Work Text:
𓆝 Blue like July 𓆞 𓆟
The docks are buzzing with voices and crashing waves, the sea birds' cries at the sky almost drowned in the lively chatter of the greek island. On the other side of the street, Nicholas is sitting on a beat up bench, carved in a rusty rock, a book sprawled on her lap and the stick of a finished lollipop stuck in between her teeth. The sun is hot, as hot as it can get in Greece once July takes over. The sky is blue, lighter than the sea a few miles away, overwhelming with its immensity and absence of clouds.
There's a woman next to an automata stall — the table is filled with a range of different kind of animal toys, some supposed to sing, other to dance, all painted with great care in vivid colours — her white laced umbrella shielding her face from the scorching hot sun. Nicholas wants to see her eyes, the pages of her forgotten book turning with the ghostly fingers of the wind, and the bitten stick now laying next to her on the rock. It's a game of hide and seek between the lace fabric and Nicholas' eyes. The sea birds and the breeze are curious too, wings brushing sometimes too close from the umbrella, and sudden gust threatening to make the object fly away.
The stranger feels awfully familiar yet completely unknown. It's like Nicholas has known her all her life but also hasn't met her yet. They are meant to meet, Nicholas feels it deep in her bones. There’s a shiver slowly going up her spine, telling her it’s not time for their first encounter, but soon. The stranger is tall and slender, and moves around with so much grace and confidence it sometimes looks like she's floating above everyone else. It's hard to not notice her, and even harder to stop gazing. Everyone looks way too mortal, way too real, like she exist in some parallel universe and the minute she’s done with her obligation in this realm, she will disappear without a trace to go back to her own reality.
The other woman extends her hand towards a small monkey placed neatly on the stall, and Nicholas can almost see flowers falling from her sleeves, following the movement of her limb. The toy is dressed with a pink organza waistcoat, sheer enough to show the shirt covered in navy blue polka dots underneath. Its arms are bare, covered in a light brown fur, and holding one plastic seashell, probably stuck with glue, in each of its paws. On his face, a smile and two big round black eyes are sewn directly against the fur fabric. The monkey seems happy, even though it’s just a toy unable to feel anything. The seller turns a key behind the back of the toy and a broken melody cries out of the monkey’s belly. The mechanism sounds rusty and the song is old, forgotten and sad. Nicholas thinks it sounds just like her, blue. The singing monkey is hers, the stranger’s hand holding it gently should be hers.
Nicholas gets up from her bench, the book on her lap falling on the floor with a muffled sound, fully abandoned this time. Before she can reach for the stall, the stranger has already exchanged the singing monkey for a bunch of grey banknotes. Something inside Nicholas pricks at her heart, like someone just stole something she owns, even though she had no interest in the monkey before seeing the thin hands wrapped around its body. The other woman is already walking away, her prize delicately packed away in the beige bag hanging from her shoulder, leaving behind her more blue for Nicholas to melt into.
“I want the singing monkey, just like hers please.” Nicholas points towards the stranger disappearing in the streets of Corfu, hair harassed by the coastal wind, looking straight at the stall vendor. Her greek is terrible, so she doesn’t even try asking in anything other than english.
“Well I’m very sorry miss,” He replies in english too with a thick greek accent, unbothered by the woman in front of him not knowing his language, “I’m afraid the lady took the only one I had.” The seller gives Nicholas a sorry smile before grabbing a toy dog and turning the key in its back to make it walk on the large table. “But, I still have this charming dog. Better than the old broken monkey, miss.”
She waves her head no, already looking away from the stall, disinterested. She tries to find the stranger again, vaguely considering running after her to get back what she sees as hers, but instead her eyes falls on her book still on the floor. She runs back to it, like she suddenly remembered its value to her, like the book is as precious as the singing monkey in the end. The stranger ripped her heart by stealing the automaton, and the pages of her book are now torn and stained by the brown soil.
Nicholas mourns the singing monkey. It's weird because it's just a singing monkey, but she mourns it all the same. She's not very materialistic, and she got used to not get too attached to objects. Nicholas spent her life traveling from places to places, seeking a home she never had and never got. Giving emotional values to physical entities always felt stupid and she knew it would never get her anywhere. So, mourning a singing monkey, a kid toy she never coveted ever before, sounds as dumb as walking barefoot on sea urchins. But, picking the urchins' spine out of the flesh of her feet hurts just as much as the deception of the singing monkey finding a home in the stranger who took it away, and she winces in pain, holding her book close to her aching heart.
Walking away from the stall and the bench after retrieving her book, bitterness rotting her stomach, Nicholas looses herself in the chatter of the busy streets. Kids are running around, kicking and throwing a ball with their small but sturdy legs. Birds are chirping and the faint crash of the waves mixes with the melodic voices speaking in a language Nicholas still doesn't understand. The sky is blue, like it always is in Corfu, and the sun shines bright, burning soil and skin all the same. The toy stall is tucked between spices and olives sellers, yelling from time to time the price of their products, and chanting their praises. Nicholas is tempted to bite in the juicy green flesh, but her stomach feels upset from her disenchantment.
