Chapter Text
When he looked into the eyes of the other boy, his world exploded into colours he never could have imagined in his wildest dreams.
~ ~ ~
„This is your final boarding call for the flight 045 to Canada, Banff!”
The distorted announcers voice echoed through the hall of the airport, almost drowning in the noise of the masses. People were walking to their gates, putting their luggage away or checking in. It was night-time, but an airport never was empty nor quiet.
A sky-blue cruiser clutched under one arm and his free hand secure in his mothers, Reki was excited. He did not understand a word the voice was saying – it was the numbers that told him their flight would soon start. His father had taught him counting in English. Whenever dad was home, he taught his son something in English, something Reki loved to brag to his friends.
It had been his mother who told him the number of their flight – thus he recognized it every time it was announced over the big speakers in the hall. Each time he got more jittery. With the final announcement, the family of three moved to their designated gate to board their plane. Reki stumbled along, his attention jumping from the people they passed, to his mother whose hand he held tightly, to the gate they were approaching.
Holidays in Canada were only possible due to his grandparents. The Kyan-family was young – two recently married parents and their five-year-old didn’t really have a lot of money to spend on anything other than clothing, rent and food. But Rekis’ grandparents from his fathers’ side gifted the young couple a holiday in Canada for their wedding – a grand gesture for the three of them.
Why they were going on holiday in Canada over New Year’s Eve or how they could even afford it were all things, Reki could not care less about. What was important for him was that he could bring his cruiser with him and that he could see snow.
For him, snow was something like a prince or a dragon – only known through stories his parents told him before he went to sleep. It never snowed in Okinawa and that was the reason he was so excited to see it.
Reki wondered what colour snow would have.
His mother always told him the colour of things whenever he asked for it, but someone who has tried to explain what colour grass had to a blind person would know how fast you reached the limits of descriptive language when you could not use colours.
It wasn’t an anomaly to be colour-blind. Every person on the planet had been colour-blind at some point in their life – up until they met their Soulmates eyes. Then their world would suddenly become colourful and vibrant. Reki knew about the concept of Soulmates, but in his age, there were so many more important things to think about than a random stranger who fate apparently destined to be your significant other.
Most children and teenagers couldn’t see colours. Therefore, most clothing brands for the youth created clothing in a greyscale. Smaller kids often were put in coloured clothing by their parents or caretakers. Rekis’ Mother tried to dress her son in colourful clothing – a key-part was the dark blue headband Reki proudly wore every day. So much, that he owned the same headband three times, in case one needed to be washed.
Each time he put it on, and his mum complimented the blue colour in contrast with his fiery hair, he would say: “Blue is my favourite colour!” despite the fact he could not imagine what it really looked like. If he was asked about it, his answer always stayed the same: “Blue just feels right!”.
Reki knew that snow was supposedly “white”. White, like the planes who landed and took off on the wide tar lanes in the airport. White, like the dress his mother wore to her wedding with his father in the early spring under cherry blossom trees. White like his teeth he could see in his reflection of the window when he grinned widely. He pressed his little face against the cold pane next to his seat, watching how the plane started to move and the white stripes on the tarred surface outside became one the faster the wheels on the huge machine went.
White were also the clouds the plane passed as it gained altitude rather quickly. Reki watched captivated how the lights of the airport and the city became smaller and smaller, until the clouds hid them. He looked at the endless ocean of white fluff that reflected some of the bright moonlight.
A rustling sound pulled his attention back into the plane. His mum gripped onto a paper bag, her face as pale as the clouds he just looked at. “Mum? “, his voice was a mixture of curiosity and worry. “It’s alright. She is just a little bit sick “, his fathers’ words were reassuring. He could see the mans’ hand on his mothers’ back – calming and soothing. Knowing everything would be alright, Reki sat back and looked out of the window again, with his mind wandering through the foreign land beyond the windows glass.
~ ~ ~
The most time of the seventeen-hour long flight he spent sleeping. When the sun rose and he woke, he either played games on his fathers’ tablet, watched downloaded skateboarding videos, or talked about skateboarding to his parents. He also napped occasionally when he was really bored, but the flight was way too exciting to sleep through.
He continued to talk about skating when the plane landed in Banff, the place where they would spend their two weeks holiday. And he continued when they went to get their luggage. He didn’t stop when they greeted the driver that would bring them to the holiday home that was booked for them. The tall man spoke a language Reki did not understand. It sounded like the one the airport voice talked in – so probably English, but he was not sure.
