Work Text:
`soulmate au where you live in black and white until you meet your soulmate`
"My hair is pink!"
"Okay… So?"
"It's pink, okay? I never knew pink was such a pretty color…"
He refused to listen anymore. He was getting irritably jealous of Natsu. He sounded so happy and carefree.
Gray didn't get it. The couples around him talked nonstop about colors around them. It always hit a pang of jealousy in his heart. He wanted to know about it so much; asking them to describe it but that was always bad decision. He'd always end up holding the person by their shirt aggressively, close to breaking down in tears, and close to screaming profanities.
"Describe it to me."
"What?"
"Colors. What exactly are they? What do they fucking look like Natsu?"
Natsu stayed silent for a minute with a frown and then the edges of his colorless lips curled up.
"I can't describe it. Back then, it just felt cold and dull but now, everything feels warm. It's like fire, it warms you up. And… and…. and the fire used to be a boring color of white before and now it's red!"
"Red… huh…" he sighed, staring at the grey sky looming upon people's shadows that were the color of black. It felt so gloomy and incredibly dull.
"Oh, and the sky, god, it's so blue," he paused, looking at Gray from head to toe, "Hey, look, you're wearing blue. Blue is so cold. It's like when you just got out of your warm bed and set foot in the cold temperature of your room. To speak the truth, it's like the freezing ice and rain."
Gray shut his eyes close, trying to form a color based on feelings. Instead, his mind drifted off to the fortunate people who saw the color. They lived on a different level of life that he could dream of being on. It was revolved around the heat emitting from the blazes of red, the cool of blue, and the brightness of yellow. Their days consisted of the oranges and pinks. Gray constantly craved to visualize the feelings people spoke so often of. But, he has never met the one person who was supposed to bring them to him.
His friend, Natsu, had just experienced his life in color for the first time, but rather than speaking nonstop about the colors, he wouldn't shut up about the girl he met just the other day at the park. Natsu literally called him at one in the morning, while Gray was pulling an all-nighter studying for the finals. He talked nonstop about colors that morning for straight three hours and Gray wasn't even listening. And today, he was talking about a girl named Lucy who was a year younger than the both of them.
Gray found it stupidly romantic, but he also found it completely surreal. He didn't get it. How could one person, that could be anyone in this world, change their boring life drastically?
"She's smart and amazing, god, Gray. She's everything," Natsu continued. Natsu grabbed Gray on his shoulders catching him by surprise. He stared with eyes that looked quite excited and happy. "I know you're thinking that 'who cares about the chick when you got the damn colors?' but I swear Gray on my fucking life, you'll understand everything when you meet her. First color, first girl, first best day of your life. I know I sound like an anime schoolgirl right now, but when you meet her, it's like your life is finally complete."
Gray let out a hum and continued to stare at the sky, using every cell in his goddamn negative brain in attempt to make out the color that the monochromatic abyss held.
Gray couldn't escape his mind for the rest of the day. The curiosity of guessing the color of the various people's hair he passed by, or wondering what colors were their clothes were; it was far too overwhelming than settling for the black and white he saw for the past twenty years. He wondered how many people that passed by his figure could tell what color his socks were, or describe to their soulmate what color were his eyes in depth. Gray had been told what his color his eyes were before, but he wanted to feel it rather than just merely hear it.
Like most days, the subway back to his apartment was boring and bland. At least he got his mind occupied for the past few hours which allowed him to escape the plainness of life he lived. Living inside his mind was full of negativity and it was like hell in there. But, for now, it was overflowing with questions and wondering.
He had believed that anything was truly possible to happen in his mind, but he's realized that even there are limits. How exactly is he supposed to know what a color looked like, when he's never even seen what it looked like? The idea of color had such an empty meaning in my mind, he knew the feelings and names that went along with them, but other than that, colors have always remained as a total mystery to him.
The subway screeched to a halt, and the piercing sound dragged him out of his thoughts. He was one of the few who left the subway; not many people really took the subway closest to their college because people are stupid that way. Keeping his hands stuffed in the huge, warm pockets of his jacket, he stepped out of the subway.
He was close to the café where he worked at, in the morning. The café he worked at was close to the park which was literally a few blocks away from his apartment. Walking right by the café, the door opened, the bell ringing loudly, which he ignored, he bumped right into someone.
"Jesus christ!" he yelled, stumbling back and finding out that he had just got coffee thrown accidentally at him. "What the actual fuck?"
Then it happened. He blinked, and there it was. There they fucking were, right in front of his damned eyes. The first color he saw was the overwhelming blue hues of her eyes highlighted by the light emanating from the lamp post. Then he saw the blinding tropical orange that people had described several times of the setting sun.
Gray stood dumbfounded for several seconds, taking in all of the colors and being slightly overwhelmed by the reality of it all.
"Hello?! Are you fucking deaf or what?" she screamed at him as she tried to wipe her stained clothes.
"Widen your fucking eyes," Gray whispered quite calmly, ignoring her rude comments.
"I'd really love to but-"she looked at him with a rude face, softening as she stared harder. She blinked once… twice. Remaining silent, she tried to open her eyes wider, confirming that the things she saw were really there.
"Are those…" she gasped, ignoring the burning coffee stains on her clothes, "Colors?"
Gray nodded slowly, taking in the beauty of her eyes.
