“This beauty is here is called Greta oto or more commonly known as the Glasswinged butterfly.” Five pairs of eyes were trained on Yixing as he spoke about the butterfly that had just landed on his shoulder. “They are mostly commonly found from Mexico down into Central America.” The butterfly flutters it’s translucent wings and flies away gracefully. The whole tour group watches the glass wingedbutterfly until it is out of sight.

Yixing notices one of the younger girls in the group has her hand raised.

“Do you have a question?” he asks her.

She nods shyly. “Are there any blue butterflies here?” she asks quietly. “Those are my favourite.” her eyes are shining with excitement and Yixing can’t help but smile.

“There are quite a few blue butterflies here.” he says to her with a smile. “I’m sure we will come across one soon.”

Yixing continues the tour spotting a couple Monarchs flying lazily around the koi pond. He guides the small group of children past the pong and through the conservatory stopping every now and then to teach them about some of the species, insect and plant alike, that live inside the conservatory walls.

This tour is his first of the day, the conservatory had just barely opened and already his first group was there within five minutes of his manger unlocking the front doors. Yixing didn’t usually like giving the first tours of the day because the butterflies weren’t always active so early in the morning but he loved watching the children’s faces light up in wonder every time he taught them something new or every time they caught a glimpse of a butterfly.

Yixing kept moving through the conservatory throwing facts at the children animadtely. In truth he loved his job, he loved watching peoples faces light up with joy and wonder every time they saw a different butterfly.

The tour ended after a short fifteen minutes due to most of the butterflies still being inactive. Though Yixing tried his best to show them as much as he could anyway.

Yixing led the small group out of the conservatory and waited with them in the lobby until their parents came to get them.

Soon all of the children were gone and Yixing had a little time to rest before his day really began. Yixing sits down on the dark red sofa placed against the wall right across from the vestibule that led into the conservatory. Yixing turned to his right to look into the glass tanks sitting on shelves that were built into the wall. The tanks held all sorts of different critters, a few lizards, a couple snakes, and of course some other species of exotic insects.

“Hey Yixing!” Yixing turns his head to the left and sees his roommate, best friend, and co-worker Luhan walking through the entrance into the lobby. Luhan is grinning widely as he makes his way across the lobby to Yixing.

“What is it Luhan?” Yixing doesn’t get up from the couch as Luhan approaches still wearing that wide mischievous grin that can only mean trouble for Yixing.

“You’ve got a high school tour today,” Luhan sing-songs. “ to be you.” He starts laughing lightly as he plops down onto the sofa next to Yixing. Luhan hands Yixing a piece of paper, which yixing looks over quickly. It’s his updated schedule for the day. He has three tours plus the added one with the high schoolers. At least one is already done.

Yixing sighs tiredly. High school tours are the worst and he really doesn’t want to deal with it. “They don’t even ask any questions. At all,” he says slightly exasperated. “They just want to rush through the tour so they can go home.”

Luhan nods in agreement. “That’s why I always make the tour last almost a full hour. They hate that.” Luhan smiles evilly.

“Maybe I’ll just let them walk around by themselves. I mean they don’t listen when I speak so why should I waste my breath?” Yixing runs a hand through his hair and stares at the entrance absentmindedly. He would really just prefer to give people who actually cared tours but high schools always booked educational tours despite having not one student who wanted to be here.

“You could get in trouble for that,” Luhan says pointedly. “The manager says when people book a ‘tour’ that they have to get a ‘tour’.” Luhan rolls his eyes.

“Luhan, Yixing, what are you two doing lounging around?” Their manager is standing in the doorway to the employee room. “Make yourselves useful and water the plants or something. I don’t pay you to stand around and chit chat all day.”

Neither of them speak again until the manager is once again tucked away in the back room doing whatever it is he does back there all day.

”I hate that guy,” Luhan says bitterly. “Why can’t they just fix the sprinkler system so we don’t have to hand water the plants? It’s so stupid.” Luhan whines getting up from the sofa. He doesn’t wait for Yixing before he heads for the vestibule leading to the conservatory.

Yixing eventually follows Luhan inside the conservatory and soon they get to work and water the plants. Luhan takes on side of the conservatory and Yixing takes the other. They work silently and carefully. Yixing hates spraying the butterflies with the pressurized water from the hose because he’s scared he might hurt them by accident. So he takes his time and waters all the plants properly. Surprisingly enough Luhan does the same being gentle and not trying to get it done as soon as he can even though he loves to rush.

Luhan ends up finishing first and with a wave to Yixing he leaves. A few stray people have come in and out of the conservatory but other than that’s it’s a slow morning. The next tour Yixing has is half an hour before lunch and it happens to be Yixing’s tour with the high schoolers. He isn’t looking forward to it even if there isn’t anything else for him to do today.

Yixing finishes up the rest of his section and heads for the doors only to be stopped by a woman in her late sixties.

“Excuse me,” she says politely to Yixing. “Could you tell me what species this is?” She points to a red and black butterfly sitting on a large green hanging plant.

“That is a Postman Butterfly.” Yixing answers without skipping a beat. Working here for so long, he knows most of the butterfly species by sight.

“Thank you.” She says kindly with a smile. “It’s very pretty here.” she compliments with a far away look in her eyes.

Yixing smiles and decides to stick around a little longer in case the lady has any questions. After a few minutes in which she seems to go into her own little butterfly filled world Yixing leaves the conservatory. He checks his watch briefly making sure he still has time to get a snack before the worst tour of the day.

