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The long-bearded man tapped his cane, making the paired-off lab students look up from their lab tables. Clearing his throat, he adjusted his monocle as he addressed the students.
“Today, students, we will be learning about the inner workings of one of nature’s most elegant species; the amphibious frog.” The girl with long, pink hair looked down at the lab table, a lone frog lying on its back in front of her and her assigned partner.
“Is Mister Froggy dead, Mr. Henderson?”
Henderson sighed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, Miss Forger, the specimens before you are already deceased. You and your partner will be dissecting them, taking note of its internal organs while referencing your textbook.”
Anya looked over to her Biology textbook, then to the scalpel next to the frog she and the scion she had been assigned to work with. The scion in question grimaced, glancing briefly at her before quickly averting his gaze.
How is it that I somehow get assigned to work with Forger literally every single time? Though…I guess she has gotten her stuff together since we started middle school, so it’s not so bad anymore…
Anya smiled in amusement at Damian’s thoughts. While the two of them seemed to be constantly at each other’s throats ever since he found himself on the receiving end of her fist in first grade, it was like a switch had been flipped once they finished elementary school. He seemed to cease calling her names, and the few times he did seemed to have a more teasing than angry edge.
I guess I can’t say the Friendship Scheme has succeeded yet…but at least he’s tolerating me more now…
“Forger!”
“Huh?!”
Shaken out of her thoughts, her cheeks flushed pink as she saw Damian looking expectantly at her, holding the handle of the scalpel to her. “Did you fall asleep again? I was just asking if you can make the incision to dissect the frog. But, if you can’t be trusted with knives, then-”
Pouting, Anya swiped the scalpel from his grasp. “I can handle it just fine, Sy-on Boy!”
Holding his hands up in mock surrender, Damian smirked. “Alright, have it your way.”
Taking a deep breath, she turned and looked down at her target. Part of her felt a little queasy at the anticipation of opening a dead frog’s insides, but she swallowed her displeasure and raised her scalpel. Suddenly, for the briefest of seconds, her vision flickered, the frog being replaced by the appearance of a bearded man, grinning maliciously at her.
Damian looked over to her, raising an eyebrow at her current state. Her hand had frozen in place, the girl unmoving except for her slightly shaky grip on the bladed utensil.
What’s up with her? She was so competitive a second ago, but now she almost looks…anxious…? “Uh, Forger? You sure you can handle this?”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Anya nodded, though her gesture oozed hesitation. “Y-Yeah, I’m…fine…”
Taking a deep breath, she lowered the scalpel, the tip resting against the frog’s fleshy belly. “Sorry, Mister Froggy. It’s not personal…”
“It’s not personal…”
Anya’s eyes widened as she felt herself transported back in time. Instead of the teenager she now was, she was for all intents and purposes a six-year-old again. Her arms restrained, she saw a lanky male soldier approaching. Though his eyes made his reluctance obvious, he held a military knife in front of him, approaching closer and closer to her vulnerable, childlike form. She squirmed and struggled, but her young body was no match for the soldier holding her from behind.
No! I don’t wanna die! Mama! Papa! Anybody! Please, help me!
In reality, Damian’s eyes widened in concern. The teenage Anya wasn’t responding to his attempts at communication, and her hand now shook so much, the scalpel seemed to bounce in her grip.
“Forger? Forger, what’s wrong?!” It’s like she’s in some kind of trance…but why?
“Is there a problem, Master Desmond?”
Damian looked around, seeing Henderson approach with a curious, if concerned gleam in his eyes. It wasn’t just the teacher whose attention Anya had unintentionally attracted; all the other students were now staring at the shaking Anya with varying degrees of curiosity, fear, and concern.
“What is it with Forger?”
“Is she having some kind of nervous breakdown?”
“Whose bright idea was it to give her the scalpel?”
“Cease your idle chatter!”
At the loud tap of Henderson’s cane, the other groups turned their heads and their attention back to their own assignments. With peace mostly restored, he turned his attention back to the pair in question.
“Master Desmond, what seems to be the problem with you and Miss Forger?”
“I…I don’t know…” Damian admitted, his worry bleeding into his voice. “I just handed her the scalpel, but right as she was about to cut open the frog, she started hyperventilating and her hand started shaking. Plus she won’t acknowledge anything I’m saying to her.”
