Hi everybody! This doesn't contain 'snape killed dumbledore' level spoilers, but it is set post KH3, and I have played and completed the game. So, therefore, it alludes to things that happen in the game. It also contains boys kissing, and if you're not cool with that, uh, well. I'm sorry? On a more positive note, I hope you enjoy this, and if you could let me know what you think, that would be excellent! Always on the lookout for some constructive criticism.
xxxxxx
His colour was always blue. 'Like the ocean', he said, when Sora would ask. 'Like your eyes,' he thought, but never would say.
Blue was simple, calm and serene. If he were being honest, anything that made him feel steady was a good thing. There were days where he didn't – feel steady, that is. When he felt like the whole world would come crashing down around him (and maybe a tidal wave of blue or two) and he was crippled with the fear that he would wake up and find himself trapped within the darkness. There was no blue in the darkness. (Until there was.)
In those moments, he felt like the blue was sadness, and the blue was loss. Because even something so beautiful and wonderful as blue could be fractured by the dark.
But mostly, blue made him think of sandcastles and laughter, and summers that felt like they would never end. Blue was Kairi and Sora and Tidus, and all the others, with what seemed like not a care in the world. Blue was blitzball, and whispered conversations over sea salt ice cream. Blue was the time they'd gone cliff diving on the Island into the freezing blue depths below. The colour that Selphie's favourite candy stained their teeth and tongues. The colour of everything sweet and pure and good in his life.
Blue had no ending, it stretched miles and miles. Blue didn't make him feel trapped, because blue wasn't walls and windows with bars. It wasn't a door to the darkness, closing too quickly, taking all that was left. Blue wasn't being a second choice or being forgotten or replaced. Blue was endless skies and sea and freedom and Sora.
Sora.
If he'd ever had a doubt that light existed, even his most cynical parts couldn't deny Sora. Sora was light, and laughter and hope and blue and blue and blue.
He would splash blue upon every canvas he could find, scream blue from the top of every tall building he could scale, and dream of Sora's lips upon his own. Imagine his pretty wide-eyes opening in shock, and maybe realisation. Maybe he tasted like blueberries and the ocean (but most likely more like innocence and peanut butter). He didn't dare hope for anything close to acceptance or love, and so he only imagined. Yet, if he had Sora in his life, then he had the blue, and he could work on the rest of it. He would dream of happiness and sea and stars and home.
The blue had called, and he had come. All he had was darkness, but now he had the blue.
Blue was hope. A promise. And he always kept his promises. No matter what.
xxxxxx
She was small when she decided she wasn't like the other girls. This concerned her, more than anything. Being unique was one thing, sure. However, she wanted to be their friend, she wanted to be like them. She wanted to come from the same town, and like the same music, be just as good at math, and spend her days doing the same monotonous things as all the other girls. She didn't want to feel like the outsider that she was.
The first week was the hardest, because she would wake up crying every day, until she realised it wouldn't make a difference. It took her three to forget her Mother's face. She didn't know if that were better or worse, because really, she was never going to see her again, because she was never going back, so what did it matter? What difference did it make?
Eventually she even forgot she had a Mother, because she was small, and she wasn't like all the other girls (because they had Mothers, and she didn't.)
She would hear the word and think yellow. She didn't know what that meant, and didn't care enough to wonder for long. Yellow was a good colour, anyway. It was bright and cheerful and full of life. Like the sun if you looked at it the right way (but not directly, because she valued her eye sight, because she had that if nothing else.)
They laughed at her because she had trouble remembering. Big things, sometimes. She didn't know what her first word was, or how old she was when she learned to ride a bike. They weren't important, exactly, but all her friends had somebody to remind them when they forget. And despite what she told herself when she was surrounded by them all, at the end of the day, she didn't.
Sometimes she would forget other things though. Like Riku's birthday, or the holiday they were going to take to Twilight Town after everything was over. She didn't know why she would forget, or what the variable was that made something stick. Maybe today it would take her an extra minute to remember how to tie her shoes. Maybe tomorrow Tidus would have to call her to shyly remind her of their date. Maybe someday she wouldn't remember any of it, and all she would have and all that would matter would be the yellow the yellow the yellow (and maybe she was okay with that.)
Mostly, Yellow made her think of sunflowers and daydreams, and lazy afternoons wrestling in the sand with her friends. Yellow was silly wishing on dandelions with Sora, and giggling when he wouldn't stop sneezing. Yellow made her think of the bananas that grew in the overgrown backyard of her neighbour's house (They would often try to scale the rickety fence to steal them. Any and all injuries were worth it.)
