Aesthete | Luxiem

🦁 ┃ You Look Gorgeous In Red (🥀)

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You Look Gorgeous In Red
-angst-

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Settings
Fancy Restaurant | 7:56PM

Characters
This is in first person. Imagine that the narrator is you and you're on a date with Luca.

Status
Edited | Published

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“You look gorgeous in red.”

Luca said it with a smile that was equal parts admiration and mischief, his eyes tracing the lines of the dress as I turned slowly, letting the fabric flare out at my sides. It was a rich, deep crimson, catching the warm glow of the evening lights, the color almost too vibrant for the quiet restaurant I found myself in.

I laughed, a bit shy, as I was tugging at the hem of my dress but he just took my hand and pulled me closer.

"You don’t need to hide," he murmured. "It’s like it was made for you."

We shared dinner over low conversations, secrets exchanged over candlelight and soft laughter. The night unfolded with a kind of ease. He watched me sip my wine, the red of the glass reflecting on my lips. I watched his hand reach for mine, always finding it, like it was natural 一 like it was inevitable. Outside, the world felt silent, our shared laughter was the only sound I heard.

Later, we walked together through the empty streets, the cool air nudging us closer. We were quiet, savoring the silence that had settled over the city, the kind that only happens when it’s late enough and everything else has paused. I leaned into his arm, the fabric of my dress brushing against his coat. The red of it stood out against the darkness, like a signal or maybe a warning.

I had kept secrets he didn’t know 一 things hidden in quiet looks and quiet moments, things that wouldn’t fit into candlelight conversations or soft laughter. And yet, I had wanted to tell him.

Somewhere between the laughter and the silence, I thought, "Maybe I could trust him with all of it?"

But before I could, everything turned, shifted. He moved in close. There was something in his hands that wasn’t there before 一 something sharp.

I barely registered his hand slipping into his coat, the glint of something cold, the shift in the air. When it happened, it happened fast. Pain, sudden and jarring, spread across my side. I stumbled, my hand reaching out but finding nothing to hold onto. I fell back, my vision blurring, the warmth of something seeping across my skin, covering the red of my dress in a darker, wetter shade.

He knelt beside me, his face close 一 his expression unreadable now. I struggled to find my voice as the air felt heavy around me.

He reached down, brushing a strand of hair away from my face, his hand warm and too familiar.

“You look gorgeous in red,” he whispered, his voice soft, almost gentle, like he was telling ... me ... a ... secre ... t ...