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He startles awake by the buzzing of a bee, his tulip shaking back and forth with her weight and clumsy flight. She peers over the edge of a petal and her faceted eyes widen just slightly at the sight of him, all wrapped up in his wings.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she hums, “I didn’t expect anyone to be sleeping in here.” and with that, she’s gone again, leaving behind a small cloud of pollen. She must be busy, Chanyeol has heard about their work and he feels bad for a moment for getting in her way.
Then, he realizes, that the sky above him isn’t pitch black like it usually is, dotted with bright smatterings of light and the moon, smiling down at him kindly, but instead a blue so bright, he has never seen it before. He has seen dusk and dawn, streaked pink like his wings and a pale gray, the bright light of a flashing
thunderstorm and the lanterns of the nearby village, casting everything they illuminate into a soft orange glow.
But this, this has to be daytime, has to be the sun, too bright to even look at directly.
Chanyeol knows he should go back to sleep, still tired from where he hadn’t made it back home to his maple tree last night, scared of a bat whisking around the dark. The smattering of tulips along the edge of the forest had seemed like a good enough hiding spot and Chanyeol had nodded off when the moon was about to say good morning to the horizon.
Instead, he climbs to the edge of the ring of petals, brushing off his coat, the stamps of the flower cheekily brushing pollen all over him.
The petals are open much wider now than they had been last night, as if trying to cup the sun in their cradle. When Chanyeol stretches his head over the edge, he realizes it’s no less busy during daytime. A crowd of bees and bugs, birds and other critters whizzes past above him, a colony of ants trecking below in one long line.
He has heard stories about daytime, but he hasn’t seen it, and it’s overwhelming.
Everything is bright in the light of the sun, warm where it caresses his face and arms. The colors are almost too much to take in, as overwhelming as the buzz around him.
He overbalances against the petal he’s leaning on and tumbles through their hold, slow to get his wings in order and working. Before he can go far, a hand shoots out of the tulip next to him and grabs him by the arm, pulls him back into the safety of the blossom.
“Careful now!” Says a voice, the grip on Chanyeol’s arm gentling when he’s safely back on his bottom.
Over the edge of the flower next to him, two big, fuzzy antennae, quite similar to Chanyeol’s own wave at him.
“A moth?” he yelps, surprised, and the antennae twitch in time with a short laugh. A hand curls over the edge of the other tulip and reveals a moth with a big, cattish grin on his face behind it.
“That’s right! Quite unusual to find someone like us out here, though. I’ve never seen you around these parts before. Aren’t you a maple moth?”
Chanyeol nods and studies the other. His antennae are even bigger and fuzzier than Chanyeol’s but he seems a bit shorter in statue. The roots of his wings are covered in bright green fuzz and they fan out over his shoulders, wider than Chanyeol’s as well.
“And you? I’ve never met someone with wings like yours before,” Chanyeol asks and the stranger flutters them happily.
“I’m a luna moth! Luna like the moon,” he points up to the sun, “but maybe I should change my name to solis moth? I’m Jongdae, nice to meet you.”
Chanyeol takes his offered hand and to his surprise, Jongdae uses his grip to pull his blossom closer.
“I’m Chanyeol,” he replies, slightly breathless at the shake of the flowers and Jongdae grins at his shock.
“Are you lost, Chanyeol? I thought I was the only daytime moth around here. Not that I mind!” He tacks on and reaches a hand to touch a careful finger to Chanyeol’s fuzzy pink wings. “Your wings are the perfect shade to fit in during the day.”
Chanyeol flushes hot and drops Jongdae’s hand, making his tulip swing back and forth roughly, until Jongdae grabs him again on the third swing back.
“Sorry,” Chanyeol says, “I was just surprised. No one has touched my wings before. And it wasn’t on purpose, I didn’t mean to disturb your spot. I fell asleep here, after hiding. What are you doing here?”
“No one? No mate back in the woods?” Jongdae smiles prettily and then bowls right over Chanyeol’s sputtering reply of No, “I’ve decided I had enough of nighttime and hunger. So I became a butterfly instead of a moth and I eat and fly in the sun.”
Chanyeol gapes at him. He knows that most imagos like them don’t need to eat, can’t digest anything. Their whole purpose is to find a mate, lay eggs and then die. He has never thought about simply doing something else, not even when he hasn’t found a mate yet, struggles with the memory of eating as a larvae.
But Jongdae is bright in the sun, colorful like a flower himself.
“That sounds really nice.” Chanyeol stammers and finds that he means it. Jongdae grins, and the sun casts shades where his skin crinkles with it.
“It is,” he agrees and then rises to his feet gracefully, balancing out with his wings when the flower below him shudders. He stretches, arms and wings and shoulders and neck and Chanyeol hasn't seen anything as pretty as him in his life. The satisfied grin on his face remains and he turns to Chanyeol, stretches out a hand.
“Wanna join?”
And Chanyeol takes it.