The clothes on his body felt wrong. Tight in all the wrong places, like they were punishing him for existing. Gabin tugged at his collar, trying to breathe through the weight pressing down on him - not from the fabric, but from everything it represented. Every movement felt restricted, foreign. Like he was stepping into a role he hadn't auditioned for, but one he was now expected to play to perfection. None of it felt like him. Not anymore.

A week had passed.

A slow, aching week.

Seven days of silence and suffocation. Of blurred hours and sharp headlines. Of begging behind closed doors, and being told no again and again. Of watching the world twist his life into clickbait. His secrets, his love, his Padma - turned into headlines and hashtags, gossiped about over croissants in cafes.

He had cried. He had begged. He had screamed.

None of it mattered.

The Queen got what she wanted. She always did.

With a single phone call - just one word spoken in that smooth, cold voice - he was accepted into Saint-Rémy. Of course he was. She went there. Her father too. And his father before him. Every gilded generation of crown-bearing ghosts had walked the halls of that school. It was more tradition than institution. A rite of passage for the royal-born and the aristocratically anointed.

What came next was an avalanche of bureaucracy - hundreds of documents, maybe thousands. Papers that smelled like ink and centuries of entitlement. Pages upon pages spelling out who he had to be now. What he could say, what he could never say. What he could wear. How he should walk. What he must never be seen doing, thinking, or feeling.

The rules of the monarchy had always been a cage.

But Saint-Rémy was a prison gilded in Latin mottos and marble staircases.

Résidence Saint-Auguste - that's what they called the school's dormitory. Because apparently "dorm" wasn't elegant enough for the sons and daughters of diplomats, dukes, heiresses, and billionaires. It was a palace within a palace. It had chandeliers in the hallways, a butler staff, antique mirrors taller than most boys here, and a curfew enforced with all the warmth of a boarding school and the precision of a military regime.

He had been given his schedule.

Lectures that dressed up history and politics in couture terminology.

Subjects he'd already studied with his private tutors - only here, they had fancier names and longer reading lists.

Then came the pastime activities list. As if choosing between fencing, polo, oil painting, or debating global ethics in six different languages was supposed to make him feel normal. 

Everything had changed in a week.

Except the ache inside his chest.

Padma was gone. Vanished. Erased from his life with the same clinical efficiency as the Queen's staff deleted her name from every palace document. Her mother had been dismissed. Their quarters cleared. Her photos taken down.

Gabin hadn't even been allowed to say goodbye.

A week ago, he had been kissing the girl he loved in the middle of a Paris street.

Now, he was just a boy in a suit, stripped of everything that made him human.

Gabin stared out the car's dark-tinted window as the world blurred into gold. The outskirts of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence unfolded like a storybook painting - sun-warmed cobblestones, sloping vineyards stretched along the horizon, and tall cypress trees lined like quiet sentinels along narrow roads. The early September light dripped through the branches like syrup, casting shadows across pale stone farmhouses and lavender fields long since harvested. Even the wind looked gentle here. Quiet. The kind of quiet that made you feel too loud for it.

But Gabin didn't feel peaceful. He felt like he was being delivered.

His eyes dropped from the window to the weight on his chest. His fingers ghosted over the lapels of his blazer, flinching from it like it might bite back. The fabric was dark navy, heavy with tradition and tailored to precision - stitched so sharply it felt more like armor than clothing. Thin red trim marked the edges, like a border warning you not to step out of line. Over his heart, the Saint-Rémy crest gleamed in blood red and antique gold: a lion curled around a crown, stitched with the Latin words "Virtus ante honorem."

Virtue before honor.

Or maybe it was the other way around. No one ever said it out loud.

Beneath the jacket, the white shirt was crisp enough to slice skin, its collar so stiff it choked like a command. The tie was scarlet - knotted flawlessly by someone else's hands, tightened not by choice, but by duty. Gabin's fingers hovered over it for a second, tempted to tug, to ruin it, to breathe - but he didn't.

The trousers matched the blazer, tailored within a breath of his skin, and the shoes were polished until they glared like mirrors. Even the cufflinks were absurd - gold, heavy, engraved with his monogram: G. L. A.

Gabin Louis Alexandre.

He looked exactly how they wanted him to.

Like a prince.

Not a boy who had just watched the girl he loved be exiled.

Not a scandal. Not a disgrace.

Just the heir. Neat. Noble. Royal.

And somehow, that made him feel like a stranger to himself.

Then, as his gaze drifted back from the sunlit hills outside, Gabin's eyes caught on something closer - his own reflection in the car window. Pale. Perfect. Designed.

That was no accident. Nothing ever was with his mother. Even this - his reflection - was curated.

It was the same face the world had seen a few days ago.

The velvet was blood red, the kind that looked stolen from an opera curtain. Gabin sat like a prop on the antique armchair - wood carved into vines, gold leaf catching every camera flash. Behind him, the cavernous drawing room hummed with legacy: the looming family portrait, the French flag on one side, the royal crest on the other. The walls were blue silk wallpaper, nearly the same shade as his irises, washed out in the gold of the morning sun that dripped through the massive windows. Velvet drapes, like stage curtains, swallowed most of the light anyway.

This room wasn't used for real life. Only for performances. Public addresses. Controlled interviews. Royal damage control.

He wore black. A sleek suit tailored so sharply it could cut. His tie was the only color - crimson, like fresh humiliation. His face had been powdered and corrected until his skin looked unreal. They covered his eye bags. They couldn't cover the grief behind them. He hadn't slept since it happened. Couldn't. Not when he kept replaying the last time he saw Padma.