Yellow was afternoons playing dress-ups, and silly arguments over who got to wear the hat with the tattered feather. Yellow was milkshakes at their favourite café and the shirt of the girl who always flirted with Riku (who was clearly not interested), and yellow was the warmth that spread from (where she supposed was) her heart the first time she'd kissed a boy. Yellow was Selphie's favourite dress, and the sleeping bag Wakka insisted it were imperative he brought to every sleepover until they were all fourteen.
Yellow was light, and yellow kept giving. Even when everything else was taking.
Yellow made her feel like she wasn't alone anymore. Like maybe she belonged somewhere, for once.
That was all she'd ever wanted, really.
Yellow was the colour of paopu fruits, of destinies intertwined. Yellow was an oath that they would always be there for her (even when they physically couldn't be.) Yellow what helped her find Sora, every single time he lost his way.
Yellow was a reminder that she wasn't alone. The isolation would chill her bones, make her grind her teeth, and forgo showering for broken sleep and shaky hands. She would slather the walls with yellow paint, so that even in the hazy hours of morning that she would without a doubt forget, she would remember that this was exactly where she was supposed to be.
xxxxxx
He loathed green, because green felt too much like something, and he was too busy being nothing.
Beings of pure darkness generally don't have time to ponder silly things like want, or like, or happy. They had only need. His need was to survive. To be whole.
If he thought about it more, he supposed green could be linked to survival. Plants, and all that. Not that he had need for such nonsense if he didn't want to.
Still, he would always feel kind of green watching his brother and his friends. He had no place here, he never had. It wasn't like it was his fault, exactly. He just wasn't committed to being better than he always had been.
He only existed in the barest form of the word these days, essentially.
A little green wouldn't change that anyway.
xxxxxx
Axel had been showing off. He was always showing off. 'Do you know why the sun sets red?'
Did he care? He'd roll his eyes.
Sometimes he thought the older boy just liked to hear his own voice. His constant, smug smile easily the highlight of his all friend's days. Demyx would deny it, but that was because Demyx was usually the butt of all their jokes. It was easy, being friends, in a way it never had been. Something about not being forced to be together made them want to actually be together.
But no, he didn't care. But Axel told him anyway. Because Axel wanted him to know. The sun sets red, and I am red, and I am the sun, and the sun is everywhere and I will reach you no matter where you go and no matter how long you leave me or how much you don't want to be found, I care, I care and I will always bring you back.
And he had.
Wasn't that the best part?
Axel had changed himself for him. Not in a bad way necessarily, but in a way that bought a weird kind of warmth he happily memorised. Axel had seen the broken parts of himself, and his friends, and had changed. Made himself better, made himself worthy.
(Although, in his opinion, Axel had always been worthy. When he had voiced said opinion, however, the red-head had snorted and ruffled the other boy's golden locks and told him not to be such a sap.)
He was far from a sap, and Axel knew it. Axel liked it, really. Better than the shell of a person he had been before he'd left. Axel had picked up all the pieces and taken care to glue them back together. His patience, and determination had made him return as something more. Something better. Something that felt a lot like the sun setting red. Something red, indeed.
He was red, but so was Axel. Axel was fire, and passion and need and want and red. So much red. Sometimes he felt suffocated by its intensity. But the inevitable destruction lead to the bloom of something much bigger, much more beautiful.
He couldn't quite remember how it felt to not have a heart – now that he had one again and all. He supposed it had felt like somebody had sucked all the colour out of his life, and Axel had somehow brought it back.
Xion and Hayner teased him about it the most. What were friends for, after all? Hayner claimed he had always known (but how could he?) and Xion just smiled and babbled about biology and chemicals and ugh.
Red had been the colour of the fleeting moment he thought Axel wouldn't come back in the end. It was the colour that burned through him when anybody left him waiting a little too long at the station. It was the colour of the anger and frustration that tore through him seeing Hayner, Pence and Olette for the first time in The Usual Spot, and thinking they had forgotten about him. It was also, interestingly enough, how he felt when they'd all exclaimed his name and pulled him into the most enthusiastic hug he'd ever been a part of. Red was the colour of the watermelon they had finally devoured with gusto, and the contented sighs of everything they'd ever hoped for.
Red was the blood pulsating through his veins. Carrying oxygen (and something that might've been love) around his body, breathing life into his tiny frame. When Seifer would try to catch him unawares, red was the colour that would cover the pavement (and Seifer's face once Axel caught wind.)
Red was the colour he would pick when Namine offered him the box of crayons. She wouldn't comment at the picture he drew, but smiled a little to herself at how much the vivid red scribbles on the paper resembled a certain somebody.
Red was the colour that would paint his cheeks when Axel 'defended his honour' against the girl at the ice cream stand. It would be mirrored in her horrified expression, and he would be forced to apologise on their behalf. It was the flush that would creep up his neck when Axel would grab his hand on the way home that day, too many words left in the heavy silence between them.
