Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight! novel Chapter 431

Chapter 431: ’Death Of A Pet.’

’No...’

Florian’s breath hitched the moment he saw Cashew’s face—eyes hesitant, lips pressed into a trembling line. He recognized that look all too well. It was the look someone wore when they were about to say something that would shatter you.

’Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.’

Cashew approached slowly, arms full of clothes, but his steps felt heavy, uncertain. The butterflies trailed behind him, fluttering in delicate swirls—Twinkle, Dewdrop, Shimmie, Blinky, Mimiwing... but one was missing.

’Where’s Luluwing?’

Florian’s pulse quickened. His stomach twisted. He tried to hold on to hope, just for a second.

From what he remembered, Luluwing had been injured—his delicate wing torn by Alexandria’s cruel hands. When Florian was taken, he had left the poor creature resting on a blooming flower in the garden—their favorite spot.

He had hoped... hoped that he’d be okay.

’Please don’t say it... ’

Cashew gently set the clothes down on the bed. His small hands were trembling. His eyes shimmered with tears he hadn’t let fall yet.

"The night you came back," Cashew began, voice soft and cracking, "Luluwing was already weak. I tried to care for him, Your Highness, I did. But... the next morning after that..."

He stepped closer to Florian, hesitant, almost afraid. Azure leapt into Florian’s lap, as if sensing the shift in the air, curling there protectively. The butterflies hovered quietly above, their usual playful dances replaced with a strange stillness.

Cashew leaned against him. "Luluwing... died." His voice cracked. "I buried him... in the soil of his favorite flower. I’m sorry, Your Highness."

Florian blinked.

He wasn’t going to cry.

He shouldn’t cry.

He was supposed to be strong. He survived a kidnapping, torture, worse. A butterfly shouldn’t undo him.

They weren’t even his butterflies. They were the original Florian’s, right? Just inherited fragments of a life that wasn’t even his own.

’Then why does this hurt so much?’

"L-Luluwing is dead?" Florian whispered, the words slipping out of his lips before he even realized it, as if saying them out loud would make them less true.

Tears rolled down his cheeks anyway.

Cashew nodded slowly and clung to Florian’s arm in silent comfort, and Azure pressed more firmly against him.

"Luluwing is dead..." Florian repeated, voice growing more hollow. "Luluwing is dead because of me."

Because he had left him. Because he hadn’t protected him. Because he had been stupid.

’If I had just been smarter. If I had been... If I had seen through her.’

"No, Your Highness," Cashew whispered, "You didn’t do anything wrong. It was Princess—"

"I should’ve known!" Florian snapped, the dam inside him bursting open all at once. "I should’ve known! Her words, her actions, none of it made sense! I knew something was off. I felt it—but I kept brushing it off. I let her near me, I let my guard down... and because of that, Luluwing suffered!"

His voice cracked.

He remembered Luluwing struggling to fly with only one wing. Remembered the last time he saw him, resting on the petals like he was trying so hard to be brave.

"Luluwing was in pain," Florian sobbed, burying his face in his trembling hands. "Butterflies feel pain when their wings get torn. Right? He died hurting. He died alone. And I wasn’t even there..."

Azure whimpered softly and nuzzled against him. Cashew didn’t speak. He just held onto Florian’s arm, his own tears falling now, quietly.

And Florian cried.

He cried the way he hadn’t cried in years—raw, broken, furious with himself.

It wasn’t just about Luluwing.

It was everything.

The kidnapping. The assault. The shame. The helplessness. The guilt. The touches he still felt in his skin when the room was too quiet.

’Why him? Why now? Why did he have to be the one I wanted?’

Florian clenched his fists. ;Why did my body shut down and only respond when it was Heinz?’

Why—

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