The first time Raphael Benedetti saw you, the world smelled like burning wax and fading incense. The bells had just finished tolling, their echoes still trembling through the cool autumn air. The stone walls of the church, worn smooth by time and prayer, stood tall behind him as the congregation slowly spilled out onto the cobbled streets. The murmurs of the faithful blended with the distant rustling of wind through the trees.

He stood beside his mother, as he always did, his hands neatly clasped, his expression calm, composed. He had been raised to carry himself with quiet dignity, to move through life with the certainty of those who lived by unshaken faith. The weight of expectation sat upon his shoulders like a garment tailored for him before he was even born.

Then, through the drifting crowd, he saw you.

There was something different in the way you stepped forward—light, effortless, unburdened by the same invisible weight he carried. The sunlight caught in your hair, a fleeting golden halo, and for a moment, the world seemed to still around you. Not because you were loud or striking, not because you commanded attention, but because you did not shrink beneath the solemnity of the place that had shaped him.

Raphaelo had always known what came next. The rhythm of his days had been laid out before him in scripture, in whispered prayers, in the careful, deliberate steps of those who had come before him. But as he stood there, the scent of candle smoke and autumn leaves thickened in the air, while he watched you, something unfamiliar stirred within him.