"Shit, the one time I wanted to see colors neat and proper is the day I bump into a fucking asshole who's blind and deaf who then spills coffee on me," she whispered loud enough for him to hear, clearly showing frustration for him. Gray shifted his gaze from her colorful eyes to the person standing before him who was not experiencing the moment quite as much as he was.
"Here," Gray said, taking her struggling arm and leading her to a nearby park bench, "Sit down for a second."
Gray ran back to the café, leaving her there to take in the beauty of the colors surrounding her, despite her frustration. After a while, he walked back to where she sat with a cup of coffee in his hand. Sitting next to her, he gave her the beverage.
She took a quick whiff and closed her eyes and smelt something familiar. Sighing in content, she reopened her eyes and she smirked at him.
"An iced oat milk latte, huh? Huh, how'd you know ?"
"I didn't. I just figured that you might like it," he looked at her eyes with a meaningful smile, "I made that, by the way."
He thinks of the way he had hurriedly asked to make a quick order whilst off his shift and how his coworkers had looked shocked yet let him do it anyway. He had stood there for a couple moments before deciding to just make his regular go to order just the way he liked it. He wasn't sure if she would like it but a part of him hoped she would.
"You made it? You probably just-"
"I work at the coffee shop nearby," he quickly interrupted her.
"Oh," she hums assertively, a warm smile playing on her lips as she takes a sip. She continues, her eyes sparkling as she looks at him, "You should know, this is actually one of my favorite orders aside from mocha lattes."
It warms him, hearing that from her. He guesses he should have expected this. They were after all, fated to be.
Silence hung over the air as she continued to drink on her coffee. They watched the sun set, taking in the feeling of each color they saw in the horizon, naming them even those they didn't know names of.
"This is not how I imagined this to play out."
"I'm sorry for being a fucking asshole who's blind and deaf," he mocked her as he apologized sarcastically, repeating her words a few minutes ago.
She laughed and shook her head, "You heard that?" She giggled louder and a smile crept upon Gray's usual neutral or agitated face.
"Yeah, I did."
She laughed harder, making him chuckle.
"What was the first color you saw? Can you describe it?" she asked all of a sudden.
He was silent and he closed his eyes returning to the previous moments he met her. He reminisced the feeling and there he saw it. The first color he saw when he blinked for the first time of the day without the black and white hues.
He saw the beautiful, bright flecks of the cool color integrated in her eyes.
"Blue… It was blue."
He watched her movements as he described it. Gray saw that she had a petite figure with the most perfect legs he's ever seen. Her hair was cascading down her shoulders and it was a tint of bluish gray that complimented her eyes perfectly. She looked like she was the type to be innocent but still be caring towards those she kept close to heart. She was beautiful, and he finally understood Natsu's words back at the college campus.
"She's smart and pretty. She's everything…"
She wasn't just smart, she was smart and sarcastic. She wasn't just pretty, she was beautiful and perfect. She was somehow like him; easy to anger. She truly was everything.
He never felt so complete in his whole life.
"Well, it was blue, but the harder I looked at it, there were different hues of the color and it was just... amazing. The various colors of blue I saw were so pretty and it felt like a frostbite. It was like freezing ice at first then the more I took in the color, it somehow became gentler. Like the rippling water. I know I probably sound stupid right now but-"
"What exactly are you describing? The sky doesn't look like that."
He laughed at her. She hit his shoulder hard and he laughed harder.
"I'm describing the first thing I saw," he looked at her with a genuine grin, "...your eyes."
"My eyes—t-they look like that?"
He nodded and she had this incredulous look on her face, which was expected from her, but she wasn't even looking at the beautiful things there were to look at. He knew she wouldn't be able to see the color of her cerulean blue eyes from his point of view, nevertheless, he knew she never ever received a proper compliment about her before; judging from her reaction.
"It's beautiful right? The color, blue," he said softly, tilting his head to look at the stars shining in the dark night as she did the same.
She remained silent and shifted her gaze from the stars to him after a while. "What is it?"
"I've heard a lot about how great color is, but no one has told me how great it is to meet your soulmate," she said. Her words contained no hesitation or embarrassment whatsoever, and Gray was taken aback. It was so simple and sincere and Gray wanted to simply say something sarcastic but it would definitely ruin her mood. All he could do was smirk at her and a blush crept up her face.
"I know this is weird and not something you say to a blind and deaf asshole that bumps into you, spilling the coffee you just bought-"
"I get it, just get to the point," he huffed in annoyance, but he was actually enjoying the way she mocked him.
"I've been waiting for you for so long," she blurted out. The blush on her cheeks deepened and his smirk only widened. Gray enveloped her in a hug and none of them felt comfortable at all, but the situation wasn't exactly a normal one either. What is someone supposed to do when they meet their soulmate for the first time? Something about whole situation calmed Gray's thoughts and doubts that formed over years yet it also intimidated him.
A burden was lifted off of his shoulders and he no longer had to live inside his head out of pure incompleteness, because he found the person that was supposed to make him complete.
"I don't mean to ruin the moment, um... what's your name?"
She pulled from the hug and giggled, replying, "Juvia Lockser."
"Juvia… that's a unique name. I'm Gray Fullbuster," He smiled.
"My eyes really are blue, huh? I never believed them."
"Yeah… yeah, they are."
"I'm glad. I'm glad that blue was your first. I never imagined that my soulmate's first color would be the color of my eyes," she blushed furiously, looking down, only causing him chuckle lightly.
"I honestly wouldn't have had it happen any other way."