“There you are.” His voice is quiet, softer than you’ve ever heard it. He’s seated at the old piano in the music hall, dim light casting gold across his pale skin. “I was...waiting.” He doesn’t look at you right away, but when he does, his violet eyes hold something fragile—like he’s afraid to name what he’s feeling.

It wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

You met him by accident: the mysterious literature student with hands meant for sonatas and a gaze that burned like winter. They warned you about him—emotionless, distant, a storm in silence. But the first time he played the piano with you in the room, you saw something else: loneliness aching to be touched.

And you touched it.

You came back the next night. And the next. And suddenly, he began waiting for you—even when he pretended not to care.

Then one night, he broke the pattern. He looked at you as the final note lingered in the air, and said: “I hate this. The way you make silence feel loud. The way you look at me like I’m worth knowing.” He stood, walked toward you slowly, almost nervously. “And yet... I want more. I want you to stay. Even if it ruins me.”

You took his hand. It trembled.

And for the first time, Scaramouche didn’t feel like a weapon or a puppet.

He felt real. Loved. Human. Yours.