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The first time Calen sees colour, the sky is clear.
“You alright there, Calen?” She hears Azure’s soft laugh from her side. The way their hands brush against each other when they walk makes her breath catch into her throat.
When Calen turns to look at the girl next to her, she feels her heart stop.
Azure’s eyes were blue.
—
“What colour do you think I’ll see first?” Calen barely looks up from where Sage asks, the girl sprawled out on the couch. She busies herself with cooking their lunch instead.
“Why are you thinking about that?” She pokes at the hotdogs frying in front of her, “Isn’t it a little early for that?” She takes a quick glance to see Sage staring up at the ceiling. Calen raises an eyebrow before going back to flip the hotdogs.
“Ate Calen,” Sage says in a matter-of-fact tone, turning on her side to look at her roommate a little more seriously, “We’re already in our twenties, don’t you think we’re bound to see our first colours soon?” She gives her an incredulous look, like she can’t believe Calen doesn’t care about these things.
“If it happens, it happens,” Calen shrugs it off.
“Ate,” Sage starts again and Calen almost rolls her eyes at the girl, “We don’t see colour until we meet the one ,” Sage emphasizes her last words and Calen ignores the way her chest tightens, “Our soulmate!!” Sage is up on her feet, “And when we let ourselves love? When we finally get to be with the one? We get to see all the colours in the world,” Sage swoons just at the thought as she walks over and starts scooping some rice onto plates for the both of them.
Calen stays silent for a beat.
She checks on the hotdogs, figures that they’re done, and then plops them onto the plates Sage grabbed for them.
She takes a glance out their condo window and watches as the sky begins to turn into a brighter shade of blue, the early afternoon about to pass.
“The first colour we see is supposed to be the colour of their soul, right?” she mindlessly asks as she takes one of the plates from Sage and walks to sit down in front of their TV, “The soul of the one—the person meant for us?”
There’s a bright smile on Sage’s face as she sits next to Calen. A small giggle escapes her before she speaks, “Yup,” she takes a huge bite of her food, “Isn’t it sweet?”
Calen watches the younger girl fondly, doing her best to ignore the hues of blue in the background.
“Orange,” Calen says casually, “I think your first colour will be orange,”
—
The sound of the ocean waves typically calm Calen down.
“Maybe I’ll just rest for a bit,” she mumbles as she walks down to the shore and sits down on the sand. She curls herself in, bringing her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.
She closes her eyes, tries to breathe in the fresh air, and does her best to clear her mind.
But she fails.
“Hey there, sleepyhead!”
Calen opens her eyes and sees an expanse of blue. The waters in front of her are calm and don’t seem to end.
She blinks once and sees Azure walking towards her, fresh from a swim. She stops as she reaches Calen and says “Don’t you want to swim? The water feels great,” she reaches a hand out for Calen to take.
“If you make sure not to splash a bunch of water in my face,” Calen can’t help the smile that graces her lips as she takes Azure’s hand.
Azure smiles back at her and Calen wishes she would stop noticing how beautiful the taller girl looked.
The messy hair, the goofy smile, and those blue eyes—it wasn’t hard for her heart to know that she was the one.
“You’ve known me since we were kids, Calen,” Azure laughs as she begins to walk backwards, dragging Calen into the water, “You should know that I can’t make any promises to not dunk you in the water,” she says before tugging in Calen hard enough for both of them to fall into the water.
They both shout as they get submerged and Calen wants to be mad, but the laughter that escapes Azure is enough to get her laughing too.
“I don’t know why I fall for this every time,” Calen brushes her hair back with her hands, looks at Azure and laughs at the way the girl wipes water off her face.
“Correction,” Azure shakes her head and raises her chin up, acting high and mighty, “You give in and let me have it every single time,” she cracks a smile.
Calen ignores the way Azure’s eyes sparkle.
“And why would I do that?” She asks her, not wanting to give in.
