22: Sometimes, seeing Yixing gives Jongin stomach butterflies. (But there's always real ones, too.) Pairing!KaiXing, Arboretum!AU, Botanist!Jongin/Entomologist!Yixing

(This is very whimsical, so don't hate me but SPOILERS, there's no kiss.)

Jongin was a tropical botanist, and he really liked the Seoul Arboretum. Yixing worked at the Arboretum as an entomologist, and well, he really liked Jongin.

"Here," he'd said, the first time Jongin had entered Yixing's domain of the Arboretum's Butterfly Garden and Insectarium. Jongin had looked down to receive a live Monarch from the cup of Yixing's hands, and he'd gently taken the creature only to let it go, marveling at the magical moment and lifting his gaze to find the dimpled entomologist smiling back at him.

"Here." The words were gruffer and Jongin had wondered if maybe the entomologist had a cold. That time the butterfly wasn't actually one at all, though Jongin still thought it very beautiful and complimented it as such. Yixing had sweetly explained that it was a Great Tiger for its stripes, and had then introduced himself with a name and a handshake as soon as the butterfly-moth went free.

"Here, but be gentle." The warning was the first Yixing had ever given, so Jongin knew the worth of the butterfly in his hands by the amazed tremor in the entimologist's voice alone. "He's a Swallowtail," Yixing added, sounding wistful as he watched Jongin's face for shared awe. "My favorite." That explained a lot, actually, and Jongin was sure that, when he released it, he opened his cupped hands slowly so as not to startle the butterfly that Yixing found so spectacular it almost made him cry.

"Here." That time was the first when there were two—the expected butterfly in Yixing's hand, but also an unexpected one in Jongin's belly. Jongin had barely been able to contain himself when the first, a Ulysses, had flown away to join his winged brothers in the treetops, but the second hadn't disappeared at all. That time, Jongin left almost as soon as he'd come, and Yixing hadn't understood because Jongin had always loved the butterflies too.

"Um," there was a pause and it had been new and sort of sad when Jongin had gotten so used to Yixing's buoyant confidence, "here?" There was a Viceroy resting on Jongin's palm before he could even register that Yixing's usual command had become a tentative question. Once he did, though, Yixing was gone and so was the Viceroy, and yet the butterflies that swarmed Jongin's stomach had remained.

"Here." The confidence was back, if a little cooler, and Jongin hadn't needed to see Yixing's face to know what expression he'd find there. Jongin was a botanist, and by that point, he knew the look of Yixing's enraptured smile as well as he knew tropical plants. The Summer Azure Yixing placed in his hand really was beautiful, but then again, as Jongin was starting to notice, so was Yixing.

"Here!" Jongin kept coming back, despite the constant heart fluttering a and belly butterflies, and despite the coldness in Yixing's demeanor that had since warmed up again, and that day he was rewarded with the feel of his personal favorite, a Red Admiral, as it crawled onto Yixing's hand to Jongin's own before flying away.

"I love those," Jongin had gushed to the entomologist, who'd then only smiled knowingly as he said, "I thought you might."

That time, Jongin had stayed longer because he'd learned from his mistakes, but the butterflies inside him were going so crazy that he thought he might burst from the containing of them.

"Here." This time it was Yixing who was handed something soft and colorful, and it was Jongin who got to stand there looking shy, and hopeful, and even a little radiant, as he transferred the plush toy into the entomologist's hands. That last time had been horrible—finally understanding how he felt but not having enough courage to express it—and this time Jongin wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

"This isn't a butterfly?" Yixing was confused so the words came out like an unanswerable question from a man not quite disappointed, but who definitely didn't understand.

"No," Jongin agreed, his voice as gentle as Yixing's hands each time they opened to reveal a new species and steal a little more of Jongin's heart. "It's a butterfly fish."

Yixing looked surprised and awestruck as his eyes crinkled and his dimples emerged, and Jongin was glad because he'd had to go all the way to the aquarium to buy that stuffed animal from the water scientist yahoos who worked there.

"Thank you." Yixing's voice was a whisper, and though he still didn't understand the gift, his appreciation was no less sincere because of it.

"Butterfly fish mate for life," Jongin explained softly. "We're both scientists and rational beings because of it, but you comprehend beauty like no one I've ever met." He gestured around them to the trees over their heads and the thousands and thousands of butterflies flitting about above them. "They inspire you and that inspires me. And at first I kept coming back because I wanted that—the passion you have for your job—in my own life and you were more than happy to share."

Yixing didn't say anything at all yet, but his smile hadn't disappeared as Jongin spoke, so Jongin stepped forward a little and slid his hands down Yixing's arms to link their hands together nervously. "But then I hurt you by being careless with that gift, and I began to realize that there was something else I wanted in my life—you. Not just as an occasional figure who appears, butterfly in hand, to enhance the colors of my perspective before I go into the real world again. But more like someone constant, permanent, as always happy to see me as I am to see him. Someone less like a butterfly, and more like a butterfly fish."