Warnings: no beta, OOCness, English is not my first language, inconsistent tenses, i am very bad at prepositions
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: this is fic 3 of 3 from the aeon wedding brain rot i had last august (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧
A few months back, I initially wrote this fic as an exercise in writing a 750-word story (youtube dot com slash watch? v= blehVIDyuXk), but we all know that I failed that exercise 😂
Amidst the office pantry's din, Leon pulled his lunch out of the paper bag and felt the blood rush to his cheeks.
Stuck to his lunch box was a Post-It note saying, Enjoy you lunch, handsome ❤.
It would have been fine if he were alone, but he was in the office pantry surrounded by his nosy colleagues. Anything anyone of them did out of the ordinary would be circulated in the rumour mill, and by the end of the day, the whole DSO would know that Agent Leon S. Kennedy's lunch was possibly prepared and lovingly packed by someone else.
Can a man eat his lunch in peace?
He was about to rip (carefully remove) the note and throw (keep) it when he felt someone looming over his shoulder.
He craned his head backwards and saw Sherry giving him a knowing grin.
"Aw, did your wifey make your lunch?" Sherry said.
"I don't have a wife," Leon replied, folding the note and tucking it inside his pocket. By some miracle, none of his co-workers seemed to have heard what Sherry had said, and it was only because it was Sherry that Leon was certain this little occurrence wouldn't be rumour mill fodder.
He placed his lunchbox in the microwave. Sherry leaned against the counter, crossed her arms, and said, "Then why do you wear a ring?"
"It's just a ring," he said, affecting a nonchalant tone. "It doesn't mean anything. Besides, it's on my right ring finger."
"A lot of people wear their wedding rings on their right hand," Sherry replied.
He wanted to groan to express his annoyance, but this was Sherry and he loved her like a little sister, so instead, he just sighed and said, "Look, Sherry. I'm not married, okay?"
"But there's someone, right?" The probing tone was gone from her voice. "You know you can confide in me, right?"
He stared at her earnest eyes. Nothing Sherry ever did was done out of malice, and she was a good kid. She was one of Leon's lifelong friends and he was certain that he could tell her anything and everything without being judged—but it didn't mean that he would.
It was for her own safety anyway. The fewer people who knew about Ada, the better.
"I know I can," he said, smiling and patting her head. The microwave dinged and he took his lunchbox out of it. "But there are some things in this world you're better off not knowing, and this is one of them."
He strode out of the pantry with Sherry in tow; their conversation wasn't over and the pantry wasn't the place to reveal—or not reveal—his secrets.
He moved to his workstation and Sherry rolled her chair towards his desk, putting her lunch on it. It was a chicken sandwich from the café down the block, while Leon's lunch was an artfully decorated bento box of rice, beef, soft-boiled egg, and some tomatoes and vegetables. On top of the rice was a small piece of nori shaped like a heart.
He wasn't lying when he said he wasn't married, but if this was what married life looked like…
He felt the blood rushing back to his cheeks.
"And suddenly my lunch feels so inadequate," Sherry said before taking a bite out of her sandwich.
"You can have some if you'd like," Leon said, pushing his bento towards her.
She swallowed her food before replying. "That wouldn't feel right." She pushed the bento back towards him. "You enjoy your lunch and I'll enjoy mine. Maybe you can even tell me a bit about your partner if you feel inclined."
And he was inclined. He itched to tell all of his friends about Ada, but how could he when knowing about her existence was already trouble enough?
He took a pair of disposable chopsticks from his desk drawer. He could eat his lunch with a spoon and fork, but years upon years of eating hotpot with Ada had made him an adept chopsticks-user.
He dug into his lunch—it tasted heavenly—and then told Sherry, "Maybe someday I'll be able to."
"I was just teasing you, you know," she said, taking another bite out of her sandwich. "I'm not forcing you to tell me anything. I just…I guess I just want to celebrate if my friend had finally settled down or something."
"I haven't settled down. But if there's going to be a wedding—" He doubted there ever would be one, but sometimes, it was nice to imagine. "—you're invited, okay? I promise you that."
"Can I be a flower girl?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes. "I wanna throw petals on the carpet."
"I think you're too old to be a flower girl, but if you really want to, I guess I could make some suggestions." And now that he thought about it, he wasn't certain if Sherry ever had the chance to be a flower girl….
They shared a laugh, and when their laughter subsided, they went back to eating their food.
A few moments later, Sherry spoke. "If that's not a wedding ring, then what is it?"
Leon glanced at the ring on his right ring finger. It was an unassuming silver band and didn't even have any engraving. Its twin rested on Ada's right ring finger, also devoid of engraving. Those rings wouldn't incriminate them should they be lost and found, and Leon could deny owning one.
But he didn't want to deny it, or Ada, or what they had. Wasn't that why he had gotten them those rings in the first place—because he didn't want to hide her anymore?
"A declaration," he said, a faint smile gracing his lips as he thumbed the ring. "I belong to someone, and someone belongs to me."
Sherry stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. She doubled over, slapping her thighs in amusement. Tears leaked out of her eyes, all the while Leon looked at her with a questioning glance.
"You…" Sherry said in between laughs. She wiped the corners of her eyes and continued, "You're such a sap, you know? Everyone thinks you're so cool and awesome, but in reality you're just a huge dork."
"Hey, that's—"
She gave him a smile. "I'm happy for you."
Leon went from scowling—because okay, Sherry's laughs might have wounded his ego a little bit—into looking at Shery distrustfully, his eyebrows scrunching.
"Really, I am!" she insisted. "You've got this ring and lunchbox and your secret not-wife. It's nice that you have something that makes you want to wake up every day."
Leon smirked and waggled his eyebrows; it was his turn to do the teasing. "What about you, Sherry? Do you have someone that makes you wanna wake up every day?"
She snorted. "Don't make this conversation about me." She tried to return to her sandwich but Leon took it, holding it out of her reach.
"What about that Jake kid, huh?" He grinned, holding her sandwich away from her.
Sherry gave up, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms. "I'll tell you about my love life if you tell me about yours."
Leon gave the sandwich back to her, nodding sagely. "So do you have a love life. Interesting."
"I didn't say that." Sherry took a bite out of sandwich and grimaced. "My food's gone cold."
And so did Leon's. But he still ate it anyway, careful not to ruin that heart-shaped nori just yet.
One by one, his co-workers returned to their workstations, so Leon ate his lunch in a hurry, not wanting any of his colleagues to spot his beautifully and lovingly prepared bento, and turn him into rumour mill fodder. He ate that heart-shaped nori last, and once all his food was gone, he lamented on how he must now wait for probably at least another month to get another bento; Ada had left that morning and wouldn't be back until four week later.
He packed his bento away and went back to working, and Sherry did the same. He preferred the humdrum of office work as opposed to the adrenalin brought by the life-and-death situations he so often faced. In moments like this, he could pretend that he was just a normal guy living a normal life, working a normal nine-to-five job.
But if he was just a normal guy, would he have met Ada?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
But he didn't time to think about the past, and while a bleak future still lay ahead, the light reflected on his ring gave him illumination in this seemingly infinite darkness.
He couldn't see the end just yet, but he had a light guiding him through it.
Leon had Ada.
A/N: That whole "I belong to someone and someone belongs to me" thing: that was totally not inspired by the Claddagh ring Angel gave Buffy nope idk what you're talking about!