#I started it with a pink pencil that immediately broke so we switched to purple

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Bored and under-stimulated in my office so did a study of one of the backlog of statue pictures I have saved to draw. This is one is a statue of Saint Secunda by Giuseppe Croff (1876) from the Duomo museum in Milan

[black-roses-are-gorgeous]

Essence of colors

Title: Essence of colors

Pairing: Kazuki (ex.SCREW) x OC

Warnings: wrong spelling and grammar certainly happened

Rating: T (I use AO3′s ratings from now on)

Synopsis: The world is full of colors.

Author’s note: I actually wrote this story with another character but I changed it to Kazuki because I wouldn’t post the old version anymore. That’s why don’t wonder about lowkey fashion diva Kazuki (it happens only once, so don’t worry xD)

The world is full of colors.

Blood is red.

Fire is orange.

The sun is yellow.

The nature is green.

The sky and the sea are blue.

Plums are purple.

If that was really the case, I couldnʼt say. Nothing was colorful for me—everything was gray for me. From white to black everything was there. I learned in that painful way that black and white really were just non-colors. Just grayscale.

Blood was dark gray to me. Fire was gray to me. The sun was light gray for me. Nature was gray to me. The sky and sea were gray to me. Plums were dark gray to me. The light was snow-white and the night pitch-black.

I envied other people who could see the world in their full blaze of colors. Sometimes I wondered if everything was really so colorful just to distract me from my fate. My life was already hard enough. I couldnʼt describe pictures in the school lessons or paint a picture with complementary colors. At the traffic light I couldnʼt pay attention to the red and the green Ampelmännchen. If you were able to see colors, you didnʼt realize how much you depended on them.

The best was still my name. My mother gave me the name Ai. Most of the Ais were written with the kanji for ›love‹ or ›affection‹, but my mother had opted for the kanji with the meaning ›indigo‹. I had nothing against my name, it was beautiful; no matter what the meaning was. But it seemed paradoxical that my name was a color I would never see.

You could say that my life was dull.

Bored, I looked out the window into the gray sky. The clouds were white and puffy like cotton balls. It was my last lesson for today and the teacher still wasnʼt there. Should be okay with me. However, he just came into the classroom and had a boy unknown to me in tow. A new student? In the middle of the year? In the middle of the day? Okay, interesting.

»Good day everyone,« he greeted us. »You have a new classmate from today on. Please introduce yourself.«

The boy gave the class a bright smile with his pierced lips. »My name is Kazuki and I moved here from Tottori. Nice to meet you.«

The teacher nodded. »Okay, then you can sit next to Ai.« He pointed at me and the next smile from Kazuki was for me.

With his long legs he needed just a few steps to reach his assigned spot, where he carefully set his backpack on the ground. In a sweeping motion he let himself fall on the free chair. At that moment, our teacher started with the lesson. We had been chewing the same topic for three lessons now, so I switched to draft and scribbled little figures on my notepad.

After a while Kazuki leaned over to me. »Is he always such a sleeping pill?«

»Yes, unfortunately, and most of all, he urges us on partner or group work, where he expects a large, colorful poster,« I replied. My pencil tip broke off cracking.

Kazuki snorted softly. »I can imagine that. Iʼm not surprised when he wears such a color combination of shirt and trousers,« he smirked softly. »Well, how can you wear a plum-colored shirt with olive green pants? That hurts my soul.«

There we had it again. I couldnʼt say something about this. For me, our teacher was completely dressed in gray. From hair to clothes to skin color. »Iʼm not able to agree with you, sorry. Iʼm color blind.«

His eyes grew big. »What? Does that mean you cannot see any colors? How do you see the world then?« He asked with interest. No wonder he asked that. It was extremely rare that you couldnʼt see any colors. Partial visual impairments in terms of colors were more common—especially the red-green weakness.