His hands - resting in his lap - were clasped too tightly, fingers clenched white like they were holding onto something no one else could see. He refused to look at the cameras, the lights, the enormous microphones aimed like rifles at his head. Camille was there, hawk-eyed and smirking like she always knew he'd screw up. Louis, stood with a binder in her arms like a threat. The Royal Communications Media Unit circled like wolves - five of them, perfectly dressed, perfectly fake.

"Prince." Louise's soft voice cracked through the tension like a dropped teacup. She tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable but kind. "Would you like to read through the script one more time?"

Gabin's jaw tensed so hard it nearly splintered. He didn't look at her when he spoke.

"No. I'm sure." His voice was dry, sandpaper wrapped in disdain.

It wasn't her fault. But it didn't matter. All of them were complicit in this - the way they smiled through his ruin, through Padma's erasure. They were pieces of his mother's machine, clicking into place.

Camille crossed her arms, raising a manicured brow like the arrogant snake she was.

"Your Highness must not rebel this time. The Queen expects every word delivered exactly as it is written. Don't make this worse than it already is."

Gabin scoffed, sharp and bitter. The sound was too human for this place.

"Alright, Your Highness." A man from the crew, maybe the director, called out from behind a blinding white light. "We're live in three minutes. Positions, everyone."

Gabin swallowed hard, his throat dry and raw. He nodded. A single, small nod. The kind that makes a boy disappear and a prince take his place.

Before anyone could settle into their final places, Louis moved toward him - silent and efficient like always. She reached for Gabin's hair with a manicured hand, gently smoothing back a curl that had already been flattened into place by mousse and pressure.

It was perfect. Too perfect.

What was she fixing? One disobedient strand? As if a single lock of hair might destroy the monarchy's image. As if the whole nation would combust at the sight of it.

"Good luck, my prince," she whispered, like it was a blessing and a burden in one. "You can do it."

He almost laughed.

Could he? Did it matter?

The air in his chest was heavy - like breathing in wet silk. He inhaled deeply, let it out slowly, like they taught him before speeches and formal greetings. Keep your hands still. Your jaw tight. Your gaze calm, like the world was beneath you.

His gaze lifted, meeting the void of the camera's lens - the eye of the nation. He adjusted his spine, placed the ghost of a professional expression on his face, one he had learned to wear like armor. The director stood just out of frame, mouthing the numbers. Three. Two. One. A flick of the wrist. A hand signal.

Go.

The red light blinked to life.

"Hello. I am Prince Gabin Louis Alexandre of France, Duke of Orléans, the heir to the Crown."

The words were stone in his mouth, syllables he'd chewed and swallowed and never really tasted.

"Today, I'm here to speak on the scandal that occurred involving me. To the public, to the Crown, and to those who have placed their trust in me - I offer my sincere apologies."

His voice trembled. Not enough to be noticeable to an untrained ear, but enough to catch in his throat. He swallowed, hard.

"A few days ago, I attended a private gathering that, in hindsight, I should never have been part of. I made a serious lapse in judgment - one that involved underage drinking and... p-poor company."

The phrase stuck. His lips barely released the words. He could feel the watching eyes around him bristle like dogs catching a scent.

A second passed. Two. The kind of silence that feels like falling.

He steadied. Pressed his palms against his knees. Begged his body to stay still.

"I allowed myself to be influenced by someone I believed to be a friend," he continued, slower now, choosing each word like stepping on glass, "and I failed to see how my actions - even in a personal setting - reflected on the position I hold."

A friend.

Not her name. Not Padma. Not the girl he loved. Just "a friend."

"What occurred was not malicious," he said softly, "but it was irresponsible. I understand the disappointment I've caused - to my family, to the public, and to those who looked to me as an example. I take full responsibility for placing myself in that situation."

A flash of Camille's eyes. A shift in Louis's stance. Still watching. Still waiting.

"But I also wish to clarify..." he went on, his voice tighter, "that what has been circulated online does not reflect the truth. Many of the assumptions made about my intentions and relationships have been deeply misguided. I am committed to learning from this experience. To carrying myself with greater awareness. And to continuing to serve my country with the respect and discipline it deserves."

A pause. A breath.

"I hope, in time, I will earn back the trust I've damaged. And because of this, after long consideration with my family, we - as one - have decided that I will no longer continue with private tutoring, and will instead begin attending Académie Saint-Rémy. To gain experience. To learn what it means to become a future leader worthy of this country."

His voice cracked slightly on the last sentence. Maybe no one would notice. Maybe they all would.

"Thank you."

The red light blinked off.

And for a moment, no one spoke. Not Louise. Not Camille. Not the director.

The silence was deafening. It pressed against the walls, coated the velvet chairs, sat in his chest like concrete.

It was done. He had said the words. Words that weren't his.

And yet... somehow, he still felt like the one who had betrayed her.

"I need air."

The words slipped from his lips before he could even think. One second, he was sitting still, spine stiff like a mannequin in an antique window. The next, he was on his feet, bolting toward the door, the sound of startled voices erupting behind him like fireworks in a museum.

He didn't look back.

Couldn't.

It felt like the walls had hands. Like they were reaching for him, trying to smother the last breath in his lungs. The cameras, the velvet chairs, the glittering chandeliers - all of it pressing in closer and closer. His legs moved before logic could catch up. If he stayed in that room for one more minute, he was going to die.

"My prince - !"