Little eyelids fluttered as she glanced up, stunned to see something more than what she'd seen before, dark hair shone in the light from the open window, and Rose couldn't find the words for this, not even when she looked into his teal eyes and fell a little harder though it felt weird. She's six, and this is her first time at her best friend's house.

Are all older brothers like that? What's it mean that her world seems brighter than it seemed even a day ago? She stared, a little shell shocked, a little stupified, and more than a little bit awed.

"A-Are you Rose?" He stammered, stunned and dazed by pretty blue eyes with soft eyelashes that brushed over top of them, especially as her hand twitched and brushed medium length blond hair back. She looked absolutely adorable though he couldn't quite realize more than just what this meant. He was eight, and all of his friends told him that girls were still gross and that they dreaded the day that they meet their soulmate and when they first see color. 'I'm sure color's overrated.'

Color was not overrated as far as Luka knew now; it was stunning, and girls weren't gross when you could see them in color and how stunning they truly look with color. Besides, girls couldn't be all that bad when he did have a little sister, and she was usually fun to hang out with at times and laugh at old jokes.

"Y-Yeah, you're Juleka's big brother, right?" Rose murmured, still half dazed. Everything was brighter and different, and his hair was just as dark as it looked like before though everything around it changed color and the world seemed different.

"I am." He muttered, "I'm Luka."

"Like Juleka?" She pronounced it a little more like his name whether that was just a cute stumble or not Luka didn't mind.
"Yeah. Mom and Dad, I guess, just wanted to name as similarly." Luka spoke up as he considered just what all this meant. He'd be the first of his friends to find his soulmate, and that was its own level of weird.

"Okay." Rose murmured, "What all do I see?" She's only six, and their teacher hasn't explained what color is yet and how people discover it and definitely hasn't explained all of the history behind the first person to see color and articulate it. That would come until a couple years later and then be retaught throughout every single year until you could recite it verbatim by heart. Her parents had likely said something about soulmates, but hadn't explained it in too much detail.

She's young, and so's Luka, and nothing ever seems more clear as they both gaze up at each other, dealing with seeing color for the first time ever.

"So you have a boyfriend?" Alya blinks as they gather around Rose with what seems like a million colors.

"Oh, sort of?" Rose wasn't really allowed to stay the night since she turned nine and finally told Juleka's family that Luka was her soulmate; it hadn't really sunk in when she played games with him or laughed over silly jokes that he always seemed to either find or come up with or even as he played guitar for her for the first times. They worried that as they grew older things might not seem so innocent, but now at nearly twelve years old, almost six years since meeting him, her friends now realized.

It was sort of supposed to be casual as they were guessing at what colors like and what it feels like to see your soulmate for the first time, and Rose accidentally spoke up anyway.

"Sort of?" Alya asked, and Rose wondered if it was really that odd. Everyone nowadays seemed afraid to look into the eyes of one of their classmates and discover a soulmate and yet they all seemed to want to as well but avoided it out of some age old preteen superstition. No one was quite sure what it would be like, and they both anticipated and dreaded the day that they'd meet their soulmate.

Rose kind of felt like an outsider to all that silly fear, and she kind of wished that she could be in on it just to feel a bit more normal.

"I met him when I was six." She toyed around with the little pink and purple ring that he'd gotten her the other week when he'd asked what she wanted to do when they got older. At thirteen, Luka looked quite a bit older, had already dyed his hair two different colors, and Rose knew that when she visited to hang out with Juleka, he often couldn't look away from her.

She hadn't quite decided on what to do. He was attractive, and sometimes she caught herself staring at him. He's her soulmate, and she's known him for so long that he's practically more friend than soulmate. Rose isn't sure when she'll be ready for what feels like a massive unknown.

"Six?" Mylene gasps, and Rose smiles as Mylene is less afraid of meeting her soulmate, more intrigued, and a little unsure of herself. She's not afraid of the idea of a soulmate, kind of romanticises it, just worries that he won't like her back nearly as much.

"Yeah." Rose smiled, "He was eight."

"Six and eight?" Alya looks so stunned and out of it in awe that she's not quite sure just what to tell her.

"He's a friend. I'm not sure if he's my boyfriend though?" Rose is never sure exactly where the bridge gaps and where romance takes over. Is it spontaneous? Is it natural? Does she have to tell him that she wants to be his girlfriend? How does it work? All of the romance books that she tries reading are about older people finding their soulmates and never give her any answers. She only gets half through them anyway.

"Not sure? Friend?" Alya looks surprised, and Rose shakes her head. She can't help it that they haven't bridged that gap, haven't discussed just what they are beyond it might take time and random, sweet, little gifts. Luka's teaching her guitar, and that matters somehow more than the ring that she's still playing with.

"Lay off her." Juleka defended, "She's known him forever."
"You knew?" Nathanael asks, and Juleka shakes her head at him.

"She's my best friend, and I've known her forever." Juleka explains half looking exhausted, "Of course, I knew. I've known her since before she found him after all."

The general awe and heightened awareness of this comment makes Rose feel more awkward than before. The school waits with bated breath for the days when they'll step up and find their soulmates too. Crushes are met with trepidation and nerves as few have the confidence to lock eyes on their crushes and discover that they are soulmates or aren't soulmates.

