Finally got time to update, and I got a beta! Special thanks to Lance (ao3 users LancePuns profile) for beta reading, and I hope you all like the chapter!

"Soooo, Boss," Balthus drawled. "How's it been with Bernadetta?"

Yuri pointedly kept his eyes glued to the pages in front of him. "It's been well, Balthus. Now, if you want your stay here to go well, I suggest you drop the subject."

"Aw, come on, Boss!" Balthus yelled, his voice accompanied by another loud rip that echoed in the small chamber. "Seein' how you and Bernadetta were at the speech, I'd think you're doin' a bit better than just 'well'."

"Uh-huh." Yuri said as he scrawled a note on the corner of the parchment, doing his best to keep his voice as calm and casual as possible. "So how were we?"

"Well, Bern was lookin' nervous, as per usual. But she did calm down after a while. She even got this real determined look in her eyes I haven't seen in her since the end of the war."

Yuri smirked. "She has an uncanny talent for governance. It's only natural that said talent would extend to troop management."

"Yeah, I guess that explains the look. But you, on the other hand," Balthus said, and Yuri could hear the grin in his voice. "You looked like you were on cloud nine."

Yuri's quill poked a hole the parchment.

With a careful breath, Yuri put down the quill and pulled himself away from the desk. Slowly, very, very slowly, he turned to face Balthus, and he was proud of himself for not immediately wondering whether or not he should throw a dagger at the man.

The two of them were in Yuri's room at the Varley estate, surrounded by stacks of books that Balthus was slowly ripping to shreds. The destruction was Hilda's idea, and Yuri wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised by that fact. It was usually Balthus who came up with the smash-first-questions-later strategies.

Then again, Yuri wasn't surprised that Balthus and Hilda were on the exact same wavelength today. Especially with what happened that morning.

"The more information we get before the professor arrives, the more help we'll get from her and the church," Yuri said. "That means finding the dead priest's leaked list. It's been driving me up a wall for ages now, and I want to get this little mystery resolved as quickly as possible."

Yuri leaned against the wall of the meeting room and sighed. He and Bernadetta had just finished bringing Hilda and Balthus up to speed, and Yuri's head was already trying to figure out the best course of action to make use of their limited time before Byleth arrived.

Balthus, on the other hand, just laughed. "Relax, Boss, we'll figure it out soon enough. I mean, that's why we're here!"

Yuri rolled his eyes. "Take this seriously."

"I am!"

"Well," Hilda cut in, and a self-confident smile stretched across her face. "Like I said yesterday, I have an idea about those pesky books you were looking at."

"Ooh, what is it?" Bernadetta asked, bouncing on her toes a little. Despite the years that had passed since Yuri had met her, Bernadetta still kept little habits from her childhood-self, and it made Yuri chuckle. Would Bernadetta bounce like that if Yuri teased her with an offer of a kiss? Or would she blush and bite her nails, like she always did when Yuri would suggest a game that Bernadetta knew he'd win?

Yuri's brain screeched to a halt. Why was he thinking about kissing Bernadetta again? He had more important things to do, and he couldn't waste time on a foolish idea that would bring about even more foolish consequences.

Hilda glanced over at him, and if she noticed Yuri's veiled inner confusion, she didn't comment. "Well, here's the thing," she said. "I bet you've been looking between the book pages, but have you been checking the covers?"

"Covers?" Bernadetta asked.

"Yeah. If you have hardcover books, you'll have an outer cover made of leather that goes over the wooden panels that keep the book's shape. If the priest had experience with book-binding, he could've just lifted the leather, snuck a list between the material and the panel, and then glued the cover closed. If you're really good at it, you could make it look like the book was never even touched."

"Smart idea," Yuri said. "Kind of makes me wish I'd come up with it myself."

"But now that you know about it, you can do it!" Bernadetta said, smiling at Yuri. "I bet you're already thinking about using the idea. I have a little experience in bookbinding, so if you want, I can teach you!"

Yuri laughed. "If you already had experience in bookbinding, how come you didn't come up with this idea before? Would've saved us a whole lot of time."