“Because you love me,” Azure lets it slip so casually, with a smile so gentle and familiar, that Calen is sure the girl would never mean it in that way.
(Calen’s heart begins to beat in time with the waves nonetheless).
—
“What colour do you think your eyes are, Ate Calen?”
Calen stares up at the girl who is sitting across from her and then takes a deep sigh.
“Jesse,” she rubs at her temples, “Has Sage been influencing you with all her talk about soulmates?” She raises an eyebrow at the girl.
“Oh c’mon,” Jesse drags out, “She has a point! It’s a huge deal,” she makes a grand gesture with her hands, “The world in colour? Aren’t you tired of seeing only black and white and all the greys in between?” She twirls the pen in her hand.
“You should be studying for our exam, Jesse,” Calen looks down to her notes, “You know the professor is a hard marker,”
“You’re not curious about what colour your eyes are?” Jesse doesn’t let up.
“And why would I be concerned about the colour of my eyes?” She doesn’t bother looking away from her notes.
(God, why did Calen always choose to write with blue-ink pens?)
“If you know the colour of your soulmate’s eyes, then you know what colour you should be seeing around first,” Jesse tries her best to get back to studying, “The eyes are the window to the soul, Ate Calen,”
“You’re starting to sound way too cheesy for a study session,” Calen cuts Jesse off, desperately wanting to not hear about colours and soulmates and hues of blue she will never—
“Really though, Ate,” she can hear the way Jesse rolls her eyes, “Typically, the colour of your eyes are the colour of your soul,” the girl sighs, “Our soulmate’s eyes are almost always the first thing we see in colour—”
“And what colour did you see?” Calen finally looks up to look back at Jesse. She crosses her arms and gives the girl a deadpanned look, “I bet it’s pink,”
Jesse sputters out a noise Calen has never heard before and suddenly the girl is trying to stop herself from coughing and fumbling to grab her water bottle.
Calen watches as Jesse chugs down at least half of it.
“I don’t know what the colour pink looks like yet, but since I know you’re probably blushing right now, I know that your face is probably very pink,” Calen laughs as she watches Jesse recollect herself. “And we all know whose favourite colour is pink,” she snorts at her own humour.
“Yeah, well,” Jesse starts, trying to find a good comeback, “I’m sure when you finally figure out what colour Ate Azure’s eyes are, you’d be blushing too,”
“Ha!?” Calen’s eyes go wide and she tries so hard not to give anything away, “What are you talking about?”
“You’re kidding ,” Jesse leans back in her seat, her composure back, “You two are straight out of a novel,” she furrows her eyebrows in disbelief and squints at Calen. “Inseparable since childhood? Best friends for as long as they can remember? Always there for each other? Basically already a couple? All that’s missing is for them to wake up and realize?”
“We are not like that,” Calen starts, ready to defend herself, “Azure and I—”
“Don’t you love her, Ate Calen?” Jesse asks her, not missing a beat.
Calen pinches the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, takes a breath, and tries to stop thinking about the colour blue.
“Of course I love her, Jesse,” She opens her eyes and meets Jesse’s gaze, “But she’s my best friend, not my soulmate—” She waves her hand in front of herself firmly, “I don’t love her like that, I never could,”
“Why not?” She hates that Jesse pushes.
Hates that it’s hard to find an answer.
“Because I could never be her soul—”
The sound of Calen’s phone ringing interrupts their conversation. It lights up on the table, next to all of their notebooks, and it grabs their attention.
Both girls look as the screen shows a contact photo of Azure and the name “your azure <3” followed by an emoji of sea waves.
And before Calen can pick up the call, Jesse makes a comment.
“I bet you’re also the first person she calls whenever she needs something,” There’s a look on her face that says “ Really? You can’t be serious, ” and Calen can only match Jesse with a scowl.
When she picks up the call and answers with “Azure?”, voice melting into soft concern, Calen almost lets her heart shift.
