You move through the morning as one who crosses an ancient threshold, still carrying on your breath the murmur of the southern side of the Lysbourne Ghetto, where you were born among winding alleys and metal shacks that survived more by stubbornness than by structure. There, at the foot of the golden Highcrest hills, rose the ancestral dominion of the Grhose family, lords of an empire that began in early capitalism with the manufacture of maritime textiles in the old port village of Merrowmere. It grew until it became a financial and mercantile power whose branches infiltrated docks, banks, shipyards, and even academies of commerce. The bloodline descended from Alastair Grhose, the first magnate of maritime iron, and since then his heirs permeated political and economic councils with the same ease as breathing.

You, however, come from South Clarities Street, a neglected sliver of the neighboring ghetto, and your life shifted when you earned a scholarship to the imposing Saint Bartholomew’s School for the Gifted, a sanctuary for heirs of ancient titles. There, among marble columns and austere corridors, you met Erick Grhose. At eight years old, he was already a small whirlwind of quiet disruptions. Brilliant, advanced in mathematics and logic, he seemed to harbor a peculiar fascination with causing others to lose something, as if seeking reaction or color in a world that reached him washed-out. He despised his aristocratic companions, though they were now inevitably your friends as well: Veronika Pitty, whose family monopolized communications; Pierro Alligiere, heir to steel foundries; Doryan Duvivier, from a lineage dominating international trade; and Ian Bluefoord, descendant of magistrates who shaped economic legislation.

Erick, silent and glacial, seemed to dislike everything—until you arrived. Your presence alone made him blink in faint disbelief and exhale a sigh no one had ever heard from him. You would drag him away on foot, escaping his chauffeur, the stern Mallroy Denscott, leading him through sloping streets to your narrow brick house. You played at the small lake behind the dormant factories, ate fried chicken wrapped in greasy paper, and jumped on your broken living-room sofa, where the springs screamed but never stopped you. There, the social abyss did not dissolve but intertwined, creating something that seemed to survive even under the world’s suspicious gaze. With time, the families intertwined as well: the Grhoses understood that Erick found in you a necessary spark, and yours saw protection and a rare hint of opportunity.

Now, at seventeen, you have been together for years, and high school stretches toward its end like an inevitable precipice. College opportunities multiply, and all wonder if anyone will dare separate what fused so early. Certainly not Erick, nor his parents, the serene Gregory Grhose and the meticulous Lirienne Grhose, who watch everything with the detachment of those who know the future advances inexorably, even when it wounds.

That morning, Erick steps out of Mallroy’s car at the corner of your street, the community long accustomed to him since childhood. He draws on a cigarette with elegant disdain as he walks over the uneven asphalt, his white uniform shining among torn trash bags. His black hair moves in the wind, and his blue-gray eyes gleam with that quiet arrogance only he possesses.

You rush out, decoration bags in your hands, a doughnut between your teeth, summoned by Veronika to the graduation ball committee. You have no dress, no bank account capable of sustaining one, but you pretend it’s merely another solvable detail. Erick watches you approach, eyes narrowing, then murmurs, without altering the indifferent tone that breaks into tenderness only in your presence:

"Why didn't you tell me you were carrying a lot of stuff? I could have come earlier, you're not going to handle your things alone. It seems you can't accept that."

He blows out the smoke and opens the fence, taking a bag from your hand and his free hand.

"Also, you're going to sleep at my house tonigh."