Prologue
Rou slightly lifted his eyes. As he cautiously raised only his eyes, his long lemon-colored eyelashes fluttered. He thought he was being careful, but to Brukisel, who could feel that gaze transparently, it was simply absurd.
The moment his large, round eyes emerged from beneath his pale-colored eyelids, Rou’s eyes sparkled brilliantly like wet amber. Brukisel arbitrarily judged that this would be impossible unless Rou was doing it on purpose.
It was quite a talent. Even if he himself trained for years, he wouldn’t know how to open his eyes like that. Rou was as natural as if he’d been born with such talent.
Brukisel fixed his gaze out the window, trying not to look at the jawline that extended gracefully from those round, smooth cheeks, or those lips that looked soft and tender.
Not understanding the situation, Rou watched Brukisel’s mood. It was clear he was upset, but with his way of thinking and common sense, Rou couldn’t figure out why he was angry at all. Rou began to ponder what he could do, gently biting his rose-pink lips with his front teeth.
‘Ah! That’s it!’
A good idea crossed his mind. Even the Goddess would sometimes have sunken eyes when winter approached or when the last maple leaf fell from the sugar maple tree.
At times like that, Rou would climb onto the Goddess’s velvet cushion, puff up his plump body even more than usual, and gently rub his body against the Goddess’s fingers. Then the Goddess would smile brightly as always and stroke Rou’s round, fluffy, fur-covered body.
Captivated by the thought that he needed to improve Brukisel’s mood, Rou temporarily forgot that he was currently human. Having lived as a bumblebee for 500 years, the human body was actually more awkward for Rou. It wasn’t strange that he forgot he was human for just a brief, fleeting moment. However, the ripple effect caused by that short lapse of memory was significant.
“Brukisel. Will you touch my butt?”
“……”
Brukisel was silent for a while. He simply looked at Rou with eyes that were a bit more vacant than usual.
Chapter 1
There was a small bumblebee that hovered around Kaine, the Goddess of the Earth. With its small, plump body and tiny wings, the bumblebee flew desperately, collecting honey and dropping it into the Goddess’s teacup. That adorable behavior always made the Goddess smile.
“Thank you.”
When the Goddess gave her thanks, the bumblebee would gently settle on the back of her hand. At times like that, the Goddess would stroke the bumblebee over and over. The Goddess cherished the bumblebee dearly. However, the bumblebee, which had a lifespan even shorter than humans, gradually slowed its wing beats and its movements became sluggish.
Eventually unable to fly, the bumblebee could do no more than stay on the soft cushion the Goddess had prepared. The Goddess laid out purple velvet and gathered honey from various places for the bumblebee, but the bumblebee couldn’t regain its strength.
The Goddess didn’t want the bumblebee to disappear like other trivial things on the earth. Having already given her affection, she couldn’t take it back. After pitifully watching her small, adorable bumblebee, she called to it as if she’d made up her mind.
“Rou.”
Upon receiving the gift of a name, the dying embers of life blazed up again. The bumblebee flew vigorously again, circling around the Goddess, and the Goddess gladly savored the honey the small life worked hard to carry. From that time on, Rou became the Goddess’s spirit and stayed by her side.
* * *
One day, Rou, who had been hibernating beside the Goddess, suddenly woke from his sleep. He looked around, but both the Goddess and all the seeds planted before winter came were still asleep. Seeing that only he had awakened, Rou tilted his head in confusion.
The Goddess of the Earth woke from deep sleep in early spring, was most abundant in summer, bore fruit in autumn, and fell into deep slumber in winter. Her spirit, influenced by her power, was the same, and even when Rou was an ordinary bumblebee, he had survived winter through hibernation.
To Rou, who had always awakened to the Goddess’s gentle hand stroking his back saying spring had come, this situation was very bewildering.
‘Why did I wake up?’
Rou slowly flapped his wings. Though he had never left the Goddess’s side even once since becoming a spirit, it seemed he needed to look outside to understand the situation. A warm breeze blowing from the entrance of the enormous cave brushed against Rou’s wings. Rou’s face suddenly brightened.