There's few cats sleeping next to an old woman selling what looks like honey pot, with a bunch of different flowers drawn on them to indicate their flavours. A few bees are flying around her stall, like they're biding their last farewells to the hard work they produced. It's funny how bees get attracted to any kind of sugar, even the one they made themselves. Nicholas wonders if bees can recognise the honey that was stolen from their hive as theirs, just like she recognised the singing monkey as hers.
Behind the old woman, the sea stretches far into the horizon. It's all blue, just like her hair, just like the inside of her brain. It's July and Nicholas feels blue, like the chemical dye on her curls bled through the skin of her head, reaching the nervous system, turning everything blue and melancholic. Nicholas wants to dive into the navy of the sea, to soak in the water for hours and let her skin melt and merge with the salted water. The ocean would wash the colour of her skin and turn her into a natural blue, completely and inevitably.
Nicholas walks past the honey selling lady, after putting a few coins on the table in exchange for a pot of jasmine flavoured honey, shoving the jar in her messenger blue bag. She steps on the rampart circling the outside market, and jumps behind it, her feet steadying right next to a tree. There's a weight suddenly pressing slightly against the top of her head, and when Nicholas carefully touches it with her fingers, she feels the velvet of a flower from the tree.
It's jasmine, she guesses because of the scent lingering around her. One look at the petal in her hand confirms it, and Nicholas finds herself smiling unconsciously at the tree. Jasmine honey, jasmine flower, jasmine tree. If only her brain could be sweetly jasmine scented and not salted blue.
A white shape catches her attention from the corner of her eyes. It's not the same white as the flowers scattered on the floor, but the fallen petals and branches piled up in it makes it almost unnoticeable. Nicholas only needs a few seconds to recognise the immaculate lace umbrella the other woman was holding earlier, shading her face. It's almost a sign. The stranger stole her singing monkey —something she claimed hers without even knowing it existed before seeing the other holding it gently in her arms— and the umbrella covered in jasmine flowers, like it was forgotten on the side of the street, is practically waiting for Nicholas to steal it away. She can almost hear the bees' wings buzzing through the jasmine flower chanting from her bag, like memories buried in the small jar, telling her the flowers from the honey are the same as the tree and the umbrella belongs to her now, since she owns the jasmine from the pot.
There's a voice inside Nicholas' brain, foreign but also intimate, telling her that fate will bring the stranger back to her, and that maybe they can exchange their own possessions. Nicholas grabs the umbrella, pulling it up above her head, petals tangling in her blue hair, and heads for her rental cottage by the sea.
The voice tells her to keep the umbrella safe, and Nicholas understand it’s her voice.
𓆝
Nicholas sees the stranger everywhere. It’s been a few days since the other woman stole her singing monkeys, and it feels like she’s hiding in every corner of every street. A tall woman with a blue felt hat and high red boots buying a pastry from the bakery on the other side of the street could be her, the blonde-haired kid running after her small barking dog could be her, the old man passing in front of her with a pile of books in his hands, sweating under the sun, could also be her. Hell, even Fuma on the other side of her phone, calling her from Paris and the Ballet Opera School, could be her. She’s everything and everywhere. When there’s colours, she’s concealed behind it, if there’s sweet smell and chill breeze, Nicholas knows it’s her blowing her scent towards her. She invented her voice, made up her smile and tears, fantasised about her laugh and gave her the last traces of pink and orange Nicholas still had in her, the last bits which hadn’t been swallowed by the blue yet.
“Nico, I’m talking to you. Are you even listening ?” Fuma asks, pulling Nicholas out of her navy stained mind. She hums softly, showing she’s listening, and Fuma sighs before starting again. “When are you coming back to Paris ? We’re all worried for you, you know. And Taki says she misses you everyday. It’s okay to mess up on stage sometimes, everything is not lost … There’s already people asking for a new show with you in it.” Nicholas stays silent, but Fuma knows she’s here listening intently, she’s choosing to stay mute. “Please, Nicholas. It’s already been two weeks, come back. You cannot run away forever.”
Nicholas scoffs, breaking her stubborn silence of before. “I don’t think I want to continue dancing there, Fuma. It’s nice of you to care, and of everyone else too, truly. I miss Taki too, and you of course. I’m grateful even if I don’t show it. But …” There’s a pause, Fuma can feel Nicholas looking for her words, and Nicholas knows the older woman on the other side of the line is fidgeting nervously, scared of what she’s going to say, dreading the bullet Nicholas’ launching. “This is not the type of dance I want to do anymore. I think you can feel it just like I do, it makes me blue. Way too blue. I’m not free anymore, I’m a bird in a cage forced to repeat the same painful noise everyday to please my owner, and I can no longer do that. I want to be free, I don’t want to be blue anymore.”
