“……”
A vivid yellow vista stretched out before them, as if someone had dipped a small brush in pale yellow paint and gently dabbed it onto green canvas. A lone honeybee stood motionless, staring blankly at the open field where a wealthy hive—no, an entire hive—had once flourished, its expanse once covered in lush, inviting flowers.
Behind him stood a bulky, awkward-looking man glancing around nervously, and beside him, a breathtaking beauty—the kind that would make anyone walking by gasp and turn their head.
“…Um, Blaine. I don’t even know what to say to comfort you…”
The rhinoceros beetle, mustering up the courage to offer some words of consolation, promptly closed his mouth again. Then, with a sorrowful gaze, he took in the devastation. It wasn’t a grotesque scene with corpses strewn about or blood everywhere—but maybe that made it even more tragic.
Though he had never seen it himself, he was certain a hive built over decades had once stood here. And yet not a single torn wing, not a speck of wax, remained.
“This is… really unfortunate.”
“…Something’s wrong.”
Suddenly, the honeybee collapsed to the ground, brushing his hands over the earth as he mumbled. The one that seemed strange wasn’t the scene—but Blaine himself. He didn’t even notice the four eyes staring at him in concern, continuing to mumble with a dazed expression.
“No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Huh? What doesn’t?”
“It’s too clean.”
Poor thing. Maybe he really had lost it. The beetle looked at him with mournful eyes, while the spider’s eyes smoldered with lust. Both pitied the bee in their own way.
Of course it was clean—wasps had swept through.
“Even if it’s been a while, it’s weird that there’s no trace left.”
“The ants probably already—”
“Even if ants came and cleaned it up, not even a scrap of wax left behind?”
“Maybe it got blown away by the wind?”
Wasps needed honey stored in hives, and larvae to feed their young. The absence of broken debris or dead adult bodies was too unnatural. And it’s not like ants would haul off honeybee wings they couldn’t even eat.
“I need to see Bertie.”
“I agree.”
Hurel was all too happy about that. He was itching to lay eyes on that Bertie-or-Butter or whatever. Childhood male friends were always, without exception, unwelcome.
“Sorry, Hurel. But if we go to Bertie’s place, we might at least get something to eat.”
What kind of food that might be remained to be seen. Hurel followed behind the bee, wearing a blank expression while entertaining some rather grim thoughts that no one else could hear.
The butterfly’s house was small, but tastefully and neatly arranged. Blaine remembered Bertie’s home being tiny and shabby, but this must’ve been Panthiana’s touch. He knocked two, two, three times, just as he recalled from memory.
“You rotten, useless, drunken bastard! What kind of nerve does it take to show your face here now?!”
Almost miraculously, Blaine narrowly dodged the pot that came flying at him.
“……”
“……”
He stood there awkwardly, enduring the heavy silence weighing down on him, and offered a hesitant wave to the fuming beauty before him. She was wearing pajamas dotted with large black polka dots, her long hair wild and unkempt.
“O-oh, long time no see, Pansy.”
“Blaine!”
The fury on Panthiana’s face melted in an instant, like a demon had been exorcised. Her expression bloomed into a smile so radiant it looked ready to burst with sweetness, and she latched onto Blaine’s arm.
“What happened to you? You completely disappeared! Do you know how worried I was?”
“Well, I had some stuff going on…”
“So much that you couldn’t even send a message? Seriously? I thought you were better than that!”
Blaine, as oblivious as he could be, still managed to grasp that this wasn’t a good situation—especially given what he’d just been through. Grimacing slightly, he gently untangled her arm from his.
Panthiana blinked in confusion and tried to reattach herself.
“What’s wrong? You’re stiff like an old insect with cramped muscles. And aren’t you going to introduce your friends?”
She tilted her eyes into a sweet smile as she asked, and Blaine felt as if a boulder had been placed on his chest. Behind him stood a creature that looked like a flower one moment, ice the next, and fire the next—constantly changing shape. It felt like something chaotic was about to erupt.
“These are friends I made while out collecting nectar. This is General, a rhinoceros beetle…”
“Nice to meet you! I’m Panthiana! A blue butterfly!”
She flipped her glossy blue curls and extended a hand, revealing her stunning face. Did she not realize how ridiculous it looked—putting on such a seductive expression while still in her pajamas with clearly unwashed bedhead? Blaine clicked his tongue inwardly.
“Ah, uh, I’m Gen—er—al, and, uh…”
The beetle had crashed. Frozen with the exact expression of someone looking at either an angel descending from the heavens or a soul-devouring siren, General gaped with his mouth open, nearly drooling, as he reached out a trembling hand—shaking as violently as a cicada wing.
“Wow! Your hand is so firm!”
“U-uh, my hand, I—it’s, uh…”
“What’s wrong, Gen?”
“My hand’s just… that firm, is all…”
Was there something in the jelly he’d eaten earlier? Blaine glanced at the beetle a few times, baffled, and finally remembered something he’d grown too used to: Panthiana wasn’t just a looker back at the Frizian Flower Field. Even out here in the vast Akansia, she was still known as a legendary beauty.
Well, yeah. If you were seeing her for the first time, she was stupidly gorgeous.
Blaine muttered that to himself with dull acceptance, briefly lamenting that growing up around beautiful people had raised his standards way too high. Of course, he refused to acknowledge the real reason he’d become numb to beauty—one certain creature he’d been stuck to for months, not this butterfly he hadn’t seen in years.
“Uh, so, Pansy. And this here is…”
Yes, the real challenge Blaine now faced was introducing the dazzling, jaw-dropping creature beside him—the one who somehow managed to remain mesmerizing even after seeing him every day. What excuse would he use this time to make a scene? Blaine could live with him getting mad, but please, for the love of all that buzzes, don’t let him cry.
Feeling his heart clench, Blaine introduced Hurel with painstaking care.
“This is someone I got really close to… like, insanely, unbelievably, ridiculously close to! His name is Hurel. Say hi.”
“Oh my, Blaine! How did someone like you manage to land such a stunning creature?”
Panthiana gave her hair a dramatic toss, releasing a waft of floral scent as she extended her hand toward Hurel. What is this move supposed to be? Blaine thought. Please don’t say anything weird about cutting off wrists or whatever…
Fighting the urge to nervously chew his nails, Blaine sneaked a glance at Hurel.
“Pleasure to meet you. You’re truly a beauty, Panthiana.”
“Oh stop~ I get that a lot!”
No matter how horrific or painful a disaster might be, when it doesn’t happen as expected, it’s somehow even scarier.
So even though the catastrophe Blaine had feared didn’t happen… he stood there pale and shaking.
What kind of mood shift was this?
He still couldn’t grasp what went on in that pretty-faced, emotionally unhinged spider’s head.
