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Have you heard the tale of the rose and the butterfly?
Long ago, in the evenings, the two would secretly meet.
Inexplicably, this specific rose only bloomed at nightfall when the butterfly would wake, so that the two could join together, codependent for sustenance.
But then one day, the butterfly reached the end of its short lifespan and died. The rose never opened its petals again after that.
After that, well, you know the rest. Humans, at war with nature, replaced it with grey structures and electric currents, worshipping a different green paper.
The rose was crushed to bits— Hm? Haha, yeah, maybe. Maybe its remains were buried with that of the butterfly, wouldn’t that be nice?
Then they could stay together forever.
Kagehira Mika had always longed to go to space.
Granted, with the technological advancements of society, spacetrips were becoming much more commonplace. If you had the money and the means, anyone could go to space.
New planets and systems were being discovered by the minute, and many people got bored of the once-wonderous unknown of the interstellar.
Still, to Mika, a poor orphan to whom space had always been an unreachable dream, it was still awe-inspiring.
And even more so, space was somewhere away from Earth, away from the wickedness of humankind.
At night, Mika would wish upon the brightest star to take him away so he could live up there. He also tried wishing to the smaller, barely visible stars. Maybe those of his caliber were more likely to hear his plea.
And now, somehow, his wish had been fulfilled.
After blindly applying to a scholarship-funded space program, he didn’t have any hopes, and yet..
Mika had gone through arduous training over the past few months to make sure he gained all of the skills needed to live— I mean to travel to space.
And here he was now, aboard a spaceship, on a mission by himself rather than with an assigned team.
What had been requested of him was to travel further away from already discovered systems to see if he could find anything else, maybe even reach the end of the galaxy.
Mika turned off the spaceship’s autopilot mode, and cut the communication with Earth. He would drive manually, and make sure to never come back.
“Ain’t that nice, Mado-nee? You get to see prettier sights here than back on Earth, huh? Aren’t ya glad to travel with me?”
The doll seated neatly on the copilot seat, propped up to eye level by a thick cushion, stared at Mika with an impassive smile.
Mika had found her when he boarded the ship. She had fallen over, stuck under the control board. Attached to a small ribbon on her bonnet was the label ‘Mademoiselle’. It was a bit hard for Mika to pronounce, and the doll looked old, so he called her ‘Mado-nee’.
What Mika didn’t expect was that driving manually was still not something he was too skilled at, and he eventually got caught in the gravitational orbit of a nearby planet and crashed.
In a panic, Mika made sure nothing happened to the fragile doll, holding her in his embrace as he cushioned both of their fall.
“Ngah…” Mika got out of the broken spaceship, Mademoiselle securely in his arms, and gawked in awe at the sight around him.
The planet he had landed on was composed of sand dunes in a soft pink, with cacti-like vegetation poking out here and there. The sand seemed to sparkle, like glass. The bright colour of the sand contrasted against the blackness of the night sky— well, maybe it was always night. There didn’t appear to be a large star like the sun to illuminate this planet.
Mika continued to stare upwards, the stars here looked bigger and shined brighter than he ever saw from Earth. They really looked like small fire balls, warm and radiant, a light of hope.
In his admiration, his grip loosened, and Mademoiselle had begun to slip towards the sands.
“Ngah! Mado-nee!” Mika rushed to grab the doll before it fell, trying to be careful in holding her, and tripped over himself face-first into the sand.
“Ptff– Koff..!” Mika spit out the grains of sand that had gotten into his mouth, looking down at Mademoiselle and frantically wiping the sand off of her. It hadn’t really tasted like anything, just.. felt rough and grainy.
Calming down from coughing and evening his breathing again, Mika came to a sudden realisation: he could breathe.
When he had first gotten out from the spaceship, Mika had worn his oxygen tube. Compared to older masks from eras past, current designs were only small tubes hooked to the nostrils and inside the mouth, all attached to an oxygen tank inside a backpack.
In his fall, the tubes had slipped out (they’re usually placed more securely than that). And yet, Mika could still breathe just fine. Was the atmosphere of this planet like that of Earth? How far had Mika gone, anyway?
Eager to check, Mika went back inside the spaceship, placing his useless oxygen tank aside. He fiddled with a few buttons on the semi-broken control board to see if he could pull up a map. No dice, the screen would light up but show no nearby planets or bodies, it was as if Mika was inside a black hole.
So Mika decided to explore. Getting out, a light gust of wind blew past him, and he sensed something prickle his scalp. He reached out his hand, and felt something sharp, grabbing it in his hand.
“Huh..” It was.. a thorn? Mika assumed it might’ve been from the bits of cacti around him, but the texture was different, the colour darker.
“Whaddya think, Mado-nee?” Mika asked the doll. “Dunno either, huh?” He supplied as if she had actually talked to him.
“Oh, Mado-nee! These thorns kinda look like the ones on yer dress!” Mika remarked excitedly, pointing to the dress bust decorations of green thorns atop light pink rose-adorned frills. “Thinkin’ ‘bout it, Mado-nee’s dress really suits this planet here, huh? Maybe ya were fated to c’mere.”