Fuma doesn’t answer at first, Nicholas knows the other understood what she said. Quietly, in her own way of showing it, Fuma is compassionate about her. “What about the blue in your hair, then ?”
It’s the last thing Fuma tells her, before they both hang up, giggles making their throat vibrate.
𓆝
Corfu is stranded in the Ionian sea, while, on the other side of the country, Paros is stuck in the Aegean sea. Everything is golden and pink in Corfu, while everything is white and blue in Paros. Corfu feels alive, full of hopes, and Paros feels flat, static, stuck in time, crushed dreams piling up under the waves. Nicholas chose Corfu hoping she could find back her pink there, she ran away as far as possible from Paros, who felt too familiar, too her, and chose the opposite side of the greek peninsula. But she doesn’t belong in Corfu in the end, the blue is calling to her inevitably, and she spends more time gazing at the navy immensity spotted with the white of the sea foam than the pink of the houses or the beige of shells on the shore.
Mainland Greece would have probably be the most intelligent choice. Strolling through the streets of Athens feels less trapping than being on an island, surrounded by nothing but blue and her own thoughts. But there’s an undeniable line connecting the soil of Athens to the soil of Paris, something carved in the depth of the Earth, a path connected by the navigator’s maps since the beginning of time. A continent standing strong even after the Earth started shattering. Fleeing to an island cuts the path, cuts the common ground between the two country, it adds water to the distance, something blue and uncrossable. Being on an island gets her the farthest she can from the reality she left behind in Paris.
Going back to Taipei, her hometown, felt utterly wrong too. Nicholas isn’t brave enough to face the family disappointment caused by her failures. Her mother had still called — and Nicholas had heard her sister holding their mother up, trying her best to be the last steady anchor their mom could hold onto — begging Nicholas to come home, to try something else in Taiwan, closer to her family and their dreams for her. She promised they would help her get back up from the dreaded show which had hit harder than an elbow in the jaw, but Nicholas never even let herself nourish the hope of coming back. Pressure was already bad enough in Paris, but the contrast between the auspicious red of Taipei and the growing blue of her head would be too much to handle. The tip of her fingers were already navy at the time, and dipping them in crimson paint would have just turned them purple for a while, not forever.
Fuma had called too, and kept calling from time to time. However, Fuma doesn’t ask her to come back anymore, she just calls to check up on Nicholas, sometimes sided by Taki screaming through the phone to make sure Nicholas can hear how much she misses her, and how they all hope she’s enjoying Greece. Nicholas met them both in the Ballet Opera School in Paris seven years ago, Taki was only fourteen, young and homesick, and Fuma took her under her protective wing. Taki stuck to Nicholas like gum under a shoe the minute she understood they shared a longing for their respective hometown, and Nicholas had let the two girls get closer, sharing a bit of her pink with them. They know each other enough by now to understand Nicholas’ silence, and her need for distance, her aching desire to get away, to do something else.
Paris had stained her pink with blue. A few dots at first, who grew and completely erased the warm colour. Dancing was the most cherished thing in Nicholas’ heart, but the never ending shows, the starving to fit into the costumes, the pull on her hair to stay in a tight, unwavering up-do, the hammering migraines caused by the way too bright lights and the lack of food, the shabby flat she shared with Fuma and Taki under the roof of a haussmannian building, the absence of any creativity in everything she was performing, had made it unbearable. She felt restricted, forbidden from loving her art, and going down in a loop of blue getting deeper and deeper, darker and darker, like the water of a washing machine with an ink pot forgotten in it.
It came to a point where the blue claimed home in her lungs, and she couldn’t breathe anymore, like the sea water had filled her respiratory organs, getting her closer to death. She stopped breathing for good in the last show, the air stuck somewhere in her body between her lungs and her throat, heart beating like crazy almost against her brain, blood taking its echo directly to her ears. She tried to jump — to complete the jeté expected of her — and fell, curling into a ball, trying to go back to her primary state of nothingness, eager to disappear into dust. She remembers the noises coming out of her mouth, foreign, almost monster-like; gagging sounds and gasp for air. It felt like death curling her fingers around her throat. She can still feel Fuma’s hand grabbing her and her voice screaming at her to breathe, and the way Taki had pressed down on her thorax repetitively, frenetically trying to reset her lungs.
The doctor had given her three days off to get better, and Nicholas gave up everything; her flat under the roof, her spot in the Ballet Opera School, her chances to get on the next show, to correct her mistake from the earlier one, and the rest of her life in Paris, to run away on an island in Greece, because it felt less stupid than three miserable days off to try and repaint herself something else than blue.