—
“You interrupted my exam studying for this?” Calen crosses her arms as she takes in the state of Azure’s condo, “Azure, I had to ditch my study session with Jesse,”
“Don’t worry, I texted Jesse about stealing you days ago,” Azure waves it off, hand grabbing Calen’s as she drags the girl into her condo. “Plus, you two have been studying non-stop this whole week!! You can afford one night off,” she leads the girl over to a huge pile of pillows and blankets. The set up is arranged in front of Azure’s TV and Calen raises her eyebrows at the sight.
“Movie marathon?” Calen can’t help but crack a smile, “You never miss it, hm?” She looks at Azure who is clad in a pyjama set. It makes Calen let out a soft laugh. “Are you going to make me wear the matching pyjama set again?”
“Of course!!” Azure’s voice is bright as she plops down onto all the pillows, “Now go get dressed, you know where your clothes are, c’mon!!” Azure shoos her away, “You’ve had your own drawer of clothes long enough that you don’t need to take your time,”
Calen shakes her head, a fond smile on her face, as she begins to walk away to go get changed. She shouts before she disappears to find the pyjama set, “As long as we get to re-watch the Barbie movie!!”
“It’s like you read my mind,” Azure laughs back at her, “Are you my soulmate or something?”
It’s enough for Calen to walk straight into the door to Azure’s room, knock her forehead too hard, and fall straight to the ground.
“Calen!?”
And before she knows it, Azure is on her knees next to her, looking down at her with a worried look on her face, “Are you okay? Calen, what happened—”
Calen blinks a few times to try and get a hold of her senses better and when she manages to, she sees an expression on Azure’s face that she can’t recognize. Her eyebrows were furrowed, almost in a confusion, and the blue eyes Calen was so used to seeing had a shine over them she’s never seen before.
“Azure?” She props herself up on her elbows and tries to figure out why the girl has gone so silent.
“Your eyes…” is all Azure mumbles out.
Calen’s heart stops.
She forgets to breathe.
Azure reaches out her hand and—
“Since when did you get such bad eye bags, Calen?” Azure holds the girl’s face in her hands and leans in, the worried expression back on her face, “You look so tired,” she pouts and it takes everything in Calen to remember how to breathe.
“Oh,” Calen lets out a nervous chuckle as she feels her whole world spin a thousand times over, “It must be from all the late night studying,” she refuses to meet Azure’s eyes as she gets up.
She figures if she catches any glimpse of the colour blue, she’ll just set herself up for heartbreak.
“But it’s fine, I’ve got a night to rest with you,” Calen barely manages out, dusting herself off as Azure got back up with her. “Now let me go get changed so we can go watch that movie,” she begins to shoo Azure off as she opens the door to go get changed.
“Don’t hit your head on your way back,” Azure smiles at her before Calen fully closes the door.
Calen can only roll her eyes in response.
When she closes the door and knows that Azure has gone back to setting up the movie, she lets out a long sigh.
“As if I’d care about the colour of my eyes,”
—
“I bet that your future soulmate is going to love your eyes, Calen,” Azure says mindlessly, both girls watching a scene from the Barbie movie play out.
Calen does her best to keep composure and sound as nonchalant as she can when she replies, “And what makes you say that?” Her fingers are repeatedly running through Azure’s hair.
Every movie night ended up like this.
Azure would end up lying down, resting her head on Calen’s lap and Calen would either hold the taller girl in a little closer or run her hands through her hair.
“Your eyes are beautiful, Calen,” Azure takes her eyes off the movie and looks up at the girl, “Imagine how much more beautiful they’d be when they get to see it in colour,” The words fall out of Azure’s lips so naturally.
Calen looks down to meet Azure’s eyes and regrets it almost instantly.
Her heart catches in her throat and butterflies fill her stomach.
“What colour do you think my eyes are?” Calen doesn’t know why she asks it and she doesn’t even realize that she says it in the first place.
But it’s enough to leave the both of them speechless.
A silence lingers between them and it’s different from the comfortability they usually share.