‘Spring must have come!’
The breeze carried the very faint fragrance of wildflowers. Rou hastened his wing beats. If spring had truly come, he wanted to be the first to tell the Goddess. Just as the Goddess always woke him up, this time he wanted to bring spring to the Goddess.
Rou gently settled on a wildflower that had bloomed near the cave entrance. Because the thin flower stem couldn’t bear Rou’s weight and swayed, Rou had to fly up again after only catching the scent of honey.
“Oh dear……”
Since becoming a spirit, Rou had no memory of going hungry. Unlike other spirits, the Goddess pitied Rou for not having sharp teeth or claws and gifted him with more than enough sugar cubes that he loved. Thanks to that, Rou felt like his body was getting rounder year by year.
Rou gave up on sitting on flowers and looked for a sturdy-looking tree. He chose a cherry tree a little distance from the cave entrance. The tree, which hadn’t bloomed yet, had winter buds forming at every joint. Sitting on one branch, he slowly looked around.
“Spring hasn’t… come after all.”
Rou said in a slightly dejected voice. He had wanted to bring spring to the Goddess, so he felt disappointed. He flew up vigorously to return to the cave. And at the same time, a fierce north wind engulfed Rou.
Rou lost his balance and staggered. The fierce wind shook Rou’s body violently, and as his body kept flipping up and down continuously, it was hard to come to his senses. Rou called out the Goddess’s name, but the voice of a small bumblebee was too feeble to wake her from her peaceful sleep.
“Aaaah!”
The fierce wind blowing from south to north dragged Rou along for quite a while. Rou passed by unfamiliar trees and forests he’d never seen before, over and over again.
When the wind finally subsided, Rou dropped from the air. Fortunately, he fell onto soft fallen leaves, so his legs didn’t break and his wings didn’t fold, but his whole body ached. Rou looked around, but everything was unfamiliar.
‘Where is this?’
The plants blooming around him and the scents he felt were all unfamiliar. Rou wanted to fly up, quickly survey his surroundings, and return to the Goddess’s comfortable embrace. So Rou tried to fly up vigorously, but as if something was pulling him down from the ground, he simply couldn’t lift off from the surface.
In the end, Rou walked on the ground covered in dust. Even while walking, he couldn’t tell where he was heading, so for the first time since becoming a spirit, Rou felt a bit helpless.
Hunger gradually set in, and the cold he hadn’t noticed before began to feel increasingly stronger. Rou shook his body once.
‘It’ll be okay. And if it’s not okay, so what.’
It was an excessively optimistic attitude for a spirit as weak as Rou.
However, he always showed such a detached attitude no matter what situation he faced. This was partly because Rou had lived for an unreasonably long time compared to ordinary life forms, and also because it was a privilege enjoyed by an existence that had received abundant love from the Goddess.
Rou walked slowly, relying on his bumblebee instincts. The unfamiliar path he saw for the first time was narrow but sparsely connected, as if human children occasionally traveled it.
After crawling along for quite a while, just when the sensation in his feet was about to disappear, Rou discovered something in the distance. Something that sparkled even under the weak winter sunlight seemed like hope to Rou. Rou walked laboriously to the front of it. If he hadn’t been a spirit, and if it weren’t for the sugar cubes the Goddess gifted him every day, he might have already become exhausted from depleted energy.
Rou looked up from the ground. Since there were human footprints visible, it was indeed a building erected by humans. Rou knew the name of this building. The name of the small cabin made of glass was a greenhouse.
Humans remembered spring in their own ways. Some stored seeds. Some gathered wood that could be burned. And still others trapped spring in warm, small spaces like this.
Thinking of the warmth of spring that would fill the greenhouse, Rou’s eyes shone as he squeezed out his last strength and gently flew in through the broken glass.
At least it seemed he would survive a bit since there was no cold piercing his entire body. Rou slowly looked around, searching for blooming wildflowers, but only pitch-black dust rolled about. It seemed it hadn’t been maintained for a long time.
Rou couldn’t help but be disappointed. He had hoped since he had miraculously encountered a greenhouse. It seemed his intuition had completely disappeared as well.
‘No. I smell something sweet from somewhere?’
Rou still wandered following the source of the sweet scent. A small tea table lay toppled on its side, and shattered porcelain pieces were scattered all around it. Rou wandered among those pieces and discovered one overturned teacup. This fragrance was definitely coming from under that teacup.
‘Is it a sugar cube? It must be a sugar cube!’
Rou circled round and round the teacup. Catching the sweet scent of sugar, strength welled up from somewhere, and Rou could flap his wings. Rou vigorously pushed the teacup with his body, and each time, the cup wobbled and kept sliding.
However, though it seemed the cup would tip over precariously, it only tilted but didn’t fall over as easily as he wished. Rou pushed the cup this way and that for quite a while, then finally rested against the cup, panting.
To think there was a sugar cube right before his eyes but he couldn’t eat it. Rou glared at the overturned teacup with regretful eyes, but it didn’t magically open.
Rou’s fluttering wings gradually slowed, and Rou finally sprawled out lifelessly beside the teacup. Perhaps because he had suddenly flown with all his might, he had no strength left in his body at all. Rou’s wings fluttered briefly, but soon that too subsided.
He was cold and sleepy. The hunger he felt after a long time was unwelcome. However, Rou didn’t feel death was frightening or terrible. The sisters he was born and raised with had long since disappeared from the world. Now he couldn’t even remember where the hive he was born in was, so even if he happened to fall on the meadow where he was born and raised, he surely wouldn’t feel any longing.
If he died, he would surely be able to fly around with his sisters in the heavenly fields the Goddess of the Earth had created. His sisters would surely be delighted if he explained about the sugar the Goddess had gifted him and the sweetness it gave.
Rou slowly closed his eyes. If he died, the Goddess would be sad, and though that weighed on his mind, if she stopped by heaven, they could meet again anytime. It was okay since it wasn’t an eternal farewell.
Strength slowly began to drain from his small body. Rou thought dying was quite similar to hibernation. His mind became hazy and his eyes and ears grew dim. Being a living creature, this situation of dying wasn’t very pleasant, but for a life facing death, Rou endured the situation rather calmly.
When Rou approached the boundary between life and death, a sound came from the far end of the greenhouse. Normally he would have noticed it immediately, but his fading consciousness dulled his senses, so he could only identify it when the footsteps came right in front of him. A young child was standing still, looking down at him.
‘Why is he alone? Where are his parents?’
Rou wanted to ask the child. Rou tried to ask, but there was no way he could speak in human language when he couldn’t even fly. The miraculous ability gifted by the Goddess had long since left Rou’s lifeless body. Well, even if a bumblebee encountered outside suddenly spoke, it would only startle the child rather than be welcomed, so Rou wasn’t frustrated about losing language.
Rou was simply worried about the child. A young child who came alone into the deserted greenhouse. He could only think the child was lost. Rou laboriously raised his eyes to examine the child.
The child was very different from the children who usually visited the Goddess’s temple. The children who offered flowers at the Goddess’s temple had white, plump cheeks, always wore smiles, and would burst into high-pitched laughter when poked in the ribs, but he couldn’t find any trace of laughter on the child before his eyes.
His jet-black hair stuck out in all directions as if cut haphazardly. It seemed no one had taught the child how to comb. His hands and feet were pitch-black with dirt, and soot was smeared on his face. Unlike typical children with round, soft cheeks, both of the child’s cheeks were sunken in.
The only thing that shone on the child was his rose-red eyes visible between his long hair. His red eyes were more splendid than roses in full bloom in May. When meeting those two eyes, it felt as if he would be sucked in somehow.
Perhaps knowing that Rou was looking at him, the child bent his knees and sat down to look at Rou. Rou had no complaints at all since he could appreciate those beautiful eyes from even closer.
To Rou, who was half-entranced in appreciation, a thunderbolt-like sound reached him.
“Is it a fly……”
‘……Wh-what?’