Rose wonders what a crush feels like. Does it feel like when Juleka helps with dinner, and Luka guides her by the hand closeby, asking her about her dreams and her favorite colors and if she had a pet, what would it be? Rose guesses that crushes are like that, but may be they aren't.

"Do you want to talk to Luka?" That's Juleka's favorite question as if she's hard at work matchmaking her best friend with her brother. It seems odd to anybody else, but Rose kind of likes talking to him on the phone. She can't get rid of the guilt of that meaning that she'll have to stop talking to Juleka to do it.

"If you don't mind. But I still want to talk with you." Rose insists as she snuggles on her bed, always curious about how Luka's soft voice somehow grows warm and sounds much older on the phone. He's growing up so fast that Rose doesn't quite realize that she is too beyond the normal things that she has to do lately.

"I'll be writing. Just ask Luka, and I'm sure that he'll let you talk to me in a bit." Juleka went off in search of her brother, and before Rose knew it, she could hear Luka's voice.

"You're twelve and a half now, right?" He asks, and Rose smiles at the thought. He still remembers even though he's already so much older than her, it seems.

"Yeah? Aren't you almost fifteen? We only celebrate birthdays, Luka, not half years." She's laughing with just a hint of a squeal to her voice, and she's glad that he doesn't question her nor judge her for sometimes being a little weird. He never calls her childish even though she's sure that she's way younger than he is even with only two years between them.

"I am." Luka smiled, "It's fine. What's it going to be like when we're older?" His voice goes soft in the only way that it does when he talks about their future. This is why Rose isn't sure that they're dating or really acting like soulmates. Actions seem so hard to make when you've known someone for more than half of your life, and it seems odd to change it now.

"I don't know. I'll be thirteen when you're fifteen. The girls at school think it's weird when I admit to having a sort of boyfriend." Rose wonders if it's too much to say this, if she ever overspeaks. Luka's never rude to her, and he never outright tells her if she does. She'll have to figure it out by what he says.

"Well," Luka pauses, "We're not a normal case. I'm fine with waiting for you, Rose. We met when we were just kids, so we'll just piece it together somewhere along the way." He's also so laidback compared to her when it comes to them or so he seems. Rose just isn't quite sure what she wants.

"Okay," She sighed, "It's just, I don't know what to do." Rose wants to be like the other girls, but she doesn't understand why they are so worried about soulmates when it go sort of like this, "I saw sunlight for the first time that day when we met. I remember."
"I know. Me too." He sighed, "I saw blue eyes with yellow eyelashes and blond hair of a girl that I'd just met." Luka wasn't good at words the way that a poet might be, and he isn't really sure how to explain this to her at all, how to just say all that he felt and saw that day, how he fell for a girl just two years younger than him, a girl, his sister's age, when no one his age ever really wanted a girlfriend.

"I saw dark hair, black hair." She corrected herself as if the word was new, "And bright, bright eyes." His eyes felt brighter than the sunlight and those words seemed to wrong to actually say outloud. Rose didn't want them to be laughed at or for him to take them in a funny way when she was still a little lost at where they stood.

"A lot happens in six and a half years or about anyway." Luka sighs through the phone, and Rose smiles at just the sound of his voice despite herself.

"Yeah." She pauses as she considers her next words, that same old, stubborn guilt pawing at her throat as she speaks finally, "Can I talk to Juleka?"

"Sure. She might still be writing." Luka gets up, and Rose can hear it on her end as he tracks his sister down.

Rose doesn't know whether it's worse to ask to speak to her best friend's brother while on the phone with her or to ask to speak to her soulmate's sister when she's on the phone with him. Both make her feel almost equally bad.

Being fourteen means that Rose has seen quite a few people find their soulmates and some being disappointed that their soulmate was not who they thought it would be. Quite a few haven't met their soulmates yet, and their was a stubbornness to them as if the thought of dating their soulmate or having their first kiss meant way more than just waiting until the time was right.

Chloe was a menance bent on figuring out exactly why she hasn't met her soulmate yet, as she insists that black, white, and various shades of gray don't go with her well at all. She deliberately picks on people with soulmates especially Rose since she'd found hers first.

She doesn't have to say a word after school when she goes to Luka for him to know what's wrong; some days when he's able to slip out of school early, he walks her home, holding her hand and telling her that she's absolutely incredible in fewer words. Rose loves his steady comfort even though she can feel them at a precipice of change, feel something in the air that didn't use to be there.

It doesn't take much one day for Luka and Rose to shift into something a bit different when his hand feels particularly soft in hers after he picked her up from school despite Chloe being sick that day, and Rose wonders just what it's like to stand up on tiptoes and kiss him. She's not sure if she wants to kiss his cheek or his lips, and as nerves hit her, she kisses his cheek.

Something changes that day; she's fourteen almost fifteen, and he's sixteen. Rose can't define why his hand feels different or how he's managed to so effortlessly slip into her life and into her heart. She decides that she likes it even as they take time slower than most despite meeting so young.

Luka's her soulmate and her other best friend. Rose doesn't pause to consider what a crush feels like, because it probably just feels like this, but not quite as good as far often than not it just leads into heartbreak. Rose trusts Luka, can depend on him, and just hopes that everyday she'll remind him somehow why they probably became soulmates that day as friendship has never tasted quite this sweet before.