!Anya and Damain are around 15 in this one shot!
Pitter.
Patter.
Pitter.
Patter.
The rain threw itself relentlessly against the tall boy's umbrella, the howling wind threatening to rip it from his grasp altogether. A large gust hit him right in the face and the wet handle slipped from his hand and into the grey sky, there was no hope of getting it back now. The boy, Damian Desmond, hung his head low.
"This has got to be the worst day ever." He muttered to himself. Rain gushed down his back and trickled over his face, dripping from his hair into his eyes. Of course, the one day when he had to walk home from school was the same day as a thunderstorm. Just great.
A small wooden bench beneath some trees offered a small shelter for him. He knew it was stupid to be underneath a tree in a thunderstorm... but the boy just couldn't bring himself to care. He fell asleep to the sound of thunder and rain as soon as he sat down.
***
"Damian? Damian! Wake up!" A pair of hands were shaking him desperately. He opened his eyes and squinted, surprisingly the girl standing over him was none other than Anya Forger. He opened his mouth to speak, only to receive a painful slap to the face.
"What was that for!" His cold cheek stung. Anya squealed.
"I'm sorry! I didn't know what else to do! You can't be sleeping under trees in a thunderstorm Damian!" As she spoke she pulled out her phone and started texting someone. The phone dinged and Anya sighed in annoyance. "My dad can't come get us right now, so we are going to have to walk. Are you okay? Do you feel alright?"
Damian's head spun. He could barely hear the girl over the sound of the rain. She was leaning over him with her umbrella but was clearly avoiding going under the trees, this caused the rain water to slide off the back of the umbrella straight onto her head. Anya pretended not to notice.
"Well? Are you okay? C'mon we have to get going." She held out a hand for him. Damian took it and stood up, his knees shaking from the cold. His entire ego was screaming at him not to walk home with Anya the commoner... but some other half asleep part of him was way too happy about it.
"Oh um, I found your umbrella a while back... I don't think you can use it now though..." She pulled a pile of broken frame and black fabric scraps out of her bag and looked back at Damian. He laughed and picked up what used to be his umbrella, throwing it in the trash can next to him and then jogged to catch up with Anya who had already started walking. He was standing outside her umbrella, getting silently soaked by the downpour. Anya rolled her eyes
"Don't be daft, get under!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him beneath her umbrella. Damian gulped and obliged, walking just close enough that their shoulders were touching. Due to Anya's height, she was struggling to hold the umbrella over both of them and now it was Damian's turn to roll his eyes.
"Here, let me." He gently took the umbrella from her hand, he heard her squeak as their hands brushed together and they walked on awkwardly, neither of them said a word the whole time.
That was until a car zoomed past, spraying muddy water all over both of them. Anya started laughing and splashing around, Damian sighed and joined her, making sure the shorter girl didn't slip in the mud. They ended up running into the woods, all thoughts of thunderstorm safety and getting home before dark were gone now, they just wanted to savour the moment. After all, tomorrow they would be "enemies" again because of their families status, they wanted to act like normal friends for as long as possible. Friends who hold hands in thunderstorms and run into the middle of the woods together. Just friends.
Soon, the rain started to clear. The thick, grey clouds thinned out and streaks of lights began to break through the canopy of leaves hanging over their heads, illuminating the forest floor and warming the pair's mud-caked skin. Damian had his arm over Anya's shoulders, the girl was still laughing and smiling as brightly as ever. He looked down at her and felt oddly sad, given the atmosphere. He was looking down at something he could never have for more than a few stolen moments.
Anya managed to convince her father Loid to pick the both of them up, after he lectured them for 15 minutes by the side of the road he finally let them into the car. Damian snuck in with the help of a servant... he was praying that his father didn't catch him. Loid tried his best to be angry at Anya but he saw the way she looked at Damian. His daughter hadn't looked so happy since she first became an imperial scholar and this was a different kind of happy. Poor Loid didn't have the heart to spoil it for her.
That night, Anya wrote to her journal. She wrote for hours about every little detail of her day, of her feelings, of the odd pounding in her heart. Of course, she never wanted to forget this. Any of it. Not a single, tiny, detail.
