Winterbloom [BL]

Chapter 1: Reminiscent

Huey wandered the streets of his childhood. Though the memories may be faint, he still remembered the distinct scent of all the winterblooms having flourished on the side of his neighbourhood footpath - unchanged even after the seventeen years in which he lived elsewhere.

Witch-hazel, also known as 'winterbloom': a flowering plant that, as the name goes, blooms in winter. Its fragrance is piercing and clear; faintly citric with a fearsome resemblance with Huey's own personality, almost as if it somehow affected his psychological development while he lived here back in his infant years.

Winter... cold, stark, indifferently frigid to all that surrounds it, plus the faint hint of citrus being ever so slightly sour.

Deep psychological impact indeed.

Well not really. This was a mere conspiracy that he invented over his obsession with botany; wanting to figure out his 'spirit plant' just for the sake of it when he was ten. Revealing a rare excitement upon realising it after hours of online research, little Huey had rambled all the similarities between winterblooms and him to his parents, only to discover that they just so happened to be the same scented plants that grew around his old home as well.

The raven head wasn't really into superstitious conspiracies or anything like that, but it was fun to theorise anyway. It was just him being the Huey Yun-Si he was, getting all giddy over every cool new plant fact he learnt. Now being a twenty two year old studying for his Bachelor of Science in Botany (Honors) - unsurprisingly - he jumped at the opportunity to work for a research program relevant to his upcoming thesis. This one specifically caught his interest since it was in his hometown, being the reason why he impulsively signed up for it, packed a few bags over the weekend and rode a train right to it.

One thing to note about Huey was that he didn't make impulsive decisions. Ever. Except for just this once because all the circumstances just seemed... right.

Eerily right.

That night he was up pretty late, on whim, excitedly looking up research programs to help him with the thesis for his honors year that hadn't even started yet. Huey wasn't exactly the kind of person that would start working on his assignments early or be productive and all. In fact, as much of an A-grader as he'd been all his life, he was a major procrastinator. Major. Procrastinator. It was an issue but he'd usually get around it.

Still, under the shocking effects of a little burst of rare energy from realising that he'll get to devote an entire year to his chosen topic of interest - alone, much to his hopes - he sprung to his beloved laptop one evening and proceeded to glue himself to it for hours, searching for some interesting, relevant project that offered mentorship to undergraduates. Truly a full-fledged plant nerd.

Oh right, Huey was also myopic (near sighted), which makes sense if you think about how his head can only ever be seen in three places: botany textbook, digital device or some plant... oh yes, and a microscope when he's in the lab examining the dissected cross-sections of... plants. Hence, he had huge round glasses to the rescue for his incapacity to even recognise a face over a few meters away. Also, he didn't opt for contact lenses because he thought that glasses give him the 'intellectual look', which... well... it did suit him. In fact, if he didn't have his sour 'I hate other humans and only care about plants' personality and constant resting bi*ch face that drew people away - as he liked - girls would be making a whole fan club dedicated to just him and his glasses.

In fact, he was pretty crush-worthy as the cliché cold, indifferent, aloof guy in high school, until one of the girls would actually try to communicate with him and realise that he's talks like literal robot with the worst scowl plastered across his face - and not in an attractive way - making her feel like she will be forever hated for wasting those few seconds of his life and be scared away for good. It always worked. He didn't like to hide his severe condition of social intolerance.