Repainting is hard. It’s like Nicholas is a house, not too old to be falling apart, but just enough to need an entire makeover. The walls and the roof and even the floors and the couches need to change colours, to be something different, to change, to be renewed. It takes time, and effort, and doing it alone makes everything harder. Nicholas isn’t used to asking for help, she wants to be the only line lifting the long painting brush to reach the high ceilings and colour them something bright enough to cover the cobalt leaving a sour taste in the air.
Her brain house is stained with ultramarine blue, pigment mixed with sodium, with the salt of the sea. It feels too lonely, and maybe it’s why she’s still grieving a stupid singing monkey, and why she’s still seeing the other woman, sitting at a cafe — a huge glass of pink lemonade next to a burning cigarette resting in a grey plate right in front her — staring away at the sea behind Nicholas, when Nicholas can only look at her.
She’s standing on the other side of the road, taking glimpses at the stranger through the passing cars and bikes, the white lace umbrella tightly gripped in her hand. The light shade it gives her is barely enough and she can feel her hair sticking to the side of her forehead with sweat, and her clothes uncomfortably damp. It’s when she brushes her hair back, trying to free her face from the unpleasant touch, that the other woman finally sees her. Nicholas can feel her heart beating faster, adrenaline rushing through her veins. She’s still holding the umbrella high above her head, and she’s scared the stranger is going to ask for it back without letting Nicolas bargain for the singing monkey.
The stranger stands up, almost knocking her glass and the plate where Nicholas noticed more cigarettes butts, and squints her eyes, trying to decipher the features on Nicholas’ face, like she wants to imprint her profile behind her eyelids to never forget the thief who stole her umbrella. Nicholas still gets whiffs from the few jasmine petals stuck between the metal poles of the umbrella, and it’s what gives the last kick to her brain to start running away. Her feet turn around, ready to find shelter in the sinuous street of Corfu, but she’s almost hit in the face by the torso of a tall man, fully dressed in black. He’s looking happily behind her, and there’s a flicker of hesitation in her eyes, the birth of a doubt.
Nicholas can’t run anymore, and she slowly turns back to the bar, to see the woman waving happily at the man dressed in black. Her cigarette is rolling between her fingers with painted bright red nails and meets her redder lips from time to time. Nicholas blinks, incredulous. It’s not her stranger, not the other woman, not the singing monkey thief.
𓆝
July goes on like this, blue and misleading. Nicholas can discern the frame of the other woman in the waves, in the murmur of the ocean wind violently blowing on the shore and in the colours of the seashells. She sees her in the street, once running behind the ball with the kids, once singing with the old women selling calamari next to the docks, or even once dancing with the leaves and jasmine flowers. She grips the umbrella a bit tighter, feeling her chest heat up and panic every time she hears what she thinks is her voice. Deep down, Nicholas is convinced she knows the other woman. She can guess right her favourite food, her favourite drink, the country she wants to visit, the places she wants to go, the reason she’s in Corfu at the same time as her, what makes her burst in laughter or cry in agony, what her family and friends are like, how swimming in the blue ocean next to her would feel — Nicholas thinks it would feel somewhat similar to purple, warm shades on top of the sobbing navy — what her favourite book is, how she likes to look at the sun through the vividly green leaves and wether she’s a dog or cat person. Nicholas knows everything without even talking to her, because the stranger is a part of her too. She’s intimately linked to her.
The first time they actually meet, the first time it’s not Nicholas half hallucinating the other woman in the streets heated by the end of July, is also the first time Nicholas tries sea urchins. The waitress — a young girl probably just working here for the summer, trying her best to be polite to the insisting old men from the other tables — serves them naked and bare, the painful spiky shell already plucked out by the cook. Nicholas feels disappointed, like a part of her pervertedly regrets not experiencing the sting of the animal’s natural protective armour. Like the molluscs are too bare, feelings exposed, something she still can’t do. She wanted to try sea urchins because she likes to imagine a shell with swords around her, keeping the blue and her inside and everyone else at distance, just like sea urchins. But the inside of urchins is orange, and she didn’t catch them herself, so stripping the fish from its sharp shards isn’t her battle, and she settles for the naked full of feelings sea urchins.
The orange flesh melts in her mouth and the vinegar-like sauce added to the dish drips from her mouth down to her chin, falling close to the immaculate white shirt she’s wearing. Her fingers are sticky from the liquid and she reaches out for a napkin. There’s a featherlight touch on her jaw, dragging the sauce back to her lips before she can grab the orange-coloured tissues with the restaurant’s logo on it, brushing so softly against her epidermis it’s almost unnoticeable. But the touch is here and the stealing-monkey stranger is standing in front of her, her other hand placed against the table, her body weight resting on it to steady herself. The sun shines right through her eyes and she looks so much prettier up close, Nicholas wonders if the stranger isn’t Medusa, paralysing her to stone with just the intensity of her gaze.
