Blue /blo͞o/

1. (Adjective)

Of a color intermediate between green and violet, as of the sky or sea on a sunny day.

2. (Noun)

Blue color or pigment.

3. (Verb)

Make or become blue: "the light dims, bluing the retina"; "blued paper"; "the day would haze, the air bluing with afternoon".

When Wally came to school in a blue hoodie, Kuki just stared at him in shock, her jaw dropping as her dark eyes followed his path down the hallway, her hand still curled around her locker's handle.

The pale blue fabric looked clean, spotless, new – not at all like his old, vibrant, stained and ripped hoodie that he wore on a daily basis. He'd been wearing an orange hoodie since childhood and now, what he'd replaced it with a blue one?

Kuki didn't even realise that she was glaring until Wally had already passed her, heading to his first class of the day…Or, wherever he hung out to avoid his first class of the day.

That hoodie, the one piece of fabric had seen Wallabee Beetles through everything – through his successes and his failures, his relationships and friendships, his adolescent and his childhood and now, now he was throwing that away, hanging it up and saying "well, you were cool, but I think I'm gonna leave you now, leave you here to collect dust."

Kuki breathed deeply and slowly closed her locker door, shaking her head at herself. It was pretty cold today, maybe his orange hoodie was in the wash, so he just threw on the blue one, or maybe his Mom had bought it for him and had forced him to wear it today. Yeah, that was it - that was all it was, she told herself, he'll be wearing that good old orange hoodie tomorrow.

But he wasn't. Or the next day, or the day after that or even the day after that; she wasn't entirely sure why that annoyed her so much, seeing as how she didn't really run in the same social circle as he did or speak to him very often but she still remembers their adventures when they were kids. She remembers how they always hung out together and looked after each other…But now that they were in High School, their small group had scattered across the school and they found themselves with new friends…but that didn't mean that he should forget about it. All of them still wear their token, that one thing that they carried from childhood to teenage years: Nigel Uno still wore his sunglasses, Hoagie Gilligan was never without his flight goggles, Kuki herself still wore a green, oversized jumper and Abby would rather drink wasps then leave her hat at home.

So why was Wally giving up his token?

When the next week rolled around and Wally was still wearing that insufferable hoodie, Kuki just couldn't stand it anymore. She practically marched up to him in the cafeteria, ignoring the fact that he was with his new 'friends' and demanded that he talk with her in private. Ignoring the smirk and wolf-whistles, she dragged him outside.

"What is your prob-"

"Why are you wearing that?" She said, her mouth curled in distaste as she pointed at the blue material wrapped around his slim body and Wally looked down at himself slowly, his eyebrow raised.

"It's me hoodie. Now, can I go or –"

For the second time, she interrupted him. "Doesn't our childhood mean anything to you anymore?" She asked in a small voice, terrified of the answer.

Her question seemed to have stopped him short and he blinked at her, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. They stayed that way for a while, the breeze gently brushing against them and Kuki huddled into the green fabric of her jumper, unsure if it was to escape the chill or escape his answer.

Eventually he hung his head and sighed, his blonde hair falling into his eyes. "Kuki, it's not like that."

"It was supposed to be with you to the very end – your touchstone, your base, your starting point. You were supposed to go back to it, soak up the knowledge that it was still with you, but you just…You replaced it. You hung it up and left it and that wasn't fair." She said sadly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, looking at the ground.

"No." He agreed, "it wasn't."

"It was always gonna be there." Kuki sniffed dejectedly, sitting down on the blue bench that rested against the cafeteria wall.

Wally sighed again before sitting beside her and Kuki had memories of older times, when they were sat together on the couch in Nigel's tree-house, play-fighting over who had power over the remote or when they would sit with the team, them always in the middle, together.

"You know, I loved that hoodie." Wally said, running his hands through his blonde hair, "you're right. It was a…a beacon for me, a test from when I was a kid, asking if I could really stay young…" he rested his knees on his elbows, his hands clasped between them, "but then I woke up one morning and I realised that it wasn't safe out here anymore. Be it through fights, or parties, or girls with their stupid make-up or the stupid weather, I couldn't protect it. There's a lot to being a teenager, you know, and it was slowly starting to chip away at it, to ruin and stain it, trying to claim it as its own."

Kuki frowned as she listened with rapt attention, her head tilted to the side, a lock of her dark hair falling from her shoulder, gently being tousled by the wind.

"So I left it at home. Where it was safe." He nodded once, as if to emphasis his point, before he said, "it's hard, Kooks, to stay young in a world that's trying to force you to grow up."

There was a heavy silence that settled over them, and Kuki felt guilt and annoyance at herself well up, starting to bubble like boiling water. "I'm sorry." She said at last, letting her dainty hand rest on his shoulder, "I didn't mean to over-react. I just…"

"I get it. Don't worry about it." Wally stood up and stretched before turning to head back into the cafeteria, his hand reaching for the door handle before he turned to look back at her. "Do you…err…you hungry? Lunch is on me," he shrugged, his fingers curling around the metal handle as his green eyes focused on her though the strands of his hair. A wide smile brightened her face as she jumped up, heading to his side, her hair flowing behind her.

When he came to school the next morning, Kuki ran to hug him when she saw that he was bundled in loose, orange, fabric. It was as the pieces of their childhood were falling into place again when Nigel grinned at them and later on, Abby sidled up to Wally, teasing him about Kuki and Hoagie leaned over in chemistry to ask for gossip, his voice teasing.

Our childhood never really leaves us – an old, faded, orange hoodie and old friends are proof of that.

xxx

A/N: Just a quick note - it isn't the same orange hoodie that he's worn since he was ten...There's no way it would fit him! I used an orange hoodie as a symbol from his childhood, not his actual orange hoodie :D

Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own KND