The Color Pink
Title: The Color Pink
Pairing(s): KryBer, high school AU
Genre(s): Romance
Length: 1697 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Krystal dresses according to her mood, and nowadays all she wears is pink.
Inspiration(s): I hate wearing dresses, so this is just a tribute to my nonexistent sense of fashion. I can goddamn wear whatever I want, thank you very much.
```
Every color has an emotion and every piece of clothing has a story behind it. Or at least it did in Krystal Jung’s perspective. Her wardrobe was a splash of colors, ranging from a severe midnight black to a spunky autumn orange. Her outfits illustrated her sentiments in the deepest of ways, with a gloomy grey cardigan to embody her first heartbreak or an oversized yellow t-shirt to depict her delight of finding a puppy in one of her Christmas presents one winter.
Every morning, she picked out her school clothing based on her most profound thoughts, feelings, and reminiscences. A brown sweater might have symbolized her dislike of the bloody mathematics class in first block. A faded violet beanie might have portrayed her nervousness for the upcoming Biology final. A pair of green high tops might have represented her excitement of meeting her best friends at the mall after school. To strangers, she might have looked like a fashion disaster with all those uncoordinated colors and styles, but those close to her knew that she put her whole heart into her clothes.
Because her clothes expressed her in ways that nothing else could. She, quite literally, wore her heart on her sleeve.
That was why there was some suspicious talk among the students when Krystal showed up at the front entrance draped in pink. It started out with an absentminded comment (at least she’s color-coordinated today), but it turned into something more when she kept with the habit for the next several days, weeks, and eventually months (did the stores run out of fabric or something, because I swear she wore that outfit yesterday). One morning, she wore a frilly pink skirt with matching tights and heels. The next, she was clad in a plain pink t-shirt and a pair of pink knee-length capris. The styles changed, but the color stayed the same, and this continuous notion was raising some eyebrows around the high school, especially among the fashion freaks.
On the first day of her pink frenzy, Jessica had glanced at her little sister and laughed out loud, demanding to know who the lucky guy was. Krystal only blushed and replied that it was not a guy she was fawning after, but someone lovely and considerate. Her elder sister nodded, understanding. “I taught you well. All men are bastards in the most literal sense of the word. Do yourself some good and never get married to one of them; they’ll only drag you down.”
Krystal went to school in her pink clothes with abandon, not caring if the fashion-crazy girls looked at her like she was crazy. And when she was given the chance, she would stare at the infamous Amber Liu and hope that it was not too obvious that she was hopelessly crushing on her. It was a peculiar choice. Amber was nothing like what a girl was expected to be. Instead of skirts, she wore loose jeans that were more often than not faded and ripped at the knees (and not on purpose, either). In place of the standard tops that hugged the waist, she chose oversized graphic t-shirts that had sleeves that reached her elbows. Her short black hair was simple and never brushed, preferring to be covered with a baseball cap whenever possible. She bit her nails, played video games, skateboarded, hung out with the guys who accepted her as one of them, and refused to wear makeup under any circumstances. And when she beat up Kibum for teasing a poor acne-inflicted girl with divorced parents and horned-rimmed glasses, Krystal’s respect-o-meter skyrocketed and she just knew that no boy could ever make her feel this way.
Of course, one could only be happily in love for so long until pain started making its way through.
It was Friday when Krystal picked out a pink top and grey skirt with black flats. She came down the stairs from her bedroom and skipped towards the kitchen table to pour herself some cereal, lightly humming some tune she heard on the radio a few days ago. Jessica entered a few minutes later and stopped in her tracks at the sight of her younger sister’s attire. Having lived with her almost all her life, the elder had developed the ability to read Krystal’s fashion apparel like a children’s book with hardly any trouble. And at the sight of her pink-grey-black combination of clothes, Jessica sighed and comfortingly stroked her sister’s back. “She’ll notice you,” she whispered. “I’m sure she will. She’d be a fool not to.”
“No, she won’t,” Krystal deadpanned. “All she sees is Victoria, and I’m nothing compared to that Chinese Queen. She’s beautiful, she’s popular, she has top grades, she’s perfect. I pale beside her. I saw them walking home together yesterday. She looked absolutely exuberant.”
