Swallowtail (look over here) A Weiss Kreuz fanfic By Natalie Baan (released 06/04/06)   "Hey, look over here." Youji pulled his sunglasses down his nose and bent forward over the specials stand. At first, Omi couldn't see what had distracted Youji from cleaning the windows--from where he stood on the other side of the shop's doorway, straightening out the bargain bouquets after the late-morning crowd, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He wondered uneasily if it might be yet another infestation of spider mites, but then Youji generally couldn't tell the difference between mites and a bad case of under-watering, and the man's voice had sounded interested rather than disgusted or annoyed. Curious, Omi left the bouquets and headed over to check things out. He'd only taken a step or two when a flicker of startling darkness surged up out of the lilies and into the sun. "A butterfly!" "Yeah. I think it's a black swallowtail." Youji shifted back, letting Omi get in front of him for a better view. The butterfly had settled to rest again almost at once, clinging to a downward-curving orange petal with tiny, delicately hooked feet. Its wings pressed together like praying hands, then flattened, were briefly still. They were an impenetrable glossy black with an emerald surface shimmer where minute scales caught the light, and the lower ones had the distinctive long lobes that meant Youji had been right in his identification. Omi drew in an admiring breath. "Wow! That's so cool!" He was vaguely aware of Aya drifting nearer to catch his own glimpse of their visitor. The butterfly fluttered again, quick as the twitch of instinct, as an adrenaline-sped stutter of a racing heartbeat--it lifted itself the little distance to the center of the flower, caught at the pistil and bobbed there, searching. Omi leaned closer, fascinated by every detail: the wandlike antennae, the subtle patterning of spots around the wings' edges, the long proboscis uncoiling to probe deep within the flower. At last he straightened up once more and sighed happily. "It's really neat, isn't it? Seeing something like this here...." "I think it's sad." Omi started, turning his head. Ken had been taking care of the plants on one of the other displays; he stood with his back to them, watering can resting on the table, his fingers lingering idly on the handle's curve. "Something like that...it doesn't belong in a place like this." His voice was low, without edge or brightness, like the softness of the city seen through a window blurred with rain. "It shouldn't be here...it'll just die." Omi stared at Ken's back, the set of his shoulders, the slight downward tilt of his head, wisps of dark bangs and the side of his face just barely visible, and he felt something catch inside his chest then, a sudden, fleeting sharpness, a burst as bright as the midday sun. An ache not for himself, but for things hinted at, being seen now for the first time-- No. Not the first time after all. "Ken-kun...." "Aaah, killjoy!" Youji swaggered up to Ken, hands clasped behind his head in showy casualness. "No wonder you can't ever get a date. Women run from a gloomy face." As Ken swung around with a growled retort and a glittering arc of slopped water from the watering can, Omi glanced back toward the butterfly. He reached out for it hesitantly, ignoring Youji's yelp of anger and complaints about wet shoes, not sure exactly what he thought he would do, only feeling the vague urge to help somehow, to shelter it from the street, the traffic, all the urban confusion and pollution, maybe to take it to some other, safer, more beautiful place--and the butterfly snatched itself out from under his fingers. He felt the brush of its wings against his wrist, like the lightest kiss. Then it was away , wavering over the neighboring rooftop, a twitter of black against the blue sky before it disappeared from view. Slowly Omi lowered his hand. He gazed at the faint dust of scales left behind on his skin.   Go to Next Not for 30 Kisses Story   |   Omake! Return to Main Not for 30 Kisses Page   |   Return to Main Fanfics Page