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The first time Anya feels truly disappointed with herself is when she stares at another failing test score, fingers curling against the paper, realizing that no amount of mind-reading can make her the brilliant student Loid hopes for.
In bright, red ink, a fourteen percent glaringly stares back at her. She hadn’t wanted to fail. In fact, she’d even spent countless nights sitting at the little desk in her room trying her best to study and absorb the material instead of watching Bondman. This time, she really, really wanted to pass.
And yet, despite all her effort, despite the late nights spent studying, the hours spent struggling with mathematics and English, the patience Yuri had shown as he tried to teach her, her score remained disappointingly low.
She’s failed…again.
Anxiety bubbles in her stomach, her heart beating relentlessly against her ribs. What would Papa think of this? She knew he cared about how she scored, mostly due to his mission.
The mission which Anya isn’t even supposed to know existed.
Anya swallows hard, fingers tightening around the crumpled test paper in her hands. It’s not just disappointment she feels. It’s the creeping dread that coils tightly around her chest, almost suffocating her.
Loid is counting on her.
He needs her to become an Imperial Scholar, fast.
He needs her to succeed.
And yet… here she stands, with numbers scrawled across the page that scream her incompetence louder than she ever could.
She isn't supposed to know about Operation Strix. She isn’t supposed to understand quite yet the weight of Loid’s mission or the pressure pulling at his every move. But she does.
And worse is that she knows that if she fails, she won’t just be a bad student.
She’ll be a failure to him.
A burden.
A mistake.
Her vision blurs for a moment as she exhales, shaky and uncertain, her stomach twisting violently. Should she tell him? Should she pretend it doesn’t matter?
Would it even make a difference?
Her fingers tremble slightly as she stares at the paper, the red ink on the page mocking her. It’s proof, undeniable evidence, that she’s not enough.
Anya presses the test to her chest, crumpling it further, as if that alone could keep it from Loid’s eyes. But, the weight of failure is heavier than the thin sheet of paper clutched in her hands. It sits in her stomach, curling into knots, whispering all the thoughts she can never push away.
Papa needs her to succeed. Needs her to be an Imperial Scholar. Needs her to be better than this.
But she isn’t.
She knows she’s not supposed to be aware of his mission, of the world that twists behind his carefully constructed smiles. But she hears his thoughts sometimes. Those fragments of exhaustion, those conflicted thoughts, those moments where he sits contemplating what action would be better to take in favour of the mission. The pressure presses against him like a storm he refuses to show.
And now, she’s only gone and made it worse.
She should tell him, maybe. Should hand him the paper and accept his disappointment. Should brace herself for the unspoken confirmation that she isn’t useful. Not to Eden, not to the mission, not to him.
But the words don’t come.
Not yet.
Instead, she swallows them down, stuffing them into the same place where she keeps the fear that one day, Loid will wake up and realize she’s not worth the trouble.
And then what?
Anya knows what.
He’ll pack up her stuff and send her right back to the orphanage, just like every other family that’s taken her in. Except, every other family hasn’t stayed this long, and that’s what makes the pain in her heart hurt more.
After a moment, she manages to take a few, shaky breaths in, preparing herself for the turmoil to expect when she arrives home. Preparing doesn’t stop the relentless beating of her chest or the blood rushing to her ears, or even the trembling of her hands as she gets closer to the apartment block.
When she arrives home and hands over the crumpled test paper with shaking hands, it takes all her composure not to break out into a sob the moment Loid releases a sigh as he glances at the score she’d received.
The sigh isn’t loud. It isn’t angry. But it feels much heavier than anything Anya has ever heard in all the time she’s spent with him.
Loid’s eyes linger on the numbers at the top of her test paper longer than she’d like, unreadable and calculating. She doesn’t need to read his mind to know what he’s thinking. Disappointment, frustration, maybe even regret.
Her stomach twists once again, as if someone was using her insides to create a balloon animal. Her fingers grip the hem of her uniform, curling tightly, as if holding on to fabric could anchor her against the sinking feeling in her chest.