Bernadetta's face flushed, and in a fit of annoyance, she balled her hands into little fists. "I—We're not here to talk about me! A-And if it's such a great idea, why didn't you think of it?"

"Because I'm not the one who spends their time with dolls and handicrafts. Now that I think about it, didn't you once say you'd write a book about all the fantastic 'adventures' we went on as kids? Granted, most of those tales were of us playing in the gardens, but I do wonder if you were sentimental enough to write them down."

"Yuri!" Bernadetta's face somehow got even redder. "If you ever wanna read that book, you better stop embarrassing me in front of Balthus and Hilda!"

An unexpected feeling of joy rushed through Yuri's system. He still remembered his and Bernadetta's first conversation back at the monastery, when Bernadetta still believed that 'Germain' had been killed by her father, and it was pretty clear that she remembered their time together as children. But to actually sit down and write about all their 'adventures'? Yuri wasn't a fool. He knew that his supposed 'death' had caused his old friend no shortage of grief, so the fact that Bernadetta pushed through it and took the time to write about him was nothing short of a miracle.

Yuri smirked. "Oh, so you did write the book."

"Of course I did!" Bernadetta said, and though she still looked embarrassed, a shy smile spread across her face. "After you… You know, after you left, I needed to have something to remember you by. But I wrote that book when I was a kid, so it's not very good."

And as quick as it had come, Yuri's joy suddenly turned into guilt. Of course Bernadetta would want to remember the time with her only friend. Her only friend who up and 'died' on her.

Her friend who tried to kill her.

"Well, I'm not leaving any time soon," Yuri said, trying to keep his tone as light as he could at that moment. "Maybe you can let me read it one day. Then I won't have to bring my mom into this and have her ask for the book. I'm sure you have an idea about how persistent she can be when she really wants something, and I'm sure that would include reading anything you've written about us."

"Yuriiii!" Bernadetta giggled into her hand. "You don't have to bring your mom into this. That book's also about you, so you should get to see it. When I thought you were dead, I thought no one would get to read it, but you're not dead! So if anyone should read it, it's you, right?"

Yuri huffed in surprise. "My, oh my. A private look into the writings of Bernadetta von Varley herself. Now what on earth have I ever done to deserve that?"

"Be my friend!" Bernadetta smiled shyly and looked down at her shoes. "And, you know, be alive."

And as if the guilt from before wasn't enough to make Yuri feel like the most vile person in Fódlan, the guilt he was feeling now certainly was.

Friend, Yuri thought as his stomach twisted itself in pain. I don't know how you've forgiven me for almost killing you, much less how you can still think of me as a friend. And how do I want to thank you for all that? I want to ruin this friendship by kissing you. And I still don't understand why.

Just… Why?

Why do I want to kiss you?

Someone coughed to the side, and Yuri's vision suddenly came into sharp focus. He was in a meeting room, looking at Bernadetta, and feeling an overwhelming sense of dread fill him from head to toe.

Why? Because he had spent the last who-knew-how-many minutes focused on Bernadetta, and he had forgotten that Balthus and Hilda were with them. That they were still in the room.

And that they were listening to their entire conversation.

"Like I was saying," Hilda chimed in with a smile. "I think we can figure out something pretty interesting if we look hard enough."

"Ooooh," Batlhus croned, and a wide grin split his face in two. "I get whatcha mean, Hilda."

Inwardly, Yuri cursed himself.

It was one thing for him to space out in front of Bernadetta, since that girl was surprisingly dense when it came to social situations, but it was another thing for him to space out in front of—

"Good!" Hilda clapped her hands together, and Yuri's heart dropped at the mischievous glint in her eyes. "Because if the priest was hiding a list in the books, all you gotta do is rip those covers wide open. Rip the spines in two, peel back the leather, and keep doing that until something comes out."

Yuri and Bernadetta winced. Hard.

"Aaah! But the books!" Bernadetta cried, ignorant to Hilda and Balthus' obvious glee at the whole situation.

Yuri sighed. "Can't say I like the idea any more than you do, but unfortunately, Hilda's strategy is the best idea we've got."

"And it's a strategy I really like." Balthus punched his fist into his opposite palm. "My specialty is tearin' stuff apart, ya know?"

