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The first color he learns is red.
He’s five and there is a sharp pain in his knee, and something both sticky and cold running down the underside of his leg. The grass beneath his skin is itchy and something pkes the right side of his back, but he sits there anyway, wet, salty tears running down his cheeks.
Something creeps up behind him and of course he can’t see it , but he turns around anyway, heart beating unsteadily and fingers searching the ground behind him for the pointy stick previously bothering him.
“It just crawled under you,” comes from his left, and he turns, trying to locate the source. When he figures he’s looking (haha) at the closest spot, he processes the words.
“What crawled under me?” he questions, already scooting away, but the sudden ache of his knee stills him as he lets out a whimper.
“A beetle,” the voice answers, closer. “Hey, are you okay?”
Tooru sniffs, tasting a drip of his snot falling from his nose. It’s gross, really, really gross.
“I can’t learn the colors,” he says, crying again. There’s a few moments of just that- some gross, boogery sobs and heavy breathing- before he realizes it’s been silent. “Are you still there?”
Something moves in the grass. “Yeah? I’m right in front of you. You’re staring at me.”
Tooru huffs. “I can’t see,” he explains.
“Oh,” the voice responds, “so you’re not crying because of your knee?”
Tooru’s hands fly to his right knee, but he immediately cries out when he grabs on it too hard. He didn’t mean to grab it, just to touch it. “It hurts,” he wails.
“Quit crying,” the voice grumbles, and a hand touches his leg, gently and carefully, something soft covering his skin.
“What is that?” Tooru asks, wiping his face on his arm. He reached forward, to touch it, but finds himself gripping a second hand.
“My sweater,” the voice says. There’s a pause. “I don’t want to get blood on my new shirt, so I’m cleaning you up before I carry you.”
“Carry me?” Tooru wonders, and then, reaching again for the sweater, fuzzy material against his fingertips. “What color is it?”
“What color is what? Oh. Red,” the voice answers, and Tooru begins to cry again.
“Hey!” the voice shouts. The sweater is wiping his face, now. It’s really gross because Tooru suspects his blood is on it, and now there’s going to be some of his snot all over it. He wonders if the voice’s mom is going to be upset at him for dirtying it.
“Stop crying!” The voice shouts again. It’s not the frightening kind of shout, though, more of a desperate plea for his attention, which he easily gives. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I don’t know what red means!”
Tooru grips the sweater hard in his hands. It’s soft on one side and smoother, but still comfortable on the other. There are strings coming out of a slit in what seems to be the hood, and a huge pocket near the open ended bottom, but he doesn’t know what it looks like. What’s red?
“Right,” the voice replies, and it’s quiet for the third time, tiny, faint buzzing coming from the grass and the constant of Tooru sniffing.
Something presses hard into Tooru’s hurt knee, and he feels the faint of new blood oozing out of his scrape. He hisses in pain, biting his tongue. “Ow! Why did you do that?” he asks through his teeth.
“That’s red,” the voice explains.
“I know blood is red,” Tooru grumbles, wiping his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that!”
“No,” the voice says. “The way you feel. You’re crying, your knee hurts and you’re mad because you don’t know what red looks like. Well it looks like how you feel right now.”
It settles.
Tooru gets it.
“Oh,” he says, suddenly feeling a million times better. He doesn't feel red anymore. “Who are you?”
“Iwaizumi,” the voice tells him, “Hajime. We just moved here yesterday.”
“Next door?” Tooru asks. “I’ve always wanted to see inside that house. Can I come over?”
Hajime ignores his question. “What’s your name?”
“Oikawa Tooru,” Tooru says with pride. “You can call me Tooru though because I got your sweater all dirty.”
“Okay,” Hajime agrees. There is some shuffling, and then some arms around Tooru’s back, and underneath his knees. He squirms.
“What are you doing!?”
“Don’t move,” Hajime orders, and lifts Tooru up, with extreme difficulty. Tooru can feel his arms are tense, and he does his best to will himself to be as light as possible. He doesn’t know if it works, but his house is only thirty steps away. Hajime manages not to drop him, but he does stumble, and they both go down, Tooru landing softly on top of something cushioned. It’s not the sweater though, because he’s still gripping it tight between his hands.
“Get off my stomach,” Hajime says, and Tooru does, to the best of his ability. He recognizes the cool dirt of his front yard.
“Tooru!” he hears his mother call, and he whips his head up to the direction of her voice.
He hears her walk over, stopping in front of where Hajime and Tooru remain in the dirt.
“Iwaizumi, honey, are you okay?”
Tooru rolls his eyes. His mother should be paying attention to him. He’s the one with the hurt knee.
“Yes,” Hajime replies. “Tooru is heavy, and when we fell, I scraped my knee, too. But it doesn’t hurt that much. I’m not crying.”
“Hey!” Tooru protests, tears beginning to well up again. “I was not crying because of my knee! ”
His mother’s hands slide under his arms and she picks him up; Tooru burrows his face into her neck.
“Kaasan,” Tooru whimpers.
“Is this your sweater, Iwaizumi?”
She takes it out of Tooru’s hands and he immediately wants it back.
“He can have it,” Hajime tells her. “It’s all dirty now.”
Tooru feels his mother smile. The muscles on her neck move ever-so slightly, and by instinct, his hands go up to touch her mouth.
“Well thank you for bringing Tooru back safely,” she says to him, and there is a slight dip in her right shoulder where she grabs his hand. Tooru hears a slight patting sound, where Iwaizumi dusts his pants off with the other hand.
“I’ll walk you home,” his mother says. They make a left turn, and Tooru counts twenty two steps between their houses.
“Hajime,” a woman says, and something sounds like a door closing. Maybe the front door. “There you are.”
When Tooru’s mother places her right hand across his back, for a better grip, Tooru knows Hajime isn’t holding her hand anymore. He twists himself so that he’s somewhat facing the direction of Hajime and the woman, who he guesses is his mother.
“Again,” Tooru’s mother says, “it was very nice to meet you. We’ll have to have lunch soon.”
“It was a pleasure,” Hajime’s mother says. “Is this little Oikawa?”
“He can’t see,” Hajime whispers loudly.
“Hajime,” Iwaizumi-san scolds. “That’s very rude. Apologize.”
“It’s alright,” Tooru’s mother laughs, just as Hajime says, “sorry you can’t see.”
“Hajime! ” Iwaizumi-san says again, horrified.
Tooru huffs, speaking to where Hajime sounds like he is. “Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean we can’t play.” He places his hands on his mother’s cheeks. “Kaasan, can Hajime come and play?”
“No way!” Hajime protests. “You cry too much.”
“Do not!” Tooru sniffs.
“This is Hajime’s sweater,” his mother tells Iwaizumi-san. “It seems Tooru has gotten it dirty. I can wash it before we give it back.”
“Hajime said I could have it,” Tooru says, reaching. “It’s red. I want it.”
There is general silence that falls on the four of them.
“I told him it was red ,” Hajime grumbles.