The man drove a light grey car – maybe it was yellow or green. He loaded the luggage into the big trunk and commented on Reki’s cruiser with a kind smile as the boy hugged it closer to his chest. His father sat him in a child seat on the back seat of the car and buckled him up, the cruiser found its way to the foot well.
Reki’s father was also the one who took care of all the communication, as he was the only one in the family who understood English and spoke it fluently due to his work overseas in the USA. He seated himself on the passenger seat and started to chat with the driver. His wife sat next to Reki and talked to him about the holiday home they were headed to.
There would be a village of log cabins – all of them managed by a tourist-resort team. And in one of those log-cabins they would stay. The drive to the village was uneventful. Streets full of people passed them, like they often did when the small family drove with their own tiny car to the beach, back in Okinawa. Reki looked out the window again and for the first time since they had landed in Canada, he was quiet.
Awestruck he stared at the masses of snow piling themselves at the edges of the roads and toning all roofs in the same white. Some of them looked muddy and dirty, but he paid no mind to it – the fact that there was so much snow it was able to pile captivated him.
The driver was skilled as he maneuvered the car up the narrow mountain road, which was almost completely covered in snow. He stopped in front of a dark log-cabin. Around were other cabins, but they did not lack privacy. Each had their own little front yard and a place for a car. The car of their holiday home was dark and looked like an off-road vehicle of some sort, something one needed in times of snow-masses and ice.
The Snow crunched underneath Rekis’ feet as he jumped out of the taxi. He still wore his sneakers that he put on for the flight, but without his clothing in mind he ran to the next pile of snow and threw himself face first in the cold white mass. With a joyful squeal he played in the snow, grinning from ear to ear whilst his parents unloaded the luggage to their cabin. The cruiser was removed from the foot well and placed with the rest of Rekis’ bags, but it was foreseeable Reki would not skateboard with this amount of snow.
Reki was amazed. He was able to form snow figurines and snowballs, his tiny feet left footprints wherever he went, and he could feel how the snow melted in his hands, leaving them red and sensitive to the cold.
His father called to him and when he turned to face him, Reki noticed the driver was long gone. Only the car tracks in the snow were left. His attention shifted to his father, then he grinned widely, and ran to the cabin as his parents waited for him in the doorway.
His mother ruffled his red fluffy hair, snowflakes fluttering down. “Reki, are you hungry? “, she asked and didn’t leave him time to answer. She turned around and followed him into the cabin as soon as both took of their shoes in the entry way. Reki noticed his damp socks, but he paid them little mind. He followed his mother, his father roaming somewhere in the kitchen and looked around in their holiday home.
It was cosy – a big dark grey sofa was placed in front of a fireplace, wood neatly stacked next to it. In the back there was a big bed, probably the one where his parents would sleep. The kitchen was separated by a half-wall and mostly, like the rest of the furniture, made of dark wood. It felt homey.
There was a door that led to a separate room. Reki opened the door and the first thing he noticed was the bunkbed. He squealed and climbed to the top bed. The mattress felt soft, and he slowly felt the tiredness of his limbs from the flight and the playing creeping into him.
Still, the day could not have gone any better. Flying, snow and a bunkbed – what more could this holiday possibly bring?
„Reki, Dinner is ready! “, his mum called out from the kitchen. He could hear the tiredness in her voice and was sure they would go to bed after dinner, even though he still wanted to look around and get to know the place. He went to the kitchen and sat at the table, the chair a little too big for him. They talked while they ate: about the flight, the cabin, their expectations and plans for the coming days. The first day of their holiday drew to an end, New Year’s Eve would be the following day and there would be a celebration in the village with the other tourists that the family wanted to join.
But before they would attend the celebration, they planned on doing some winter sports. Mr. Kyan was eager to go skiing, his son wanted to snowboard. Reki was obsessed with the idea of snowboarding – he wondered if it would be like skating on snow. With the thought in mind that he could snowboard the next day, Reki was not to opposed to the idea of going to bed.
Outside, the sun had already set. The remnants of sunlight still lingered on the clouds, but they would fade quickly. Reki took a bath and discarded his wet clothing for his comfy PJs, then he brushed his teeth and climbed to the top of the bunkbed. His father read him a bedtime story.
