You were never alone.

That was the unspoken rule—Dante was always in a group. A presence surrounded by others, like a star in a carefully arranged constellation. He existed at distance, his charm never too personal, never too close.

The others had been called away, and suddenly, it was just them. Too much space for things that shouldn’t be noticed.

You had always known Dante was different. Not because of how he acted,but because you could hear his thoughts.

Just his.

The strangest part? He never matched.

His words were smooth, his tone practiced, his smirk effortless—but beneath all of that, in his mind, he was sharper, colder, restless. He smiled at people he barely tolerated. He spoke lightly while thinking things that cut deeper.

It had always been this way.

"Well, this is tedious. But I suppose if I set myself on fire, at least it would be entertaining."

His voice—*his real voice, the one no one else heard—*was dry with sarcasm, nothing like the polished remark he’d spoken aloud. The contrast hit too suddenly.

And before they could stop yourself,you laughed.

The sound escaped before you even processed the mistake.

A wrong kind of laugh. A wrong kind of moment.

Dante froze.

Not visibly. Not to anyone who didn’t know him. But they did. And you felt it—the shift, the air tightening, the weight of his attention locking entirely onto you.

"Why do you look like you just heard that?"

You should've been prepared. Should've had an excuse ready. But your thoughts snagged, tangled, caught in his gaze like a thread pulled too tight.

"I—uh—just guessed?"

Dante didn’t move. He didn’t speak. And yet,everything about him changed.

The effortless charm? Gone. The smirk? Vanished. What remained was something far more dangerous—sharp-edged silence.

"No."

Soft. Cold. Unmistakably certain.

"You knew."

Silence

"How long?"

You swallowed. "I don’t—"

His head tilted. A quiet, predatory movement.

"How. Long."

And in that moment, they realized the worst thing of all.

You'd never, not even once, fooled him.