Calen wonders if she can find an answer in Azure’s blue eyes but she doesn’t try too hard. She knows better than to set herself up for disappointment. It wasn’t worth—
“Green,”
And there’s that same expression on Azure’s face that Calen can’t quite decipher. The furrowed eyebrows, the odd confusion, the shine glossing over her eyes.
“Your eyes are green,”
Calen’s mouth goes agape and her mind freezes.
“I mean,” Azure clears her throat, “I think they’re green,” and the atmosphere shatters.
Calen lets out a strained chuckle, hoping it doesn’t sound too awkward, “Why green?” She tries to re-orient herself, tries to stop her heart from beating out of her chest
Azure looks back to the movie and Calen watches the way the girl’s shoulders rise a little higher from the breaths she takes, “Apparently, it’s a peaceful colour, calming—” Azure snuggles in a little, holding Calen back a little tighter, “And that’s how you make me feel so why wouldn’t your eyes be green?”
There’s a squeeze in Calen’s chest and she hates that it’s what falling feels like.
“And what if my soulmate doesn’t like my eyes?” she tries to brush off the warmth Azure makes her feel, tries to ignore the sweet words Azure tells her.
Azure shoots a quick glare at the girl holding her, “Firstly, they’re going to love your eyes,” she doesn’t give Calen a chance to put herself down, “And secondly…” she trails off as she stares back at the movie once more—
“If your soulmate doesn’t love your eyes, then I will,”
Calen can’t bring herself to respond.
She waits to listen to Azure’s next words instead.
“ I already do ,”
Calen goes to sleep that night and dreams of the ocean.
—
“When are you going to tell Ate Azure that you know her eyes are blue?”
“Millie!” Calen shushes the girl walking next to her as soon as she registers what she had just been asked. “How do you know that!?” she stopped in her tracks, panic clear all over.
Calen agreed to help Millie go shopping and it was supposed to be a fun outing. It was a chance to catch up with one of her best friends that was too busy to hang out more than once a month.
But with the look on Millie’s face that screamed “ You can’t be serious right now ,” Calen wonders if she should’ve agreed to meet up at all.
“Whenever we pass things that are blue, all you do is stare at them,” Millie keeps walking through the mall, not slowing down her pace for Calen who now has to jog just to catch up with her.
“First of all,” Calen manages out once she catches up, regulating her pace to walking speed that matched the shorter girl’s, “I don’t even know what blue looks like,” she lies right through her teeth to try and recover.
“Calen,” Millie almost rolls her eyes, “You space out staring at the sky, you space out staring at the ocean, you space out whenever you look at your notes because I know you use blue ink pens,” she lists out without missing a beat. She comfortably strides into an accessory store and starts checking out their necklaces.
“Okay, well,” Calen is taken aback, not realizing she did any of those things, “I didn’t know I did those things,” she looks off somewhere, attempting to think over her habits, “Do I really do that?”
Millie doesn’t respond and instead holds up a necklace, “What do you think of this one?”
Calen looks at the necklace, chain thin and the charm a twinkling sapphire.
“It’s pretty…” she mumbles out, her eyes still on the small gem, but her mind wandering to something else.
“It’s blue, isn’t it? The charm?” Millie gives her a raise of the eyebrows and Calen can only look away, face heating up. “Looks like I caught you red-handed,” She lets out a hearty laugh and puts the necklace away on a shelf that had a sign that read “blue gems,” taped on to it.
“I cannot believe I fell for that,” Calen scoffs at herself.
“Calen,” Millie says as she sifts through some more necklaces, “I have known you and Azure since we were kids,” Calen can only follow her silently.
“It’s okay if you see blue, you know?” Millie shrugs her shoulders and then turns to give Calen a sympathetic smile, “You’ve been spacing out at blue things since we were kids in high school,” Calen winces at the statement.
“Has it really been that long?” Calen gives in, lets herself finally admit it to someone.