Her heart beats relentlessly, loud enough that she swears he can hear it, like a lone drum in a silent cathedral. The silence stretches, suffocating, wrapping around her throat like invisible hands. She wills herself to speak, to offer some excuse—any excuse—but the words stick, thick and useless, at the back of her tongue. It’s like her words have dried up, and she doesn't know what to say anymore to fix what’s already happened.
She hates this. Hates feeling so small, so powerless, so wrong.
It reminds her of that lab. The way his eyes linger on the numbers, calculating, analyzing, assessing. The way their eyes used to search for anomalies, or mistakes, or anything wrong so that she would have to study again and avoid participating in any childish acts.
She grips the hem of her uniform tighter. It’s the same suffocating feeling she had back then when scientists murmured in clipped voices, reviewing results as if she wasn’t even there. As if she were just an experiment.
Her heart hammers against her ribs. She isn’t supposed to remember that. Isn’t supposed to compare this to the past. Because this is different, isn’t it?
Loid exhales again, rubbing his temple, the paper still in his grasp. No matter how different this time seems, the weight of it still settles deep in her stomach anyway, curling, twisting, forming the same knots that used to coil inside her when she sat on a too-cold lab floor, waiting for someone to decide if she was good enough. Too long. Too quiet.
Anya swallows hard. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine the words forming. You need to do better. You need to try harder. You need to be more useful.
And if he says it, she isn’t sure she’ll survive it.
✰✰✰✰✰
The second time Anya messes up is in public.
It’s the evening of the Eden Academy Prestige Dinner. The Eden Academy Prestige Dinner is a grand, exclusive event designed to celebrate the elite families connected to Eden Academy. It’s an evening filled to the brim with dignified elegance, held in Eden’s own lavish banquet hall adorned with chandeliers and finely crafted decor that exudes wealth and sophistication.
The attendees consist mainly of prominent figures: high-ranking officials, influential business personages, and aristocratic families, all gathered to network, strengthen alliances, and solidify their status within society. The atmosphere is formal yet strategic, where conversations carry hidden agendas and silent power plays unfold beneath polite smiles.
Anya sits up straight at the table, surrounded by higher-ups to the point where it feels suffocating. Papa sits besides her, listening intently to the conversations being passed around whilst his eyes survey the scene, that same calculating gaze set on his face.
The Desmond family sits with them at the table. Anya isn’t sure how Papa managed to get a place at the Desmond table, considering as far as she’s aware, Papa had never met with or interacted with the Desmonds once, but she’s happy at least to be seated at a table where she knows at least one person from school. Even if that person happens to be Damian.
Anya swings her legs carelessly, tuning out the adult-like conversations buzzing around her. The banquet hall hums with chatter, filled with sharply dressed adults, their serious expressions unreadable to her. Gold-trimmed chairs circle pristine round tables, the soft clink of cutlery breaking the hum of voices. As she scans the room, a flicker of relief washes over her because among the sea of suits, she spots a few familiar faces from school.
The hum of voices presses against her mind like waves crashing on a shore. It’s too loud, there’s too many people. For a moment, the lines blur, and suddenly, a thought that isn’t her own slams into her head.
He’s becoming a problem. We’ll have to deal with him soon.
Anya’s head perks up, eyes wide. Frantically she jerks her head side to side, eyes darting across the room as she searches for who that voice belongs to. The loud buzz of voices returns, only adding to her newfound panic.
Something primal within her, an alarm she’d long forgotten, shrieked danger. The voice sliced through her thoughts, setting a wildfire of panic ablaze in her chest.
No face, no eyes, no man seems to match the voice that had echoed inside her head, only strengthening the panic igniting in her chest.
Eager to alarm Papa, who is still in conversation with Donovan, she sharply turns towards him. Anya doesn’t want to disrupt his conversation, but the anxiety bubbling in her stomach is enough to throw her morals out the window as she attempts to subtly tug on his sleeve with a gentle grip.
