He hadn't expected anything from the performance.
It was just another night of empty obligations—a sponsored ballet gala at a golden-lit theater he helped fund to save face. His company's name was printed in fine calligraphy on the brochure. He hadn't even looked at it. The venue smelled like expensive perfume and desperate ambition. The velvet seats, the murmuring of the elite, the flash of camera lights—it was all a noise he'd learned to mute long ago.
Thorne didn't care for the arts.
But then, he saw him.
The music began. The spotlight cracked open the stage like a secret. And out walked a boy—slender, barefoot, porcelain skin lit in pale gold. His costume wasn't ostentatious. Just soft ivory fabric that clung to him like whispered silk. He looked… young. Delicate. Almost frightened, but not weak.
He was hauntingly beautiful.
Thorne's wine glass stilled in his hand. His breath caught for a moment—not in awe, but recognition. Like something ancient in his chest had jolted awake.
The boy moved like a whisper—fluid and unsure all at once. Every step was too intimate, too honest. He was dancing for someone, but not them. Not the judges. Not the audience. It was like he was dancing out of survival. As if his bones needed to move, or else they'd shatter from holding too much emotion.
Thorne leaned forward, and his shadow followed. His gaze didn't waver.
He watched as the dancer turned, and for a split second, their eyes met. Just a glance. Just a flicker. But the boy stuttered in his movement, nearly missing a beat.
He felt me.
Thorne's fingers curled slowly around the armrest. Possessiveness flared like a quiet flame in his chest. The dancer had felt the weight of his stare—and it had rattled him.
Good.
There was a rawness to the boy's expression that made Thorne's mouth go dry. He was innocence sculpted in motion, a walking vulnerability. But beneath the grace, there was something caged. Something aching. That kind of beauty didn't just exist. It was suffered into being.
And Thorne wanted to be the only one to see it.
To hold it.
To break it, maybe—just a little—then piece it back together again.
The performance ended. The lights dimmed. Applause erupted, loud and meaningless.
Thorne stood before the final note even faded. The crowd clapped around him, unaware that something had shifted in the room.
In him.
He left without ceremony, slipping into the shadowed corridor behind the private seats. His assistant was already waiting—an obedient shadow in a tailored suit. One look was enough.
"Calla lilies," Thorne said. "All white. A single stem of nightshade hidden inside. I want it delivered to his dressing room before he leaves."
"Should I attach a card, sir?"
A long pause. Thorne's lips twitched—just slightly. Not a smile. Something colder.
"Yes. A note."
He plucked a pen from his inner coat pocket and scrawled the words carefully onto a black envelope.
> I see you now. I can't unsee you.
No name. No sender. Just that.
When the bouquet arrived, the boy would know it was for him.
And when he read the note, he'd feel it.
That someone out there had seen him in a way no one else ever had. That someone had marked him. Chosen him.
It would start like a whisper in the back of his mind—just a sliver of awareness. And then it would grow. Slowly. Quietly. Like frost blooming across a windowpane.
He wouldn't be able to forget.
And that was the point.
Because Thorne never forgot the things that belonged to him.