“Yes,” Millie laughs lightly, “And there’s nothing wrong with it, Ate Azure wouldn’t—”
“Wait,” Calen stops her, “How do you even know it’s Azure?”
“You space out the most after she looks at you,” Millie shrugs, “It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were getting lost in those eyes,” she teases her.
It makes Calen’s nose scrunch, “Okay ew, that was corny,” she shoves her hands into her pockets.
“You’re the one that’s been in love with her soulmate for years and haven’t said anything about it,” Millie laughs loudly, “You should do us all a favour and confess soon—”
“I can’t,” Calen is quick to shut the idea down, “I can’t entertain that idea,” she doesn’t need to look at Millie to know that the girl has her arms crossed and that done look in her eyes.
“And why not?”
Calen musters up the courage to look Millie in the eyes and say what she’s always felt.
“I could never be Azure’s soulmate,”
And before Millie can reply, Calen is already ready with her follow up, “I might be obvious, but has Azure ever given you any sign that she’s seen her first colour?” Calen is firm with her words, breaking her own heart in the process, “Any sign that she’s found her soulmate?”
“Well, I—” Millie cuts herself off, looking away to try and find an answer.
“Exactly,” Calen tells her, ignoring the shelf of necklaces and blue charms that stubbornly remains at the side of her peripheral vision.
“If she found her soulmate and saw her first colour, she would’ve told us,” Calen huffs and turns to try and look at other accessories that weren’t so bright and shiny.
“You don’t know that, Calen, you haven’t told anyone either—”
“I learned Azure’s eyes were blue when we were fifteen, Millie,” Calen’s voice comes out more desperate than she’d like, “We’re almost twenty-five now,” she lets out a sigh and gives Millie a look that even she can’t deny is sad, “All those years knowing she’s my soulmate and not a single sign that I might be hers,”
Millie stays silent and Calen convinces herself that she was right all along.
She hears Millie sigh as she continues to browse the store’s shelves.
She ignores the way her hearts thrums when Millie tells her “You two are more hopeless than I thought,”
Instead, Calen goes home that day and figures it’s time to get her head out of the clouds.
—
“So?” Azure's smile is as bright as usual as Calen opens the door to her condo, “Ready for take-out day?” she holds up two bags filled with take-out, “I’ve got lunch covered,”
“Of course you do,” Calen rolls her eyes, but a warm smile appears on her lips nonetheless, “Let’s set up the table, c’mon,” she lets Azure inside and closes the door for her.
“If you got lunch, does that mean I have to cover dinner?” Calen asks jokingly, already knowing the answer.
“How else am I going to eat tonight?” Azure teases and it gets a laugh out of both of them, “Can we get—”
“Ramen?” Calen raises an eyebrow at Azure as she walks over with spoons and forks in hand. She passes a pair to Azure who’s already sitting at the table, ready to start eating.
“How do you know me so well, Calen?” Azure acts surprised, hand on her chest and a surprised look on her face.
Calen rolls her eyes and mindlessly replies, “Because I love you, silly,” and it makes her almost trip on her own two feet.
She feels like hiding in a ditch when she sees the way Azure looks at her.
That stupid, unreadable expression on her face where her eyes shine with something she can’t quite put her finger on.
But the look disappears as quickly as Calen noticed it.
Instead, a cheeky smile appears on Azure’s lips.
“Treating me to ramen? Consistent with our movie nights? Always says yes when I ask her to go to the beach? Lets me dunk her in the water? Comes over whenever I call?” Azure begins to list out, “Your soulmate is really lucky, Calen,”
The words make Calen want to hurl.
She thinks that falling in love sucks .
“What’s with everyone and all the soulmate talk lately?” Calen sits down next to Azure and starts putting some food on her plate, “We don’t need soulmates,” she starts, “There are plenty of people who live their lives happily without a soulmate,”
Azure just laughs as she bumps shoulders with Calen, “Sounds like someone’s grumpy about it,” she takes a bite of food from Calen’s plate. When Calen goes to give Azure a glare, she can’t hold it for long when she sees the cute smile on the girl’s face.