Hilda gave them all a very obvious wink. "I think Baltie's just volunteered himself for the job."

"Hell yeah!" Balthus cried as he walked over and threw his enormous arm across Yuri's shoulders. "The books are in your room, right, Boss? I'll just do my book destroying shit there while you go over your records."

"That sounds like a great plan!" Hilda said immediately, and before Yuri could do or say anything to protest the idea, Hilda had already thrown her arm around Bernadetta's shoulders. "Bernie, I have some stuff I wanna check, as well. Mind coming with?"

"O-Oh!" Bernadetta stuttered. "Uh, sure, Hilda!"

"Great!" Hilda chirped, already turning to lead Bernadetta out of the meeting room and as far away from Yuri as possible. "Bye, you two! Have fun with the books!"

And that's how Yuri ended up here, in his quarters, surrounded by piles of torn books and staring at a friend who wanted nothing more than to dig into Yuri's personal life.

"Now, Balthus, I think you're misremembering," Yuri said, imbuing a touch of venomous charm into his words. "That speech was professional business. I wasn't there for any other purpose, and I certainly wasn't on 'cloud nine', as you put it. All I did was stand next to Bernadetta. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh yeah?" Balthus raised an eyebrow as he ripped yet another book's spine in half. "You sure you weren't holdin' her hand, too?"

Yuri glared at him.

"Ooooo," Balthus drawled, briefly looking away from Yuri to tear the book's binding away from its wooden covers. "So you're not denying it?"

"No need to deny something that didn't happen," Yuri said, holding back a wince as he watched the book's leather binding fall to the floor. They'd been at this for several hours now, and though they still had several stacks of tomes, novels, and other hardbacks to go through, Yuri's room was now completely covered in the remnants of hundreds of hours of reading material.

As much as Yuri grimaced at the waste of perfectly good books he would've killed to have had as a child, he had to admit that Balthus' system was quick, and now that they had a deadline for finding the dead priest's goddess-forsaken list, Yuri just had to put up with it.

Balthus looked through the wooden book in his hands, and after making sure there wasn't a loose sheet of paper stuck to one of the bare wooden covers, he tossed the ruined hardback aside and picked up a new one.

"So if I ask Bern if you two were holding hands," Balthus said, "is she gonna tell me the same thing you just did?"

Yuri didn't answer, and Balthus grinned.

Is it too late to kill him? Yuri thought. Maybe I can make it look like an accident. At least that way I'll avoid having Hilda come after me in a fit of romance-driven revenge.

"I'm not quite sure what this conversation has to do with your task at hand," Yuri said as Balthus ripped another book's spine.

"It's gotta be important somehow," Balthus said. He ripped apart the book's binding, looked at the covers, found nothing, and tossed the paper away. "Or else you'd be able to ignore me and focus on your own stuff."

"Since when do you think you know me so well that you can guess the reasoning behind my actions?"

"Don't know what you're talkin' about. 'Sides, other than the professor showin' up in a few days, what else is there to mention? You've already given me the debrief about the slithering dudes. Now I wanna talk about somethin' that's actually interesting."

Yuri bit the inside of his cheek. "More interesting than Bernadetta's safety?"

Balthus' eyes widened, and he looked like he'd suddenly won the biggest betting pool in all of Fódlan. "Oh, so the priority is Bernadetta?"

Balthus sent another ruined book flying, and Yuri actively had to push down his desire to murder the man right then and there.

Rip, tear, crash, repeat. Those were the sounds Yuri had been suffering through over and over again since he and Balthus had gotten to work, and as maddening as it was, Yuri would've preferred hearing only that to participating in whatever this conversation was turning into.

But then again, Yuri always had a knack for turning situations to his advantage.

"I could always inquire into your personal life," Yuri said, "since you're so interested in mine. Tell me, how's traveling with Hilda been? You two have been moving around so much it's even hard for me to keep track of you."

"It's been… like a dream come true," Balthus said as he absentmindedly destroyed another book. "She was raised a noble, and she's still got her fancy tastes, but she's got a sense of adventure I ain't seen in any other woman. She just loves goin' places and seein' new things. Especially if there's a market with clothes and accessories and shit like that."

