Chapter 1: It's the blues!

She paints when something's bothering her.

Kai, leaned up against the door with arms crossed, watched the entire scene in front of him with a newfound worry and unease. He had come by Hillary's house to see her, like he usually did every morning, before they left for the Dojo together to meet up with a couple of other friends, and had expected her to—well, be having breakfast. Or talking to some clients on how 'cyan would bring out the décor more if coupled with a lighter shade of green than lime'. Whatever. Anything but being in her sweatshirt at ten AM in the morning, staring at an empty canvas with a paint brush in her hand that looked as if it had been colored and washed repeatedly but—

Not a dot on the canvas.

Kai knitted his brows and, uncrossing his arms, slowly walked over to the middle of the room to sit on the black beanbag right across from where Hillary stood, perfectly in his line of sight. And he should've been too. Been noticeable that is. But she glazed a look at him—as if he weren't even there—and continued to stare at the canvas, the paint brush still in hand and Kai wondered what was it exactly that was on her mind, that was bothering her so Goddamn much that—

"Have you eaten anything?" He found himself muttering, feeling awkward at the slight worry that tinged his tone. He stared up at her face, to see her jut her lower lip out in as if in a pout, and without looking at him, shook her head slightly in a negative.

"I'm not hungry." She replied, when he stood up to fetch something, finally looking up at him. "Seriously. I think I'm coming down with something…"

He didn't believe her. She looked perfectly fine. Minus the lazy slept-in clothes and the entire messed-up, sideways-tied, loosely-held bun. And the dark bangs under her eyes…

"I don't think so." He replied firmly. "And, I see you haven't slept much last night….?"

"It's the blues!" She hunched her shoulders in defeat and let out a sigh, "I don't know…" Kai raised an eyebrow as she put her paintbrush on the stand angrily with a slam, "I think too much! And, something's been on my mind and it's not getting off and I can't concentrate and I don't know what to think, because there's too much—Or I think I'm making it too much when there's nothing there. I'm nauseous because I can't sleep because I think too much! And I can't eat because I'm nauseous and—See!" She pointed accusingly at Kai's amused expression, "I think so freaking much that I don't even know what to say!"

"No. No." Kai smiled, albeit teasingly, "I get what you're saying, strangely enough. What is it that you've been thinking of that has you sleep-deprived, food-deprived…" He looked at her messy hair and added, "…Looking-human-deprived. Whatever."

"Very funny." She mocked, before instantly shifting her mood, grabbing her face in utter frustration and groaning out an, "And I don't know! It's the blues! It's the Goddamn blues!"

Kai knew better than to comment, and could only watch as Hillary raised her palms to her face, straightened out the knit in her eyebrows. A few seconds of silence later, in which Kai sat in his comfortable seat on the beanbag merely watching the messy silhouette standing ahead, when Hillary's expression changed from wild to slightly tranquil, she muttered, "It's the blues."

And only then did Kai followed her gaze to the paint-holders set aside on the table next to the canvas—multiple glass bottles, fifty at least, all lined up in a random pattern against each other, on the wooden surface.

All a shade of blue.

It was enough to make him get up from his seat and stare agape. Lighter shades, medium shades, darker shades, some an indiscrimination between blue and purple while others between blue and white. And every shade in between. He knew she had a fetish for art and everything related but this was just ridiculous.

All the Goddamn fifty-something shades of blue? Was it even possible to buy them? Didn't you have to mix a few shades to get another shade or something?

Standing right next to her, he watched with confused eyes flitting from Hillary's unreadable expression to the bottles, and said the only thing that came to his mind, "What the hell, Hils."

But she seemed to be in a trepidation of her own. "I got them from the market yesterday," She said, "I tried using them but, it's too much."

"No shit." He retorted, thinking exactly what was it that she had been thinking and why and—knowing exactly how completely ridiculous it would be.

"I mean," She continued as if he hadn't spoken at all, "There are so many. I didn't realize there'd be so many. I didn't even think—I got overwhelmed seeing them. I just had to have them!" She pushed her too-long-sleeved hands to her cheeks, something Kai knew she did when she was nervous, and continued, "And what do they even mean!? I mean, lighter shades are calmness and peace and understanding and darker shades of blue are for power and strength and confidence and some dumb shade means expertise and some other dumb shade means coldness and depression and depth and…"

He could only resist the urge to grab his head in frustration after that rant. "God, you think too much. It's just a stupid color."

But it wasn't. Somehow, Kai had a feeling that this was more about something else, than just the stupid color. It always was so damn complicated with her. Her crazy scenarios—like this—often held to a deeper meaning than she let on. He didn't know if she realized it, but her and her abstract way of thinking, including relating her situation to something completely random and out of the 'blue', was something that got increasingly frustrating to handle every time for someone as grounded as him.

And she wasn't even hearing it. Kai merely shook his head as she moved her hands from her face, and put them on the wooden table and leaned on it, staring at the many shades till it seemed as if her head was spinning. "No it isn't! It's special!" Her voice softened, "But…I don't know anything. I don't think…there's too much. Too many feelings. And everything contradicts."

Kai stared down at her contemplating face, frustrated that she wasn't even paying his words any attention, before grabbing her by the shoulders and making her, at the very least, notice him if not pay any attention, "What is this really about?"

To Kai's utter surprise, Hillary Tatibana blushed. Hiding a smile, she looked in the other direction and refused to meet his eye. Her cheeks were a tiny bit, barely noticeable, red and Kai wondered….it obviously couldn't be the touch.

What the heck was going on in her head?!

"It's your favorite color, isn't it?" She muttered after a few moments of silence, finally meeting his eye. "Blue. Which shade?"

Not knowing what to say, and feeling awkward by the minute, he let out a "Dark blue."

She nodded. "It's special. Every shade is. It's too much all in one. And everything contradictory. And it was something I had to try at."

Sometimes, Kai wished he had never gotten to know this mess of a girl; his life would've been less complicated, maybe.

"It's special and overwhelming and it's not just the color." She let out a deep sigh before continuing, "It's you."

Wait, what-

Kai froze.

And there, in the middle of her berserk, artistic, paintings-on-the-every wall type room, in her naked feet and sweatshirts and hair too loosely-messily-disproportionately tied and them being around all the right-wrong shades of blue, he heard the words he never, for the life of him, would've imagined Hillary to say.

"I think I'm in love with you."

Author's note:

Wrote this last night. Sleep deprived. Insomniac, and stuff I am right now. Thought I'd post it up anyways. Exams are currently going on (yes, I wrote it in the middle. Bit me) and two down, four more to go.

Anyways, this was basically a toy at color psychology. lol. I've always been interested in that! Any psychology, basically, but particularly this one. Colors say a lot, so I'm just going to mess around with them.

Also, this came from the idea of Chromatic Aberration. You know, that lens defect where you can see all the colours of the rainbow when you're not supposed to? That. I'm going poetic, I know. There's going to be a lot of poetic stuff in my writing in the future, so...and it's a developmental-ish story. Like, it's going to progress onwards. Not a series of unrelated one-shots like You and I. It has a flow.

Also...I do not know what I'm doing. lol. Um, no idea. Like, I just picked a color and went with the flow. And that's what I'm going to be doing in the next chapters too. I'm open to color ideas, any suggestions whatever you guys want to see. Though, I obviously won't apply them all, but, meh, no harm in suggesting.

So, re-freaking-view people! Signing out.