Anya’s stomach twists with unease, her fingers curling instinctively around Papa’s sleeve in a silent plea. After a few moments go by and Loid is still speaking to Donovan in casual conversation, she begins to tug more insistently, her grip tightening with urgency.
Something inside wonders if this is even right, if Anya even heard the voice correctly. Isn’t there a chance she misheard and she’s disrupting Papa for nothing?
No. She has to assume Papa's in trouble. If she brushes it off now, and that guy really was talking about Papa, then Papa might get in trouble. And then he'd be mad that Anya never told him what she heard. Or worse, after dealing with the guy, he might decide to leave Anya behind too.
She tugs once more, wide eyes staring up at Papa anxiously, and this time Papa returns the gaze. After a moment, he finishes his conversation with Donovan, who now seems very content speaking with another suited man at the table, attention now fully focused on Anya.
“What’s wrong, Anya?” he asks, tone smooth and measured, despite the concern lurking beneath.
She’s about to spill. To blurt out that she overheard some random guy talking about “dealing with him soon.” But she stops herself. That would be stupid. That would expose her for what she really is. A lying telepath. And then, without a doubt, Loid would send her back to the orphanage. Or worse, track down the scientists who raised her and send her straight back to them instead.
Taking a deep breath, she decides to whisper instead, “Papa, I think I overheard someone talking while I was eating! They said something about you…but it was kinda quiet, so I couldn’t hear properly. Maybe it was important?” She tilts her head, mimicking how she acts when she’s confused about something. Except, she isn’t confused right now. She’s just trying her best to make Papa believe the excuse she’d fabricated on the spot.
Loid glances around casually for a moment, scanning for any suspicious figures whilst still maintaining the appearance of a man who’s simply engaging in a relaxed conversation. Then, slowly, he pats her head as he flashes a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an ear out. You just focus on enjoying yourself.”
It wouldn’t be until later on in the evening that Anya would realise that what she actually heard was just the tired internal thoughts of a businessman, frustrated with a recent business deal they’d agreed to.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And yet, all Anya could feel is unintentional disappointment in herself.
✰✰✰✰✰
The third time Anya messes up is at home.
Dinner is nearly finished, plates scattered across the table, and Loid sits across from her, looking down at a file. The glow of the overhead light is gentle, but to Anya, it feels like a spotlight on her latest failure.
Loid exhales slowly through his nose, scanning the latest Eden report. The numbers aren’t good. He doesn’t say anything, but Anya catches the tension in his posture. The slight furrow in his brow, the way he taps a finger against the page.
Anya stares at her barely eaten food, her stomach knotting up. She already knows what Loid is thinking. She doesn’t need to hear his thoughts to figure it out. But then, his thoughts do slip into her mind.
This mission is dragging. I knew making contact with Desmond wouldn’t be easy, but this? The delays, the unpredictability. It’s becoming more fragile by the day.
Anya’s head snaps up at the sudden thought, but she quickly bows her head back down to her plate, eager to show she didn’t hear anything.
Anya…she’s trying, but it’s not enough. No Stellas, no progress with Damian. It’s not her fault, not completely, but at this rate—
The thought pauses as Loid exhales quietly, fingers pressing tensely against the edge of the report.
If she can’t get closer to Damian, then everything falls apart. The balance I’ve kept for years—all of it, wasted.
Maybe I made a mistake.
Anya’s stomach drops. Tightly, she grips her utensils as she stiffens in her seat. Her mind races, replaying the word over and over– mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake. Mistake. Perhaps she misheard. But, it had sounded so clear, clearer than that of the business man’s she had heard the other week.
Where had she failed? Where had she gone wrong?
Perhaps Loid was frustrated that she hadn’t earned her eight Stella stars by now. That’s okay, she’ll just work extra hard to gain the stars and become an Imperial Scholar in no time.
Perhaps Loid was frustrated she hadn’t created a bond with Damian yet. That’s okay, she’ll just push harder for Damian to see more than just Anya and hopefully form an actual bond so that Loid has a chance to get closer to Donovan.
