Chapter Text
When Noelle handed off her donut to the shy, quiet girl who didn’t really play with anyone else back in kindergarten, she hadn’t thought much of it.
At first, it was just a way to get an annoyance off her hands. And then the girl looked at her with stars in her eyes as soon as she offered, and nodded frantically, and Noelle got the feeling that the donut wasn’t the only annoyance that was going to stick around.
Strangely enough, she still remembers the feeling of her fingers brushing against the other girl’s clammy cold ones. But besides that, there wasn’t anything that special to celebrate the occasion. No sparks of electricity (like soda bubbles) or funny feelings in her chest (not until later, at least).
It’s just that when she looked up, she noticed that the girl’s shirt was blue.
When you’re in kindergarten, you don’t know what this means. You’ve yet to spend hours pouring over stupid, sappy romance novels trying to find an answer, or going to go to google to figure out if someone can love someone of the same gender, or hesitantly asking your parents and getting shut down. Noelle didn’t know a thing at that point.
She just knew, intrinsically, that the girl’s shirt was blue. A light teal color, that matched the brightness of her smile. Which was a stupid conclusion to make, because how could a color be compared to the nature of one’s smile? But it was made nonetheless, and the girl was also staring at her as if she had just found the cure for cancer.
“T-Thank you,” the girl said, still staring at her, carefully taking the extra donut and placing it on the napkin in front of her. “You don’t like donuts? Why?”
“Too sweet,” Noelle had answered, making a disgusted face. “And unhealthy…”
The girl shrugged. Noelle looked around to avoid the feeling of her eyes on her, and discovered that her shirt wasn’t the only thing that was blue- lots of other students had on blue things- like jeans, and hairclips, and the sky outside the window was soft and pleasant. Noelle had heard that the sky was blue, but she’d never actually seen it for herself. Not until now, at least. The clouds stayed the same grey, dull color.
“Did you know that the collar of your shirt is yellow?” The other girl asked quietly, breaking Noelle out of her silent amazement.
Noelle blinked, hard, and looked down, gently rolling the fabric between her fingers. No matter how much she squinted and looked, it stubbornly stayed the same shade of light grey.
“No… no it’s not. I think.” Noelle shook her head. “But I know your shirt is blue.”
Stunned, the girl looked down, and the same confused expression that had been on Noelle’s face seconds before returned on hers.
“...What? I don’t think so.”
“Maybe we just can see different colors. Maybe there’s other people in the class who can yellow or blue?”
“If they can, I haven’t heard,” the other girl replies, sighing slightly. But her happy, albeit nervous expression returns once she looks back at Noelle. The change confuses her- how can someone be that glad just to look at her? She doesn't even know this girl. “What…. What’s your name?”
“Noelle,” She states, matter-of-factly. “And you?”
“Diya.”
And with that, the pieces of the world start to fall into place.
—
Her parents don’t understand. She doesn’t really understand either.
It’s a year after meeting Diya that they find out. She’s managed to figure out to keep the color blue a secret- no one else that shes asked sees it, and when she tells them, they look at her like she’s grown a second head.
Her entire life, Noelle has lived in shades of black and white. And so has everyone else, apparently. And seeing blue does nothing but add just a bit more confusion and a lot less bore to her life. She starts associating the blue with Diya, because every time Diya wears something colorful, she always finds herself pointing it out.
Diya points out yellow, too. Noelle finds herself wearing articles of clothing that Diya has said are yellow almost automatically. It’s like a secret between the two of them- talking about colors only they can see. Noelle wonders if when she grows up, all of this will have been revealed to be the product of a hyper imagination, or go away completely.
(The only time the color dares to fade is when Diya gets hit in the side of the head with a baseball early on upon joining her team, and ends up with a concussion. Even though Noelle had been home, studying, she’d known something was wrong immediately. And when she called Diya’s parents, and found out that she was in the hospital, it was not a good day.)
It’s only when she lets slip what color a vase is while shopping with her parents that her parents find out.
Her mother stops in her tracks, and whips around as soon as she mentions it.
“ What?” She asks, her face morphed into extreme disbelief. “Did…Noelle, did you say that the vase was blue?”
Noelle’s afraid of the way she says it, like it’s forbidden, but she answers anyways because she doesn’t have a choice.
“...Yes. The vase is blue.”
It’s an elegant thing, gently curved at the bottom with the edges curling in slightly at the top. An excellent example of glasswork, dark blue with light swirls around it. The potter who had made it surely must have had a sense of what colors they were using.
“Can you see any more colors? What color is my shirt, Noelle?” Her mother asks her, and Noelle doesn’t know how to answer because her mother’s shirt is one of the same dull shades of grey as everything else. She doesn’t know what answer she expects.
