love is not a colour ( myungsoo x sungjong, pg )
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. - William Shakespeare
one.
It is always said there is no such thing as black and white, because it is impossible to only see the world in two opposite extremes, and most things fall into a spectrum of grey; just like yin and yang, good exists because evil exists, and day exists because night exists, and love exists because hate exists. A life of simple absolutes is easier than a life of endless varieties. That is the way the world works, though. It is painted in black and white - literally - until you meet your soulmate in the way that destiny wants you to, and then, and only then, can you finally see the shades of the grey, and all the other colours too.
That’s the way it’s been since Sungjong was born.
He, and all the others who have yet to meet their soulmate, sees the world in monochrome and he must wait for the day for his eyes to adjust to sunshine for the first time, for the day when he can recognise a rainbow.
Sungjong wonders who his soulmate is - are they a girl? A guy? Are they skinny or curvy or blonde or brunette or tall or short or loud or quiet? He wonders if he even has a soulmate at all and avoids the subject when his friends ask if he can see them yet, and among wondering what his soulmate looks like and what their name is and everything else about them, he also wonders what colours look like and if the world will become more beautiful with colour in it, if the food he eats will suddenly taste better, or if the sounds he hears everyday - voices, music, fingers on a keyboard, the faulty coffee machine on his floor - will suddenly sound more clear, more real.
Because everything comes down to that. Everything comes down to the soulmate that exists somewhere in Sungjong’s stars, that lives their life parallel - perpendicular? - to his own, that he may have seen as a blur of traffic on the highway, that he may have glanced at while walking to work, that he may have read about in the newspaper. They, this person who Sungjong can only hope to meet and share a life with, is invisible, belongs in the chrome-coloured abyss of his fantasies and thoughts, and could appear out of thin air suddenly, like a tornado or a rumble of thunder.
He or she the most important person that Sungjong has never met.
two.
The first person he knew to see in colour was his older cousin, Howon, who lived all the way in Busan and who had come up to Gwangju for a weekend with Sungjong and his parents, and Sungjong had been with him when it happened. He and Howon had been to the arcade and were on their way home when they stopped for ice-cream, and his hyung’s eyes were drawn to a pretty girl - Eunji, she later introduced herself as - and his eyes changed, only subtly and only enough to notice if you were looking, but there was something different; she was the girl behind the counter, she was the girl in the employee uniform, but to his hyung, she was probably an angel at that moment in particular.
Sungjong remembers Howon grabbing his sleeve, whispering “I see them, Sungjong” in a voice of amazement and awe, and that is one of the only moments in his life when he felt jealous, envious of those eyes, sickened by the sight of black and white. For Eunji and Howon, they didn’t say a single word for several long seconds, letting the bright of the day sink in because Sungjong can only assume Howon was Eunji’s soulmate too, and just like that, their stars had met, their lines had crossed, their shadows burned and the two began dating not long after, long distance.
The opposite happened for his parents.
His mother, so she says, cannot see in colour and neither can his father. They met and fell in love and married with the knowledge that their relationship was temporary - they weren’t soulmates and somewhere in the world, their respective other halves were living, breathing, surviving just fine without them, and that was totally and completelyokay.
Love exists in so many wonderful ways, they said, and love is not a colour and sometimes souls can collide and sometimes, simply, they won’t.
three.
It is raining when Sungjong goes to work that morning and so he takes the subway instead of walking the half-hour journey with wet socks and shoes and no umbrella, and it’s not the first time he’s done it since he got the job, but he couldn’t’ve picked a worse day to ride it. Everyone seems to have had the same idea as him so the station, platform and entire carriage is packed full of people and he finds himself pressed awkwardly against a pole by an unpleasant woman who doesn’t seem to know what personal hygiene is, but he wrestles out of the spot and exits the train as quickly as possible.
On his way out of the station, someone - a man, although quite small and skinny - bumps into him, eyes covered in a pair of dark sunglasses, who immediately bows and apologises insistently, and Sungjong is about to nod and accept his apology when he blinks and suddenly there’s a ray of bright sunlight shining in his face and like wet ink, colour begins to leak into his vision, into the walls of the building, the clothes, the sky and everything, all at once, becomes incredibly clear.
He swears his heart stops and for the short moments that he lets his eyes adjust, like after the flash of a camera, he feels nothing but shortness of breath and sweatiness on palms and it takes Sungjong all of thirty seconds to come to his senses and realise the man he bumped into has started to walk away, and if Sungjong doesn’t approach him now then he will regret it for the rest of his life.