Perhaps Loid was frustrated she was struggling with her schoolwork, like the scientists always did. That’s okay, she’ll just work extra hard to understand the material. No more Bondman , she has to study extra hard to make Papa proud of her test scores (for once).
Her fist repetitively clenches and unclenches as her panic grows.
Papa regrets picking me. He wishes I was smarter, better.
Loid could still send her back. He could still abruptly tell her to pack her bags and leave, or take her back to the orphanage himself. Would he really give up on her that easily?
He could’ve chosen someone else. Someone actually good at school. Someone useful.
She can feel the unbearable lump in her throat the moment it forms, a tell-tale sign that she’s close to tears. But she can’t cry. Crying now would only show Loid something is wrong, and if he asked then there’s no telling if Anya would be able to stop herself blurting out that, “yes, she had just heard everything he’d thought.” Then he’d know she is a telepath, and what’s stopping Loid from sending her back to the very scientists that still haunt the corners of her childhood?
She forces a smile as she picks at the remaining food on her plate, vowing to herself that she’ll do better to ensure Loid stays.
✰✰✰✰✰
The fourth time Anya feels truly disappointed with herself is late at night when watching her favourite cartoon, Bondman.
The TV hums softly, flickering light across the dim living room. Bond sprawls lazily beside Anya, his tail flicking every few seconds. It’s late, way past bedtime, but she stays curled up on the floor, watching the screen.
Anya steals a glance at Loid from where she lays curled up with Bond, her small fingers twisting into the dog's soft fur. He sits stiffly on the sofa, eyes shadowed with something heavy. Worry, exhaustion, or maybe frustration. His posture is tight, his shoulders hunched as if carrying a weight no one could see.
He hasn’t sighed, hasn’t said a word, but Anya can feel it. The way he rubs his temples, the tired drag of his fingers through his hair. Papa is mad, she thought, her stomach twisting. Papa is tired because Anya is stupid.
The cartoon’s cheerful voices fade into the background as a new dread creeps in. If she fails again, if she keeps disappointing him, maybe he’d send her back. Back to the orphanage, where no one cared, where no one stayed.
The thought makes her breath hitch, that familiar unbearable lump forming in her throat once again.
Without hesitation, she clicks the TV off, pushing herself up. She has to study. Has to prove she is good enough. Before it’s too late.
Loid starts. “Anya? I thought you were watching Bondman , did something happen?” His voice is calm, but tinted with quiet curiosity.
Anya doesn’t look at him, instead fidgeting nervously with her hands. “I just remembered I gotta study!” She forces a laugh, but it’s obvious that she’s uneasy, on-edge, off. “Studying is important, right, Papa?”
Loid’s tired eyes narrow slightly at Anya’s forced laughter. The way she stood there, stiff and eager, except for the rapid fidgeting of her hands, was anything but natural. His exhaustion made him slow to respond at first, but his instincts, those finely honed habits from years of espionage, couldn’t ignore the strange tension in her voice.
"Studying?" he repeats, his tone measured as his eyes scan Anya for any kind of clue, any kind of sign as to why she’s acting like this. "At this hour?"
He studies her carefully, noting the way her fingers twitched just that little bit more, as if trying to clasp onto anything solid for reassurance. There is something off. Not just guilt, but something deeper.
A quiet sigh leaves him as he sits back against the sofa. She’s worried about something, he realized. His initial reaction was to press her—to find out exactly what had caused this shift—but another thought struck him. If he interrogated her like he would a suspect, she might retreat even further into her shell. So instead, he softened his tone.
"You don’t need to push yourself so hard, Anya," he says, watching her reaction carefully. "It’s okay to take breaks."
She shakes her head. “It’s okay, I want to study.” She reassures, though the uneasiness never leaves her tone nor her posture as she walks down the hall.
✰✰✰✰✰
The fifth time Anya doesn’t even mess up, but she convinces herself that she has.