“...It’s grey,” Noelle replies quietly. “I’m sorry. I can’t see anything else besides blue.”
Her mother stares at her, stock still. The moments that pass are fraught with confusion before it finally breaks, and denial comes into the picture.
“That’s impossible. When people meet their soulmate, they’re supposed to see all the colors,” her mother claims. Noelle doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “I don’t really expect you to have met your soulmate yet. I didn’t meet your father until I was in my 20’s.”
“Okay,” Noelle says, a quiet affirmation, despite her mother’s words. Maybe there’s another way to gain color. She doesn’t even know what a soulmate is.
“Don’t make things up like that, Noelle,” her mother says, and they continue shopping.
Noelle doesn’t mention colors for the next few years. And the concept of soulmates is pushed to the back of her mind, soon to be forgotten.
—-
She’s in third grade when Diya says that she can see red and orange.
“What?” Noelle asks, shaking herself out of whatever stupor she had been in. It’s been happening lately, around Diya- it’s not that Diya herself is distracting, but rather the feelings that come with her.
Noelle is used to knowing how to control her emotions. There are some that are more… unfamiliar though, that she doesn’t know how to deal with or repress. The warmth in her chest has to come from somewhere, right? There has to be a source of it, and once she finds out what that source is, she can properly deal with it, but right now, it’s from Diya. Just Diya, by herself, just existing. It doesn’t make sense.
All Diya has to do is smile, and Noelle’s stomach will erupt with little funny feelings. It’s strange. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t understand it.
And yet, it’s nice. And it stays.
“I met… I met this person yesterday. I want to introduce you to them. They’re really nice. Gave me a seaweed sheet- and when our hands brushed, I realized that the hot wheel on their sweatshirt was red. Like when I met you.”
Noelle almost finds herself frowning when she hears that- something inside of her doesn’t like the idea of there being another person who has that kind of relationship with Diya. Jealousy. But it’s stupid, and Diya is grinning so wide at the thought of this person, and bouncing on the tips of her toes, that Noelle can’t really bring herself to protest. She likes seeing Diya happy. So what if the other person gives Diya the ability to see more colors?
“What’s their name?”
“Min.”
“Min? Is that a boy or a girl?”
“Hard to tell. You’ll see,” Diya says, trying to motion Noelle over, presumably before meeting said magical person.
“...I’ve never seen you this excited over someone before,” Noelle admits. And it hurts a little, but she ignores it. “They must really be something.”
Diya looks like she agrees, and despite the strange feelings, Noelle goes with her to the baseball field.
—-
Safe to say, Diya’s perception of Min is much different than Noelle’s.
Min takes one look at her, and her face immediately turns into a scowl, despite Noelle having done nothing but exist. Noelle doesn’t like her much on first impression either- what with her sweatshirt and short hair and bandages. She seems volatile, and daring. Not someone who Noelle thinks that Diya would like, or would be around for that matter, but clearly she has been proven wrong.
She doesn’t even get a chance to give Min the benefit of the doubt before she's already painted Noelle as an enemy.
“YOU!” She shouts, and Noelle winces at the sound. “Diya can’t have two soulmates! We have to fight!”
There’s that word again. Soulmate. It’s become more common vocabulary in the recent years of Noelle's short life, but the meaning of it has never been that clear. Noelle isn’t interested in it either way- all she knows is that it has something to do with romance in most connotations, and she doesn’t have time for that, nor does she like the idea.
Besides, even in this context, it doesn’t make sense. Noelle isn’t Diya’s soulmate. Neither is Min, especially with her weird, stuck-up attitude. Girls can’t like other girls that way, everyone knows that. Where did Min even get that idea?
“What?!” Noelle demands, throwing up her hands automatically as a sign of peace. “I don’t wanna fight! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
The short story is that Min ignores her. This is one of the first things that Noelle learns about Min, as does everyone who meets her: Min doesn’t give up. Ever. And maybe later in life it will become admirable, as well as a trait the both of them tend to have in common, but right now it is just terrifying.
“Fist fight in 4! 3! 2! 1!”
Diya has been standing behind Noelle this entire time, previously giddy, now extremely anxious. However, despite her usual tendency to freeze when faced with a harrowing situation, she manages to pull Noelle out of the way just in time just as Min comes flying at her anyways, so that she doesn’t do any real damage.
Despite Diya’s best efforts however, that doesn’t stop Min from stumbling into Noelle’s shoulder, her small, warm hand just barely brushing the skin of Noelle’s arm.
And when it does, Noelle’s world explodes in shades of yellow and green.
