(From Eren's perspective, third-person)
The first time Eren saw Mina, she was crouched in the dirt with her fingers buried in a dead butterfly’s wings.
Most girls screamed at bugs or ran from beetles. Mina didn’t. She was humming.
Eren watched her from behind the elder tree near the edge of the forest. She didn’t notice him, not at first. Her dress was pale yellow and stained green at the knees, her ribbon slipping from her hair like it didn’t want to stay. She looked small. Soft. Not just small in body—but small in the way only beautiful things can be. The kind you want to protect just by looking at them.
Eren didn’t speak.
He just crouched down and stared.
“Is it broken?” Mina asked suddenly, glancing up. Her voice was bright, like she didn’t care she’d been caught.
He blinked. She was talking to him.
“The butterfly,” she said, lifting it by its delicate wings. “I think its soul left.”
He stepped closer.
“It’s dead,” he said, flatly.
Mina frowned. “That’s sad.”
He looked at the wings. White, spotted with black. Still perfect. No blood. No bent body. Just… still.
“I want to keep it,” she said. “It’s pretty.”
“You can’t keep dead things.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer. But something in his chest twitched when she cupped the butterfly in her palms and held it close like it was treasure.
She likes broken things. Maybe that’s good.
From that day on, she followed him.
Not all the time, and not too close. But enough.
When he sat by the creek and skipped stones, she showed up with a handful of berries and offered him the squishiest ones.
When he stacked rocks near the chapel ruins, she brought feathers and stuck them on top.
When he sat under the big cedar tree alone, she plopped beside him with a mouthful of questions.
“What’s your favorite kind of leaf?”
“Do you think animals have dreams?”
“Do boys cry when they get kicked in the chest?”
Eren didn’t answer most of them. But he listened.
And when she asked, “Can we be best buddies?” — he nodded once.
One day, she brought a red string.
“I saw it in a book,” she said, kneeling beside him on the creek bank. “If you tie it on someone’s wrist and make a wish, they’ll be connected to you forever.”
She held up the thread.
“You want to?”
He didn’t speak. Just held out his wrist.
She tied it tight.
Then tied the other end to her own.
“There,” she said. “Now you can’t run off.”
Eren stared at the string for a long time. Her fingers had been warm when they brushed his skin. He could still feel it, even after she pulled away.
Forever, she said.
She said it first.
When Mina wasn’t there, the village felt too quiet.
The other kids didn’t matter. The adults talked like they were chewing dry bark. His house was colder than the forest, even when the fire was lit. But when she was near—when he could hear her talking to the birds or singing to her own footsteps—it was like the air filled with color again.
He found himself memorizing the patterns on her dresses. The way her eyes squinted when she laughed. The way she said “butt-er-fly” instead of butterfly.
She gave him a shell once.
He didn’t know why it made his chest ache.
One evening, he waited by the cedar tree for hours.
She didn’t come.
He dug a hole with his hands and buried a stone he’d polished the day before just for her.
When the sun began to set, and her ribbon still hadn’t bobbed into view from the hill path, Eren picked up a stick and began scratching her name into the dirt.
Over and over.
M
I
N
A
His hands were brown with earth. The stick broke. His finger kept tracing the lines.
Twenty-seven times.
YOU ARE READING
Butterfly Strings
RomanceA 7-year-old boy who's already showing deep, obsessive attachment A 5-year-old girl who is sweet, innocent, and unaware of the boy's growing obsession She was the girl who saw the world in colors. He was the boy who only saw her. Mina never knew the...
