Red is synonymous with many things, to the beating of a heart or a love filled gesture of roses, but the only thing red can ever mean to him is anger.
Ivan hates thinking about it, he hates anything that reminds him of those days, but he's ashamed to admit he didn't hate the anger at first. He remembers how much of a rush it was, how relieving it was to go from feeling hopelessly lonely to powerfully magnetic. His face would flush as if he had run a mile, he would feel as if the floor below his feet did not hold him. But eventually he grew tired of it, growing from desperate to cruel.
There would be days when he felt he was snapping out of this, of the version he thought everyone loved, everyone had to love and he would fight it. He would yell at himself alone, just another push further and the world would have to love him.
After a while it felt like watching a different person, like a car accident you take sadistic pleasure in. But no, he didn't hate it, only after the feeling went away. Not until he was left without the red that filled his cheeks did he realize the heat was like fire, burning him. Not until he saw the world around a charred and ashen mess because of him. Not until he saw what the world could have become if the red had eaten him alive.
Red still decorated him, in harsh, angry scars dancing along his body, in cold and blood-shot eyes that hate to show themselves and the redness of his face when he sat in winter alone. The heat is desperate and churning inside him, showing itself in horrible glimpses. When his tongue licks cruel words into existence and the redness dances across his iris and he feels once again like he's watching a separate person.
He can see the fear he strikes in people's eyes, even when he is himself and he is attempting at kindness. He can see the scars that his fire gave that never fades and slowly the fire turns itself to him. Guilt overcomes him, a horrible heat burrowing down deep into him and crawling its into his veins.
In the whispered secrets to his lover does the heat like to escape, confessions of horrible, consuming guilt that burns so deep in him. They come out like steam escaping, they have fought to exit for so long. His lover holds him long into the nights, the calming coolness of his whispers allows him to relax and breathe even with the heat there.
The heat is still there, he doesn't believe he'll ever be rid of the burning flame and scolding guilt. It's a part of him at this point. But the redness seems more pink at this point, showing itself in light blushes on his cheeks and the smiling lips of another. When he closes his eyes the images that play out are no longer as harsh, though they still sting a little, they are no longer as cruel.
The deep, painful red still taunts him sometimes, in the red verbal scars he's left on others. In the teary, bloodshot eyes of a loved one whom he had scared away and he can almost feel the fire take control again. He hates the feeling now, the feeling of the floor leaving his feet and the feeling of his face boiling on a hot summer day. He would simmer in heat, alone, slowly reaching his boiling point. He waited because he knew that his loneliness would no longer linger, soon someone would come across him.
Even the loved ones he scared some days would come back, they would whisper calming and cool assurances. He could feel another aura around him, melding with his harsh red and becoming a delicate violet. Similar to his eyes, the ones his older sister had praised so often. He could feel the flames turn back to him, back to the low simmer of guilt but he felt he liked it better that way. It was just a hearth to remind of the past and to help him into the future.