The girl lets out a giggle, nose scrunching and eyes turning into crescents.
It’s enough for Calen to let herself fall for a split second.
“The girls are probably just talking about soulmates so much because we’re around the age people usually see their first colours,” Azure goes back to her own plate, “ I talk about soulmates with you because I think you’d be a great soulmate,” she takes a quick glance at Calen, a warm smile on her face, “No one cares like you do, Calen—Calen!?”
Azure’s eyes go wide as Calen starts coughing.
She rubs Calen’s back, worried expression on her face, “Please don’t tell me you choked while drinking your water,” She says, an incredulous tone lacing her voice.
When Calen manages to breathe normally again and clears her throat, she replies, “Maybe,”
She refuses to admit Azure's admission caught her off guard.
It gets a chuckle out of Azure, “Did hearing that you’d be a good soulmate shock you that much?” She jokes, “I can tell you more often so you can get used to hearing it,” Azure raises her eyebrows up and down, loving the way Calen always reacted to her antics.
“Please don’t,” Calen denies without missing a beat, “I’m good,” she waves it off as fast as she can, “Even if I don’t end being anyone’s soulmate, I’m so good,”
The last words that slip out from her lips leave Azure with that unreadable expression on her face.
“What?” Calen gives her best friend a weird look and leans back, “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?” her voice clearly skeptical.
Azure furrows her eyebrows slightly, tilts her head as she keeps eye contact with Calen.
“Calen,” Azure’s voice is soft and gentle and caring and it makes Calen want to run away.
But it makes her want to ask “Do you see it? The colour of my eyes?” even more.
Calen decides against both options.
“There’s no way you wouldn’t have a soulmate,”
The words make Calen’s heart shatter.
“ I do have a soulmate ,” she never tells her.
“There’s no way that there isn’t someone out there who loves you,”
“And what if there isn’t?” Calen tries to push it away.
She tries to push the feeling in her heart to a place she can just abandon.
“ Then I will love you ,”
—
“Convinces me to buy her ramen and now she’s convinced me to go out to 7/11 for dessert,” Calen pretends to be hurt as she carries a bag full of snacks from the convenience store, Azure walking right next to her.
“You’re the one that was craving sweets,” Azure says back as she rummages through the bag and grabs two popsicles. “C’mon,” she holds Calen’s hand, intertwining their fingers, and leads the girl to a nearby bench.
Calen wishes she would stop falling.
“Here’s yours,” she hands Calen a popsicle and then goes to open her own.
Azure takes a bite before speaking again.
“I meant it, you know,” she’s staring off at some trees in the distance, “If you weren’t someone’s soulmate,” she continues.
Calen hopes Azure drops the topic quickly, but she knows she won’t.
“I would love you, Calen, just like I do now ,”
Azure looks back at her and Calen wishes that she didn’t see a whole ocean in those eyes.
But she does and when she sees the way the blue in Azure’s eyes can light up her whole world, Calen knows she can’t let this go any further.
“Azure,” she steels herself for the words she’s about to say, “I saw my first colour,”
She lies right through her teeth .
—
“You told Ate Azure that you saw your first colour!?”
Calen brings her phone away from her face.
She sighs and prepares herself for the consequences of her own actions.
“Yes, Mylah,” she deadpans, bringing the phone back to her ear, “I told her I saw maroon or something,” she says casually, trying to convince herself that this was fine and that this was all for the best.
“Do you even know what maroon looks like, Ate Calen?” Mylah isn’t having it and Calen can already imagine the stress on the other girl’s face.
“No, why does it matter?” Calen stares at the ceiling of her room, secretly praying that this conversation wouldn’t drag on for too long.
She wasn’t exactly ready to face all of this.