Jessica held back a scoff, flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder. “They have been close friends even before they came to Korea; of course they will stick together.”
The younger raven-haired girl only forced a smile, finished her breakfast, and left for school, where whispers broke out like wildfire-after three months, two weeks, and four days, Krystal had finally wore something other than pink oh my god, this is huge, pass it on!. Unbeknownst to her, in fact, she was the center of many bets and wagers, and behind her back the losing students opened their wallets to grudgingly pay their fees.
Amber took no part in the ridiculous game of “How Long Will Krystal Keep Wearing Pink?” and instead watched the girl behind her bangs. The tomboy had always noticed Krystal, noticed how all the boys’ eyes followed her as she paid no heed to any of their advances. She noticed how she wore her clothing with such expressivity, how she took care of every little detail from the color of her earrings to the number of shoelace holes used. She watched surreptitiously, fascinated with the girl who every boy wanted and who every girl secretly admired.
After all, it did not take a brain surgeon to know that Krystal was beautiful. With long waist-length black hair and a slender figure, she was the epitome of female elegance and grace (Amber always envied that about her-the way she walked down the hallways so smoothly that it seemed like she was just floating from class to class). The girl also had a beautiful smile, one that could stop a crowd in its tracks, all perfect white teeth and thin lips and cute dimples. Above all, however, Amber found the most beautiful aspect was the sound of her laughter.
The first time Amber heard Krystal laugh was when the tomboy was rummaging through her pigsty of a locker for a spare pencil. Another girl in the class, Sulli was her name, was prancing around in all of her cutesy glory, recounting her late-night phone conversation with a certain secret admirer that had been sending her love letters for a month. Sulli was a strange one, Amber had to admit. Pretty, hardheaded, but still such a romantic. “Then he told me that he watched me all the time when I was not looking,” she narrated, making a face. “And I’m like, what a stalker! The nerve of him! All this time I thought it was a beautiful girl with flaxen hair who was sending me those letters! Then again, they did seem plagiarized.”
Just Sulli’s outraged facial expression made Krystal laugh in half-drink and spill her water bottle, and before long she was hugging her ribs in mirth, musical streams of bliss tumbling out from her very soul. Amber had stared, a smile tugging at her lips as her hand froze in between the walls of her locker. Later, she would confide that feeling to her best friend, who only replied that she had known the moment it happened.
“Go for it, sister!” Victoria cheered with a playful wink.
And go for it she did.
Several days after Krystal’s great fashion shift from enamored pink to aching grey, Amber finally got enough courage to strike up a conversation with the girl she’s been dying to know. After the last bell rang, she slammed her locker shut, swung her backpack over her shoulder, and took a deep breath.
“Hi, you’re Krystal, right?” she started off, nervously tucking a stray piece of hair away from her eyes.
The long-haired girl looked towards the sound and blinked several times. “Yah, that’s me.”
“We’re in the same homeroom. I’m Amber.” The tomboy held out her hand and grinned when the other girl reciprocated the gesture. Krystal had very soft skinny hands with a perfect manicure and pale pink polish. There was a hot pink bead bracelet around her wrist, which would have been tacky if anybody else was wearing it.
“Nice to finally talk to you, Amber. I’ve seen you around a lot.”
The taller looked to the floor and fidgeted a bit in self-consciousness. By god, she was even prettier up close. “Yah, well, I’m omnipresent,” she deadpanned, earning a giggle. “You heading home?”
“Yah, I’m just a few blocks down.” Krystal pointed towards a general direction on her right.
Amber silently took a deep breath, and in her mind she pumped a fist up to cheer herself on. “Want me to walk with you? Maybe grab a drink on the way?”
Krystal lifted her head and her gaze fell on her companion. With a smile, she nodded. “Okay.”
From then on Krystal’s outfits always had some pink in them. Of course, there were splashes of fun neon green to depict the days when Amber made her laugh until her ribs, as well as those cherry red shorts that embodied the days when Amber would kiss her until she was out of breath. There was a lot of yellow happiness, and very little grey, a medium-sized amount of passionate red, and sometimes a teaspoon of proud purple. But always, always, there was the color pink, the color of love and dearest affection. For all Krystal was concerned, she would wear pink for the rest of her life, just as long as Amber was by her side.
