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“Heh,” Anya smirked, before dashing off.
“Pshhh, stubby legs like you are gonna fall if you run like that!” Ewen called out after her, smirking at his own remark. Emile giggled along as he muttered something about Anya’s raccoon run, but Damian had tuned their voices out as he stared at the crumpled piece of paper.
It shouldn’t have bothered him like this. He could just walk off and pretend like nothing ever happened. Mock her stupid little childish game. Call her names and laugh it off. But curiosity burned his mind, his finger twitching in response. A cipher? What for? Why him? Was it a message? For him ?
His cheeks involuntarily flushed at the thought of a secret letter, written by Anya, just for him to decode. Something so secretive that it had to be written as a cipher. The way she had nervously dashed in front of him, the way their hands slightly brushed when she handed over the paper… Before he knew it, he was bending down, picking up the crumpled cipher, and-
“B-Bossman? Why are you picking up stubby leg’s trash?” Emile blinked, as Damian froze on the spot, paper still in hand. His face heated up in embarrassment, suddenly aware of what his actions could be interpreted as. What the hell was he thinking, picking up the cipher in front of his friends? The two boys stared at the Desmond scion as they waited for an answer, stumped by his actions.
“I- uh- I-” Damian panicked as he shot back up. Clearly, he hadn’t thought this through. “It’s- It’s inelegant to leave trash behind, even if it’s not yours!” He blurted as he folded his arms. “I- I can’t believe that uggo is making me clean her mess up! She should pay for this!”
“Oh of course! Bossman’s elegance is unmatched!” Ewen’s smile widened in awe as Emile joined in. “Picking up a commoner’s trash! You should earn a Stella for this!”
Damian halfheartedly laughed along as they picked up from where they left off, walking towards the cafeteria, neither boys noticing their boss stuffing the paper into his pocket instead of throwing it away.
***
Throughout the entire day, Damian found his hand reaching into the pocket between lessons, fingers brushing along the bumps of the balled-up paper. Anya had spent the rest of the day ignoring him. When he did accidentally bump into her during PE, she simply smirked and whispered “ top secret”, before dashing off, all the more fueling his curiosity. He so desperately wanted to read the letter, but he had a pride to uphold. To Emile and Ewen, the paper was long gone, thrown away and forgotten. He wasn’t going to sell himself out just because he lacked some self-control.
As soon as he shut himself into his dorm room, he pulled the paper out eagerly, before impulsively tossing it onto his bed. He stared at the paper like it was a wild animal ready to go feral at any moment.
Sure, he could read the letter. But what position would that put him into? Is decoding Anya’s game going to make them…acquaintances? Buddies? Friends? Damian blushed, letting the last thought linger on his mind for a moment. Anya calling him a friend, smiling, laughing at his jokes…
His hand reached for the paper, before he retracted. What if the message was some favour? He knew Anya would be cryptic enough to make him do a puzzle before forcing him to befriend her and bring her to his house. She had a weird obsession with his house after all. Or perhaps it was a letter of confession, a certain kind of confession. Sure it didn’t change the fact that he still had absolutely no feelings for her whatsoever, maybe except for hate. He did NOT like her in any way. But it couldn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to know how she feels…would it?
His hand reached for the paper once more, this time opening it up immediately. Instead of Anya’s usually illegible scribbles, the cipher was written surprisingly neatly. He walked over to sit at his desk and took out a pen. Flattening the paper, he scanned the cipher:
COME TO…
61,34,53 46,33,25,22,11,53
(55,14,61) 23,24,23,23
“Huh,” He mused.
For a well-educated six-year-old like him, the code was relatively simple and easy. It took him less than a minute to match the column and the row together as he figured out each number one by one, completing the secret code.
COME TO…
THE BRIDGE
(SAT) 0800
Damian frowned, mind filled with a thousand questions. Was the letter a mistake? Or…did Anya really want to meet him outside school? He hadn’t even met Ewen and Emile outside of Eden before, and here was Anya, his archnemesis, inviting him outside…to punch him again? Humiliate a Desmond in front of the public? What bridge was she even talking about?
“A bridge…hmm.” he tapped his pen on his chin as he leaned back on his chair, recalling the conversations he had eavesdropped on Anya. If he wasn’t wrong, Becky was talking about a scene from Berlint in Love involving a bridge. A tiny bridge connecting central Berlint to the villages. In the show, the rich, affluent guy named Augustus met with his childhood friend Belinda. She was from the village, growing up poor, while he was one of the most influential people in Berlint. The two had met on the bridge, where Belinda confessed her love, planning to dash away right after when Augustus grabbed her arm and pulled her close, confessing he felt the same.
Damian shook his head, sighing at how dramatic those romance shows could be when he suddenly pieced two and two together. Was Anya trying to confess her love?!
The room suddenly felt, very, very warm. Hopping of his chair, he started pacing circles in the room, heartbeat thumping against his chest. This must be some misunderstanding. But she gave the letter directly to me! But she hates me! I’m just overthinking this. Is this a prank?
That night Damian barely fell asleep, the cipher and its message consuming his mind. In the depths of his confusion, there was one thing he was certain of — he was not going to that bridge in 8 in the morning.
***
So he lied.
Though technically it was the truth. He wasn’t at the bridge. He was observing the bridge from behind a wall. For research.
A mother and a child. The baker from the village. Businessmen in sharp suits. Seemingly normal people crossing the bridge as part of their daily routine. Berlint in Love had exaggerated the significance of the bridge, as it clearly had not put a reputation to it in real life. It was just a normal bridge. It didn’t mean anything.
Though he could feel the hint of disappointment he couldn’t quite understand, Damian was satisfied with the answer, ready to leave when a strange man approached the bridge, stopping right in the middle. His curly hair was well-kept, his black suit ironed and a bouquet of roses in his hand.
Was this man…waiting for a date??? Damian’s eyes widened. So his intuition was right! The bridge did signify love after all!
The gong of the tower bell echoed through, once, twice, thrice, slowly making it’s way up to the eighth. Anya could arrive any time soon. He knew she’d spot him immediately if he stayed there, if the rumours of her being a hide-and-seek legend in school was true. He couldn’t let Anya know he had walked all the way there, that he had read the letter, that he had followed along, and that he was here to admit feelings he definitely didn’t have to her.
But he couldn’t. His feet were stuck to the ground, unbudging, as he chewed his bottom lip in nervousness. The thought of seeing Anya outside of Eden grounds made his stomach flutter. He needed to know why she had called him all the way to the bridge. And so he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
…And waited.
The curly-haired man groaned as he walked away, dumping the flower into the river.
And Damian still waited.
But Anya never came.