Chapter Text
Giyu didn’t really enjoy walking alone in the dark.
Autumn had just rolled around, and the wind had a stronger bite than usual. He tried to hone in on the buzzing of the street lamps above him, pretending their light could offer any semblance of warmth, but the breeze kept pushing him forward. He kept his eyes glued to the ground, focusing on the few shoes that passed by him in the opposite direction.
White. Black. Grey.
That was all he could see, really. If the people around him were wearing any sort of colour, he wouldn’t be able to tell. He knew those colours existed to everyone else—he knew that trees had green leaves and that the sky and sea were an endless mirage of blue. None of that mattered to him, because he could only really see purple in faint shades—hell, they were so faint he might as well have been fully colourblind.
There was a time in his life when he believed it mattered. A friend whose face he swore he’s burn into the corners of his brain forever; someone he thought he had fallen in love with, only to realise that his infatuation was born out of the desperation of being someone’s forever. He had hopes that, maybe, the reaction that was supposed to occur to bring colours into life was simply delayed, that’s all.
Giyu knew that his best friend, Sabito, wasn’t his soulmate, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy looking into that boy’s eyes. It was one of the only things he could just barely see, after all. He knew that yearning would be his downfall, because deep feelings of love and connection could never sustain itself forever.
Sabito didn’t last forever, after all.
Giyu let out a deep sigh, but it didn’t lift any of the weight pulling his chest down to the earth, like it was forcing him to repent for some unforgivable sin. He could almost feel the eyes staring down at him, whispering things about him that made him want nothing more than to curl up and rot where he stood.
He walked up to his apartment complex, climbing the windingly long stairwell up to the third floor. He fumbled a little bit for his keys once he reached his flat, realising only afterwards that he didn’t even have to as the door was left unlocked for him by his roommate.
The apartment was quiet—her shoes were already tucked into their shared cubby. Scanning the room, Giyu was relieved to see no one. He figured his roommate, a busy med student Shinobu, had already gone to her room for the night. On the table was some food and a note written in glittery purple, but the sight was enough to turn him off from eating anything. He put the food away into the fridge and left the note where it was, hoping it would be gone by the morning without him having to do anything about it. He could already hear his roommate’s gentle chiding, her ‘Tomioka-san’ being met with indifferent silence.
As he went into his room and readied himself for the night, he read through what few messages he had on his phone—most were from the few odd jobs he’s had to pick up to keep himself afloat, jobs that paid him good money by doing things the rich couldn’t be bothered to do, while some of the messages were left by that kid he used to tutor in high-school, there to check in on him for whatever reason.
Giyu shut his phone off and laid there in the dark. He supposed that, under dim light, everything looked the same. Maybe it should stay that way forever, which he was completely fine with.
He hated change more than being alone in the dark, after all. He wondered, briefly, if the stranger on the other end felt the same.
—
“Screw this. I need a break,” the white-haired boy huffed in annoyance.
Sanemi slammed his giant textbook closed, his mind unable to focus on the topics he was supposed to be reviewing for his midterms. He wanted to scream out in frustration—hell, he would’ve if it wasn’t for how late in the night it was.
His hands reached for the pen holder on his desk, rummaging around for the only colour he could see. Popping the dark blue cap off, he began scribbling random things onto his notebook—his childhood pet, triangles spaced out unevenly to take up as much of the corners of the page as possible, and fish. The colour began to flood his notebook, and it was as if his mind had been put at ease.
Blue was the only colour Sanemi Shinazugawa could see. It was such a common colour that it basically filled his life—from the sky above his head to the sea he spent his childhood living next to. It was the colour that flooded the aquarium he visited to destress.
The idea of there being someone out in the world with eyes that painted his entire field of view freaked him out. For one, he thought the idea of love was bullshit. He had seen it all too much growing up—the fights that occurred between his parents, the times he’d had to defend his little siblings and the hits he’d taken as a result. He saw the pain that such a phoney feeling could bring about, and he had sworn to himself that he would never subject himself to it.
Blue was what painted the walls of his father’s hospital room as he watched the devil die before his eyes. A stroke had taken him, but as he stared on with a partially-healed black eye, he wanted to believe that it was the punch he delivered that ended the root of his family’s suffering. He’d do it again even if it meant centuries of torment in hell.
Sanemi didn’t want to like the colour. It was nothing more than a vulnerability; it was a flaw that showed how readily available he was to be hurt again and again. Every time he passed by someone with eyes he could see, he would thank his lucky stars that the world around him stayed black and white.
Sighing, he capped his pen and buried his face in his hands. Maybe he’ll find the time to go to the aquarium again after tomorrow’s lectures were over. He refused to admit it, but even if he pretended to outwardly dislike the colour, he found solace in it. There was a part of him that was still a child that needed healing, someone who needed comfort after having to spend a childhood growing up and being the one to protect others.
His phone buzzed to the side, and he flipped it over to check his texts. He was on Do Not Disturb, and he only had a small handful of people on the bypass list. Of all of them, he saw that his friend, Obanai, had shot him a message.
obanai: dude 23:57
obanai: you awake? 23:57
obanai: well you shouldn’t be, but i just KNOW your studious ass is up 23:58
Snickering, Sanemi picked it up to respond.
You: what 23:59
You: if this is abt your gf im leaving you forever 23:59
obanai: yes it is and no you wont. u love me too much lol 00:00
obanai: i want to take her out on a date tomorrow but i don’t know what to do 00:02
obanai: well i guess “today” but wtv
Tomorrow, huh? Sanemi thinks about it for a moment, genuinely considering bringing up his initial idea to go to the aquarium and go watch fish or something like that. After all, they could always tell him what the fish looked like up close and in detail, since the two were soulmates and had both gained their colours. He thinks it over once, then twice, but eventually decides that he wanted to keep that activity for himself. Sure, it would be nice to have friends around so he wasn’t standing there thinking about how lonely he was, but he also liked keeping his sense of routine.