The other woman’s thumbs eventually leaves Nicholas’ face and runs to her mouth, lips slightly open to let her pink tongue out. Carefully licking the remains of vinegar on her finger, she reaches for the napkin Nicholas was eyeing earlier and gets closer to Nicholas, way too close to Nicholas’ taste. The rough fabric of the napkin rubbing against the flesh of her cheek stings like the plucked shards of her urchins and brings Nicholas back to reality — or what she hopes is her reality, she’s wondering if her world didn’t collide with the stranger’s and she’s now stuck in her realm, for monsters and mystical creatures. She pulls back slightly, getting back the napkin from the stranger’s hands.
There’s a flicker of amusement in the other woman’s eyes, like Nicholas pushing her away felt like a dare to do more, to get nearer, deeper. The right corner of her mouth pulls up in a half smile. “My name’s Euijoo. What’s yours ?”
Euijoo. Just like jú, 橘, tangerine. She feels pink and orange at the same time. Nicholas thinks she could have invented that name too, just like her laughter and her voice. Maybe she even already knew it, and the stranger probably knows hers too.
Nicholas puts the napkin down, looking straight at the other woman. “Nicholas.” She answers nonetheless, sounding high, almost bratty, like she’s challenging the woman she still deems as a thief. There’s a part of her that still thinks none of this is real, and she completely made up the other woman, and it’s giving her the confidence to hold her glare.
“Nice to meet you Nichol.” Laughs echoing in her voice, the other woman purposefully miss the last syllable.
“As. Nicholas.” She presses, almost annoyed. They’re speaking english, but Nicholas can hear the strong korean accent rolling off the tongue of the woman still standing against her table. A part of her brain busies itself trying to gather the scattered pieces of korean she learned in Paris with Matthew and Gunwook, two other student of the Ballet Opera house.
“Whatever, Nichol.” She laughs again, and Nicholas only breathes out, giving up on correcting her again. “I reckon this is mine, isn't it ?”
The stranger —less of a stranger now that Nicholas knows her name, Euijoo— smiles slightly, the upturned corners of her mouth lifting just enough for the line of her lips to curve. She’s pointing towards the white lace umbrella by Nicholas’ side. Nicholas’ hand flies to the object almost unconsciously, defensive, protecting a treasure she won’t give back for nothing.
“Maybe it is.” She answers, switching to korean, savouring the slight surprises in Euijoo’s eyes and the way they get a bit wider.
The astonishment only last a few seconds before Euijoo scholars her expression again, her smile that had slightly wavered, plastered back fiercely on her lips. Her fingers curl around the base of the shaft, delicately wrapping Nicholas' hand still gripped on the handle. The touch feels electric, like lightning just struck the both of them, falling from the clear blue sky. The warm buzz traveling from Euijoo's limbs to Nicholas makes her jolt up from her sit and let go of the umbrella, shivering. The sudden movement provokes the corner of Euijoo's mouth to reach higher, pearly white teeth peeking through the small gap of her opened mouth. “And, I believe this is yours.” Euijoo adds, in korean too, pulling the singing monkey out of her bag, after rummaging through it for a good five seconds.
Nicholas holds her breathe, arms extending to meet Euijoo's opened palm, the animal toy waiting to be held by its rightful owner patiently waiting in it. “Thank you …” Is all Nicholas can mutter in a coy breathe.
Euijoo looks even more out-worldly from up close. Her face is in a perfectly round shape, like it was drawn with a calliper compass, and her eyes are abnormally huge and circular. When the evening light hits them, they glow hazel, almost orange, like the disc of the setting sun diving into the sea for the night. Her hair falls on her shoulders like waves crashing against the shore right next to the docks they're standing on. They're brown, between wavy and curly, beautiful and shining. Her limbs are long, and she's taller than Nicholas, neck bending slightly to meet Nicholas' eyes. She's so gorgeous, it only comforts Nicholas in her theory that she made the stranger up. It sounds almost impossible, a real human being, all flesh and blood, looking like Euijoo.
Euijoo is pink and orange, and even red. Bunch of shades from the sky at the end of the day. She's warm and solar, gathering all the lights in the universe around her, and she's everything but blue. Nicholas' favourite colour is pink, and she thinks Euijoo could really have stolen her last miserable shades of pink when she stole her singing monkey, leaving her only with blue sticking to her skin like sea salt.
“I feel like I know you. Weird, don't you think ? We've never met.” Euijoo's laugh echoes through the street, rippling on the crashing waves and the sea birds. It follows the melody of her steps against the paved ground as she disappears once again through the sinuous roads of Corfu, leaving the shore and Nicholas behind her.
Before the other woman is fully out of sight, Nicholas screams from all her might, using the blue soaking her heart like an ink to print her words in the air between the two of them. “We’re so different and we don’t know each other, but I’m oddly convinced you’re me and I’m you. Is that weird ?” But she never gets an answer, at least not a spoken one. Euijoo’s face turns slightly to her, almost looking back but not fully lingering behind, and Nicholas can see the upturned corner of her mouth pulled up in an smiles that says ‘i agree’.
