the red dust [kiho, kihyun x wonho]

-1-

Beautiful and mysterious. Beautiful and possibly dangerous; Kihyun has no way of knowing yet. Delicate on its surface, a large magenta blossom the size of a dinner plate, layers and layers of moist, silky petals fully opened, fully flourished, with a pale-pink center, perched upon a thick, sturdy stem of blood-red, about two-feet tall or so and several inches thick, sleek and smooth with no leaves, still firmly rooted into the patch of black soil in which the field team had excavated it, along with the hundreds of other flora samples, for Kihyun to examine.

It's magnificent.

It's a specimen unlike anything that Kihyun has ever seen on Earth, a gorgeous plant, elegant but strong, and there's an energy emanating from it that Kihyun can sense, can feel in his fingertips just by standing near it. If he listens carefully, he swears he can even hear a low, deep sound emitting from within, like it's trying to draw him closer into its swirling depths. Kihyun's almost afraid to touch it, to get too close and to disturb it's perfect, terrifying beauty. Well, to disturb it or to be swallowed up by it, he isn't sure.

In the six months since the Starship expedition crew arrived on this strange, wild planet, Kihyun has seen hundreds and hundreds of flora samples, anything that the field team could get their hands on and safely bring back to the station for him, and they were all fascinating in their own way. But this one, this one particular flower, something about it has captured his interest like no other. It's truly one of a kind; according to the field team, it had grown near the outside rim of a massive cliffside cave, all on its own. In fact, it seems to perfectly encapsulate everything he's ever looked for in his career as a botanist, everything that makes his seemingly dull job so truly thrilling, so truly rewarding, even though he's never gone outside the station, never even seen any of it in its natural habitat.

The field team may be the ones who do the physical mapping and exploring of this planet, but Kihyun, he's the one who gets to make the real discoveries. In the station's large, state-of-the-art botany laboratory, he's the one who breaks the samples down to their essence, the one who tests and examines and analyzes them, figures out what they're really made of and what makes them tick. It's immensely satisfying both to his intellectual curiosity and his desire to make an impact on the world, because he never knows what he'll find once he starts his own exploring, whether it's under the microscope or sifting through thousands of lines of collected data. Everything is new and the potential for life-changing discoveries, discoveries that could change humanity, could change everything, is unlimited, just waiting to be unleashed.

And Kihyun, he does this all while being careful, so, so careful, and not just because it's part of his duties to preserve the specimens as best he can for further study when they return to Earth a year from now. While the unknown nature of the flora is thrilling and exciting, it's also incredibly dangerous, and Kihyun knows full well how quickly and how overwhelmingly things could go wrong in an instant when dealing with an alien species. There could be a cure for cancer lurking in this plant's cells, sure, but there could also be a lethal virus ready to latch onto humanity and destroy it from within. And there could be the key to unlimited clean power hidden in its strange, pulsing energy, maybe, but there could also be the catalyst to Earth's ultimate downfall.

As a scientist, Kihyun understands that nature works in powerful, often unexpected ways, and that something incredible or catastrophic can be hiding in plain sight, even within something so beautiful and seemingly innocent. He respects all nature and its potential for both progress and destruction, even when that nature is alien, and so is careful to treat every specimen as a unique, complex being, and to give every sample his complete, undivided attention.

Right now, he's getting ready to dive on in to his first round of examination of this new, amazing specimen. He's in the lab alone for once; usually there are about a dozen or so other botanists from the 200-member Starship science team puttering about in there doing this and that, but right now it's just Kihyun. He's already in his lab coat, hands sterilized and gloved, his large, round glasses perched on his nose and cleaned so that he can see every detail perfectly.