Seeing Only Red

10

LUNA
Walking in to Chan's room he was pouring over the book. He looked like he'd been there for hours, taking notes on various scraps of paper. He had a desk light pointed at the book and was hunched over it trying to read the tiny print.

"Find anything?" I asked putting an arm around his shoulders.

"Kind of, but it's... not what you wanted to hear." He sighed heavily and looked up at me sadly.

"Am I going to die?" I asked seriously, for some reason that had been one of my concerns.

"No. Definitely not that." He laughed awkwardly.

"Ok. As long as I'm not dying." I laughed back. A silence fell between us as I pulled up a chair next to him.

"So, you're probably from one of the first four families, or you have a relative that is." He started, "In the beginning when the gene first started, people could only see one primary color. Then as people started having children with other people who saw a different color they started to mix into what we see today as all of the colors."

"So we're human art projects. Cool" I said sarcastically. He laughed and put a hand on my knee.

"Then in the last fifty years they started seeing more people that are reverting back to only seeing a single color, like you. There's a chance if we have a deep enough connection that you could still see all the colors, but it's extremely rare."

I nodded slowly as I took in the information and almost immediately felt tears sting my eyes. I didn't want to cry. I hated crying, I get all snotty and it makes my head hurt. I definitely didn't want to cry in front of him.  I had just assumed I was going to grow up and see color someday just like almost everyone else. I had all my hopes pinned on doing something simple to fix this. I wanted to fix me, it was supposed to be easy. I was supposed to sit on the cliff with him and see the full sunset with all of it's colors. Before I knew it, there were tears coming down my cheeks and he had his hands on both of my knees as he leaned forward.

"I know." He said as he stood up and pulled me up with him. When he wrapped his arms around me I cried harder into his shoulder. "We are going to figure this out, Lu. I promise you."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Channie" I sniffed loudly. "I don't even know why I'm crying." I said wiping my nose and eyes after pulling away from him. "I don't know what I was expecting."

"Because our society puts so much emphasis on seeing color. We're told about it from the time we're born. You don't expect there to be any problems. No one ever tells you about the problems." He kissed my forehead and looked down at me. "I know you're disappointed. I wish I had better news."

"It's ok. I'm just broken" I said frustrated. "I've always been broken. I'll just keep being broken." I'd spent my whole life feeling like this. I came from a broken family, bullied until it mentally broke me, and now this. It's just who I was at this point.

"You are not broken! Don't say that. You're mine, and I love you. You're perfect." He said rubbing his thumb against my cheek and soft kissing me.

"That all may be true, but broken is just my lifestyle. It's always what I've been. This just proves it Chan."

"Then we're broken together. I'm not perfect either, remember?" He said trying to get me to look at him. I finally looked up at him and gently nodded my head.

"Fine." I said finally giving up. "Can I stay here tonight? Bora's just going to grill me about why I've been crying and she'll assume it's you and then she'll get upset and I just don't want to deal with it."

"Of course. You can stay anytime you want. You don't need to ask." He said quietly, trying to calm me down. He was like a human Xanax when I was upset. He just instantly calmed me down and made me feel better. He'd hold me as long as I needed him to and then he'd sing me to sleep. I never expected that he could sing as well as he does, but his voice is so smooth and I found myself lost in it sometimes. Tonight was no exception. He let me wear his favorite hoodie. As I snuggled down under the blankets with him, he sang my favorite song and I was out almost instantly.