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“Sy-on boy!” Anya poked Damian’s shoulder to grab his attention, earning an annoyed glare from him in return. Unbothered, Anya cocked her head as she pointed towards the box of crayons between them. “What’s your favourite colour?”
Being partners with Anya for one art class had been enough. Sure, they had won first place for their “griffin” sculpture, but it didn’t made the experience any less tiring. Damian giving Anya specific instruction to follow, only for her to throw it all aside and make something completely irrelevant. Everything she made was garbage and stupid, like her, and he should have never allowed her to help in his project. And he never did ever again.
Or so he would’ve like it to go.
Each time they got paired, Anya would beg to let her help him. And each time, he swore he wanted to refuse. To ignore her presence, and focus his entire energy on the project, so that some day he’d make something good enough to proudly show his father. But then those large, sparkling eyes would plead its way into his heart, making him all hot and flustered, heart hammering against his chest. All he had to do was grumble a small “okay, fine” for Anya to jump in joy, ready to completely destroy his project in a matter of seconds.
When he wanted to mold the Demond car out of clay, she had given it legs. When he wanted to paint a portrait of his father, she sent lazer beams out of its eyes and gave it a huge, red nose. When he wanted to capture the sunset that poured across the Desmond estate with his watercolors, she had somehow splashed in a dinosaur in the background.
He should’ve been mad, like the first time when he yelled at her loud enough to almost get a tonitrus bolt. Instead, he found the way she kept messing his project up to be…endearing. He never showed in on his face, of course, mummering insults at her just to keep up his reputation, but in his head, he marvelled at her creativity and the places it led. Without any hesitation, she bent the rules of art to come up with something completely new. Maybe he envied her free-spirited nature. The way she wasn’t afraid to make mistakes. Maybe he could take a page out of her book, to loosen up and enjoy life.
Damian shook his head. It was foolish for a Desmond to think that one could “enjoy life”, when there was a family name to live up to. But perhaps he was selfish enough to observe Anya, living the life he could have lived had he been born a different name. As cheesy as it sounded.
Thank god Anya couldn’t read his mind.
The two were paired once again for their art class, this time to colour in a huge poster for the upcoming winter festival. A simple task that required minimal effort, and yet Anya already looked like a mess, crayon smudges across her cheek.
“Don’t you have a favourite color?” Anya repeated her question, pushing the box of crayons towards him. Her stubby finger pointed to the special gold crayon at the bottom of the box. It was much shorter than the other crayons laying beside it, proof of its frequent usage by Anya to fill in the stars around the christmas tree.
“Mine’s the gold one! Because it’s sparkly!” She giggled, her laugh sweet like honey.
The initial annoyance he felt melted away at the sound, his frown softening as he shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t not know, everyone has one!” Anya explained matter-of-factly, “Becky’s is red, because it makes her think of red lipsticks used in those romance shows!” She picked up the red crayon on the opposite end of the gold one, bringing it over to the poster to fill up the holly berries. As she diligently scribbled in the red, she hummed a christmas song, legs that were too short to reach the floor from the seat swinging on beat.
She looked so jolly and at peace. Her fluffy pink hair framing her little smile, tongue sticking out in concentration. When she was around him, his life as a scion melted away as she wrapped him in her bubble of joy. Her emotions were contagious; when she felt happy, so did he. When she felt sad, a tight knot tugged on his chest, making him sad. She had a hold on him that he simply couldn’t understand, and instead of untangling that mess, he threw heartless insults at her. Was it wrong? Maybe. But what more could he do?
“Green. My favourite color is green” He blurted out suddenly, surprising even himself. He had never thought about his favourite color in his entire life. He didn’t even know where green had even come from, but it felt…right.
“Green!” Anya cheered in delight at his answer as she dropped the red crayon, reaching out for the green one in exchange. “Well you’re lucky, because that means u get to color the entire christmas tree!” She shoved the crayon into his palm, struggling to contain her excitement into her small physique. Another giggle escaped her lips as she picked up her red crayon again, filling in the holly berries.
Damian couldn’t even get mad about how she was coloring over the lines. Not when he had found his answer.
Those glistening emerald green eyes would be the death of him.