Nicholas still isn't sure Euijoo is real, and she's not sure she's fully gone too, because Euijoo is still sitting right there in her head — tucked between the first dance routine she had to learn and her passcode to her building block in Paris, the one a few street away from the Paris Ballet Opera School, the one she shared with Fuma and Taki — she’s been sitting here for a few weeks now, and it honestly feels like she always belonged there, like she was always there.
The sun sinks into the tranquil sea and the shades of pink leave Nicholas alone with her blue and the night. July comes to an end and August is already chasing close behind.
𓆟 𓆝 Purple like August 𓆞
Floating on her back in the aquamarine blue of the ocean, feet tangled with seaweeds, fishes brushing against her back and arms, sometimes even swimming around her thighs, Nicholas is looking straight at the sky growing purple by the minute. The sun is setting and the twilight is almost here. Nicholas soaked herself in the salted water earlier in the late afternoon and stayed in the blue for the entire evening. She’s still hoping for the transparent liquid to magically stain her skin forever, but there’s also a part of her that hopes Euijoo will be the one leaving pink spots all over her flesh with kisses.
She’s still seeing Euijoo in the crease of the leaves and the cries of the birds, she can imagine her in the rental cottage by the sea, sharing Nicholas’ couch and watching the sunset through the window with her. Euijoo is always by her side, always whispering in her ears. Now that Nicholas knows how her touch feels like, she wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat because of the hot air of August, her brain still foggy from dreams where Euijoo lies next to her and runs her hands along Nicholas’ spine, caressing the bump of her shoulders, the trail of her clavicle, the plane right on top of the sternum and the hills of her hips. It’s ghostly, it’s sticky with sleep and the warmth of the night, but Nicholas is convinced it’s real, she’s convinced Euijoo comes every night to hold her.
Nicholas yearns for Euijoo’s touch so much she can almost feel the weight of the other’s lips on her own. It’s the one thing dreams never let her have, and fantasising about it never feels tangible enough. It’s the last standing rampart between the Euijoo she invented in her head and the real Euijoo, swimming slowly towards her haloed by the blazing setting sun.
When dreams get lucid, the line between night and day becomes blurry. The boundaries of the conscious and the unconscious mixes, and it’s hard to tell what is real from what is just the mind playing its tricks. But, the way Euijoo looks at her, like she wants to ask Nicholas to hold the entire solar system just for her, comforts Nicholas in believing there’s a special connection between them, and that the foggy lines she’s trying to find in the darkness of the night never existed for them. There’s a red thread tied to her pinky finger, and the other end is tied to Euijoo’s little toe. It’s just a thread, made of wool, but it’s stronger than the most vicious wave in a storm, stronger than the burning light of the sun, and stronger than any certitudes Nicholas ever had in her life.
“Are you even real ? I feel like I’m still dreaming.” Nicholas asks once Euijoo is close enough to hear her voice. She ditched her laying position to wait for the other woman, standing somewhat straight in the water, the blue getting darker beneath her dangling feet.
Euijoo snorts, her entire face shadowed by the sun disappearing in her back, and swims faster to get closer to Nicholas. Her arms curl around Nicholas neck, and it feels so natural, like they always belonged there, that Nicholas chooses to believe nothing was ever a dream. “I’m very much real, Nichol. How can I prove it to you ?”
Nicholas shivers at the words pouring out from Euijoo’s throat, a few nights of feverish visions about the other purring sweet ‘Nichol’ in her ears enough for her to like the nickname. Her own hands trail up and down Euijoo’s limbs, brushing sweetly the skin, finally stopping around her slender waist. She’s wearing a two-piece swimsuit and Nicholas fingers melt into her tan skin, savouring the warmth of the flesh.
Euijoo’s unanswered question still hangs in the air, tensing the atoms between them, while their breathes mingle from how close they are. Nicholas can almost feel the thread tied on her pinky tightening and burning, like its reacting to her other half right in front of her, so near they could probably merge into one single being, one single consciousness.
They’re not sure who moves first, if it’s the gentle waves rocking them closer to each other or if it’s Nicholas greedy lips diving in. She’s met with air, and then Euijoo’s nape, the crook at the intersection between her neck and her shoulder. Defeated, she lays a kiss there, featherlight, hesitant, but still very much real.
“Not yet. It’s not time yet, I’m sure you can feel it too.” There’s a gleam of amusement in Euijoo’s eyes but her face and voice are serious, and she sounds so sure, like she’s stating a very obvious fact, something known by everyone, when in reality it’s only known by them. She gives a slight push against Nicholas’ torso, swimming away, and in a few seconds she’s already far away on the beach, running in the burning sand sticking to her wet feet. She turns back only once, to wave goodbye at Nicholas, and disappear like she always do, eaten away by the glutinous city.