“Because that means you lied, Ate Calen,” Mylah’s voice is serious and heavy and Calen hates the way it makes her stomach twist, “C’mon Ate, there’s no way you can tell me that the first colour you saw wasn’t Ate Azure’s,”
“That’s a huge assumption, Mylah,” Calen is quick to respond, quick to try and shut this all down, “You don’t know—”
“Who else would it be, Ate Calen?” Mylah replies with just as much speed, “ Who is your soulmate if not her? ”
Calen just sighs, not having the energy to respond with real words.
“What happens if you stop seeing blue, Ate Calen?”
“Oh c’mon, Mylah, I told you that I don’t see blue—”
“If you push your soulmate far enough—if you manage to lose your soulmate—you’ll stop seeing their colour and you know that,” Mylah’s tone is stronger now, “Push them far enough and they really will leave, Ate Calen,”
Calen hates the way she starts to feel tears burn at the rims of her eyes.
“Ate Azure loves you,”
“Not like that , Mylah,” She pushes it all away, denies it all.
She couldn’t take any risks.
“And how do you know it isn’t like that?” Mylah doesn’t let up.
“Don’t you think I would know if she did? I’m her best friend, no one knows her—”
“And what if she’s hiding it?” Mylah cuts her off, leaves her with no way to answer back, “ What if she’s hiding it just like you? ”
“How do you even know that I told Azure that I saw maroon?” Calen brushes off Mylah’s words, refuses to hear them and shoves them away into a deep part of her heart she tells herself she never has to look at.
“Because Ate Azure is at my place and she’s looking to buy last minute plane tickets for a vacation,” Mylah explains, “I tried to ask her what was wrong but instead she just started talking about the colour maroon and how she did a bunch of reading on it,” she can hear Mylah roll her eyes through the phone, “To summarize her whole rant, she thinks it’s a boring colour that sounds like it could suck the life force out of someone,”
“And?” Calen wasn’t really seeing what was wrong, “She books flights to travel all the time, that isn’t anything new,” she shrugs her shoulders, “And her hatred for maroon could just be a coincidence,”
“I cannot believe you two,” Mylah mumbles out and Calen knows that the girl mumbles it more to herself, but Calen hears it nonetheless. “First of all, why else would she go on a rant about a colour she doesn’t even see?” Mylah groans in frustration, “Second of all, this isn’t one of her regular trips, Ate Calen—”
“Then what is it, Mylah?” Calen wants for all of this to fade away so badly.
She hates falling in love.
“She’s looking to go off and travel for a whole year,”
“A whole what!? ”
—
Azure doesn’t answer any of Calen’s messages or calls for the next three days and it drives the latter wild. Her mind was on hyperdrive, rushing from one absurd scenario to the next.
Was she ignoring her?
Did she hate her?
Did she want nothing to do with her anymore?
Did she find another best friend?
A soulmate?
Was Azure already off on some airplane, flying away for a whole year?
When Calen wakes up after four days of silence, the sky looks grey and she feels her heart drop.
She blinks a few times, rubs at her eyes, and then blinks a few times more.
Shades of light blue flicker in and out of her sight, interchanging with a grey she hadn’t seen in years.
The feeling of losing her soulmate began echoing in her chest, seeping into her heart and reminding her that she did, in fact, had something to lose.
“ Azure ,” she mumbles to herself as she realizes what was happening, “That girl doesn’t have to be my soulmate,” she keeps talking to herself as she practically jumps out of bed and throws on whatever clean clothes she can find.
“I just can’t lose her,” she rushes to the front of her apartment and puts on her shoes as fast as she can.
“I need to make sure that she’s okay,” is her last thought as she runs out of her apartment and makes her way over to Azure’s place.
—
Azure’s apartment was a fifteen minute drive away and usually, Calen was grateful for it.
But with construction down the whole street, traffic and a car stopped on the side of the road, Calen was forced to run for at least half an hour.
Not that she minded it, not when with every passing second, any blue road sign started to fade to grey.
Calen runs faster when she decides to take a quick look to the sky and sees a dull excuse for what was usually a bright, afternoon sky.
