Look at the Stars/Look How they Shine for You

We are human beings. I was born in London. My name is John H. Watson. I have been alive for seventeen years.

The sky is blue.

The problem with facts is that they have to be true, even though no one really knows for sure.
Facts are only as true as the records we keep and the people we trust.
I don't remember being born. I have to take my parents' word for it, where and when it was, how I looked, my size, et cetera.
I don't count the years. The earliest birthday I remember is what they say is my sixth birthday, so I need to trust my parents that there were five more before that.
I don't know what blue is. It's the color of the sky, apparently. I have to trust my parents on this as well, because the Society dictates what we see. I don't see a problem with the predictability of First Sight, everything different shades of the same color. But after you experience Real Sight, my mom says, you never want to go back to The Grey.
The Grey. That's what people who have experienced Real Sight call First Sight. If you ask people who have seen with Real Sight to describe it, no one seems to know how to string the words together.
"Everything changes. Everything is new and different and strange and beautiful." said my father.
"Even the plainest, most mundane things are suddenly bright and new," said my mother. "Ordinary becomes extraordinary."
"Everything becomes so... alive!" sighed my sister, Harry. "You wonder how on earth you've gone this long without it. And you never want to go back."
I suppose that's why after people experience Real Sight, they seem happier, different, and especially clingy. Clinging on to their boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, whoever. All clinging onto their soulmate as if everything will collapse if they let go for one second.
Real Sight only happens when you're touching your soulmate. The second you let go, you go back to First Sight, or The Grey. That's why the word 'grey' is synonymous among the older folk with 'horrible'. They say the only color Firsties see is 'grey' or sometimes they call it 'black and white'.
Black and white. Colorless. Blank. Boring. Predictable. Reliable. Steadfast.
Grey.

When you touch your soulmate, you know. You just know, right away, who you're meant to be with.
It eliminates choosing. It eliminates choosing wrongly. It eliminates being uncertain or heartbroken, eliminates breakups or divorce or hasty decisions.
There are some people who have no soulmate, and others who have multiple soulmates. There are males with male soulmates, females with female soulmates. The Sights System (made legit in 2593, long before I was born) eliminates those kinds of prejudice and judgement. After all, straight people didn't choose their soulmates either.
The Sights System just works.
Except...
Except for the Freaks. The abominations. The glitches in the System. Even our perfect Society can't be perfect all the time.
It has happened before. Rare, oh yes. