🌟Not the Little Prince, but a Panda🌟 Chapter 2: Respecting the Little Prince

Chapter 2: Mimi was a butterfly, but she seemed like the main character.

Lolo was the type who wouldn't answer my questions right away.
But strangely, that felt comfortable. It was as if the silence held real meaning.

That morning, as I was sipping the water left in my cup, Lolo said quietly,



“There was a butterfly on my planet.”
“Oh, what was she like?”
“A butterfly that talked way too much. Her name was Mimi. She was grumpy in the morning. Cheerful during the day. But by evening, she was usually angry.”



I chuckled a little.



“Isn't that just called being moody...?”
“Yeah. But she was beautiful.”
“In what way?”
“I don't know, she fluttered around, and it was like music.”



Lolo's eyes were looking somewhere far away.
Perhaps his heart had already returned to that planet.



“One day, Mimi said to me, ‘You don't have to talk, but could you pay a little more attention?’”
“What did you think she meant by that?”



“I don't know. But it was difficult. And, I felt like crying a little.”
The planet where Lolo lived was very small,



with three mini volcanoes, a few stalks of 'It's-Okay-Grass' that would be trouble if they grew unchecked,
and one butterfly named Mimi.
That was all.

“Planets are small, but that doesn't mean they're cramped, you know.”



“What do you mean?”
“Someone's feelings can make a small planet feel cramped. Somehow, I just kept running out of places to stand.”
Mimi was certainly beautiful.
But she was too delicate to touch. If I got too close, or stayed too far away, she would get angry.



The more I tried to put it into words, the less I could convey.
“And so, Mimi said, ‘Anyway, could you just leave for a bit?’ so... I decided to go on a journey.”
“Wait, does that mean...”



“Yeah. ...It was like running away from home.”
Lolo laughed shyly.



But I understood.
This panda hadn't run away. He had left precisely because he wanted to cherish her.
“And you know, planets are surprisingly close. If you jump, you can reach them pretty easily.”



“No, I think that's just you...”
“Probably.”
Lolo set out on a journey around the stars.



By jumping.
But from here on, it becomes a truly strange story.
The next place he arrived, he said, was 'the planet of the King who wanted to order everyone around.'