Henderson hummed. “Inelegant, but curious behavior…”
Choosing to remove the possible danger first, he gently removed the scalpel from her tenuous grasp. Placing it on the table, he rested a hand on her shoulder. “Miss Forger-”
Henderson was cut off by a sharp gasp as Anya nearly jumped. She whipped her head around, finally spotting her lab partner and teacher. “Mr. Henderson? D-Damian…?”
Henderson nodded, furrowing his brow. “Are you well, Miss Forger? Master Desmond reported that you became non-communicative and that you started shaking and breathing heavily.”
Anya bit her lip, looking down at her shoes as she gripped the hem of her academy-issued dress. Seeing the signs of emotional distress, Henderson let out a sigh and turned to Damian.
“Master Desmond, would you please escort Miss Forger to the Nurse’s Office? I’m afraid I cannot permit such dangerous inelegance. I’ll arrange a makeup date for this particular lab assignment once the issue has been resolved.”
Damian nodded, taking Anya’s embarrassed hand in his own. “Come on, Anya. Let’s get you to the nurse.”
Not putting up much resistance, Anya felt herself get gently dragged out of the lab. With the issue temporarily resolved, Henderson turned his attention back to the remaining students.
“Um…” Anya bit her lip, cheeks dusted with a faint pink complexion as she and Damian sat on a bench outside the nurse’s office. “I…I’m sorry I ruined our lab project…”
Damian shook his head. If they were still six and she had pulled one of her usual flustering antics like she did when they got paired up in art class, he might have been tempted to scream and yell at her. But he was older, wiser, more mature than the boy who Anya had to literally knock down a peg.
“Don’t worry about it; we’ll get a chance to redo it, just like Mr. Henderson said. Besides…” Damian laid a hand on her shoulder, causing him to look up into his surprisingly concerned eyes. “I’ve known you long enough, Forger, to know the difference between your usual childish antics, and when something’s genuinely wrong.”
Anya sighed, fiddling with one the horn ornaments on her head. “I’m just so embarrassed…I couldn’t even use the stupid scalpel on a dead frog…”
“…I don’t get it, though…” Damian admitted. “Why did you freeze up once you tried to cut open the frog? I know you kinda have a thing for cute animals, but I can’t imagine you’d react that badly over something that’s already dead.”
“It’s…” Anya sighed, clutching her sleeves. “…Kind of a long story…”
Damian shrugged. “Well, we’re stuck waiting here until the nurse finishes with the students she’s currently treating. So, we can pass the time by getting to the bottom of the issue, or we can sit in uncomfortable, awkward silence.”
Biting her lip again, Anya relented. “Do you remember that cooking class we had? The one where I was preparing to make that meré-meré for the principal?”
“Preparations are prepared!”
Damian snuck a glance at the proud grin stretched across Anya’s face. She seems excited. I wonder what she has planned…not that I’d be interested in whatever she makes. It’ll be a miracle if the principal doesn’t throw up at the first bite. Turning back to his own preparations, he half-listened as Becky boasted to the pink-haired girl about her orange-layered cake she had practiced making with her pâtissier. Edible, at least. Though nothing worthy of a Stella.
It wasn’t until Becky asked Anya what she was going to make that the boy started to actually concentrate on their conversation. Despite his preconception that Anya couldn’t cook to save her life, he had learned in the past not to underestimate her. As such, he at least determined it prudent to know what his competition was making.
“Meré-meré!”
Damian burst into laughter at that answer. “Meré-meré? What?!” Turning around along with his two signature lackeys Ewen and Emile, he exclaimed “That’s so old-fashioned!” I’ll admit I’m surprised she chose something so…unique, but there’s no way the principal is gonna award her a Stella for that.
Anya’s cheeks puffed in a cute put as the anger and indignation at Damian’s insult started building. To his surprise, however, she swallowed it as quickly as it built, shaking her head. An innocent smile stretched across her face as she tilted her head and pressed her fingertips together.
“I sure would love for Sy-on Boy to have a piece too, if he wants to try!”