The room is dim, lit only by the streetlamp outside. Shadows stretched along the walls, like ink spilling into the darkness, swallowing the little light left to hold onto. Watching them, she felt a familiar weight settle in her chest like something creeping toward her, silent and suffocating.
It wasn’t just the dark. It was the feeling that came with it. A memory tugged at the edges of her mind. Back at the lab, the shadows had been worse. Less like shapes and more like monsters, twisting into something that watched, waited.
The quiet is suffocating. No Bond, no cartoons, just Anya sitting at her desk, hands curled into fists. The room was colder, heavier. Yet, somehow, emptier all at once. She missed the feeling of Bond rubbing his fur against Anya’s leg, always making her giggle when he did it. But today she’d kept the door closed, and no Bond was scratching against it.
Her mind flashes back to her previous failures. All those test papers, each one brandished with red marks, showcasing her lack of academic skill. Damian’s irritated expression every time she tried to talk to him leading to every attempt at befriending Damian crumbling, her carefully planned schemes falling apart the moment she spoke. The constant hushed whispers about how she didn’t belong, back when she was still in the orphanage, waiting for someone to finally see her worth (not that she seemed to have any in the first place).
Despite all those failures, Anya hadn't done a single thing to make up for them—at least, not yet.
Would she even get the chance to fix them? Or would Loid send her away before she could even try?
Papa will send me away. That’s what spies do when something is useless.
She thinks of Mama. Yor. She’s kind, strong, always jumping at the chance to teach Anya more self-defense training or try a new cooking recipe for dinner, eager to learn enough to provide Anya a healthy meal and give Loid a well-deserved break. But that wasn’t enough. Nothing she did could change Papa’s decisions.
She thinks of Bond. Her furry friend. Always ready to give Anya a fluffy hug, or sprawl next to her as she watches her cartoons. She remembers how, during a family vacation, Bond had followed her through the village, unwilling to let her go alone. But even Bond couldn’t follow where she was going this time.
She leans over to the side of her desk to grab her school bag. She had emptied it hours ago, having planned to leave earlier. Then, she slowly stood, grabbing the sparse change of clothes laid out folded on her bed and stuffing them into the bag, not caring whether they became messy or creased.
Chimera, her beloved stuffed animal, sat beside the folded clothing. She hesitated, then carefully moved him into the bag too. She couldn’t leave him behind. He had been her only comfort in that lab and now, he would be her comfort on the streets.
If I leave first, Papa won’t have to send me away.
✰✰✰✰✰
Dinner was quiet. Too quiet.
Loid noticed it immediately. The absence of Anya’s usual chatter, the way she barely touched her food, how she only nodded when Yor asked about school instead of launching into her crazily exaggerated tales. There was no excited talk about Bondman, no dramatic complaints about homework.
Just silence.
He didn’t press her. Not yet. But the weight of it lingered long after the meal was over.
Later, standing outside her door, he exhales slowly, rubbing his temples. He is exhausted, but something about Anya’s behaviour gnawed at the back of his mind, pressing harder and harder as the clock ticked by. The sudden motivation to study, the sudden interest in solitary, the sudden disinterest in cartoons (even Bondman) is all wrong. It isn’t Anya.
After a brief hesitation, he knocked lightly. “Anya?” Loid calls softly, but no one responds.
He waits for a beat, listening. No response.
Loid hesitates for just a second, his hand hovering near the door handle. He’s used to reading people, analyzing their tells, figuring out just what their next move would be but this is different. This is Anya.
Quietly, carefully, he pushes the door open, the soft creak barely breaking the silence. The warm glow of the bedside lamp spills across the floor, illuminating the room in a dim hush. His gaze flickers to the small school bag resting near her desk, and though the sight of it tugs at the edges of his concern, he doesn’t react. Not yet.
Instead, his focus shifts to the bed.
Anya is curled up under the covers, Chimera clutched tightly against her chest. She’s unnaturally still, as if willing herself to disappear beneath the blankets, to shrink away from whatever conversation might follow.
Loid takes a slow breath and moves to sit on the very edge of the bed, keeping his tone neutral, patient.
