up at the convex, circular mirror mounted in the top corner of the room. A hooded figure escaped just out of view in the reflection. The only thing his eyes could catch were a pair of slender, feminine legs.
Yes, it would be tonight of all times, wouldn’t it? Leon could have chalked it up to wishful thinking or perhaps paranoia. But his gut sensed it. A sixth sense formed to anticipate this entity attached to him.
It was a spell of the night: a moonless sky, petrichor suspended in the air, the discreet passing of wind through wet trees. Akin to a spectre, she was only to appear when the circumstances deemed it right.
Leon remained there in front of the open refrigerator door, crouched in a low squat with his back to the presence hovering behind him. He could already hear the resonance of her voice echoing from his memories before she spoke.
“Hey there, stranger.”
“Ada.”
“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
It was fitting for her to come on this particular night. As she stood before him, dressed in an oversized jacket and jeans, he could forget that she was not an ordinary woman. Yet her casual appearance did nothing to dull the keen glint in her eyes. It could not diminish the striking cohesion of her beauty, nor could it quell the confident stride of her boots. If there was any way to embody purpose, Ada Wong moved with it like a second skin.
She held up an amber glass bottle. “Do you have room for one more?”
Leon raised a brow. “Am I paying?”
“A gentleman always pays on the first date.”
“Good thing it's not the first.”
Ada cocked her head to the side. “And it won't be the last.”
They left the fluorescent lights into the night with the chime of the bell behind them.
“I hear that you're quite the star agent these days,” Ada said.
“Who’s saying that?”
“News outlets, magazines, and the public. How titillating it is to be in the presence of one so famous.”
“Oh, yeah? Don’t swoon too hard or you might faint.”
“Such a comedian. You always have one loaded in the chamber,” Ada remarked.
It was easy for them to fall into step, side by side, with their lips already flowing with conversation as if they had not been apart at all. They had come to the same conclusion after their meetings had become frequent—expected, even. Talk of their work and allegiances would remain separate from their meetings. Yet Leon could not hold his tongue at times. In turn, Ada would spit her own venom, striking with immediacy like a threatened viper. In the end, neither was left unscathed. The argument would never be enough to end their convoluted cycle. One of them would find the other, eventually. It was best to clear the slate every time.
It was natural: His mercenary cloaked in the night to emerge from the shadows, always there to rescue him on a whim. A bit like a guardian angel, he’d think. Leon allowed himself to see her as such.
“Rough night?” Ada asked.
Leon shrugged. “Aren’t they always?”
“Depends on how you approach it.”
“You’re optimistic,” he said.
“Not optimistic. Realistic.”
They stopped beneath a beam of light from a lamppost on the corner of a patch of wet grass. Beyond that patch lie a cluster of playground structures, its incongruent silhouettes looming like shadowed limbs from beyond.
With the light shining upon Ada’s face, a string of raindrops glistened along her cheekbone like teardrops. It was the clearest he had seen her in some time. He feared that her image would grow fuzzy in his memory if he did not see her in some time. His hand itched to wipe the water from her face. “Where've you been?” Leon inquired.
“I visited Turkey. I explored the Basilica Cistern beneath Istanbul.”
“On business or vacation?”
“I always mean business,” she said with a dismissive shrug. “It's all the same to me.”
“Same as tonight?”
“I’m always on the job.”
“Right,” he sighed, taking a swig from his bottle. Why he should ever expect a direct, clear answer from her was a mystery. He wandered away from the lamppost, following the cement path towards the center of the park. The nostalgic presence of the playground was a beacon, beckoning him to step in and relive the past. The present followed closely behind in the sound of Ada's footsteps, chasing until a warm breath brushed against the nape of his neck.
“My job tonight is to keep you company.”
It was fortunate for the swing set to be situated beneath a wide awning, barely disturbed by the April rain, for them to sit.
“When was the last time you were on a playground?” Leon asked, pushing his legs off the ground.
“I can’t say.” Her voice ebbed and flowed as it traveled with the gentle swinging opposite his own.
“You don’t remember, or won’t tell?”
“Both,” she laughed lightly.
“I stopped to do a pull-up on a bar during a morning run,” Leon recalled.
“Morning? Not a night run?”
“I woke up feeling strangely motivated.”
“Manic,” Ada said with a tinge of what Leon thought was melancholy.
“You could call it that.”
“Well, if you must know,” she said, releasing a soft huff from her nose. Leon could practically hear the sarcastic roll of her eyes. “I think I was taking a phone call last month while walking on a balance beam.”
“I remember sneaking out to a playground at night with a girl I was crushing on in high school,” Leon mused.
“How risqué.”
“She didn’t like me, not in the way I wanted her to.” The alcohol was starting to release hesitations on his tongue. Leon didn't care.