Caught off guard by her offer, a faint blush spread across Damian’s face. She…she actually wants to share her dessert with me…? N-Nobody’s ever offered that before… “Well…I guess I could…maybe…”
Unfortunately, the sight of Anya’s smug smirk as she rested her hands on her hips soiled Damian’s willingness to be nice. He fell into familiar, angry flustered state that was symbolic of their bickering relationship at this point.
“No way! Why would I eat something you made?! It’d probably taste like…” Something sweet? Something delicious? Something better than I could? “Dammit!”
Anya paled, nearly shrieking as her eyes widened. Tears built up behind her lashes, her cheeks turning pink now as well.
“You think I’ll cook that bad…?”
Anya’s sniffle felt like a shot to the heart. Damian gasped, his whole face turning pink now as his eyes widened.
Oh no…not the tears! Not the crying! She always gets like this! But why does it always make me feel so embarrassed and…and…stuff whenever she does this? I just get so…so…mad. Leaning into that familiar anger as an escape mechanism, Damian scowled, clenching his fists. “You moron! I’d never eat something you cooked! It’d make me puke everywhere!”
“Moron!” The three boys chorused as they stormed off.
“Don’t worry, Lord Damian.” Ewen consoled. “She just wanted to get under your skin.”
Emile nodded. “There’s no way that marry-whatever is anything more than passable. Her trying to feed it to you is nothing less than torture.”
“Yeah…torture…” Damian grumbled, though his lackeys’ unwitting words had already caused his mind to conjure up the mental image of Anya in a bakery serving him lots of exotic and delectable desserts.
Damian couldn’t keep a faint blush off his cheeks as he recalled that distant memory. “Um…I’m sorry about insulting your meré-meré back then…” He rubbed the back of his head, slightly averting his gaze. “I’m sure it would have tasted good…”
Anya briefly giggled before her lips settled back into a frown. “Thanks, Sy-on Boy…but that’s not really the point I was trying to make. You see…Mama and Papa and I went to Frigis the prior weekend to get inspiration for the meré-meré. While we were on the train, I wandered about, and, well…accidentally stole something from some very bad men.”
Damian raised an eyebrow in surprise. “How do you accidentally steal something, dummy?”
“It was hidden inside a chocolate! How was I supposed to know not to eat a chocolate?!”
Damian sweatdropped, taking a deep breath. “I’m not even gonna ask why these bad men got upset over you eating one of their chocolates…anyway, what did that have to do with what happened in Biology?”
“Well…we were out getting ingredients to make meré-meré, cause the bad men’s leader took it from us at the restaurant. But when I was looking for the last ingredient with Bond, the bad guys came and kidnapped me.”
Damian’s eyes widened in shock. “Wait, they seriously went to the trouble of kidnapping a six-year-old girl cause she ate a chocolate?! What the heck did they put in it to warrant that?”
Anya bit her lip as she fiddled with one of her shoulder-length locks of hair. “Um…that’s not really important anymore, so can we skip that question, please?” I can’t exactly tell him that it was a microfilm that could have sparked war between Ostania and Westalis…that’d bring up a whole different conversation about Papa being a spy…
Seeing Anya sweat for once made him curious as to what she was hiding, but ultimately conceded that it likely wasn’t relevant to the issue at hand. “Alright, I won’t ask about the chocolate. Should I assume that what happened after your kidnapping is linked to your panic attack?”
Anya nodded, surprising Damian by clutching his sleeve with a vice grip. “After I was kidnapped, they brought me to their leader, who told them to…to cut me open so they could fish what I ate out of my stomach…”
“…What…?”
Damian saw red, albeit a whole different variety of red than the flustered pink Anya’s antics made him feel. His voice turned dangerously low, his teeth gnashed together as his lips curled into a furious snarl.
“S…Sy-on Boy…?”
Anya gasped as one arm wrapped around Anya’s back with a fierce protectiveness, pressing her face against his chest. Her cheeks flushed pink as she looked up into his enraged eyes.
“…I can’t forgive them. Sure, you can be annoying and drive me up the wall sometimes…but I’d never in a million years wish you dead. No matter what you took from them, there’s no excuse for something so barbaric as dissecting a little girl!”
“D…Damian…”
Realizing where he was, Damian took a deep breath. “…Sorry I got so worked up…that was…improper of me. Anyways, I can understand why you froze up when you tried to dissect that frog. It probably made you see yourself in that frog, didn’t it?”
