When Arthur Kirkland was born, the world was black and white. Upon looking into his mother's eyes for the first time, he saw no color, but instead a grayscale, flecks of white and flecks of black. Looking into the mirror at the age of five, he wondered if his hair really was the whitish color he saw. He wondered if he had his mother's eyes, or his father's.
"Mum, what do my eyes look like?" he had asked when he was ten.
"They're a color called green, Arthur," she had replied, smiling warmly at him.
"What does 'green' look like?"
"Mm..." His mother paused and thought for a moment. "Your shade of green is sort of dark. But you have speckles of lighter shades in your eyes, too."
Arthur looked in his mirror that night, wondering why he couldn't see what his mother had described. Black, white, and a thousand shades of gray.
"Mum, how do you know what green is?" a 15-year-old Arthur asked.
"Because I can see colors. When the time is right, you'll also be able to see them. It takes a great deal of magic, and you'll have to be patient," she had replied with a knowing smile.
For years after, Arthur wondered when he would be able to see the colors. He wondered about the purples and blues and reds that he read about in his free time. He wondered about how trees looked, and if the sky was pink, if the flowers he took care of were vibrant oranges, or soft yellows.
When he had turned 23, he had become accustomed to the black and white. He stopped asking questions, stopped spending long nights on the Internet looking for answers. He stopped searching for the magic his mother had spoken of years ago. He simply gave up and accepted the fact that his world was gray and nothing he did could change that.
Arthur was on his way to his job at a local tea shop, collar up to protect his neck from the drizzling rain of London. He hurried along, not wanting his clothes to get wet and further his bad mood. The splash of his feet hitting the pavement was the last sound he heard before something heavy ran into him. Arthur was pushed back, losing his footing on the slippery ground, and hit the concrete.
Arthur kept his eyes screwed shut, trying to breathe through the pain that spread through his tail bone. "Watch where you're going, you goddamn-!"
He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was blue. Arthur;s breath hitched as the clear, crisp color stared back at him, reflecting light in all the right ways. The man had golden hair, shining in the sunlight, hanging over his forehead and sticking up in just the slightest. His eyes, that beautiful blue color, were wide, framed by silver frames and not at all dulled by clear lenses. His skin was tanned,sun-kissed, and looked oh so soft to Arthur, who jolted back, in total shock.
"I'm..." the man spoke (Oh God, not only was he gorgeous, but American, too, Arthur thought), looking just as bewildered. "You're... oh my God."
Arthur sat up, looking around. The sky reflected that same color that Arthur had seen in the man's eyes. The buildings all around him were browns, tans, pastel pinks and yellows, all sorts of colors. "I can see it," he whispered.
"Wh- you too?" the man gasped. "The colors?"
Arthur looked at the man, getting lost in his eyes once more. "Y-yes..."
The other smiled, helping the Brit up. "Then that means- oh my God! I'm sorry for knocking you down! My name's Alfred F Jones," he said, holding Arthur steady.
"Pleasure," Arthur stammered, unable to look away. "I'm Arthur. Arthur Kirkland..." Then, Alfred's words sank in. "Wait, wait. This means what?"
"You're him," Alfred said, his smile dazzling. "You're my soul mate."
According to Alfred, everyone is born seeing black and white. Until the minute they meet their soul mate, or other half, that is. When two halves make a whole, the colors finally show themselves.
Arthur and Alfred sat in a nearby café, trying to figure it all out.
"So... you're my soul mate," Arthur said slowly. Alfred nodded, that grin never leaving his face. "And that's why I can see the colors?"
Another nod. "That's why I can see the colors, too. Because we're fated to meet. And if one of us were to die..." Alfred motioned with his hands to finish the sentence.
"The world will go back to gray," Arthur finished softly. "he lowered his eyes, not wanting to even think about giving up his newfound paradise of color.
"Do you know your eyes look like grass?" Alfred asked suddenly, reaching out and touching Arthur's cheek, the soft skin just below one of his eyes. "It's this...this beautiful shade of green."
Arthur stared at him, and mimicked the action. "Did you know yours look like the sky?"
They exchanged smiles.
Two years had passed since then.
Arthur was 25, happily living with a 21-year-old Alfred in an apartment in London. They both had jobs, Arthur working as an editor for a book company, and Alfred working for a local equipment testing facility. They had been dating ever since they ran into each other (literally) and met that rainy day.
Today was like no other, with Alfred at work and Arthur sitting in his office, looking over a piece of literature. He mumbled to himself each mistake, circling it in red pen every so often. "Wrong 'they're'... Misspelling... Lord, did this person pass elementa-"
Arthur froze as he blinked and the colors around him muted. Red pen markings turned gray. The page and its words had lost their color, turning back into solid black and white. Arthur looked frantically around his office for something, anything with color. His calendar? Grayscale. His computer screen? Black and white. Arthur;s eyes landed on a framed photograph of Alfred and himself, his heart cracking when he saw that the lovely, clear blue eyes he had fallen in love with had become a dull silver.
He stood and ran to the bathroom, keeping his eyes down in vain to avoid the obvious black and white surroundings. Arthur slid on the tile floor and whipped around, staring at himself in the mirror. To his horror, the "beautiful shade of green" eyes he had been complimented on all the time by his boyfriend were the same dark gray he had become all too accustomed to as a child. Heart beating, Arthur left the bathroom. This wasn't happening.
The first thing he felt was shock. Then, the shock melted into panic, and he ran to his office just as his phone rang. Arthur's hand froze mere centimeters away, and then he picked up.
"Ar...Arthur Kirkland speaking," he whispered.
"Hello, Mr. Kirkland. I'm afraid...I'm afraid I have terrible news...Alfred was killed in a testing accident..."
Arthur's hand shook, his teeth digging into his lip while hot tears streamed down his cheeks. The metallic taste of blood exploded in his mouth; blood that Arthur knew was red, but could no longer see.