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Damian Desmond, the Second Son of the Desmond Family, born into greatness, wealth, nobility, has been in love with Anya Forger since they were six years old.
Of course, six year old Damian would not technically realize that until several years later when his height finally shot up at the ripe age of sixteen, surpassing the annoying pink haired brat who held her height over him ever since her growth spurt at age twelve.
Being seven years old had not changed the short brat from being as persistent as ever. She still begged to let her come play with him at his house and he still shouted and stomped away whenever she did.
Damian had not invited her to his eighth birthday celebrations — he couldn’t imagine what his friends would think if the little peasant girl showed up. Her disappointed face had somehow spurred him to save a slice of cake for her, shoving it into her hands the following day with a pink flush and irritated scowl.
At the age of nine, Anya had invited him to her birthday party. Damian hadn’t gone, of course, but he made sure to have his butler send her a large box filled to the brim with peanut themed items, including: a large bag of the finest peanuts in Ostania, a peanut plushie he had seen once in a magazine, various peanut flavoured candies and treats.
She had thanked him the next day with a smile so bright he thinks he might’ve been blinded.
Damian accepted her gratitude with a comment about how she shouldn’t think too much of it, and that it was purely so he could uphold the Desmond name.
Her smile had then turned into the stupid grin he hated so he yelled something incomprehensible and ran away.
When he turned ten, Damian Desmond had been tasked with tutoring the dumb brat.
It had been a hopeless cause, a complete waste of time and effort spent.
Still, every time she tilted her head to the side, her wide green eyes staring at him in that way, he ended up flushed a beet red before screaming at her to concentrate.
He hated that he didn’t hate the experience altogether.
When he was eleven, Damian ran into her at the dog park. It wasn’t a place he often frequented, especially the commoner dog park, but he had wanted a sudden change of scenery.
His dog, Max, had perked up at the only other dog in the vicinity. A big white polar bear.
And of course, it just had to be Forger’s.
She smiled and waved at him, skipping over with her dog and asked him so earnestly if they could all play together. He never would’ve agreed to that had they been at Eden Academy, but since they were entirely alone here, it wasn’t a bad idea.
Damian had worn a gentle smile on his face when Max had licked every square inch of Anya’s face. Bond had also seemed to like him, nudging at Damian’s hand for pets. It was the most fun he’d had in ages.
At age twelve, Becky Blackwell was the true bane of his existence — constantly pointing out his stares and pink ears. He vehemently denied his pathetic, stupid, completely unwarranted crush on the brat with the fervour of a mad man. He reminded anyone who would listen that he irrevocably hated Anya Forger.
Most people steered clear of the topic of the young pink haired girl when he was around after that.
Growing to thirteen had done nothing to stop Damian from getting angry every time he sees Anya Forger. It had also done nothing to stop her from getting more persistent with trying to be his friend. His father had increasingly gotten harder to please and his brother had still not truly acknowledged him in any way despite him becoming an Imperial Scholar.
Damian knows now that all the pressure and build up from being a hormonal youth, paired with all the expectations on his shoulders had finally made him crack.
And this idiotic girl would just not leave him alone. All he wanted was for the world to leave him alone.
When Damian Desmond was fourteen, he finally managed to make Anya Forger hate him. It was cruel, looking back on it now, the things he had said to her that day in the public viewing of the cafeteria. He’d earned a Tronitus Bolt for his troubles, and yet it still did not seem like enough punishment.
He hates thinking about it now, her quivering mouth and watery eyes — the way she looked at him and said “I’ve only ever wanted to be your friend, Sy-on boy. Why are you so mean to me?”
Until he was fifteen, Anya Forger did not look his way nor speak to him again.
Fifteen was the worst year of his teenage life.
It was startling for him to be confronted first hand how empty everything felt without her constant chatter, however much it annoyed him at times. His friends couldn’t do anything to make it better, however much they tried. The light that entered his life dulled once again to the grey blur of meaningless accomplishments as he tried to please his uncaring father.
On Damian’s sixteenth birthday, Anya Forger collapsed in the library.
He’s still not sure what came over him, but one minute he was sat, face buried in assignments, and the next she was cradled in his arms as he sprinted to the infirmary, the blood dripping from her nose staining his uniform.
Damian could remember every thought that raced through his head in that moment. ‘Please be okay’, ‘I can’t live without you’, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’.
Her fever had reached a near fatal point. He remembered her father rushing in to the infirmary, her mother breaking the door down soon after.
Damian stood quietly in the corner of the room as nurses and doctors filed in and out.
He remembers the quiet tears escaping Loid Forger’s eyes and the ringing of Yor Forger’s sobs staining the wooden walls and floors.
He remembers how he had cried as well.
His birthday party passed like a film he wasn’t intent on watching. Like a stranger watching their own body move through the motions of being a normal person.
Anya Forger recovered eventually — what illness inflicted her, he didn’t know. All he knew was that she was okay and that was enough.
At seventeen, Damian watched as Eden Academy was attacked by Ostanian terrorists who wanted to frame Westalia for it.
He had been entirely caught off guard, walking to the toilets when a bomb exploded. He had been slammed back into the lockers by the force of it, barely aware of the ceiling collapsing down on him.
