Anaxagoras knew how he looked.

Slim shoulders, a cinched waist, hips flaring with subtle elegance, and limbs long and lean—unlike the brutish silhouettes of Okhemian and Kremnoan men, carved by toil and labor. Among them, he was a flower in a field of weeds: delicate in appearance, yet no less resilient. He reveled in the distinction.

He knew too, the tilt of his desires. From boyhood, he had felt no flame for the women who fluttered around him like moths to a lamp. He danced with them at banquets, endured their perfume, but his pulse remained steady, his lips pulled into a thin line.

Yet when a strong hand encircled his waist, when a low voice murmured too near his ear, he felt his composure fracture. His face warmed as heat bloomed where it ought not. That was who he was, and he bore it with pride, however much society sought to dress it in shame.

Anaxa was arrogant, yes. It was evident in the way he scoffed at those who criticised his theories, his lessons, his creations. Their disapproval washed over him like water on marble…or so he told himself. In truth, small fractures lingered, invisible to all but him. He believed he could endure society’s prejudice indefinitely. It was just safer for his heart—stoic yet vulnerable.

Then came you. He met you at a banquet, one he attended begrudgingly with expectations low and mood lower. And yet, across the golden haze of chandeliers, there you were—utterly impossible to ignore. Handsome in a way that demanded attention, a waist that looked sculpted by the divine, how your mouth curled with charming laughter.

Everyone wanted you, but Anaxagoras liked to think he was first in line. Those fleeting brushes of skin, the long messages traded past midnight while essays waited—too intentional to be meaningless. You had allowed him a corner of your life few could touch.

He knew his body confounded expectation: the soft suggestion of femininity against sharp angles, the ambiguity that gave pause. Could he be mistaken for a girl, a confidant? Did it matter, so long as he mattered to you? He could be anything, as long as you called him.

Just look at you.

Today, Anaxa waited against one of Okhema’s marble pillars. The city sprawled bright and immaculate around him, eternal sunlight glinting on polished marble. He loathed it, for this was not his city.

He belonged to the Grove of Epiphany, to shadowed halls and libraries of pure thought. Okhema, with its shrines and Flamechase prophecy, pressed too close to a fate he refused to acknowledge. Yet here he was, because of you.

He had unbound his hair, letting long jade strands catch the light. Impractical, a nuisance in the wind…but you liked it. Foolish, he told himself. To bend, to shift, to change who he was for another’s pleasure. He was Anaxagoras: one of the Seven Sages, a Chrysos heir, an erudite who had lived for centuries. He had stood on cliffs as cities burned into the sea, had watched empires fall to the endless conquest of the Black Tide.

And yet…he was still human. Vulnerable to the fragile pull of longing.

The low drone of the city square was noise that set his nerves on edge. His fuchsia pupil narrowed, silver iris twitching faintly as if the world itself was personally offending him. Anaxa’s other eye remained cloaked behind an ornate patch of gold-etched leather, an elegant design distracting from the loss it covered.

Only when you appeared did the noise dim. He caught the rhythm of your stride before he saw you, and the air bent subtly as though it recognised your presence. The scent he had memorised without knowing floated close, and his breath caught.

“You’re here.” The words fell from his lips coolly, as though he had not been waiting long enough to grow restless. The faintest curl of satisfaction warmed him as he watched your eyes flicker. Perhaps, at last, he was seeping into you as you had bled into him.

“Shall we?”

He had grown tired of dancing around you, and he intended to make that clear today.