The sun is nowhere to be seen, and the moon is glowing in its place, pale and white, glaring right at Nicholas alone in the water. The sky is no longer purple, and the blue is winning again, absolute, thick and dark. Nicholas feels hollow, but she believes it’s only a matter of time before she can be filled again.
The blue inside her brain is slowly mixing with something warmer, something turning it slowly but surely into mauve.
𓆝
July was misleading, and August is confusing. There’s a freshly new certainty in Nicholas’ heart every time she stumbles into Euijoo in the peaceful streets of Corfu, something that tells her she’s not fantasising about seeing her, that she’s real and physical. But, every time Nicholas tries to reach out, to grab whatever she can from Euijoo, to keep her within reach, Euijoo slips out like water between her fingers, like light between the leaves. It’s not painful like a reject, and there’s an unspoken promise between the two of them reassuring Nicholas that, soon, Euijoo will let her tame her like a wild cat lets itself be domesticated. When Nicholas’ hands fall back along her frame, disappointed, empty, Euijoo smiles, and Nicholas can hear her voice in her head, whispering not now, be patient, so Nicholas wait, patiently, and cherishes the little bits Euijoo lets her have in the meantime.
There’s still moments where Nicholas wonders if Euijoo wants the same thing as her. As Euijoo’s stroking her hair, head resting on Euijoo’s laps, Nicholas wonders if the bond she so vividly feels between them is met on the other side, on Euijoo’s side, by the same fervour as hers. The sand is slipping underneath her clothes, like billions of microscopic hands trying to reach for her skin and maybe deeper, for her heart, for the blue in it.
“You feel like a fish, sometimes.” Euijoo breaks the silence of the evening sun setting in the Ionian sea. “You’re full of blue, like fish are full of water. Sometimes i can almost hear the ocean calling you back to her.”
Euijoo presses her lips against Nicholas temples, not quite a kiss, but a featherlight touch, something to ground Nicholas in reality. Her eyes close at the touch, and the light from the sky pouring on them feels warmer, nicer on her skin getting tanner since she flee to Corfu.
“I think I’m getting less blue when I’m with you. You’re pink and orange, and every colours from the sunset, it’s so overwhelming my blue drowns in it.”
Euijoo giggles, and the navy in Nicholas’ lungs fills with it, swallows it avidly like she needs it more than air, like it’s going to turn them pink and full of life again. “Your ocean is drowning in my sun.”
Nicholas talks about Paris to Euijoo. She tells her about the Ballet Opera House, about her friends there, the apartment under the roof, and the crash, the end, the blow in her jaw at her prime. Euijoo’s eyes lights with sadness while Nicholas recalls her failing lungs and the fatal jump, the one that threw her to the ground, the one from which she’s still struggling to get up.
Euijoo asks her to dance for her, on the sand, in front of the ocean, where they always end up meeting. Or even in the sea itself, between the waves and the seaweeds, so Nicholas can become one with the blue. But Nicholas can’t dance. There’s nothing for her anymore, the blue stripped her of everything she had and dancing was the first thing. Dancing in it will not heal anything, it won’t piece back her broken limbs.
They crash together in the salted water, letting the waves rock them in each other’s embrace, limbs tights and intertwined.
𓆝
One day, at the end of August, Euijoo finally lets Nicholas hold her fully, she lets Nicholas take what she so badly craves.
They’re watching the sunset on the shore, as they always do, and the air is thick and heavy with heat, Nicholas can feel it weighting down on her limbs. Euijoo’s a few steps away from her, seated in the scorching sand, close but still out of reach, in her own moment, surrounded by a circle made with seashells and polished rocks. Nicholas can feel the beige grains bruising the flesh of her feet, probably leaving a few red spots. Euijoo’s bare palms on the ground are fated to the same outcome, tiny burns spotting the immaculate tan skin. Nicholas wants to kiss them, to heal them with her love, but she’s still not sure if she’s allowed to step further, to get closer. Euijoo turns to her — like she heard her silence questioning, like she’s in her head as always — and the smile floating on her lips is the silent invitation Nicholas needs to sit next to her, eyes red from the sweat dripping from her eyebrows.
Her right foot crosses the shell rampart first, then the left one, and her entire body is a new presence in the small sanctuary Euijoo built for herself. Nicholas is a foreign blue body in the pink of Euijoo’s light but she fits right there, and the ultramarine is drying off by something stronger, something almost like love. She lets her tired limbs exhausted by the sun and the day fall down next to Euijoo, flesh brushing against each other, dried skin and sticky mix of sea-salt and sand rubbing together.
