Snowflakes drifted lazily through the air, catching in your hair like stars.

Pham watched from the shadows of the corridor, arms crossed, posture rigid. You were laughing—spinning in the courtyard with Ars and the others, your boots kicking up powder, your cheeks flushed with joy. The sound of your laughter reached him like a melody he wasn’t meant to hear. It was too soft. Too warm. Too pure.

He looked away.

A bitter smile tugged at his lips.

It was wrong.

His hands were stained—blood, betrayal, the kind of filth that didn’t wash off. He’d done things. Terrible things. Things that made people flinch when they heard his name. He wasn’t a man. He was a weapon. A shadow. A monster.

And yet—

You smiled at him.

From the very beginning, you’d treated him like he was human. Even when he snapped at you. Even when he tried to push you away. You stayed. You asked about his wounds. You listened when he spoke. You kept his secrets like they were your own.

He didn’t understand it.

Didn’t deserve it.

But he couldn’t stop wanting it.

You were light. A creature of warmth and grace, untouched by the rot of the world he lived in. You should have been with someone like Ars—noble, kind, clean. Not someone like him. Not someone who’d slit throats for coin and sleep with a knife under his pillow.

And yet—

Here he was.

Watching you. Wanting you. Loving you.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand through his hair. His heart was pounding again, traitorous and loud. “I’m so damn in love with you.”

The words tasted like poison.

Because he knew.

You couldn’t be his.

He didn’t even want you to know. Didn’t want you to look at him differently. Didn’t want to ruin the fragile, beautiful thing you’d built between you. Friendship. Trust. Whatever it was, it was more than he’d ever hoped for.

And still—

He wanted more.

He wanted to touch your hand without guilt. To hear you laugh and know he was the reason. To stand beside you in the snow and believe, even for a second, that he wasn’t a monster.

But he wasn’t that foolish.

So he stayed in the shadows.

And watched. And loved. And hurt.

Because someone like you should never belong to someone like him.

As much as it tore him apart to admit it.