Yuri nodded, keeping the smug smirk off his face. It really was easy to distract Balthus, particularly when it came to anything regarding Hilda. "And how's the training regimen going? Last I heard, you were somewhere off in the countryside hauling logs across a field."

Balthus shrugged."Eh, it's going alright," he said, ripping the spine of a particularly large encyclopedia as easily as if it was a single piece of parchment. "But I still feel like there's something missin', ya know?"

"Daphnel territory wasn't good enough for you?"

"Leicester's good for training on flat ground, but it ain't got a lot of mountains outside of Kupala, so I feel like I'm not getting the most out of it." Rip, tear, crash, repeat. "But now we're in Varley, which has mountains for days. I'm hopin' that somethin' here will challenge me. Somethin' that'll push me enough to get an edge on Holst."

"You're that sure you'll have to duel him for Hilda's hand? As protective as Holst is, I doubt even he could convince Hilda not to marry her choice in partner."

"Nah, it's not for her hand." Balthus smiled, but it wasn't his usual grin. This one was softer, more serious. "I wanna take her to see the world."

Now that piqued Yuri's attention. "Outside of Fódlan?"

"Yeah!" Rip, tear, crash, repeat. "I mean, she's always going on about how she loves all these accessories and designs, and there's just so much that's outside the continent she hasn't had a chance to see. So much stuff I just know she wants to do but doesn't wanna ask for outright."

Yuri huffed in amusement. "And you're gonna be her courageous beau who whisks her off to parts unknown."

"That's what I wanna be," Balthus said, ripping the newest book with more force than before. "But to do that, first I gotta make sure I can beat Holst."

"Gotta say, Balthus, I can't remember the last time you were this determined about something that wasn't gold."

"Haha! Fair, fair. But honest, it's been a while since I had something worth as much as being with Hilda."

Yuri had known his friend for a long while, and there was an undercurrent of quiet determination that wasn't there before. Sure, Balthus had always been straightforward and honest about his goals, but never did he sound so sure in any sort of long term plan. At least, not until now.

Yuri shook his head. "At least Hilda's a good match for you," he said. "If anyone's gonna keep you from wasting gold on stupid bets, it's her."

"Yeah," Balthus said with a small smile. "And I think Bernadetta's a good match for you."

Yuri's nerves went on high alert, and he immediately turned back to his deskwork. "If you say so, Balthus."

"'Course I say so!" Balthus replied, but Yuri kept his back turned. "And I think you know that, too."

Yuri picked up his quill and focused on the lists in front of him. He'd been distracted for too long. He still had the kitchen staff to go over, several guard rotations to compare, and over two dozen decrees from Grégoire von Varley to analyze. He didn't have time to get distracted, and he definitely didn't have time to listen to Balthus.

"Aw, come on. Don't give me the silent treatment!" Balthus yelled as he ripped apart another book.

Right. Because as much as Yuri prided himself on being able to focus in the direst of situations, Balthus was a man who was very good at being very loud and very obnoxious.

"Look, I know I don't have your brains, Yuri, but I've known you long enough to pick up on some things. You think I wasn't payin' attention all those times you snuck someone into our room in Abyss?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Yuri ground out through his teeth.

"Well, you always got a look in your eye when you brought someone over," Balthus said, throwing another half-destroyed encyclopedia across the room. "Like you'd finally gotten somethin' you'd been lookin' for for a long time. You get that look every time you see Bernadetta, but this time… this time it's a bit different."

"Oh, really?" He said, hoping Balthus could hear every bit of pent-up frustration Yuri had toward the man. "If you've noticed so much, then enlighten me?"

Balthus paused before answering. "You look… happier."

Yuri kept his eyes on the papers in front of him, but they weren't reading any words.

"I don't know why it is, but it's the truth, Boss. I can see it, Hilda can see it, and it's only a matter of time before Bern sees it. You've got the hots for Bernadetta, Yuri, and you've got it baaaad."