Pairing(s): KryBer, high school AU
Genre(s): Romance
Length: 1697 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Krystal dresses according to her mood, and nowadays all she wears is pink.
Inspiration(s): I hate wearing dresses, so this is just a tribute to my nonexistent sense of fashion. I can goddamn wear whatever I want, thank you very much.
```
Every color has an emotion and every piece of clothing has a story behind it. Or at least it did in Krystal Jung’s perspective. Her wardrobe was a splash of colors, ranging from a severe midnight black to a spunky autumn orange. Her outfits illustrated her sentiments in the deepest of ways, with a gloomy grey cardigan to embody her first heartbreak or an oversized yellow t-shirt to depict her delight of finding a puppy in one of her Christmas presents one winter.
Every morning, she picked out her school clothing based on her most profound thoughts, feelings, and reminiscences. A brown sweater might have symbolized her dislike of the bloody mathematics class in first block. A faded violet beanie might have portrayed her nervousness for the upcoming Biology final. A pair of green high tops might have represented her excitement of meeting her best friends at the mall after school. To strangers, she might have looked like a fashion disaster with all those uncoordinated colors and styles, but those close to her knew that she put her whole heart into her clothes.
Because her clothes expressed her in ways that nothing else could. She, quite literally, wore her heart on her sleeve.
That was why there was some suspicious talk among the students when Krystal showed up at the front entrance draped in pink. It started out with an absentminded comment (at least she’s color-coordinated today), but it turned into something more when she kept with the habit for the next several days, weeks, and eventually months (did the stores run out of fabric or something, because I swear she wore that outfit yesterday). One morning, she wore a frilly pink skirt with matching tights and heels. The next, she was clad in a plain pink t-shirt and a pair of pink knee-length capris. The styles changed, but the color stayed the same, and this continuous notion was raising some eyebrows around the high school, especially among the fashion freaks.
On the first day of her pink frenzy, Jessica had glanced at her little sister and laughed out loud, demanding to know who the lucky guy was. Krystal only blushed and replied that it was not a guy she was fawning after, but someone lovely and considerate. Her elder sister nodded, understanding. “I taught you well. All men are bastards in the most literal sense of the word. Do yourself some good and never get married to one of them; they’ll only drag you down.”
Krystal went to school in her pink clothes with abandon, not caring if the fashion-crazy girls looked at her like she was crazy. And when she was given the chance, she would stare at the infamous Amber Liu and hope that it was not too obvious that she was hopelessly crushing on her. It was a peculiar choice. Amber was nothing like what a girl was expected to be. Instead of skirts, she wore loose jeans that were more often than not faded and ripped at the knees (and not on purpose, either). In place of the standard tops that hugged the waist, she chose oversized graphic t-shirts that had sleeves that reached her elbows. Her short black hair was simple and never brushed, preferring to be covered with a baseball cap whenever possible. She bit her nails, played video games, skateboarded, hung out with the guys who accepted her as one of them, and refused to wear makeup under any circumstances. And when she beat up Kibum for teasing a poor acne-inflicted girl with divorced parents and horned-rimmed glasses, Krystal’s respect-o-meter skyrocketed and she just knew that no boy could ever make her feel this way.
Of course, one could only be happily in love for so long until pain started making its way through.
It was Friday when Krystal picked out a pink top and grey skirt with black flats. She came down the stairs from her bedroom and skipped towards the kitchen table to pour herself some cereal, lightly humming some tune she heard on the radio a few days ago. Jessica entered a few minutes later and stopped in her tracks at the sight of her younger sister’s attire. Having lived with her almost all her life, the elder had developed the ability to read Krystal’s fashion apparel like a children’s book with hardly any trouble. And at the sight of her pink-grey-black combination of clothes, Jessica sighed and comfortingly stroked her sister’s back. “She’ll notice you,” she whispered. “I’m sure she will. She’d be a fool not to.”
“No, she won’t,” Krystal deadpanned. “All she sees is Victoria, and I’m nothing compared to that Chinese Queen. She’s beautiful, she’s popular, she has top grades, she’s perfect. I pale beside her. I saw them walking home together yesterday. She looked absolutely exuberant.”
