"Mommy, what's color like?" Her feet slightly knock forward and back again on the stool as she watches her mother cook before her.
"It's like a ripple on the ocean, ever changing, ever increasing, or the way that baked goods spring to life in the oven." She took a deep breath, "It caught me by surprise the day that I met your father. He was everything that I never knew I needed, and I still need him to keep me steady like how I keep him steady." Sabine turned to face her daughter with a smile and watched the way her blue bell eyes lit up with excited cheer.
"When do you think that I'll meet him, my soulmate?" Marinette was still young, still unaware of how heartbreak sometimes festered within even the strongest of bonds, and Sabine knew that with finding your soulmate, came a slew of difficulties.
"When you're ready to." It's all that Sabine can tell her, because it's the truth that she's come to know.
Marinette smiles, and even then, Sabine realizes that her daughter is putting all of her hope and love into her soulmate: a kind heart just seeking another.
There's chatter everywhere in the classroom, excitement over a new student of all things yet Marinette remembers the day like no other, remembers it with joy though no matter how hard that joy is sometimes to discover.
She finds what she assumes to be a culprit messing with her, the new boy, and it doesn't matter that he's famous or a model as she all but growls at him, but their eyes don't lock as she's too busy leveling a glare in his direction to bother meeting his eyes, and he's too ashamed even though it ends up not being his fault.
Forgiveness comes in the form of an umbrella held open and handed to her, and a laugh that makes her stop and stare; she always swore that she'd wait to meet her soulmate before falling, but his laugh does something to her heart, and her eyes find his.
His eyes aren't leveled on to her own, but she feels the color zap through the air like electricity and watches as green takes shape and forms before her, and the way when her eyes dart up, his hair is colored from a dull gray to a vibrant sunshiney color, and she lacks the eloquence for the descriptions that her mother had gave her years ago.
Her eyes fill with a burning up and the slight prickling of tears that don't fall, and she wonders if he'll remember this moment, carry it with him like a torch in a dark cave like she will, or whether he'll forget the moment that first linked them.
She doesn't realize how jarring soulmates are or how important it is for two sets of eyes to interlock in that crucial moment, already having spent a good chunk of the evening sitting with her parents and discussing colors, the names that she'd never gotten a real chance to learn of before.
While green captures her heart, steals it in the same way the sunshine will become a part of her, pink is easily a color that she's came to like, and she loves how folds of fabric spring to vibrant life now with so much color without having to fumble and marvel and imagine what they're like without really knowing.
Marinette had even found herself fixing up old projects of hers and savoring just the way the color lit up in her parents' eyes the night before as she told them everything.
She'd told Alya of brilliant hues and joys, and how the world shifted into a better, brighter version of itself that the other woman analyzed with tender joy.
The only thing was, the soul crushing moment that she wasn't prepared for, he didn't experience what she'd experienced the day before in the rain.
Adrien was talking to Nino and admitting easily to the DJ to be that he still hadn't found his soulmate though he'd met countless people through every step of the way, and how he still only saw things in black and white.
She can't find the words past the choking in her throat to ask him to just look into her eyes; her heart breaks, and she wonders if he'll think of her as just another crazed fangirl.
Marinette excuses herself to leave the room under the teacher's surprised gaze; she finds the nurse's office as dull and dreary as one might expect with pale blue walls and a white hospital-esque bed in the center of it, a computer in hues of gray and white with a gray office chair in front.
The dull room nearly makes her lose her breakfast that she'd gotten up early to eat in a fresh batch of joy before reality came crashing down on her.
It is too dreary, too similar to black and white and gray hues, too similar to losing a part of herself that feels stolen away as if he'd had no idea what she'd mean to him.
"Can I just go home?" Her voice is soft and broken; the nurse takes a look at her and must pity her or something.
"What do you see?" It was quiet and gentle, and all Marinette can do is respond to the careful inquiry.
"Blue, light blue, gray, white, and just everything in here is dull. How can you stand it?" Marinette wonders if her stomach will ever stop rolling soon.
"It's supposed to be dull for the students that haven't met their soulmates yet. I was a late bloomer myself, didn't meet my soulmate until we were in our early thirties." The nurse still looked remarkably young and seemed nice despite everything.
"I just can't take it anymore, can I go home? I just want to talk with my parents." Marinette remembers books on how fleeting color can be, she understands now, is scared to find out how, and she presses closer to the bed and wonders if there is a way to soothe the aching, the cracking and tearing, of her heart.
"I'll call your parents." It's like the nurse knows that it's an issue with soulmates which usually meant that one person was matched to an already matched person.
Marinette curls up on herself even as she goes home, even as slowly, the world drifts seemingly more out of control; she hopes that the ache will heal in time, slowly scar over, and that she won't have to stare at the kid before her and wonder why she was broken in this way.