Some kind of deep, raw emotion swirled inside Yuri's chest. It clawed at Yuri's insides, just begging Yuri to focus on it, but Yuri didn't. He didn't, because he had a bad feeling he knew what that emotion was trying to tell him.

It was trying to say that Balthus… Was right.

"You want her, don't you?" Balthus asked.

"I'm not even dignifying that question with an answer," Yuri replied, writing a note with big flourishes that scratched loudly against the paper.

"But you just did! Ah—nevermind!" Balthus yelled, and the sounds of books getting ripped and torn to shreds grew even louder. "But I know I'm right! You gonna say anything to Bernadetta?"

"As if."

"Hmm… You kissed her yet?"

"Kiss a count? Ha!" Yuri laughed. "Not yet. I may be bold, but I'm not reckless. If what you're looking for is gossip, you're barking up the wrong tree, Balthus."

"Not yet?"

… Shit.

Yuri blew a breath out through his nose. He placed his quill back in the ink pot, because Yuri was very close to snapping that pen in two. "She's a count and I'm the leader of the Mockingbirds. It's not exactly an easy situation to work around."

"That kind of shit's never stopped you before. What's different with Bernadetta?"

Too many things, Yuri thought. And that's not even considering the fact that I barely understand what this feeling even is.

Attraction, desire, or, as Balthus called it, 'the hots'. Yuri's felt it before. Numerous times, in fact. But it was different with Bernadetta. This feeling, it made Yuri want to be with her, but not in the spontaneous way he usually approached potential suitors. It told Yuri to make her smile and see her blush, but not in a way that would leave her exposed and vulnerable.

And it made Yuri want to kiss Bernadetta, slowly and deeply, like he's never kissed anyone before.

"Come on, Boss," Balthus said over the sound of books being ripped and torn apart. "I know you like your private life private, but I thought we were close enough that you could actually tell me shit about you. What, do you think I'd just up and leave if I didn't like what you say?"

Yuri huffed and shook his head. "No. Though others may think otherwise, I know you're too stupidly loyal to do something like that."

"Then why don't you wanna talk to me? Trust me? After that Aelfric business with us and the other Wolves, you said you'd—"

"I know, Balthus," Yuri said quietly. "I know."

"So are you gonna talk to me or what?"

Yuri went quiet for a moment, pausing to think about whether or not he should just tell Balthus to back off and shut up about this. After all, why should Yuri confess his darkest secrets? Secrets that he should only share with the goddess Herself.

But then again, if Balthus, a friend Yuri trusted with his life, was pushing on this, then maybe this was the Goddess' way of telling Yuri to just get over himself and talk.

"I can't hurt her," Yuri whispered. "Not again."

"Who the hell says you'll hurt her?"

"I do." Yuri sighed and turned around to face Balthus. "You know Bernadetta and I have a history, but you don't know all of it. I… I'll tell you about it later, I promise. Just… Not now."

Balthus nodded his head slowly. "Ok. I'll take that," he said, picking up another encyclopedia. "But, Yuri… You're talkin' like you really wanna be with her."

"And?"

Balthus ripped the book's spine, and in spite of the destruction the man was causing, his voice was calm. "Well, what if Bern wants to be with you, too?"

Yuri shook his head, and his mouth twisted itself into a grim frown.

"She shouldn't," Yuri said.

"What the hell d'ya mean by tha—"

Balthus cut himself off, and Yuri immediately saw why. In his hands was the encyclopedia, the binding half-torn off of it, and he was looking down at a sheet of folded parchment that had been hidden between the wood and the leather.

Yuri stood up and snatched the piece of parchment.

"Looks like we found our list," he said, already unfolding the page and reading through it.

"Holy shit," Balthus said, and Yuri heard him drop the encyclopedia with a heavy thunk. "Turns out your assassin wasn't lyin'."

Yuri finished reading, and a surge of anger took hold of his throat. "No," he ground out. "But she sure as hell wasn't telling us the whole truth."

Because though the parchment did have a list with the name of every single Varley guard working on the estate, it also had a lot more information than that.

Yuri spun around and snatched up all the materials on his desk. "We need to show this to Bernadetta. Now."

And without even waiting for Balthus to respond, Yuri turned and sprinted out of the room.