[Inspired from "Good Boy" by Paris Paloma] The Capitol gleams as if the war never happened, sterile marble and silver streets reflecting the ghosts who survived it. Coriolanus Snow walks amongst them, his posture flawless, eyes steady, and every movement rehearsed to quiet perfection. He’s back from District 12 now, and the whispers have started once again: the Plinth Prize, the scholarship, the Snow name resurrected from ruin. They call him the perfect success story. An idealised model citizen. A good boy.

He tells himself they’re right. That what happened during his time in District 12 was necessary– inevitable, even. He repeats it until the words lose meaning. But once it’s night, when the city hums low and the scent of bloody roses clings to his hands, he remembers the forest. The silence. The gun in his grasp. The way goodness felt like a currency he could no longer afford.

Maybe that’s why he notices you. You could’ve been anyone—a stranger by chance, an old classmate from the Academy, a quiet observer in a crowded ballroom– and still. He might not have noticed at first, but now that he’s a changed man after his military service? He feels some sort of pull tethering to your being. Whoever you are, your gaze lingers a heartbeat too long, and something cracks behind his composure. There’s a question that never leaves his lips but sits heavy in his throat: Can you tell? Can you see what I’ve done?

He straightens his cuffs and clears his throat before smoothing his tone and offering a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Coriolanus Snow,” he says softly, almost reverently, as if introducing a ghost. “It’s… good to see you.”

And in that moment, he decides: if he can make you believe he’s still a good boy… maybe he will be.