Red was the overwhelming mess of emotions he would feel when Axel finally admitted (annoyingly months later) that maybe they were more than just friends. That maybe he had had a few moments of lapse in judgement and saved him for his own selfish reasons, but why did that matter? Axel was red, and he loved red. He needed red, with every fibre of his being.
Red was the colour he saw sitting on top of the Old Clock Tower with all his friends (and Isa, who he wasn't sure about how he felt, yet) because the sun would always seem to set red, and red would never leave him far behind.
xxxxxx
He supposed purple wasn't exactly his favourite colour.
His Sitar was blue, for one. Everything in his room back home was carefully curated, a museum of reds and oranges, with the occasional dash of pink. Everything had it's place. Lazy he might be, but you couldn't call him unorganised. He would probably throw a fit if you did, anyway. The haphazard stacks of boardgames on his desk varied in colour, but none of them had the mysterious shade of purple he despised.
Pink was probably his favourite – gender stereotypes aside. Pink made him think of his youth of his sister, of his friends. Of school and homework and music class and afternoons spent driving to nowhere. Of feeling special, and wanted and understood.
Pink was the Before.
Purple was different. Purple was a punctuation. A blending of something that was never a perfect fit. Purple was the After, and he didn't like it.
Purple was the melody of badly written song, of mixed emotions, of confusion. Purple was the colour of the bruises the older boys gave him when he looked at them a little too long. Purple was the sound of the scream that fell from his mouth the moment before he woke up cold and alone and not-quite human. Purple was the panic that followed, and all the breaths that he didn't quite manage to complete. Purple was feeling gawky and awkward, a puzzle piece that wasn't really needed to complete the picture, but came in the box like some sort of cruel joke. Purple would drive you crazy if you weren't careful. Purple was heavy and jagged and wrong.
But Purple was the colour of Zexion, too. Or, Ienzo, he supposed. Of new memories, and important discoveries. Of excitement and redemption. Of forgiving himself, and forgiving each other. Purple was the colour of curiosity, of learning and teaching and smiles that didn't go unnoticed. Purple was the colour his friends hair shined in the sunlight (could he call him a friend? He supposed they must be that atleast.) Purple was the colour of the marker he penned new songs with, because that was the only writing utensil Ienzo was willing to let go of. If they weren't the best songs he'd ever written, he'd eat the purple socks he'd been given the day he'd shown up unannounced.
Purple was spontaneity, and birthday cakes. Purple was the flash of affection when he saw Axel with Roxas, and the feeling of intense shyness and wary comfort he found when they let him hang out together with all their other friends.
Purple was the colour of the name Ventus had whispered to him, soft and uncertain and the easy solace that had followed. Purple was knowing who you were supposed to be, and the relief of everything clicking into place.
Purple was the only thing he saw when he looked into Ienzo's eyes– and what else did there need to be, really? Because in his old life, love had been pink and red and…
He didn't know how or when it started, but purple was small kisses in the dark, and the feeling of a smile creeping onto Ienzo's lips. Purple was love, and love and love. Here and now was all that mattered.
Purple was the After, and the After was good. Ienzo was good. Ienzo was everything.
Maybe purple wasn't so bad after all.
xxxxxx
On his best days, he felt orange.
Saving all The World's had been difficult, but part of him had held on to the orange. It was the only thing that had kept him going. Kept him for succumbing completely.
(The best days were few and far between.)
Now, most days, he could feel it slipping away.
He tried to be orange, because that was what they expected.
Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Aqua… All his other friends. The King, Donald, Goofy. Would they stay away if they knew? If they suspected he wasn't perfect and happy and okay? Wasn't still the same ball of appreciation for life that he used to be.
Nobody destroyed themselves and returned a perfect whole.
(But Orange was the colour of the pills he took to numb the pain. Orange was the colour of his hopes and dreams and security disappearing. Orange was not being good enough. Orange was death and violence and not saving everybody. Orange was the colour of 'goodbyes' that would never be accompanied with future 'hellos.' Orange was being forgotten, and of memories you yourself couldn't forget no matter how hard you tried.)
So now, he wasn't orange anymore. Or maybe he was, but it just wasn't a good thing now.
And if he wasn't orange, what could he be?
xxxxxx
It was quite some time before they were all under the same stars again. Part of them all had really thought they never would be. Part of them didn't want to be because things were, for the most part, far too good. It would do no good to jinx that. But eventually, they'd all made their way to the same world. Not an empty world, per se, just a quiet existence some ways away from their own.
For the time being, that was enough. They stood with matching awe and wonder, as the combined colours of all their hearts at once danced across the sky in a shimmery arc.
Because some things are that simple.