Stray Kids Drabbles

Happiness is a butterfly

Chan proposes to you in a butterfly garden, but the two of you want different things. (just a heads up, this is an angst with no happy ending drabble)

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ 

The moment Chan got down on one knee, you knew you were screwed. Of course, he had mentioned marriage before here and there, but it was always in passing conversations. The two of you never sat down and had a proper conversation about it. This whole situation was entirely your fault and you knew it.

So there the two of you stood in the middle of the butterfly garden. You had always had a soft spot for butterflies. You spent childhood with grass stained feet. Running through the hot summer days with your grubby hands outstretched for the beautiful winged creatures.

Monarch butterflies, cabbage butterflies, and the swallowtails. You spent countless hours sprinting through the humidity gently catching them in your hands. Peeking into your hand-crafted caverns to study the creatures. Soft wings fluttered against your skin and their antennas tickled.

You'd grin down at them with a mouth full of missing baby teeth. A sunburn plastered across the tops of your nose and cheeks. You'd open your hands and watch them fly away. Some would leave your hands instantly while others tended to stick around. You'd stay there cooing at their beauty until they flew away.

Up, up, up into the bright blue sky with the sun high up in the air. Right now, you wish you had wings. You wished you could have gotten yourself out of this situation, but here you were now, and the truth was going to finally come out whether you liked it or not.

Chan had taken you out to a local butterfly garden. The inside area was filled with a wide variety of colorful butterflies. Reds and oranges that hurt your eyes. Royal purple that you caught out of the corner of your eye. Bright yellows that made the sun seem dull. Greens that blended in with the plants and melancholy blues.

Melancholy blue. There was no better way to describe what you were feeling right now. One moment, the two of you had been holding hands admiring the butterflies, and the next thing you knew, Chan walked off to find an employee.

You knew there was nobody inside the area when you came in, but you figured that the two of you had arrived at a time when the place was less busy. Plenty of people had a fear of bugs and that included butterflies. It had never crossed your mind that he rented the place out to propose.

You were admiring a Purple Emperor Butterfly. There was a sign about them in the area. You were staring at it when you felt a tickle on your hand. You glanced down to see one of them on your hands. Very slowly, you moved your hand up to your face to get a better view.

With a fuzzy black body and antennas, they had plump purple wings streaked with white. Their wings were outlined in black and some were occasionally speckled with a soft orange. Chan had mumbled something about going to ask a staff member where the bathroom was. He had disappeared right before the butterfly landed on your hand.

You watched the butterfly walk along your hand with a smile. You were taken back to the days of freshly mowed grass, sticky popsicles, and loud squeals as you ran through the cold outdoor sprinklers. Back when all you had to worry about was scrapes from falling from your bicycle as you tried to learn how to ride without training wheels. Back when you had never understood how it felt to have your heart shatter within seconds.

The butterfly flew off and you watched it fly away. It disappeared a few feet ahead into a plethora of plants. The corners of your mouth were still upright as you briefly remembered the brighter side of childhood. It had been years since you experienced summer as a child.