Continuing to walk forward, or whatever direction it was, Mika felt under his boots that the ground was getting more solid, less thick with soft sands.
“..woah.” The wind carried the smell before Mika saw it. In front of him, imaginably large, spread out a red rose field. The few fallen petals danced in Mika’s peripheral vision.
Mika walked closer, being careful not to crush any of the blooming buds. How was it possible for these to grow here? Was there soil in this specific area of the planet? What about water, or sunlight, how did these roses sustain themselves in these conditions?
Mika inhaled, the smell of roses hitting his nostrils powerfully. They smelled the same as those on Earth. Yet, Mika found them even more beautiful than any other flower he’d seen before.
“Who goes there?!” Mika felt the prick in the small of his back at the same time as he heard that powerful booming voice. There were people here? And they could speak the same language?
Mika slowly turned his head around, noticing a sort of.. spear? Constructed from rose stems. That must be what’s poking his back.
Making eye contact with the other person, they both halted momentarily. Mika could feel the flinch of the spear(?) on his back.
“...” Mika had never witnessed anybody so beautiful. The man in front of him looked like a personification of roses, with the same flowers adorning his outfit, complimenting his cropped pink hair. His purple eyes seemed to gaze into Mika’s own mismatched ones, and he felt the urge to cover his face.
“..? A butterfly?” Huh? Oh–
“Ah? Ya mean this motif here?”, Mika pointed to the patterns on his spacesuit’s torso, now having fully turned around as the other man had lowered his spear in surprise, “Yeah it’s a butterfly. ‘Sposed to be like– somethin’ ‘bout wings ta fly into space and the butterfly effect, causing big events.” Mika had never really cared much for his spaceteam’s motif, but the symbolism would show up in ads he saw as a child, often enough that he had memorised it. He thought the blue butterfly was pretty.
The rose-like man looked at Mika with scrutiny, before noticing something behind him.
“Ah! Mademoiselle!” The man rushed past Mika and kneeled down to hold the doll, delicate in his gestures. Crouched like that, in between the roses, he truly looked like he belonged there. A perfect picture. Mika couldn’t help but stare. Seconds later, he remembered to speak, catching the other man’s attention who was patting the doll’s hair, staring at her affectionately.
“I found this doll in the spaceship I came in. I thought she’d been abandoned or forgotten. How’d ya know her name? Is she yers?”
The man looked back at Mika in surprise, and stood up. He hesitated before speaking.
“..Ah, yes.. Mademoiselle is my companion, not my possession. I thought I had lost her.. I, too, had come here on a spaceship previously, or rather, ended up here, there was a malfunction in the system.” The man paused to look down upon the doll again, smiling fondly. Mika almost choked on his own breath at the sight.
“I.. am unsure how many years it’s been since.”
That befuddled Mika enough to snap out of it. “Eh?? Whaddya mean? Ya don’t look old, sir– uh–”
“Oh, it’s Itsuki Shu.” He nodded at him.
“Ah– Itsuki-san, then– I’m Kagehira Mika by the way– but– then, were ya sent here as a child?? Or does, does time work differently here?”
Shu confirmed. “Indeed. Time passes incredibly slowly here, or such it appears to me. I.. cannot tell its movement as accurately, but I am fairly certain it has been a few years. Yet, I have not been aging, or experiencing hunger or thirst. It is truly an odd phenomenon, as if I were no longer human.”
This was a lot to take in. Had Mika truly landed on another planet or had he somehow died and was hallucinating now? This would explain a lot of things.
“But..”, Shu spoke up again, “I have to thank you for bringing Mademoiselle back to me. It had started to feel.. somewhat lonely here. I had grown this rose field to pass the time. Caring for them, seeing them grow so beautifully, it is like my hands can feel the joy of creation once more.” There was something implied there, something that Mika wished he could learn in the future, as he spoke to Shu more.
That’s right. Mika had wanted to escape Earth. Then.. this wasn’t so bad.
“Pardon me, for rambling on like this. It has simply been so long since I’ve talked to another person. Ah, but– you’re stranded here too, now, aren’t you? That’s..”
“s fine!” Mika interrupted, feeling like if he let Shu say anything else then he would regret it for the rest of his life, whatever that would look like. He didn’t want to leave.
“I’m.. fine with stayin’ here. I don’t have anyone waiting fer me back on Earth, so.. no one ta miss me.” Mika tried saying lightheartedly, but could not hide the flinch at seeing Shu’s saddened expression. He looked conflicted.
“..Very well, then. If you say so,” a pause, then Shu looked up at Mika, “then I will have to trouble you to keep me company, for however long you’d like to stay here. You need a guide of this place, too, don’t you?” He offered a gentle, if still unsure, smile Mika’s way.
Mika had never felt as sure of anything else in his life. “Yeah! If it’s no trouble.” He beamed at Shu.
He came to stand next to the taller man, and the two walked shoulder-to-shoulder past the rose field, illuminated by the glimmer of the glass-sands.
The rose, forgotten and rooted in place, was found once again by the butterfly, guided by the current of its wings.