After shoving a granola bar into his mouth Yixing heads to the lobby to wait for what is sure to be a disaster of a tour.

He only has to wait ten minutes before he can hear them arrive.

Raucous laughter fills his ears and makes him cringe. Yixing sighs and gets up from the sofa. He stands in the middle of the lobby waiting for the group to enter the lobby.  Who Yixing assumes is their teacher enters the lobby first. He spots Yixing immediately. “Are you the tour guide?” he asks.

Yixing nods. “Yes.”

The man smiles at Yixing before looking over his shoulder. “They are loud today,” he says looking back at Yixing. “Oh, I brought a couple of students from my college class too if that’s alright.” he adds.

Yixing cringes at the noise but at least there are some college students who willingly came today at least they will listen to him. Hopefully.

The teenagers enter the lobby and gather around behind their teacher without even sparing Yixing a class. The group seems to consist of twenty or twenty five students, Yixing’s largest group to date.

The students talk to each other in loud voices for a while as Yixing waits for them to quiet down. There is no way he is going to raise his voice or try to talk over them.

After a few minutes a hush seems to fall over all twenty five of them and Yixing can finally make his introduction.

“Hello students,” he starts with a forced cheery smile. “My name is Yixing and today I will be your tour guide. I will be teaching you about different species of butterflies, plants, and other insects and wildlife that are currently living in the conservatory. You are welcome to ask as many questions as you’d like.” Nothing, not one single person makes a peep. “Let’s begin.”

Yixing begins walking backwards toward the conservatory doors. “First I am going to lay down some ground rules,” Yixing stares at the students. “Number one, no food is allowed inside the conservatory at all. Number two, do not touch the butterflies or plants, if a butterfly lands on you that’s fine but do not try to touch them on your own. We don’t want anyone accidently damaging their wings. Number three, no running or fooling around. Number four, before leaving please check and double check to make sure you have no passengers. Are we clear?”

Mostly everyone in the group nods even though Yixing knows half of them weren’t even paying attention to him.

“Let’s proceed then.” Yixing leads them through the first set of doors into the vestibule. He waits for them to all be inside and shut the first set of doors. Then he opens the second set of doors and heads into the conservatory.

The students stay mostly quiet, just a few conversations near the back, as they first walk inside. Yixing leads them about thirty feet from the door before stopping and turning to speak to them again.

Yixing is about to speak when a boy near the front raises his hand.

“Yes, do you have a question?” Yixing asks him.

The boy nods. “How many different species of butterfly live in here?” he asks.

“I can’t say for sure how many species since there are always new ones being added but I do know that we have over 4,000 butterflies currently living here.” Yixing answers proudly. The boy nods looking around, his eyes take in every inch of the conservatory.

“Any more questions?” Yixing asks just to be safe before he continues.

The boy shakes his head and no one else in the group says anything so Yixing continues on with the tour.

As the tour continues Yixing notices the boy who asked the only question so far seems to be the only one interested in the butterflies and plants. Every now and then when Yixing looks back at the group he’ll see the boy focused on a specific plant or butterfly, pure wonder and curiosity filling his features.

When Yixing reaches the end of the conservatory he stops. “That concludes the tour. You can walk around and explore on your own now if you’d like, you’re free to leave when you’re satisfied,” he says. “Just remember the rules.” he reminds them as they begin to group off and walk in different directions.

Yixing walks around listening in on some of their random conversations when one catches his attention. “Those are Monarchs.” A males voice says.

Yixing looks in the direction the conversation is coming from and sees that it’s the curious boy speaking to a dark haired boy. Yixing turns his attention to the butterflies they are talking about. They’re not Monarchs.

Yixing makes his way over to the two of the them. “Those aren’t Monarchs. They’re Viceroys.” Yixing tells the two of them.

“See Sehun?” The boy’s dark haired friend says. “I told you, you didn’t know everything about butterflies, you’re just a know-it-all.”

Yixing feels a little bad for correcting him in front of his friend but then again…. “Actually the Viceroy mimics the Monarch butterfly.” Yixing say to the dark haired boy. “It looks almost exactly like a Monarch so your friend wasn’t technically wrong.”

The dark haired boy frowns. “How do we even know if you’re right?”

“Jongin,” the brown haired, curious boy, Sehun, warns. “He’s the tour guide, I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s talking about or he wouldn’t be working here.”

Jongin scoffs. “He doesn’t even look that much older than us. He can’t be a butterfly expert at such a young age.”

“I am actually twenty-two.” Yixing says. In truth he is slightly offended. “You two are only, what, seventeen?”

They both shake their heads completely in sync with each other. “We’re in college.” Jongin announces.

Yixing had completely forgotten there were a few college students mixed in with the high schoolers. Matter of fact, none of them looked any different from each other especially these two who don’t look a day older than seventeen.

Yixing is about to further explain to the two the difference between the Monarchs and the Viceroys to prove he knows what he’s talking about but something catches Sehun’s eye making his head snap to the right suddenly.

“What’s that one called?” Sehun asks softly, pointing to a beautifully colored butterfly fluttering toward them.

Yixing spots the butterfly quickly. He can see it’s wings are green on top and on the underside yellow, blue, green and black. It’s body is plump and yellow. Yixing automatically knows what it is for it’s his favourite one of all. “It’s called a Cairns Birdwing. It’s from Australia. It’s--”

“Time to wrap up guys, we’re leaving in ten.” The teacher says loudly interrupting Yixing.

Sehun wa