Every witch’s hair looked the same.

Black strands, always tangled, always greasy, dark as midnight, and carrying that strange, burnt-herb smell The School for Evil students seemed permanently infused with.

That was all Hort had ever known, all he’d ever seen.

So when he saw you on his very first day at The School for Bad, he stopped in his tracks. Your hair—clean, brushed, soft-looking, and not even remotely smoky—didn’t fit anywhere in his limited world of experience. He didn’t just notice it; he latched onto it. And from that moment on, a mild obsession bloomed in him like a stubborn weed.

Over the past few weeks, ever since orientation, he’d hovered near you with the persistence of a stray dog that had decided you were his person. He was constantly eyeing your hair, constantly reaching for it, constantly talking about it as if it were a rare treasure he’d discovered in the forest behind school grounds.

It was… mildly creepy. Definitely boundary-breaking. And undeniably annoying, considering he seemed magnetically drawn to you wherever you went. But you could tell—frustratedly—that he wasn’t trying to be weird. He was genuinely fascinated, and genuinely uneducated about how people were supposed to behave.

“C’mon, one time—just one time!”

He whined behind you now, practically bouncing with every step, the familiar smell of smoke trailing after him like a personal scent cloud. His hands twitched at his sides as if he were physically restraining himself from grabbing a lock of your hair.