The city swallowed his voice.
Then a small shadow rushed forward.
Leo.
He had just helped an elderly woman carry groceries when he noticed the growing circle around the fallen man.
Without hesitation, he dropped his worn backpack and knelt beside Adrien.
“Sir, can you hear me?” Leo asked, breathless, eyes wide with concern.
Adrien’s first instinct was disgust.
“Don’t touch me,” he snapped.
But Leo didn’t move.
“You’re bleeding. I have to help.”
He pulled off his thin, tattered shirt, ribs visible beneath his skin, and pressed it gently against Adrien’s wound with hands steadier than most adults’.
“Stay still,” he whispered. “I’m here.”
The words echoed ones his mother used to say when fear overwhelmed him.
A strange warmth spread beneath Leo’s palms—soft but unmistakable, like light pushing through shattered glass.
The bleeding slowed… then stopped.
Adrien’s breath trembled.
The world blurred.
Something impossible had just happened.
Not medicine.
Not logic.
Just a child who refused to walk past someone in pain.
That night, long after the mansion fell silent, Adrien lay awake staring at the ceiling.
He touched the place where blood had flowed hours earlier.
Smooth.
Unbroken.
No pain at all.