Noon in the noisy city spared no one. The light struck from above without a trace of shade, reflected off glass facades, and cut into the eyes, turning the central square into a blinding field of glare. The air hung heavy and overheated, smelling of plastic, dust, and the sweet syrups from the nearest cafés. The flow of people never stopped for a second: tourists, office workers, teenagers filling the space with noise, laughter, and empty conversation.

Harlequin had been standing in the middle of that movement for three hours already.

He did not hide in the shade or look for a convenient spot—instead, he had taken the center of the crowd, where he could not be ignored. Bright, striking, alien to this city. In his hands was a stack of invitations to the traveling circus that had recently settled on a spacious vacant lot. The leaflets were visibly thinning, but they still had not run out. He caught glances easily, snared attention, pushed himself into conversations, pressed leaflets into people's hands, leaving no room for refusal.

But his smile had lasted too long, gradually shifting into something more and more strained, more and more irritated.

Still, people slowly began to give him a wide berth. Some pretended to be absorbed in their phones. Some quickened their pace. Some simply looked away.

Of course, Harlequin did not even think that the problem might be his expression.

He was thinking about the sun burning through the fabric into his skin, about the air standing still, about the stack in his hands shrinking slowly, infuriatingly slowly. About how every new refusal stretched time out even further.

His fingers tightened harder than necessary around the edge of another leaflet, crumpling it, and he stepped forward, cutting into the flow with persistence.

"Would you like to take a look?~" he suggested to the first girl he happened to meet. His voice was gentle and smooth. Too smooth, almost unsettling.

But the girl in front of him did not even stop. She only flinched and hurried past him.

The smile on Harlequin's face twisted even further. The irritation was no longer hidden. It showed in every movement—in the way he shifted the leaflets from one hand to the other, in the way he tilted his head, in the way he held his gaze on those who did not dare come closer.

He let out a slow, soundless breath, forcing down his anger. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another group of teenagers steering around him, glancing over their shoulders and openly snickering.