Sungjong follows behind him close enough and lightly taps his shoulder, and the man stops in front of him, turning around.
“Hi,” Sungjong says brightly, but his smile drops when the stranger gives him a look.
“Hello,” he replies shortly, “who are you? Can I help you?”
In the spur of the moment and sheer excitement of meeting his soulmate, Sungjong hadn’t thought of how to deal with it, how to politely tell a random stranger that they were the other halves that time forget, that he was the smoke Sungjong has been trying to catch his whole life. He curses his stars that he had to meet this man on the busiest day of the year in also the busiest place, and that even though he has imagined this moment since he was old enough to know what a soulmate was, it never once occurred to him what would happen if his soulmate already had someone else.
Sungjong suddenly wishes the ground was quick sand, and that he was slowly, tragically, sinking into it.
“I’m sorry,” he says and bows 90 degrees, and the man looks at him strangely.
“Okay,” the other replies and turns around to head back in the direction he was walking to, and Sungjong can’t stop himself once again from leaping forward, uttering a “no” from between his lips.
The stranger turns back around, annoyed, “I’m running late. What do you want?”
Sungjong stands perfectly still, blinking once, and before he can repress his words, he blurts it to the man in front of him, who is tapping his foot impatiently.
“You’re my soulmate.”
four.
He later finds out his soulmate’s name is Myungsoo, that he’s a Math teacher and that he’s also blind.
Myungsoo, after being told of Sungjong’s news, had scoffed in disbelief but seemed to warm up to the idea when Sungjong assured he wouldn’t lie about something like this, and that was when Sungjong, on a whim or just because he felt it was fate, had walked with him to his school despite being late himself, and he decided with a wide smile that he was glad Myungsoo was his soulmate because he was in love with the way he spoke and the way his dimples came out when he laughed, and all the times Sungjong was jealous of his cousin Howon suddenly disappear when he realises how much happier, lovelier and brighter the world feels now that he’s met his other half.
He exchanges numbers with Myungsoo and they agree to call each other soon and Sungjong arrives at his office twenty minutes late with a spring in his step.
“You can see them, can’t you?” Taeyeon asks the second she sees him, smiling, and Sungjong nods happily, his eyes disappearing into delighted arcs.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” She remarks, looking around the drab office, but she smiles widely and Sungjong thinks this is the best day of his life, wants to thank the heavens for the rain and thank his lucky stars that he met Myungsoo on the busiest day at the busiest subway station, because if it hadn’t rained, if he hadn’t taken the train, if Myungsoo hadn’t bumped into him walking the opposite direction, he would still be comparing black to white and grey, and hearing voices without really listening to them, and waiting endlessly for a rainbow.
He barely finishes any work all day, and calls Myungsoo the moment he gets home.
five.
It doesn’t take long for Myungsoo to fall head-over-heels in love with Sungjong too. By their third date, he invites Sungjong to his apartment and they exchange secrets hidden beneath duvet covers, walk fingers up dry skin to trace the poetic remains of scars and old accidents, kiss away the melancholy come morning.
Sungjong becomes Myungsoo’s fire and ice and earth and air, the elements claiming their place, and it is on their seventh date, sat together in the park, holding secret hands behind backs, that Myungsoo asks Sungjong to describe what colours look like.
“Yellow. What does that feel like?”
“It’s everything you feel now,” Sungjong smiles, swinging their entwined hands between them. “It’s warmth, it’s happiness, it’s the taste of a lemon. And green smells like leaves and grass and fresh air, and blue is how ice feels when it’s on your tongue.”
Myungsoo smiles, leaning against the tree. “I wish I could see you.”
Sungjong leans forward to press a kiss to the older’s lips, who smiles.
“Pink?”
Sungjong is confused for a moment, then responds. “Tastes like cotton candy, like lollipops. And red is that sting you feel when you get a papercut. And brown tastes like fresh coffee and dark chocolate.”
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Sungjong knows that he might not be Myungsoo’s soulmate, and it’s impossible to ever know, but with the way Myungsoo looks at Sungjong but cannot see him and is still able to know how to make Sungjong weak at the knees, how to turn him on with just words and touches, Sungjong knows it doesn’t matter if he isn’t. Tonight, he will officially ask Myungsoo to be his boyfriend, in Sungjong’s living room while they eat takeaway food, and he hopes he will say yes.