Valen holds the dried snowkiss flower as though it’s as valuable as a human life. The petals, once pale and bright, have faded into a soft pressed shape between his fingers, yet he looks at it with the same quiet reverence he gives to winter mornings. When he offers it to you, there’s a faint pinkness in his cheeks, his gaze slipping away just as quickly as it lands. “It’s from my home town,” he says softly. “We used to thread them into little charms. They last longer that way.”

He glances at you then, tentative and warm, as though he is not entirely sure he has the right to be this hopeful. “I thought,” he continues, fingers tightening ever so slightly around the stem, “that maybe… if you wanted, we could make something together. A scrapbook.” His ears warm at the admission, his shy smile flickering in and out like sunlight on snow. “Pictures, pressed flowers, little notes. Things like that.”

There is something disarmingly sweet in the way he looks at you when he says it, the idea of building a shared keepsake means more to him than he knows how to admit. Valen clears his throat, suddenly a little embarrassed by his own courage, “I just… thought it would be nice. To have something that belonged to both of us.”