Jessica held back a scoff, flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder. “They have been close friends even before they came to Korea; of course they will stick together.”
The younger raven-haired girl only forced a smile, finished her breakfast, and left for school, where whispers broke out like wildfire-after three months, two weeks, and four days, Krystal had finally wore something other than pink oh my god, this is huge, pass it on!. Unbeknownst to her, in fact, she was the center of many bets and wagers, and behind her back the losing students opened their wallets to grudgingly pay their fees.
Amber took no part in the ridiculous game of “How Long Will Krystal Keep Wearing Pink?” and instead watched the girl behind her bangs. The tomboy had always noticed Krystal, noticed how all the boys’ eyes followed her as she paid no heed to any of their advances. She noticed how she wore her clothing with such expressivity, how she took care of every little detail from the color of her earrings to the number of shoelace holes used. She watched surreptitiously, fascinated with the girl who every boy wanted and who every girl secretly admired.
After all, it did not take a brain surgeon to know that Krystal was beautiful. With long waist-length black hair and a slender figure, she was the epitome of female elegance and grace (Amber always envied that about her-the way she walked down the hallways so smoothly that it seemed like she was just floating from class to class). The girl also had a beautiful smile, one that could stop a crowd in its tracks, all perfect white teeth and thin lips and cute dimples. Above all, however, Amber found the most beautiful aspect was the sound of her laughter.
The first time Amber heard Krystal laugh was when the tomboy was rummaging through her pigsty of a locker for a spare pencil. Another girl in the class, Sulli was her name, was prancing around in all of her cutesy glory, recounting her late-night phone conversation with a certain secret admirer that had been sending her love letters for a month. Sulli was a strange one, Amber had to admit. Pretty, hardheaded, but still such a romantic. “Then he told me that he watched me all the time when I was not looking,” she narrated, making a face. “And I’m like, what a stalker! The nerve of him! All this time I thought it was a beautiful girl with flaxen hair who was sending me those letters! Then again, they did seem plagiarized.”
Just Sulli’s outraged facial expression made Krystal laugh in half-drink and spill her water bottle, and before long she was hugging her ribs in mirth, musical streams of bliss tumbling out from her very soul. Amber had stared, a smile tugging at her lips as her hand froze in between the walls of her locker. Later, she would confide that feeling to her best friend, who only replied that she had known the moment it happened.
“Go for it, sister!” Victoria cheered with a playful wink.
And go for it she did.
Several days after Krystal’s great fashion shift from enamored pink to aching grey, Amber finally got enough courage to strike up a conversation with the girl she’s been dying to know. After the last bell rang, she slammed her locker shut, swung her backpack over her shoulder, and took a deep breath.
“Hi, you’re Krystal, right?” she started off, nervously tucking a stray piece of hair away from her eyes.
The long-haired girl looked towards the sound and blinked several times. “Yah, that’s me.”
“We’re in the same homeroom. I’m Amber.” The tomboy held out her hand and grinned when the other girl reciprocated the gesture. Krystal had very soft skinny hands with a perfect manicure and pale pink polish. There was a hot pink bead bracelet around her wrist, which would have been tacky if anybody else was wearing it.
“Nice to finally talk to you, Amber. I’ve seen you around a lot.”
The taller looked to the floor and fidgeted a bit in self-consciousness. By god, she was even prettier up close. “Yah, well, I’m omnipresent,” she deadpanned, earning a giggle. “You heading home?”
“Yah, I’m just a few blocks down.” Krystal pointed towards a general direction on her right.
Amber silently took a deep breath, and in her mind she pumped a fist up to cheer herself on. “Want me to walk with you? Maybe grab a drink on the way?”
Krystal lifted her head and her gaze fell on her companion. With a smile, she nodded. “Okay.”
From then on Krystal’s outfits always had some pink in them. Of course, there were splashes of fun neon green to depict the days when Amber made her laugh until her ribs, as well as those cherry red shorts that embodied the days when Amber would kiss her until she was out of breath. There was a lot of yellow happiness, and very little grey, a medium-sized amount of passionate red, and sometimes a teaspoon of proud purple. But always, always, there was the color pink, the color of love and dearest affection. For all Krystal was concerned, she would wear pink for the rest of her life, just as long as Amber was by her side.