“It’s hard to imagine anyone not liking you,” Ada said. “You're all brooding handsome with a soft heart.”
The warmth in his chest buzzed. It was silly how a simple compliment was enough for him to lower his guard. He might as well have bared his chest to proffer an opening to cut out his heart.
“Anyone can like me, but it’s not the same as knowing me,” he said.
“We know each other quite well,” she said with a sly smile.
“I know only what you allow me to.”
“That goes both ways.”
“I can’t envision you as anything other than who you are now. You make it hard to.”
Ada had a strength in how she carried herself, a surety that could not be questioned, which made it difficult to imagine her as someone who once had to navigate through the naiveties of youth. That was a ruse, of course. She was not as cruel and callous as the role she played. No human could be stoic for too long. The performance had to be dropped at some point.
On the opposite end, Leon felt like every battle and catastrophe chipped away at his resolve. Every sharp hit eroded his foundations, and every now and then it struck where it was weakest. The cracks would spread like an infection over the brain until it urged him to numb it with a substance.
Leon dug his heels into the ground to come to an abrupt halt.
“Do you remember what it was like?” he asked.
Ada raised an inquisitive brow as she allowed her swinging to come to a slow descent.
“Not knowing what to do. Or who to be.”
“You’re really prying tonight,” she said.
“Indulge me.”
Talk to me. Just keep talking. If all I can hear is your voice, then I won’t have to think of anything else. Leon tightened his grip, the metal chains digging into the skin of his palms.
“Indulge? That is my favorite thing to do with you,” Ada said with a beguiling smile. “In my youth, I was taught to expect the worst and to trust no one. I was trained to always have a plan—my whole future was planned.”
“But you had doubts.”
“There was a time when I wondered if I could change the trajectory of my life before it became my reality.”
“What would you have done instead?”
Ada gestured to him with a hand. “What would you be if not a cop or government dog?”
Leon narrowed his eyes at the snide comment but answered nonetheless. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“I assume there must've been other options before you decided on that.”
He shook his head. “I'm more interested in what yours might've been.”
“There was nothing else.”
“Really?”
“The idea of change was fleeting. There was no point in dreaming of the impossible.”
“Who convinced you of that?” he dared to ask. Ada stood from the swing, staring down at him with a warning set in her eyes. There were many things that he knew she would not share, and he knew that people from her past were one of them. Yet still he persisted, regardless of if she showed displeasure.
“Whoever it was doesn't matter anymore. That's dead and buried.” Ada began to walk away; Leon followed. She sat on a bench; he sat beside her.
He would never know of her parents, if she had any, or where she grew up. He wouldn’t know any silly childhood stories, ones that were both embarrassing and endearing in nature. He would never crack open this enigma if he never tried. And bless his naive soul, Leon wanted more of Ada. He would never have her if what haunted the halls of her past remained dead and buried.
That was a fool's quest. But how could he abandon it now that he had shared himself with her for so long?
“You're wrong, you know. You think that this elusive act will work so that we'll always keep each other away—to some extent.”
“Is that what you think I do?” Ada chucked him under the chin. It should have felt demeaning, but it only emboldened him more.
“You like noodles,” Leon declared.
“Of course I do. It's hard not to like them.”
“But you like them more in soups, like ramen and pho.”
Ada nodded. “Sue me. I like a rich broth.”
“I assume you grew up eating something like that. It comforts you.”
She did not refute, only tapped a finger on her chin. “And what else?”
“Your spa days,” Leon chuckled. “You said I'd benefit from joining you. I think you enjoy being pampered since you couldn't before.”
“What are you going on about?”
“You won't tell me a thing about your past. Fine. But that doesn't mean I haven't learned about you.”
“We've spent a lot of time together, you and I. Give me a call the next time you're on vacation so I can join,” she smiled cheekily.
Leon dropped his face into the palm of his hands. “You wouldn't like it. My vacations suck.”
“Is it because I'm not there?”
“I can’t seem to relax,” he murmured with a shake of his head. Ada leaned forward, her elbows shifting to rest against the tops of her knees. Her demeanor changed, as though she had sensed the air of solemnity oozing from him.
“You should appreciate them while you can.”
“It feels wrong to enjoy anything when the world is constantly teetering on the edge of ruin.”
“The world will continue to be how it is whether you're on a mission, asleep, or in Rome. It's all the same. Time doesn't stop for saviors. Monsters don't wait for heroes.”
“Then I'd better be prepared.”
“So you'll sleep with your gear on and bolt up in your boots? What kind of life is that?”
“The one I choose to save the lives that don't get a choice.”
“I see.”
Leon would keep moving; he would always be moving. Stopping would mean remembering all of his shortcomings, all of those moments of hesitation and miscalculations that accrue as a strike on his soul. Busy the body and the mind would follow suit. Of course, he could not always be on a mission. But down ime for Leon was not a time of rejuvenation.
