(A/N: Written for Round Three of Pro-Bending Circut. I'm sorry that I messed up color synesthesia completely, I didn't mean to but changed it for the sake of the story. I based it mostly off of a Mango Shaped Hole, that one character in the secret society books, wikipedia and random blogs written from people who have it.)
Team: Harbor Town Hog Monkeys
Colors Chosen:
Red - Determination
Yellow - Positivity, Brightness
Brown - Protection, Security
Additional Prompts:
1 Point - (Word) Clear
2 Points - (Smell) Alcohol
3 Points - (Quote) What makes things memorable is that they are meaningful, significant, colorful. - Joshua Foer
Word Count (Not counting Author's Note):
1,757 Words
Color Synesthesia (noun) – A condition where a person connects something they saw or heard to a color; the ability to see or hear colors
Korra's mother had always told her that memories were memorable because they were meaningful, significant and colorful. Perhaps she didn't mean it as literally as Korra saw it. To Korra, everything was colorful. She was red. The K in her name and her voice were, well, red. Her mother, on the other hand, brought up silver, while her father was blue and the girls who bullied her in second grade were gold. Mako, a friend she had made when she moved to Republic city in tenth grade, brought up the color brown and his brother, Bolin, was purple.
They all had their own colors. Sometimes people's color's overlapped with someone else making it confusing but never did they change. The girls in second grade were still gold when she bumped into them when visiting her hometown after graduating high school and her parents' colors had never once changed in her life.
Which was what intrigued her about Asami.
From what Korra knew about color synesthesia, the colors associated with each letter and sound never changed, which meant that, well, Asami should stay one color, not changing every time Korra saw her. She was determined to find out what the heck was going on.
Korra had first met Asami in high school where they shared English and Spanish together. She had sat in the back corner of the room near the window where she doodled drawings of cars, mechanical designs and other small things instead of listening to the teacher. Nonetheless, she managed to score hundreds on all the tests given to her. When she spoke in class, it shone yellow. It was bright. It was positive. Korra liked the shade of yellow that her voice brought out. It made her feel happy.
When Korra managed to bump into Asami the second time in her life, it was during college. Well it was more of a house party that happened to be hosted by a college student. The frat house reeked of alcohol. The music was an ugly shade of green. The guys at the party were persistent, trying to get her to kiss one of them which she said no to each and every time.
"Oh come on sweetie, just one kiss?" Another guy asked. Korra resisted the urge to slap him. His voice was a nauseous shade of orange.
"Leave her alone Wu." Korra turned; the voice was a shade of brown. Standing in front of Wu was Asami, who was glaring down at the drunken guy.
Before she could question the change in color, Wu had changed his target and Korra was not okay with that. "Oh hey Asami. Here to reconsider rejecting me?" He said, his words slightly slurred.
Asami opened her mouth to retort, but before she could say a word, Korra threw a punch at Wu's arm. The drunken guy immediately fell to the ground, clutching his arm dramatically while screaming, "Wu down! Wu down!" Korra looked down. She felt a mixture of guilt and pride.
"Ignore him," Asami said, her voice still letting out a shade of brown. "He's dramatic like that." And with that she left Korra standing there, holding a beer and wondering when her voice had changed color and how it managed to do that.
She bumped into Asami a few more times when she was stuck in a bar with men hitting on her and once when it was pouring and she offered to drive her back to her dorm. Not that Korra needed her help, she could manage to fight each and every one of those guys or walk back to her dorm herself in the pouring rain, but it was nice to feel like she was safe. It was weird but Korra didn't mine. Each time, she got to see the light brown that her voice brought out.
Around the fourth time Asami had stopped a guy from hitting her, Korra decided to buy her a drink. After all, she had managed to stop her from punching another guy and getting kicked out of another bar.
"How do you always manage to find me?" Korra asked, handing the drink to Asami.
She shrugged, "How are you always getting into trouble?"
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
"So," Asami said, breaking the silence. "What are you majoring?"
"Journalism." Korra paused to take a drink. "I'm guessing you are studying engineering."
Asami nodded. "Automotive engineer."
They talked for an hour; all of it blurring into one happy memory.