Euijoo pulls Nicholas closer, turning her away from the ocean, away from the blue getting darker by the sun disappearing. Night is growing fiercely but Euijoo is the only light Nicholas needs, and the gentle beam she’s casting on her is turning Nicholas purple. Soon, the only blue left on Nicholas will be the chemical one stuck in her hair. She smiles at the other woman, a genuine smile, full of everything she’s ever held close in her heart. “I think I love you so much I invented you, Euijoo. Brick by brick, I built you a house in my heart, perfectly shaped for you. I can give you the keys, I want to give you the keys, you only have to take them. The walls are still a bit blue, but we can repaint them together. No one else can fit in that house.”
Nicholas can feel the warmths of Euijoo’s palm against her cheek, brushing off the wet strides of tears dropping from her eyes. She’s not sure where all of this is coming from, if the words are new or if they were already here, in the house made for Euijoo, buried deep in her heart from before she was even born. Euijoo’s looking at her so softly, so gently, like her entire world is pressing her face right there against her hand, and Nicholas knows the words were hidden inside Euijoo too, she knows even if she never spoke them out loud, Euijoo would have heard them still.
“I was born to be in love with you Nichol. I’m not real if you’re not around.” Euijoo breathes, and she’s so close to Nicholas now that her words ripple against Nicholas’ lips, going back to her own throat. Or maybe it’s Nicholas’ throat, and maybe she’s not even the one who spoke them in the first place. They’re not entirely sure who’s Nicholas and who’s Euijoo anymore, or where the first ends and the later begins. Their minds are one, only missing the physical connection of melting completely into each other.
Nicholas knows the way Euijoo lips feels on her own even before they actually crash together. She knows everything about Euijoo and Euijoo knows everything about her. The ocean has fully swallowed the sun and the night is overwhelmingly dark, but there’s no blue. The sea is violet, the sky is indigo and Euijoo plum-coloured. Even Nicholas isn’t blue anymore, she’s something similar to periwinkle, growing into mauve.
Blue is apathy, blue is the calm after the storm, the one that paralyses everyone from fear and exhaustion, the one that reigns after everything has been broken and reduced to dust. Blue is sad, and Nicholas doesn’t want to feel blue. Blue is icy, it freezes everything in a state of lethargy, too tired to feel anything, too tired to move. But Euijoo makes her feel so much, Euijoo makes her want to move, to run, to scream, to cry, laugh and maybe even dance.
Euijoo’s lips are soft, round, perfect, they complete Nicholas’ ones, fitting together like a puzzle. Her hand trails down Nicholas’ jaw, to meet the other around her neck, circling it like a life buoy, a beacon in the night, something to keep her grounded in reality, something to desperately hold to feel alive, to feel safe. Nicholas’ arms automatically slide around Euijoo’s waist, like it’s their spot and they need to stay there forever. Every touch from Euijoo, every caress, every kiss against her lips, every stroke of her tongue inside her mouth, turns Nicholas a bit more warm, a bit more amaranth, a bit more flushed. Nicholas tries to swallow as much as she can from Euijoo, to take what she’s given and even greedily ask for more. She wants Euijoo entirely, and Euijoo meets her there, giving everything Nicholas wants and more, and taking what she’s supposed to take in exchange. It’s like they’re sucking the life out of each other while also breathing their whole being into the other’s mouth.
They kiss and kiss again, limbs tangled, mouth colliding, eyes closed, only the moon as their witness. It’s messy and unsure, hurried, hungry. The waves are crashing inside Nicholas’ belly, more violent than a storm, more in love than anyone on earth, and she can feel Euijoo’s heart beating hard against her chest, perfectly mirroring her own, like they’re also sharing one single heart. She delicately presses her mouth against Euijoo’s jaws, her neck, tasting the sea-salt and the sand, leaving wet kisses along her shoulder down to her wrist, reaching for the palms and the burns of the hot sand. Euijoo healed her from her blue, it’s her turn to heal Euijoo from her burns.
𓆝 Pink like September 𓆞 𓆟
The morning sky is pink as the sun rises lazily from behind the mountains. Every night it drowns in the waves to be reborn in soil around 5 a.m. Nicholas turns her head and Euijoo’s face is here, waiting for her gaze, only existing when Nicholas’ eyes are on her. The light hits her face and colours her pink, flushed and beautiful. There’s orange, too, on the skin of her closed eyelids, and red on her cheeks. She’s sleeping, peaceful and oblivious, and Nicholas can only feel love and adoration. The blue is so far away now, even the purple has faded into the prettiest rosy colour. Nicholas had to drown in the navy turmoil of the ocean to be reborn in the coral soil of Euijoo’s heart. She feels alive again, she feels like she could dance again, if Euijoo’s next to her.
September is starting, the air is getting a bit chillier, but Nicholas will never be cold again because Euijoo’s limbs are tangled tightly with hers, arms firmly curled around her waist. The coming of autumn feels warm, like the orange hues of the falling leaves will only turn her even more pink, erasing the blue of July for good. Her hair is growing out and the black roots are chasing away the blue dye.