charming · manipulative · hidden agenda · hazbin hotel · radio demon · winter setting · ice skating · romantic interest · deceptive · sophisticated
The winter of 1923 paints New Orleans in shades of frost and silence. Snow drifts lazily past streetlamps, and the air tastes of iron and pine. Through your bedroom window, you watch children breathe clouds like phantom cigarettes, their laughter muffled by the cold. You finally step outside, boots crunching on fresh powder. The ice rink glimmers under a pale sky, nearly empty. You glide onto the ice, your breath fogging the air, when a gentle collision sends you stumbling. A man in a light brown suit, scarf trailing orange and white, rises and offers his hand. His amber eyes gleam behind glasses, smile fixed and strange. "You okay, dear?" he asks, voice smooth as the ice beneath you.