Suddenly, he remembers a flier he came across on-campus about some event and vaguely recalls thinking that his friend would like that sort of thing. He literally had an albino python, after all.
You: heard theres a popup exhibit for exotic animals across the city. sound good? 00:05
obanai: shiit fr? that’s a great idea. 00:06
obanai: okay. it’s settled, we’ll go 00:06
You: you damn better take me with you after giving you such a good idea 00:07
obanai: UGH fine. only because you’re my wingman. 00:09
Sanemi chuckled at the last message from his friend before setting his phone back down. It was getting pretty late, but his little break was just enough for him to keep going for a while longer. At least, that was until he heard cussing from the room next door, followed by the jostling of a controller, to which he immediately slammed his fist against the wall.
“Genya, go the fuck to sleep, you have class early tomorrow!” He yelled, hoping the walls were thick enough that the neighbours weren’t disturbed.
—
Sanemi heaved a sigh of relief as he stepped out of his lecture hall, his day’s worth of classes finally over. It didn’t take long for him to rendezvous with his two friends; Obanai Iguro studied at the same university he went to, and while his girlfriend, Mitsuri Kanroji, was taking up culinary arts at a different college, she always found a way to be close to her boyfriend. That meant wherever he found them, they were both practically hip-to-hip.
Honestly, that made him sick, but he had long since learned to push the thought aside.
The three of them made their way to the train station, with Sanemi noting that they had to get off at the end of the line, right before an interchange. Sure, the trains were always awfully quiet, but he didn’t mind it whenever he was with any of his friends. Part of him wished he had the mind to invite the rest of their friend group, but Obanai would’ve probably not appreciated the gesture, given he wanted this to be a date with his partner.
It took them an hour and a half to get to their stop, and Sanemi made a mental note to leave a little earlier so he would be home in time for dinner with his little brother.
Throughout the exhibit, Sanemi’s eyes flitted through monotonous shades. None of the animals were blue—naturally, because he’d learned somewhere that blue is one of nature’s rarest true colours, though being at the aquarium all the time left expectations in his head he wasn’t aware were ever even there to begin with. Still, watching his friends be wholly invested in the tanks and cages in front of them was fun in its own way.
“Look, Obanai! This one has cool patterns!”
“Yeah, it does. It’s to help them camouflage with their surroundings.”
Sanemi all but tuned out his friends’ chatter after that. To be honest, he didn’t know how much he cared to be here when there was nothing much he could see. He had wanted to take his mind off of his thoughts, but he didn’t think staring into greys and whites would leave him feeling so… empty. He focused on some of the infographic posters on the walls, some of them making use of the familiar colour that brought him comfort.
He thought it was stupid and wildly embarrassing to watch himself cling onto and rely on a theoretical ‘someone’ out there. Yet, no matter how many times he reminded himself—no matter how much he beat himself up over the thought, he couldn’t seem to learn his lesson. Perhaps it was best to leave it be, maybe history was meant to repeat itself in the way it always did.
He checked his phone restlessly a few times, flitting back and forth between apps, opening and closing them until he’d decided he had had enough. He strode over to his friends, patting Obanai on the back.
“Gotta go, gotta make the long commute back so I can make dinner,” Sanemi muttered as he took a glance at what the two were staring at—a rhino beetle. He thought it looked pretty cool at a glance. It looked like the one he had owned once as a kid.
“Oh… That’s so sad! It would’ve been nice if you could stay a little longer, Sanemi,” Mitsuri whined playfully, and Sanemi swore he could hear gears turning in Obanai’s head. Mitsuri was definitely doing that on purpose.
“Will you guys be okay on your way home?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about us. We’ll probably hang out here a little longer, maybe grab some dinner too,” Obanai hummed as Mitsuri nodded along.
Sanemi left not too long afterwards. As he walked over to the train station, he noted the sky losing its blue hues as it gradually shifted to sunset. At least he found something to take his mind off of his schoolwork and his life, but he knew the moment he would step through the front door he would have to do it all over again.
The crowds crammed hard into the train, pushing him further and further in until he was at the window.
—
The day passed by pretty slowly at first. Giyu did his rounds handling groceries or babysitting dogs (his least favourite job, because he was very freaked out by them for very personal, totally not ass-biting reasons). His last job of the day involved delivering an important package to an elite that paid him well, leaving Giyu to imagine what could have been so important about it that got him such good pay for the week. He figured it was probably none of his business in the end—at least he could pay rent with that kind of money.
It was rush hour by the time the sun started to set. He felt pretty lucky that he got to be one of the first in line on the train—it meant he could squeeze up to the opposite door and get a comfortable view from the door’s window. There were way too many people for his liking, though, and they were pressing him against the door, the feeling of claustrophobia overwhelming him very quickly. It didn’t help that the other side was blocked by another train.
Giyu glanced up, hoping that looking around could offer him a distraction from the crushing weight—both literally and mentally—of being surrounded by people. He noted businessmen and women in their suits or dresses, most of them staring down at their phones; he saw students in uniforms, two smiling at each other as they shared secrets he could only imagine; across from him he could make out a man his age in an oversized sweater, bag slung over his right shoulder. The man was staring right back at him, and he had eyes in the same shade of purple that haunted him his whole life.
Like that, the world became so bright and saturated that Giyu swore he was about to die, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the stranger. Even as their trains began to move in separate directions, they never broke eye contact.
He saw the same fear and confusion he felt, reflected on the face of the soulmate he didn’t even know the name of.