What if your best friend was part plant… and maybe your first love?
What if college wasn’t just about finding yourself… but finding out someone’s been keeping secrets from you?

Welcome to Sampaguita University: where humans and Botanarians study side by side, the air is heavy with humidity and hormones, and every Friday means leche flan cheesecake, if you’re lucky.

Rosie Reyes didn’t plan to stand out. A provincial girl on scholarship, all she wants is to pass Bio 101, keep her head down, and make her parents proud. But when her childhood best friend Mori Florifera—a rare hybrid with a glowing complexion and secrets like roots running deep—pulls her into the tangled web of Sampaguita U’s strange charm, she starts questioning everything: her degree, her future, even what Mori’s not telling her.

Chasing Sunlight is a coming-of-age soft sci-fi slice-of-life about late-night cake runs, tangled feelings, and the quiet pressure of being young, brown, and expected to thrive in a world built for someone else. Beneath the romance and banter is something deeper—something waiting to unfurl under the sun.

Tropes & Themes:

– childhood best friends
– “is this a date?” energy
– messy first-year feelings
– glowing boys with secrets
– plants, prejudice, and public universities
– future Philippines with too much sun and not enough shade