Rekis’ eyes felt heavy, it didn’t take long for the boy to fall asleep.
~ ~ ~
Reki was an enthusiastic child. Jetlag didn’t apply to him – unlike his parents who looked still tired the next day.
Filled with anticipation with his tiny feet strapped onto a small snowboard he stood amongst some other kids that listened to the snowboard-instructor. His mum watched him from the side with mixed emotions. She was worried her son would get hurt in the process of learning, but she was also happy for him. She smiled as Reki waved at her, his tiny hands in big gloves.
He wore his headband underneath his woolly hat and his ski goggles – both too big for his head.
The instructor explained the basics of snowboarding to the children, but Rekis’ attention laid elsewhere – he was watching the other people on the mountain. Adults who did ski jumping and snowboarding on the various ramps and tracks.
They were fast and did things Reki dreamed of doing on his own. He watched a man on a snowboard doing a trick that looked complicated. A small figure followed him and jumped off the ramp as well. Though he did not fly as high as the adult and did not do a complicated trick, Reki was amazed.
The boy had hair as bright as snow. The man applauded the little boy with a big smile on his face, the boy mirrored the smile shily.
He seemed to be the same age as Reki, and yet the boy was a skilled snowboarder – almost flying weightlessly through the air. With new motivation Reki started to listen again to the instructor who told them to start trying to snowboard.
It wasn’t as easy as Reki thought it would be. The board was heavy, and he was a little bit scared to hurt himself with his feet strapped immobilized on a board. But arriving safely without falling at the bottom of the mountain still was an achievement for him. He thought about the boy with the snow-white hair and was a little bit jealous that he himself would need more than an hour of instruction to do the same jumps he saw the other doing. But in the end, he had fun.
After the winter sports they ate in the restaurant at the ski site. Some traditional Canadian food Reki couldn’t name. All he knew was that it was tasty, and that’s what mattered. Later they returned to the village to prepare themselves for the party.
Reki looked forward to it. New Year’s Eve meant that he was allowed to drink Cola and stay up late. He loved the sound and look of fireworks even though he knew everything would look better in colour. It was something he couldn’t imagine and that’s why it was so intriguing to him.
Like every year his father brought sparklers they would light together. Holding a tiny firework in his hands always filled him with joy. His mother would watch them bond over the sparklers and smile to herself.
But before they would join the celebration around 11 PM they played some board games together. Most of them were easy to understand so Reki could join in. If they were more complicated, then he would form a team with one of his parents against the other one.
After they had dinner the family went outside. A campfire was in the middle of the yard, adults stood around with warm beverages in their hands, talking to each other. Children were playing around.
Reki clung to his fathers’ leg, suddenly less confident. At home he got along with other kids greatly. He always had an idea what to play and how to include everyone – he loved the attention and the fun, but away from home he didn’t know how to approach other kids. He wasn’t able to understand them, and they could not understand him.
Suddenly, his dad ruffled his hair. „Come on, go play “, he said reassuringly. He smiled down at his son who looked at him with big amber eyes. As if he could read his sons’ mind, he added: “sometimes you don’t have to understand each other to know what the other means and have fun together.” Reki tilted his head, overthinking his father’s words. It made sense – he could always tell how people felt even without talking to them. This case wasn’t that different. After some thinking he decided he would go to the other kids.
With a shy smile he approached the group of kids.
One of the children, a girl with dark hair and bright eyes, waved at him and talked to him in a language he didn’t understand. It must have shown on his face because she started to make gestures with her hands and limbs. It took a while until he understood what she wanted to say – she was asking him to join the game of catch. With a grin and a nod, he agreed to join.
His father was proven right: Reki hat fun. He played the whole remaining evening with the other kids, up until it almost was midnight. Most of them went back to their parents for the countdown and to watch the fireworks with them. Reki was anticipating the firework – only the big campfire and the crescent moon lit the yard. He was sure the bright patterns on the clear night sky would look stunning.
He had his eyes on the sky as he felt a light touch on his arm. It was almost unnoticeable due to his thick winter coat. “Are you from Japan? “, a thin voice in broken Japanese asked him. „I am! And you? “, Reki turned with a smile but suddenly stilled.
When he looked into the eyes of the other boy with the snow-white hair, his world exploded into colours he never could have imagined in his wildest dreams.
The firework, loud in the sky, was mirrored in an ocean of blue - Reki could not divert his eyes.