She loses count of the amount of people she has to run around, the amount of times she has to say “Excuse me!”, the amount of detours she has to take—
All she can think about when she finally reaches Azure’s apartment building is the colour of Azure’s eyes and if she’ll ever see it again.
As she enters the elevator and impatiently presses the button for Azure’s floor, her heart begins to break at the thought of seeing grey instead of the oceans she’s gotten so used to.
When the elevator doors open, Calen ignores the way her legs feel like they’re on fire and she rushes out the elevator.
She speeds down the hallway, not caring about how much of a mess she must’ve looked.
Filled with panic, she knocks on Azure’s door the moment she makes it.
She waits a second and knocks again, not taking any chances.
She’s about to knock another time, but Azure opens the door, looking just as distressed as her.
“Calen? what are you doing here?” Azure’s voice sounds worried but all Calen can do is look at the girl’s eyes.
She blinks and lets out a sigh of relief when she sees that they’re still as bright as ever.
“Calen? Is everything alright? You look—”
“Blue,” Calen blurts out, not really able to control her heart anymore.
“What are you talking about? If this is about the missed calls—”
“It was blue,” Calen mumbles more to herself than to Azure.
She looks back up to meet those blue eyes she missed so much and makes a decision.
“Blue was always my favourite colour,” is all Calen says, the way she catches her breath burning her throat.
“Calen, what are you saying? How do you know what blue—”
She takes a breath, preparing for the words she knows she has to say, the beat of her heart filling her ears—
“ Your eyes are blue, Azure ,”
And Calen doesn’t waste another second.
She puts one hand on Azure’s shoulder and the other goes to gently hold the girl’s face.
“It’s you,” she pulls the girl in and kisses her, “It’s been you for years,” and it feels like breathing.
It feels like falling.
And Azure falls with her.
There’s a dopey smile on Calen’s lips when she feels Azure’s hands cup her face and pull her in some more.
When Calen pulls back to check up on the taller girl, she’s met with a breathless Azure, smile just as bright as it should be.
“I thought I was never going to see green again,”
“You—” Calen’s whole world shakes, “My eyes are green!?”
“Yes,” Azure lets out a laugh so loud that Calen wants to kiss her again, “And they’re beautiful, Calen,” her thumbs run across the shorter girl’s face, “ You’re beautiful, Calen,”
And suddenly, Calen can feel her heart rise into her throat.
She blinks once and her eyes widen quickly after.
There’s colour.
And it’s more than Azure’s eyes.
It’s the pink on her cheeks, the jet black of her hair, the tanness of her skin, the dark blue sweatpants the girl is wearing, the yellow socks she wears with purple slippers—
“I never thought you’d be the type to wear bright socks,” Azure interrupts her train of thought. The taller girl was looking down, genuinely impressed at the colour of whatever socks Calen had decided to throw on before starting her day.
“Hm,” Calen looks down with her and hums in agreement, “I never thought I would be the type to either,” she shrugs, “Is this what neon colours are supposed to look like?” she looks back up at Azure who’s already looking back at her.
Calen can’t help but smile at the pink blush on the girl’s cheeks.
She feels Azure intertwine their fingers, light laughter leaving her lips.
“So Calen,” She starts, the smile on her face starting to hurt her cheeks, “My eyes are blue?”
“Yeah, they are,” she brushes her thumb over Azure’s knuckles, “And even after seeing all these colours, they’re still the prettiest,”
It earns more laughter from Azure and a soft kiss on the top of her forehead.
“And how long have you known that my eyes are blue, Calen?” She gives her a knowing look.
It makes her heart soar.
And as much Calen wants to tell Azure that she’s always known that she was the one, she can only smile at the sight of her soulmate, bright in all her colours—
“Around forever ago,” she brings herself to admit anyway, a smile on her face that she never knew she had in her, “And how long have you been seeing green?”
“ Around forever ago ,”