It was the third time they met, when Korra finally realized that she was falling for Asami. It was a pure accident they had managed to meet up again; a few weeks after they talked at the bar. For her birthday, her parents had bought her a new car, which was really unnecessary since Korra was perfectly capable of walking to her classes and a car would mean a parking fee, but still a great gift since, well, it was a car. And so Korra used the car a few times when it was raining before she managed to get a flat tire from a stray nail on the road.
The closest auto repair shop was at Future Industries; one of the biggest car producing companies or companies in general in the world. It wasn't much of a surprise to Korra to find Asami working at such a big company while still in college, though it confused her why she was working in the car repair shop since it seemed to make more sense for her to be working with engineering.
"License and registrations please," Asami said, not looking up from the clipboard. Korra opened the glove box, taking out the papers and her ID.
"Here you go Asami," she said, handing the items over. Asami looked up.
"Oh, hey Korra. I kind of got distracted from the paperwork here," she said. "How are you doing?"
Korra smiled, "I'm doing fine." She paused. "Why are you working down here and not at engineering or something? You always seemed to like engineering."
"Hands on experience," Asami shrugged. Korra nodded as they slipped into an awkward silence. "Ok, all the forms are filled out. You just need to sign here," she pointed at a line on the paper. "Along with filling out your information again here." She flipped a few pages to point at another form. "And here." She said, opening the packet to the last page. "We should be done fixing your car in a few hours. Pick it up at six."
Korra nodded, signing all the information needed which was an annoyingly large amount.
When she arrived at 6:15 to get the car, she realized that Asami was still working on it.
And she looked amazing while working on it.
In her head, Korra assumed that being covered in grease and oil shouldn't make anyone look better but somehow, Asami had managed to pull that off. It didn't help that she had taken off the jacket and was only wearing a tank top.
It was around that time did Korra fall in love with Asami. She had come to this realization in the car ride back to her dorm room causing her to miss a turn and barely crash into a car.
Having a crush was fun like that.
After a while, they became close friends. It wasn't hard; they bumped into each other way too much. For three years, Korra continued crushing over Asami and for three years, Korra got continuously more heart broken as Asami dated more and more people.
She also got continuously more confused. The color change was slow but at some point within the three years, Asami had managed to once again, change the color of her voice from brown to a light blue. It was a nice color but how it managed to change once again made Korra even more determined to figure out what was going on.
"Pass the clear paint," Asami said, calling from the car where she was currently painting red.
Korra hopped off the counter and to the buckets of paint. "Why do you need a clear paint? What use would it be?"
"Makes it shinier," Asami said as she grabbed the paint bucket from Korra. They stayed silent for a while as Asami concentrated on the car and Korra concentrated on Asami.
"Your voice is a light blue," she blurted out. Asami stopped painting.
"A light blue?"
"Yeah, like blue like the sky," Korra mumbled. Asami stared at her as Korra kept her eyes on the floor, not wanting to look up to see Asami's reaction.
"It's not blue," Asami finally said. Korra opened her mouth to explain. "It's more of a light red, like-" She walked over to the paint shelf before picking out a color. "Like this red."
Korra shook her head. "That's not the color of your voice. That's the color of my voice; yours is most definitely blue." She paused. "Or maybe a brown. Or yellow."
Asami stared. "Blue, brown and yellow are pretty far apart."
"The color of your voice changes from time to time."
"That doesn't make sense though," Asami said. "It stays the same."
Korra shrugged, "Believe me, I'm confused too."
They slipped back into silence as Asami continued painting the car.
"Wait a second," Korra said suddenly getting off the counter. "You hear colors? You have color synesthesia?"
"I thought that was kind of implied when I told you that my voice was red." Korra stared at her. "Why are you staring at me? Korra?"
She didn't know what overcame or what was happening but out of nowhere, she found herself kissing Asami. It was a messy kiss, not one of her best but then again, it was completely random. She quickly pulled back.
"I'm sorry," she quickly said, before running out of the shop.
She didn't talk to Asami for two weeks after that. Two weeks of declining the calls, ignoring the texts, staying locked in her room where she worked and cringed before Asami barged into her house, picked the lock and confronted Korra.
Confronted might not have been the right word.
Two weeks before Asami came to her house, picked the lock and kissed Korra.
Two weeks before Asami told Korra that she loved her too.
And two weeks before Asami told her that her voice was red, god damn it.