Anya nodded, murmuring, “It just…gave me flashbacks of nearly being cut open. Guess I…I panicked, and…I’m sorry…”
Damian shook his head. “You don’t need to apologize for feeling traumatized. I’ll…talk to Mr. Henderson and ask if we can do an alternative project. One where we don’t have to cut anything open-”
“I-I can do it!” Anya insisted a little too loudly, gripping his sleeve even tighter. “I…I can be useful, I promise! I won’t hold you back again, I’m not worthless. I’ll pull my weight, I’ll-”
“Anya.” He gently shushed. “I never said you were worthless, and I don’t think that. You don’t need to push yourself just to prove your worth.”
“But Anya does!” Damian stared in concern at the sudden regression to the third-person. “Anya has to prove I’m a good bargain, or…people will leave Anya…”
“Leave? What do you mean leave? Nobody’s left you, dummy.”
Anya shook her head. “All the other Mamas and Papas did before Loid and Yor.”
All of a sudden, everything started to click for Damian. “Wait…are you…not their biological child?”
Anya reluctantly shook her head. “I’m…adopted. I was adopted and returned four times before Papa came and adopted me. And even then, I had to prove I was a good bargain for Papa. So I…I need to prove myself, or…everyone will abandon me…”
…Now I understand why she’s so determined and forceful… He realized, looking back on her force of will over the years. …She’s been abandoned so many times…she’s afraid of losing everything she has if she doesn’t keep proving herself.
Having fought practically since birth for his own father’s attention and affection, Damian suddenly felt like he could relate to Anya’s internal struggles. As a consequence, he felt his respect for her multiply in turn.
“…Dummy, even if all those parents abandoned you, nobody’s going to do that now.”
“H-How would you know…?”
“I met your father once, when I was meeting with my father. And…though he admitted there were times he couldn’t understand you…he never let that stop him from singing your praises. He was proud of you, and nothing anyone said would ever dissuade him. And besides…those other parents who abandoned you…they don’t know what they gave up. They were…lucky…to have been your parents at all…”
Anya gasped in surprise. Though she had been aware of Loid’s meeting with Donovan Desmond, due to her mind-reading abilities, she had no idea her name had come up, nor that he had expressed his pride in her.
“Plus, none of your friends here are gonna abandon you. You and Blackbell are thick as thieves, and as tough as Mr. Henderson might be, he has a soft spot for you and your…unique elegance, as he puts it. And…” Damian swallowed the lump in his throat, his blush spreading across his face.
“D…Damian…?”
“D-Don’t rush me! A-Anyway…I know we’ve had our…differences, but…this school would be a lot more…boring without you. And…being paired up with you all the time…isn’t the…worst thing in the world…So…none of us are gonna abandon you, okay?”
“Sy-on Boy…”
“J-Just don’t get a swelled head about it, alright? I’m just telling you so you won’t go landing yourself in the hospital trying to please everybody.”
Sy-on Boy’s a liar, but he’s actually a pretty nice liar when he wants to be…
“A-Anyway, I should…let you go now…”
Damian attempted to unwrap his arm from her, only for his eyes to widen when she grabbed his wrist with her free hand to pull it back around her. He opened his mouth to demand what she thought she was doing, but all his protests fell silent at the adorable puppy eyes.
“Um…Anya liked it when you held her like this. Anya felt…safe when you hugged her. So…can Anya stay in Sy-on Boy’s arms a little longer? Just until the nurse comes…?”
…I am so getting a Tonitrus Bolt for this…
Despite his embarrassment-fueled reservations, Damian allowed his arm to wrap around Anya’s back, squeezing her even tighter against him. As she sat nestled against his chest, a peaceful smile stretched from ear to ear, making Damian’s heart flutter at how cute she looked.
I guess…a Tonitrus Bolt would be worth it…if I can see her smile like this. I accepted a long time ago that I hated seeing Anya Forger cry…so I guess I like it when she’s…at peace and…happy…?
Shaking the thought from his head, Damian allowed his eyes to drink in the sight of Anya practically snuggled up against him. He couldn’t help a smile of his own as he savored the serenity of the moment.