»Well, in gray, how else?« I answered. »It must be nice to be able to see the world in color.«

»Well, Iʼd rather be you considering the sight up there,« he joked, before his expression returned to seriousness. »Do you have time after school?«

»Yes, why do you ask?«Kazuki leaned his elbows on the table. »You know, I think one cannot just see colors. I cannot show you them but I want to show you how colors can feel,« he said thoughtfully, looking at me from the side.

I frowned. »Youʼre serious, right?«

»Of course Iʼm serious,« he pouted. »We just kill two birds with one stone. You show me, the newcomer and country boy, the city and for that I bring you closer to the colors. Deal?«

»Deal.«

After class we left the classroom together. Our way first took us to a cafe in a side street. Before I could react, Kazuki had already paid for my sandwich and my hot chocolate.

»You donʼt have to pay for me,« I complained slightly, »I may be color blind but not poor.«

»That doesnʼt matter. Just drink your cocoa,« he countered. Normally I didnʼt want to be patronized, but I took a sip of my hot drink. Immediately it warmed me up from the inside. »Do you notice how you get very warm? As if your hands were warming against an open fire? How the warmth can even surround your heart?« I nodded. »Thatʼs how the color orange feels like. Very warm.«

We smiled at the same time. Orange really had to be a nice color.

We stayed in the cafe for a while. Kazuki enjoyed his piece of cake and coffee and I enjoyed my hot chocolate and second breakfast. Then we strolled through downtown. There was a lot going on on a Friday afternoon. We honestly looked like a couple among all the other couples. In the middle Kazuki asked me to wait a moment. He went to a flower shop. What did he want there?

About ten minutes later, he came back with a small bouquet of roses. Smiling, he held it out to me. »You cannot see it, but theyʼre baby pink roses. In the floral language they stand for youthfulness and beauty.« Again I smiled and smelled cautiously on the flowers. »Are you happy?«

»Of course. I have never received any flowers.« I almost jumped up and down because of my joy.

»Joy can be expressed with yellow,« he told me as we went on, »but beware, yellow isnʼt just positive, it can also mean envy and jealousy.«

»Thatʼs good to know. Thank you, Kazuki.« I hugged him.

And so it continued. In the city park he showed me green and blue. Blue were the lake and, of course, the sky with its infinite width, where you could become quite melancholic. Green was the nature. As the wind rustled in the trees and flowers grew new buds. Blue was wide and deep and a bit scary, but green was calm, tender and full of life.

Our next stop came unexpectedly. A music shop. Don't get me wrong. I loved music but I was more on the digital side. CD covers looked all gray to me and made me uneasy. Walking through the aisles he showed me a CD.

»That's my band's first CD. The cover is purple. Do you want to listen to it?«

I nodded. With big headphones on I listened with closed eyes. Rather sad songs with a lot of screaming guitars, roaring bass and pounding drums. »Sounds good. Do you play the guitar?« I looked at him.

»Yeah, I do. You're good, Ai. I can't really explain purple but that's the color of our band.«

Smiling, I took the CD and bought it. I had to support a good band, right?

After that, I showed him my favorite places in town and my favorite little restaurant with international cuisine, where we decided to have dinner there. Kazuki opted for a Thai dish that I didnʼt know, so he offered me some of it all the time while I was picking fried noodles. In the end, I had to pack half of it.

While we did a digestive walk, so to speak, I remembered something else. He had shown me the colors of the rainbow—I thought—but red was missing. I didnʼt know why he didnʼt show me this color. You always heard that red was so important and energetic. I really wanted to know how red could feel. But I decided to say nothing. Kazuki already knew what he was doing, I was sure of that.

We landed again in the city park. There was a lot less going on in the evening than in the afternoon. Actually, almost nothing was going on. My curiosity outweighed my patience. I held him by his sleeve. »Kazuki, what about red?« I asked.

He scratched the back of his head. »I think Iʼm not able to show you red properly yet,« he replied.

Confused, I looked at him. »What do you mean by that?«

He looked back. »That I must first show you pink,« was his reply, before he pulled me to him in a fluid motion and laid his lips on mine. »Itʼs still a long way to red,« he muttered on my lips.

I smiled for like the thousandth time that day. »Show me—all the way.«