Chapter Text
The morning started on a fairly unfair note. Damian had spent the better part of last night studying. After all a Desmond should never fall behind. Does that mean studying the syllabus six months in advance? No of course not. Syllabuses should be completed at least eight months before. Only because he had all those away football matches during the inter-school games, that he fell behind. Hence the extra hours studying.
The early February air hit his sleep deprived face. His nose felt like an icicle. Sleep was still dragging his eyelids down. Maybe two hours isn’t enough sleep. He should sleep for four tomorrow. Walking through the chattering crowd, he halted when he heard the screech of the bus tires.
Anya…
She looks like the morning mist condensed on the spring buds. The way she seemed to glide over the ground, everything else fades to white noise. Her doe eyes were sparkling like gemstones. Maybe he’s still dreaming.
She greeted Becky by the front gate. They were walking towards the school building as well. As they approached, the familiar voice in his head, which justified his actions in a way that didn’t include him accepting his actual feelings, started – She’s coming this way. should I greet her? No, she just greeted Blackbell, she can greet me too, right? Yes, I’m the Desmond scion, she should be the one to greet me. But what if she doesn’t greet me? She’s an Imperial Scholar; it would be unbecoming of her to ignore her fellow scholars. She knows that right? Or maybe I should greet her first? Maybe I should show her how to greet by greeting her first. Yes, I’ll greet her first to show her how –
“Good morning, Damian” a cheerful voice said.
Damian was snapped out of his morning rumination. He was so captivated by her appearance. The cold made her cheeks pink like her hair and Damian thought what would it be like to pinch them. They just look so squishy. Anya’s cheeks seemed to redden even more. He noticed a misbehaving strand of hair and just as he was about to stretch out his arm to tuck it behind her ear, someone spoke –
“You know you’re supposed to greet back, right?” Becky’s low voice made him realise he’d been staring (again). He blinked his eyes and found the words to greet her back, “G—Good morning, Forger.” His face started burning.
“Stuttering is inelegant Mr. Desmond.”
“Shut up Blackbell.”
“Good morning to you too. And your lackeys.”
“We are not lackeys!” two voices shouted simultaneously.
“Yeah right” the girl retorted.
This banter was witnessed by some passing students. The whole school was used to this. It was a real mystery how these five fought so much yet stuck together.
Damian, on the other hand was turning crimson. He realised that he might lose it if he stayed here anymore. He turned around and started walking towards their classes. His palms were sweating. His lung may have stopped breathing from embarrassment. He didn’t even wait for Emile or Ewen to win their argument with Becky. And why the hell is it so hot today.
“Bossman wait –” the blonde boys scurried behind their friend while the girls watched in confusion.
The day was going as usual for the five. Damian’s self-agony over denial of his feelings, Becky’s teasing about the two, Emile and Ewen’s weak attempts at protecting their friend’s dignity while secretly agreeing with Becky, and Anya’s obliviousness to it all.
Anya looked back once at the trio from the front of the class when she heard Damian’s mind going – Why does it keep happening to me? Why do I keep forgetting how words work when she’s around? Ugh! It’s all her fault!
Anya squinted her eyes at his remark and looked the other way. She turned off her telepathy for the period because she wanted to focus on what the teacher was saying instead of Sy-on boy’s baseless claims. Little did she know that a gesture so insignificant which would go unnoticed by most, sent the Desmond scion in a frenzy of anxiety-induced overthinking, trying to assess every single micro-expression on her face to figure out what made her suddenly look away from him.
Lunch came by with the passing day.
Damian preferred finishing his lunch quickly so that he can spend the rest of his time studying in the library (only because he liked staying ahead of the class. This has nothing to do with wanting to look cool in front of the pink haired gremlin he would be tutoring in the free period after lunch).
Speaking of which, where is she? Damian scanned the room trying (and failing) not to make it obvious. Is she late for lunch? No, she’s never late for lunch. Did she get held back by a teacher? Or maybe she got sent to the headmaster’s office for misconduct. Wait, why am I worrying so much? Stupid Forger, she probably got lost in the hallways. But what if she is in trouble?
“Maybe we should ask Becky where she is.” Ewen answered his unspoken question.
Damian turned red by being seen through so transparently by his friends. He jumped to his defence (he had a reputation to maintain, after all), “Why would I ask where Forger is? I wasn’t even looking for her. Why would I care where she is? –” followed by some indecipherable nonsense neither of his two friends understood.
I never mentioned Forger.
Bossman has it bad~
But they knew saying these things out loud would not yield any results. After all, a person who’s been in denial for over a decade wasn’t going to develop emotional intelligence in one afternoon. They just obediently followed him towards where Becky was sitting.
Damian walked up to the table where the brunette was sitting. She had a Frown on her face, which only deepened when she saw the trio approaching.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“Why would we answer to you? We always sit here during lunch Blackbell.” Damian retorted.
