The Prince and the Plant Whisperer

First Days of College

[~~~Posted Feb. 18 2021

A/N: So you know the addictiveness of a K-drama or C-drama? Those longing gazes? And how your brain melts down when the leads finally kiss?

the goal here is to make a giant ball of cuteness which starts rolling 50 miles away, gets closer and closer, until it hits us and we all fall down in a gooey, grinning fan-girl (and fan-boy) mess. Anyways—wish me luck! And THANK YOU for reading]

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A tall, broad-shouldered guy strides across a campus courtyard. His crisp button-down shirt opens right below his collarbones. In the morning light, his skin seems to glow. His aura's magnetic.

It's the first week of school. From a nearby doorway, a crowd of girls see him and start taking pictures.

Click. Click. Click.

They barely even hide what they're doing.

One girl whispers, "I hear he's going to move off campus soon. Gotta get all our pictures now!"

Brushing the hair from his forehead, Lukas ignores them all.

It's the best strategy for now.

He just walks on. A cold, distant expression on his face.

Feeding the animals just makes them hungrier...

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The first day of freshman year..

Someone—a janitor, probably—left a window cracked open in Kaia Regan Bei's new dorm room. With each gust of wind outside, a cedar tree in the courtyard shook and rustled. The smell of autumn was dry and sharp.

Kai fought the urge to do a 1000-meter dash outside and board the next flight home.

WTF! What the heck are you doing here!?

If only the universe could rewind back two years.

That's all she wanted: to go back two years.

She could go back to being just that girl. The girl who couldn't ice-skate.

The weirdo who once bought a whole ice-cream cake from Albertson's, just for the crunchy middle cookie layer.

She could go back to being the girl who made a BTS "Dynamite" dance challenge video with her best friend Beth. Good Lord in heaven, that video.

(It literally got 10,000 views before Kai pulled it from the internet in horror, Beth cackling the whole time: "Stop being so embarrassed about everything, Kai.")

("Beth." Kai said. "We're dancing in frickin' EASTER BUNNY costumes.")

That was two years ago. Now, things were different. Kai wasn't that person anymore.

And now?

Now, everyone at high school thought of Kai as THAT girl. The girl in the local news.

The girl whose parents and friend died in that freak accident on the US 101. 

Let us know if we can do anything to help, they all said. Over and over.

And now she was headed to college. Where no one knew what'd happened

How were you supposed to meet hundreds of new people all day? Acting all chipper and friendly? Avoiding the truth?