“Life is for taking pleasure, whether it be big or small,” Ada said.
“I have a duty.”
“Ah, yes. Leon S. Kennedy: destined martyr. Haven’t you done enough? Aren’t you owed your reprieve?” Ada had a way with her words. She knew how to frame her sentences in a manner that burrowed into your head. Only, she usually spoke on what was true, coaxing him to battle his own reality. Leon could not muster up the strength for a retort. He couldn’t, not when Ada spoke with such fervency that it struck him to his core.
He found himself leaning toward her, his head collapsing onto her shoulder and then falling against her chest.
“There are no lives for you to save if you cannot save your own. You cannot give from an empty cup,” Ada said as she ran a hand through his hair. In turn, Leon pressed his nose and cheek against her neck. It was that familiar scent, not her perfume, but the very essence of her skin and body. With every inhalation, he felt his head grow lighter, felt his limbs grow more languid.
“How philosophical,” he murmured against her skin.
“Save the sarcasm for your sobriety. You know I’m right.”
The sight of the bottle in his hand suddenly made him feel sick, the airiness in his head now pulling to his stomach.
“I can’t sleep,” he groaned. “All I want to do is sleep.”
“Then sleep.” She looked at him in that peculiar, piercing way, the way in which she could hold him down with her eyes. Ada wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him stand. Leon knew he would not be alone tonight. That thought alone lifted a heavy burden from his mind, so much so that he could physically feel the tightness in his ribs release; He felt the ache in his throat soften.
🌦
The rental apartment was cold when they arrived. The living room window had been left open; chill drafts of wind had entered and made their home here. As they made their way down the hall, Leon could feel the blood in his veins rush in anticipation. Ada’s fingernails scraped against his skin before she grabbed his forearm to pull him inside the bedroom.
Leon dropped to sit on the edge of his bed, all thoughts of turmoil momentarily erased from his conscience. Ada stepped between his thighs, unbuttoning her jeans and sidling them down. He placed his hands on her hips before rucking up the hem of her shirt. In gentle certainty, they stripped off their layers until there was nothing to hide.
Her deft fingers lightly ghosted across his chest, soft and slender, before applying the faintest amount of pressure against his heart to guide his back to the mattress. A soft groan escaped Leon's throat when the curves of her body pressed against his own, her thighs straddling his waist as heat from his chest shot down his navel and limbs.
Leon had seen her bare more than enough times to memorize the moles on her body. He had touched her enough times to familiarize the anatomy of her wholly, from the curve of where her waist met her hips, to where the length of her arms ended when wrapped around his shoulders. And thus, Leon knew her enough to know that the tender look in her eyes and soft voice were a kindness. That her nudity was not mere seduction, but an understanding.
Her lips pressed a trail of light kisses along his neck and jaw until it hovered above his mouth, where his breaths grew shallow and quick.
The sharp smell of alcohol on her breath grew close, close enough until he could taste it on his tongue. He melted into her, pressing deeply against supple lips, into the warmth of her tongue. He sought her touch again and again, their noses brushing with each kiss.
Limb to limb and palm to palm. Their breaths coalesced.
It was unfettered and wanting; it was medicine for his ailment. His cock twitched between Ada's thighs.
Ada lowered herself onto his chest and nestled her head into the crook of his neck. Her body curled up against his side with one arm draped across his stomach. They could fuck any time. It was expected much of the time from their mutual attraction that sent them colliding aflame. It wasn’t sex that he wanted, or what either of them was looking for tonight. No, Leon thought through his haze. This is something else. Something too vulnerable to name.
They lay in the quiet, nestled together with legs wrapped around the other’s. This was what it must have felt like to fall asleep with a lover beneath the covers. There was no hurry, no fervent expectations or adrenaline rush. Decompression in the arms of another.
“Sweet dreams,” Ada whispered. Leon's eyes fluttered shut, as if struck by a trance. Above all else at this moment, he was allowed to simply just be.
🌦
The chill morning air prompted Leon to burrow his cold nose into his blanket. Ada clung to him from behind with her chest to his back, her breaths of sleep grazing against his neck in a steady rhythm.
Her arm was draped over his bicep and their fingers were interlaced. Leon lightly squeezed her hand, grateful to feel warm, supple flesh rather than the cool, hard handle of a pistol. I could get used to this, he thought before succumbing to the heaviness in his eyes.
There was one truth of the universe that he could not defy: no matter the distance, Leon would cross paths with Ada, meeting in spite of it all. Try as they might, one could not deny the other. In flesh and mind, their fatal attraction rose above it all.
Leon pulled Ada closer by the waist. While she was here, he should sleep for all it was worth before she made a stealthy retreat. He didn’t want to think about that. That was the beginning of an end.