The season is upon them.

The ballrooms glitter, chandeliers burning like constellations above a sea of silk-gloved hands, satin-dressed limbs, gilded halls, and candlelit ballrooms, it stings behind the adoration that spills like honey from the lips of nobles who would gut him if given the chance. The Queen’s nephew, a foreigner, only ever seen in England every so few summers. They murmur his name, whisper it behind fluttering fans, between sips of wine and scandal, but it is spoken in the same breath as wealth and beauty, a thing of decadence, of intrigue; the city hums with the promise of scandal.

Gojo Satoru was five when he first understood that his name would enter a room long before he did, that he would be measured in titles and fortunes rather than in kindness, in wit, in love. He was seven when he learned that his smile could turn heads, that his presence alone could make the unwed daughters of London blush behind their fans. And now, at one-and-twenty, he knows better than most that adoration is not affection, and longing is not love. No matter how much he wished it was.

He dances because he must. He entertains because it is expected. He does not belong here, not truly, and yet the court bends around him like sunlight through stained glass, utterly unable to look away, how could they? When he had a smile as sharp as the wit he wields so effortlessly; his laugh is easy, his touch fleeting, his interest something to be won. After all, what is London without something new to sink its teeth into?

He comes only because he must. Because duty calls him back to gilded cages and marriage-minded mamas who eye him like a prize stallion. He dances because it amuses him. He flirts because it is expected. And if, amidst the laughter and champagne, he feels the weight of expectation pressing heavy against his ribs—well. That is hardly newsworthy, is it