—
Despite the colors between them, Min still hates Noelle with a burning passion.
She believes that Diya is somehow her “soulmate” because she made her see blue, same as Noelle, but somehow can’t comprehend the fact that Noelle could possibly be her “soulmate” as well, due to the fact that “she’s a fucking stuck-up loser without an ability to have fun or laugh or do anything remotely interesting.” Apparently now, you can actually choose who your soulmate is, according to Min's logic. Which is fine. Noelle never wanted to be her "soulmate" in the first place, whatever it's supposed to mean.
Noelle made Min see red. Which is quite the coincidence, considering she charged at Noelle like a bull the first time she met her. And nothing Noelle does seems to change her opinion, so she gives up trying.
And it’s fine! She didn’t like Min anyways. But if she hurts Diya, she’s going to have another thing coming.
But it's pretty clear by this point that something is going on- and both Diya and Min agree with her somewhat that something is also missing. There’s still large patches of her vision that Min and Diya’s colors don’t cover. Diya can’t see blue. Min can’t see yellow.
Noelle doesn’t really care to know whatever social connotations come along with this kind of connection- or why they seem to be missing a person, and why that seems so important- but she does know one thing.
Diya is her best friend. Min is her enemy.
The colors don’t matter.
And this is how she makes it through the rest of the year- not questioning anything and not saying a word.
—-
Min moves away.
Diya is distraught. Noelle can’t help but feel bad for her- she doesn’t like seeing her like this, all sad and melancholy. She’s not outright crying or anything, but she doesn’t smile as much. So Noelle tries to comfort her the best she can- which isn’t really good, but it’s something. Half-hearted reassurances that Min will come back, or that she’ll always remember Diya, because how could anyone forget her? Despite all of this however,Noelle finds herself at the same exact baseball park she had met Min-seo at, with Diya leaning on her shoulder and saying nothing.
Despite Min-seo’s absence, the park stays its same stubborn shade of green. It’s almost annoying, but then again, she finds a strange comfort in it. Min leaves her mark wherever she goes. Noelle can almost see the tree where she had carved her and Diya’s itnitals from here.
“...You still have her colors, right?” Noelle whispers to Diya, staying as still as she possibly can. She doesn’t want to jostle Diya, for fear of making her uncomfortable.
“Yeah,” Diya replies, voice a tired monotone. “At least that hasn’t changed.”
“...It feels unbelievable that it’s only been a year since you… we’ve met her. And yet…”
“She still had to move away. I only knew her for a year, and she moved . All the way to Florida.”
A silence falls over them.
Noelle wouldn’t say she misses Min. She’d never admit to that, never in a million years. Still, it is strange to have the quiet return- no one to argue with, or be annoyed by. She hates that it feels wrong somehow. Maybe she can justify it by how Diya is feeling. Because if Min isn’t here, then Diya…
“...At least she knows to watch out for the alligators.”
“...What?”
—-
One day, Diya and Noelle are walking home from school together in 6th grade when the world flickers and fades before their eyes. They both stop at the same time, but only Noelle is the one who knows what it means, when the grass beneath her feet start to lose their color before her eyes.
Without even thinking, she grabs onto Diya’s arm. There’s a panic she’s familiar with rising up in her throat, bringing her back to second grade.
“Diya, you said you didn’t have any way of contacting Min, right?” She asks, even though she knows it’d be too late by the time they got home to write a letter, or to-
“No. My parents don’t even have Min’s phone number left over from when she was still here-” Diya says, her voice barely audible. She’s shaking, trembling in Noelle’s grip at the knowledge of something that she can’t quite put her finger on, but that Noelle knows like the back of her hand.
“It’s gonna be okay. We just have to wait. When you got that concussion, you weren’t- it’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine. Nothing is happening to her,” Noelle tries to assure her, whilst periodically keeping an eye on the grass. It flickers and flickers and flickers, like a stubborn flame, fading in and out.
Diya shakes her head.
“Remember what Min said? She doesn’t give up,” Noelle goes on, trying her hardest to make it seem like anything else could be happening whilst the world threatens to lose it’s vibrancy. Maybe she and Min really were soulmates, if this is happening for both her and Diya. It’s the transverse property of human connection. “And she won’t give up if you don’t give up. So whatever is happening, you gotta have faith that she’ll make it through, okay?”
Noelle can’t decide whether it’s a superpower or a curse to automatically know that something life-threatening is happening to Min. Right now it’s a curse. There’s nothing her or Diya can do, and no way they could possibly find out what’s happening. It’s completely out of their control.
All she can do is watch the grass.
And slowly, steadily…it returns to its original shade of green.