Everyone sat in silence for some time. The brunette was busy deconstructing her pie with a spoon so that it won’t be recognised without DNA evidence. The amber-eyed boy was stirring his soup as if the girl of his thoughts would manifest from the chicken-broccoli vortex. The one nibbling his sandwich with his squirrel-teeth was quietly enjoying his friend’s despair. And the one with potato chips on his head and plate just wanted to eat his lunch in peace.
It was Ewen who broke the silence by addressing the question on a certain somebody’s minds. He knew his emotionally constipated acquaintance would never be able to ask it out loud himself, so he decided to be a good friend today. “So, Becky.” The girl shot an uninterested look at him. Like his very voice just made her day worse by tenfold. He chose to ignore it; there is a bigger issue at hand. “— where is Forger?”
“How am I supposed to know? It’s not like it’s my job to keep check of where she goes and what she does and who she’s with. It’s not like she tells me EVERYTHING she does.” Becky spat out in an unregulated decibel which made few of the neighbouring tables look over.
She started speaking incoherent syllables under her breath and discarded her unfinished meal in the wastebin before dashing out of the dining hall. Maybe the muttering is contagious.
Becky’s behaviour as strange an unpredictable but the other boys had other things on their minds. Ewen was busy rethinking what is wrong with his choices in acquaintances. Emile was just enjoying the spectacle.
And our scion, semi-professional at hiding his feelings, incapable of voicing them out loud was stuck on a particular phrase within the girl’s rambling.
‘— who she’s with.’
Is Anya with someone else? Who? Who would be more important to her than hi – her friends?
He wanted answers, but the girl in question was nowhere to be seen and her friend had turned into a ticking time bomb. So, he decided to wait till he will be alone with her.
The screeching bell signalled the end of lunch.
Immediately after the final lunch bell, Damian bypassed his friends and marched straight to the library. If he couldn't find her in the cafeteria, he would wait for her at their designated study spot.
On the way, he meticulously gathered their preparation materials. He pulled class notes to revise, old question papers to assess her comprehension, and a handful of extra pens. She always conveniently forgot her stationery. He strongly suspected she did it on purpose just to borrow his high-end fountain pens, but honestly, who could blame her?
He preferred to focus on the lessons rather than her inevitable whining. He could already hear her voice complaining about geometry: "Why do we have to use math to prove the shape is a circle when I can clearly see with my own eyeballs that it's a circle?!" (Seriously the things she said sometimes were so cute stupid— they were so stupid. Definitely not endearing.)
But the true operational preparation lay in the non-academic supplies hidden beneath his school cape.
And among the non-academic materials were a pack of salted peanuts, because that stubby-legged girl was perpetually hungry. A new Bondman comic for when she’ll get bored, because she will and he doesn’t want her to leave for a walk or something (it’s just distracting, okay.) And an energy drink so that she doesn’t fall asleep. He got the peach flavoured one she loves because it was featured on an episode of her favourite show. They showed Bondman drinking that exact same flavour and he then had to have that personally delivered to his dorm by Jeeves because the school only sells the orange flavour.
What? Don’t get the wrong idea. He only does those things so that he himself doesn’t get distracted during studying. This had nothing to do with wanting her to request for more one-on-one sessions. He only helps her because he needs to uphold the moral code of an Imperial scholar. Yes. That’s why he does these things.
And he insists he be the one to tutor her because no one else would be able to exhibit the level of patience required to hammer a concept into that thick commoner skull of hers. Yes. That’s right. he was doing the other Scholars a favour by taking it upon himself to accomplish the impossible. And if there was anything about the fuzziness he feels when she thanks him, or when she scores better on her tests that’s nobody's business. That fuzzy feeling he gets when she looks up to him with those sparkling eyes and thanks him.
Like she should. He helped her, the least she can do is show gratitude. And when he says that she should continue studying with him if she wants to keep her GPA up, it's just in her best interest.
As an extra precaution, he patted his pockets. The chocolate protein bar and packet of chips were securely hidden. Since she had missed lunch, she was going to be running on empty, and he wasn't about to let her use low blood sugar as an excuse to bunk their session.
Speaking of which—where was she today? He must inquire about it, thoroughly. She shouldn’t be wandering about in the campus by herself. He would just be doing his duty as an Imperial Scholar. After all—What if she lands herself in trouble?
Or maybe—
A sudden, intoxicating thought flashed through his mind. What if she’s already in the library? Trying to study ahead… waiting for him.
He’d enter the library and look around to find her sitting at their usual bench. She would be trying hard to focus on her book in front of her. But as soon as he’d enter, she would look up to find him and give him the brightest smile to ever exist and would wave at him to come over.
An involuntary goofy smile formed over his lips.
If that’s the case, then he should reward her for hard work, right? A plushie maybe? She loves soft toys.
What? He only knows because She never shut up about that oversized plush penguin her father had bought her from an aquarium back in the first grade. Hanging onto a decade-old toy. Pathetic, he scoffed internally, his heart racing. I could buy her a plushie ten times the size of that thing. Heck, I could buy her the literal aquarium if she wanted.
As a psychological positive reinforcement tactic, of course.