Damian wasn’t sure how long he had been knocked out for. All he knew was the deafening ring in his ears and the ache of every part of his body.
And then, she was suddenly there, picking through the rubble to reach him.
Her eyes were focused like he’d never seen, steeled by experience a seventeen year old shouldn’t have. Her words filtered in and out of his head no matter how hard he concentrated on trying to understand her.
“Come on, Sy-on boy. They’re here to kill you.”
The ringing quieted eventually and he gritted his teeth through the pain as he let Anya pull him out.
She led him through the tarnished hallways, one of his arms slung around her shoulders.
It was odd seeing her green eyes — typically sparkling with a childish joy — now hardened like a soldier who had spent too much time on the battlefield.
Anya knew exactly when to duck and hide as men in black ski-masks wandered through the halls, rifles in hand that could end his life with a single bullet.
“Don’t go to sleep, Sy-on boy.”
She kept on repeating that phrase as he limped through the halls with her.
They reached an empty classroom where Anya deposited him into one of the chairs as she moved around with incredible speed, locking the doors, pushing desks and chairs in front of them, closing the blinds to the windows.
He finally regained his awareness when she sat down across from him, her eyes analytical as she scanned his face.
“What… I don’t understand how you’re…”
Anya had given him a cryptic grin, the one he loved so much and yet forced himself to hate.
“I’m a secret spy on a mission.”
Thinking back on it now, it was so clear she had been telling him the truth. But seventeen year old Damian Desmond simply rolled his eyes and brushed it off as another one of her make-belief jokes.
“Thank you.”
It had come out as a whisper, and he delighted in how her eyes widened a smidge, how her glossy pink lips had parted in surprise.
He didn’t imagine the tables turning on him when she gave him the prettiest smile he had ever seen, in return.
“That’s what friends do, right?”
Damian had then planted his hands on the table, surging forward and kissed her.
It didn’t last long, especially with all his injuries, but it was enough to make sparks burst behind his eyes, all the feelings he had for her overwhelming his senses.
It had taken her a moment to respond, before she reached up, cupping his cheeks in her small, warm hands, and kissed him back with a gentleness he hadn’t been expecting.
Her lips were soft, she smelled like a peanut tart and tasted like one too.
At that point, all he could think over and over again was I love you.
Damian Desmond had passed out again soon after, with a smile on his face.
When Damian Desmond was eighteen years old, he asked Anya to be his girlfriend.
Eden had closed its doors for rebuilding and reevaluation of their security protocols. Damian didn’t have the chance to see her after she had saved him, too quickly whisked away to a secure location and put on lock down for a month.
It had been hellish. And the only thing that got him through it was the phantom warmth from her lips and the thought of her green eyes.
When Eden’s doors finally opened again, this time with security patrolling the halls, thorough bag checks, and constant drills, the first thing Damian had done was grab the pink haired girl and pulled her into a storage closet.
She stared at him with those same wide green eyes that had been looking at him all his life.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you, for being cruel and mean. I’m sorry I called you short and stupid. I’m sorry I spent so long convincing myself to hate you. I’m sorry—“
She had cut him off with her lips on his. He didn’t think kissing her could’ve felt better than it had that first time.
Damian Desmond had been sorely mistaken on that end.
Anya backed him into the opposite wall, her hands in his hair, his hands on her hips and she kissed the life out of him.
When he returned to class, his friends had asked him why he looked so red. Damian scowled and told them to mind their own business, the flash back to the storage closet made his knees weak.
Anya, who sat in the front row, turned around to look straight at him, her signature grin imprinted on her face and he thought if the bomb hadn’t killed him, this definitely would.
It was that same day, after class when he met her under the willow tree on the school grounds, the spring breeze fluttering the leaves as he stuttered and stumbled through his words and she looked at him like she understood every single thought that passed through his brain.
Damian had covered his red face with his hands, sinking in on himself as she giggled and pulled his arms down.
“Sy-on boy loves Anya, right?”
He had choked on his own saliva, frantically muttering and gesturing as he tried so very hard to calm down his thundering heart.
In the end, he nodded in defeat, his pink tinted cheeks held in her warm hands.
“Anya loves Sy-on boy, too.”
Damian couldn’t help the way his stomach flip flopped around, somersaulting and twisting in a way that made him simultaneously want to throw up and dance around with glee.
He covered Anya’s hands with his own larger ones, gently prying her palm away from his face and holding on tightly to her.
“Damian.”
He whispered, looking down at his shoes.
She had tilted her head curiously. Damian gathered any pride he had left and looked into her eyes.
“My name is Damian. Not Sy-on.”
Seemingly like she understood him, her smile widened into that horrendous grin before changing into something much softer.
“I love you, Damian.”
He let go of her hands, bringing his palms to the back of her neck and pulling her lips towards his.
“I love you too, Anya.”
At age twenty-five, Damian Desmond, Second Son of the Desmond family, had knelt down on one knee and slid a ring onto warm, gentle hands.
At age twenty-three, Anya Forger had tackled him to the ground with the word ‘yes’ on her lips.