The day Luca first arrived in Milan, a light autumn rain was falling.
Raindrops rippled across the marble platform, and under the grey sky the city's outline blurred at the edges.
In a black wool coat, he stood apart from the cluster of new students milling outside the station, carrying a different kind of air.
His stride never once hesitated on the way to his destination.
Months earlier, he had committed the city map to memory with his tutor—
down to the alleys that would take him to campus with the fewest eyes on him.
Milan University — Department of Biochemistry
The lecture hall smelled of old books and chemical reagents.
From the moment he signed the attendance sheet,
Luca could feel the curiosity in other students' stares.
He spoke without the clipped accent of the north,
nor the softer inflection of the south.
He spoke little, but when he did, his word choice was exact—
an inheritance from years of private tutors.
In his first lab session, the assistant looked up from the roster.
"Luca Belloni? Are you… from that Belloni family?"
He allowed himself a small, dry smile.
"Here, I'm just a student."
It was a clean line drawn in the air.
What lay beyond it, no one asked.
Experiment and Observation
Luca had a fixation with fine changes.
When others described a protein solution as
"yellowish" or "tinged orange," he wrote,
"At 0.1M concentration, 4 minutes 35 seconds in, turbidity increased by 3%."
The professor noticed, but Luca cared less for praise than for the record itself.
His notes were neat as typeset print—
an instinct drilled into him by tutors.
He had been taught to record facts stripped of feeling,
a skill that served him just as well here as it did in the estate.
Between the Estate and the City
On days without classes, he returned to the house.
The errands from his father had not stopped.
Sometimes he checked inventory in a warehouse by the harbor.
Sometimes he met a bank manager and delivered an envelope.
Between Milan's glittering streets and the heavy marble halls of the Belloni estate, Luca moved easily—
two worlds, two breaths.
Making Connections
He did not make friends without reason.
But when he decided someone was useful,
he approached without hesitation.
He shared the "unofficial" storeroom hours with the lab's equipment assistant.
With the library archivist,
he mapped out the loopholes in the borrowing regulations.
Every tie was a tool, never a pastime.
Once, while they worked at a microscope, his lab partner—a girl—looked up at him.
Her eyes wavered between teasing and curious.
"Sometimes… you seem strange."
He glanced sideways without stopping his hands.
"Strange?"
"Yeah. Like you're not making friends—you're collecting them."
A faint curve touched his lips.
"Not collecting. Storing."
"Storing…?"
"You never know when you'll need something.
Best to keep it in good condition."
Her face flickered with an unreadable mix—
unease tangled with some unspoken pull.
"…Then am I… stored?"
She made it sound like a joke,
but there was a trace of something else beneath it.
Luca paused, then looked back into the eyepiece.
"That depends on how you prove your use."
A Call from His Father
That winter, after his final exams, the phone rang in his dorm.
The voice on the other end was as heavy as ever.
"Luca. Come home this weekend.
Guests are coming. People you will greet yourself."
He looked out the window.
The sunset bled red over Milan's rooftops.
"Politics, or finance?"
"Both."
A short answer, followed by a long breath over the line.
"Listen carefully.
The university gives you knowledge,
but power comes from people.
It's time to have your name entered on the list."
That night, on his desk, he laid his lab notebook beside a folded suit.
One was a record of knowledge.
The other, a tool of power.
He intended to keep both in his hands.