“You were quiet at dinner,” he says, just above a whisper. “Something on your mind?”
Anya doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, just stays curled under the covers.
Silence lingers for a few moments. Loid isn’t sure what to say. He’s never faced a situation like this before, and with Anya acting so strangely, he isn’t sure what’s right to say or what might make things worse. It isn’t like when he first met her, when bribing her with peanuts had been enough to get her cooperation.
This was different.
He sighs, leaning back slightly as he stares at the opposing wall. “Did I ever tell you about the time Franky tried to win a prize at the carnival?”
He hears Anya shuffle slightly, but she doesn’t peek her head out from beneath the covers yet, so he steadies his voice and continues. “He was convinced he could beat one of those impossible ring toss games–the kind designed to make people lose. He spent nearly all this money trying to land even one ring on the bottle. After about twenty tries, the vendor just gave him a free consultation prize out of pity.” His voice carries a faint hint of amusement now. “A stuffed octopus.”
Loid pauses for effect, letting the absurdity settle.
Anya still doesn’t stir from her position.
He continues. “But Franky was determined. He carried that octopus everywhere for weeks, calling it his “trophy of perseverance”. Said it proved that hard work always pays off, even if it’s in ways you don’t expect. Of course, he eventually lost it somewhere between the bar and his apartment, but the principle remains, I suppose.”
The story carries a subtle reassurance, something he hopes Anya catches onto. That, sometimes, failure isn’t as final or as catastrophic as it feels.
It had taken him a bit to decipher. Anya’s behaviour had shifted from the moment she had brought home that low score. He supposes if he wasn’t so focused on Operation Strix, he’d have noticed the shame or disillusionment lying behind her wide eyes, an early tell-tale sign of the behavioural changes that would occur during the following week.
But he didn’t.
He’d make up for it now, though.
“People think their failures matter more than they actually do.” he says, still staring at the opposing wall, waiting for Anya to peek her head out even a bit.
And she does. It’s slow, subtle at first, but she eventually raises her head above the covers, eyes wide and head tilted to the side.
“Does it really not matter?” she asks, voice quieter than Loid would have imagined. He turns her head to look at her, face softening when he sees the tears glistening in her eyes. He shakes his head. “You…you wouldn’t get rid of someone who kept messing up?”
At that, Loid forces himself to stay composed, willing his expression to remain neutral.
Her words settle in the air, heavier than expected, pressing against something deep in his chest. He doesn’t react immediately, doesn’t let his expression falter. But internally, a quiet realization creeps in: she really believes that, she had believed that.
It begs the question: how long had she been worrying about such a fate? Surely this goes deeper than just a week of behavioural changes and feelings of disillusionment. There must be something deeper. Perhaps something had occurred at the orphanage, before he had adopted her, or maybe even something before that.
He can investigate that matter later, however. Right now, Anya needs a comforting, loving father to give her the security she’s so deathly afraid of losing.
His posture remains calm, steady as he maintains the neutral facade, but there’s a softness in his gaze now, something gentler than his usual composed demeanor. He exhales slowly, considering his words carefully. He knows this moment is fragile, knows that whatever he says next could either pull her from the edge of her fears or push her deeper into them.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet, measured, but firm enough that there’s no room for doubt. "Anya…no one gets rid of someone just because they mess up."
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
She nods, before hesitantly leaning forward and wrapping her tiny, thin arms around his waist. Awkwardly, he rests a hand on her back in an attempt to bring her some kind of comfort, before deciding that wasn’t enough. He wraps a strong arm around her waist and hoists her up onto his lap, his other arm supporting her head as he embraces her.
After a moment, she buries her head in his chest. Even without hearing her sob, he sees the uneven rise and fall of her chest, feels the way her tears seep into his shirt. And so, he stays there, letting her cry into his chest as she finally realizes that failure wouldn’t turn Loid away. No, it wouldn’t turn Papa away.
For the first time, she wasn’t scared he’d leave. And for the first time, she let herself believe he never would.