Flushed with anticipation, Damian took a deep breath, composed his expression into a cool, indifferent mask, and pushed open the library doors. He eagerly scanned their corner.
The bench was completely empty.
She wasn't there.
Deflated, burning with a volatile mix of massive disappointment, and now, genuine, defensive anger, Damian marched down to the locker bay. He had wasted an entire free period waiting for her, holding a library bench like a fool while his own high-priority studying fell behind. All that preparation—the comic, the snacks, the aluminium can currently warm under his cape—it was all just… wasted.
How dare she, he fumed, slam-shutting Ewen’s locker door just to make a point, earning a confused look from his friend. I am a Desmond. My time is invaluable. Who does she think she is, just blowing me off?
And then, there she was.
Damian would ask her where she’d been, if he wasn’t so enamoured by the diffused lighting that seemed to dissipate from around her and the way she seemed to walk in slow motion towards him (although her locker was also in that same direction, but that was just a coincidence, right?)
Anya walked through the hallway connecting the adjacent building. She was perfectly fine. Not a scratch on her. Not a care in the world. As the afternoon light illuminated her silhouette, highlighting that stupidly bouncy pink hair and those too-bright emerald eyes, Damian’s anger spiked violently, warring with his standard symptoms.
She looks like… she looks annoying, he decided, lying to himself fiercely to keep the crushing disappointment from showing.
His eyes trailed her every step. To his immense irritation, she walked right past him without a single glance, heading straight for Becky.
The two girls immediately locked into a hushed, intense conversation. Judging by the sharp, dramatic hand gestures, Becky was delivering a fierce lecture, while Anya was frantically bowing her head, apologizing for... something.
Damian squinted, trying to read their lips from across the hall. He was so focused that he didn't notice Becky’s sharp gaze wander away from the argument. Her eyes locked right onto him, catching him red-handed.
A sly, knowing smirk spread across Becky’s lips.
Damian gasped internally, snapped his gaze away, and practically bolted down the hallway toward his next class.
“It just sorts of happened. I didn’t plan that or I would have surely told you ab—Becky are you even listening anymore??” the pink haired girl furrowed her brows when she realised her friend was distracted, from an argument she started.
“Huh—yeah, yeah I’m listening.” An absentminded reply came.
“What are you looking at?” Anya turned her head to try to look at what had stolen her friend’s attention.
“NOTHING! Nothing. There’s nothing there.” Panic and frantic waving of hands stopped her from catching a glimpse of whatever Becky had been so focused on.
“It’s fine. You were busy during lunch, I get it. You know what – if you want to you can miss lunch a few more days as well. Now let’s go, we’ll be late for classes.” with that Becky dragged Anya’s arm across the hallway into the classroom.
The emerald eyed girl was absolutely confused by her friend’s erratic behaviour. One minute she’s berating her for disappearing, the next she says to do the same thing more.
But she decided to excuse that.
Damian remained aggressively slumped in his seat at the very back of the lecture hall. He kept his textbook propped up at a rigid angle, attempting to look like a model of academic focus while secretly tracking the doorway. When the familiar silhouettes of the two girls finally appeared, his pupils locked onto them, watching as Blackbell practically dragged a thoroughly confused looking Anya toward their usual desks at the front.
The teacher entered the classroom shortly after.
"Good afternoon, class," the teacher announced, adjusting his spectacles. "Quiet down, please. Today, I will be assigning your partners for the upcoming term group project."
An audible collective groan rippled through the classroom, but Damian didn't even blink. He kept his icy, amber gaze anchored firmly to the back of Anya’s pink head. He didn't need to stress over the announcement. He didn't even need to listen to the instructor read the list. He already knew the cosmic script.
At this point, it felt like an unwritten law of the universe that he would be anchored to that exact same airhead every single time a joint assignment came up.
Not like he’s complaining. He has gotten quite used to it anyway. Him managing everything and her doodling on a piece of paper. Besides him doing the work by himself has always produced better results.
More importantly, this project was the perfect, ironclad excuse he needed. It would force her to sit across a library table from him for hours. She wouldn't be able to run away, and she certainly wouldn't be able to ignore him. He would thoroughly interrogate her about her little afternoon disappearance. She had made a Desmond wait; she owed him a legally binding explanation.
The teacher’s voice droned on, mechanically pairing up the elite students of Eden Academy. Damian tuned out the noise, mentally drafting the opening statement of his impending cross-examination of Anya Forger.
Then, the syllables sliced through his daydream like a guillotine.
"—Damian Desmond and Becky Blackbell."
Damian’s entire internal monologue experienced a catastrophic system failure.
What?
No. This never happened. In the entire history of Eden Academy, he never got paired with Blackbell. And if he was stuck with Blackbell... then who was Forger paired with?
Damn it! I wasn't even listening. He looked at his project partner.
The brunette girl looked behind her shoulder.
A shrewd look in her eyes, she curved her lips upwards— slowly.
Damian cracked the pencil he was holding, because the message received from her was clear:
I know the answer to the question that plagues your thoughts.
And something told him she was going to make him suffer for that.