Winterbloom [BL]

Chapter 8: Dropping Hints

As a memoir of his time with his very first friend, Luan had kept their scrapbook very safely in the attic. After him and his buddy parted, Luan would flip through it every other minute. He'd play, hunt down interesting leaves and stick them in the book, take more Polaroid pics and simply flip back to the old pages with their collaborative work once again.

This cycle repeated for a few days before Luan had already filled the entire thing with specimens, doodles, photos and squiggly annotations. Even after getting a new scrapbook, he would go back to the old one from time to time just to take another glimpse.

All because he missed his dear friend.

He only decided to finally stash it after being persistently insisted on doing so by Grandma Anhe. She had been watching him grieve for days and concluded it was best to put away all the reminders of min and his buddy's tragic parting so that the boy can move on, although in doing so, she had to pursuant him saying it's to preserve the fragile scrapbook instead, else it'll tear quickly if he keeps flipping through it every other minute.

And so with that beloved scrapbook, Luan also tucked away that phase of his life within the safety of his grandma's attic. Slowly but surely, the amount of times in a day that he remembered his friend also decreased and he became a distant but core memory.

Until now.

Now it all started flooding back: those times when one used to pull apart flower petals while the other sticky-taped them onto crumpled paper, those kindergartener-level messy note-taking, the back of his car that turned the curb for good, his eyes.

Though after seventeen years, many details had become hazy. Specifically, the name.

What was his name again?

Connecting the dots, Luan snapped out of his deep contemplation and finally looked up from that beautiful eye pic which he'd been staring at for half an hour.

"Grandma..." He jumped out of his spinning chair, haphazardly running downstairs while calling out once more, "Grandma! Grandma, where have you p-"

The idiot nearly stumbled.

"Luan... why do you do this?" Grandma Anhe was tired. Even as a full-grown adult, Luan would end up stumbling down the narrow staircase every time he ran calling out like that. It was always whenever he thought of an idea for a new photography collection or if he had a sudden food craving and wanted her to make it - he'd call out her name at the loudest volume he could fathom - his voice brimming with glee. Then, he would rush downstairs and before poor Anhe could even process the warning call, he'd already have stumbled a few times.

This was one of the small characteristic things about Luan that she absolutely adored. Every time he did that, her memories would flash back to five-year-old Luan running down the stairs in his tiny feet and jumping into her arms. Unfortunately, she'd then remember that the reason jumped right into her arms was to cry after tripping on the last step. Basically, Anhe had been telling Luan not to impulsively run downstairs when he's excited for years and years but here we are; some things never change.

This time she heard the footsteps stammer on the last step and simply sighed - she heard it coming. Luckily, he didn't fall - perhaps instead of learning not to trip at that step, he'd learnt how to trip and not fall whenever he ran down. You'd know it's not Luan if he didn't trip there while running. In any case, this meant her grandson had good news and she was excited to hear it.

Luan caught his breath, "Grandma, where have you put the scrapbook?"

Well this wasn't in the list of usual reasons for his hyperness.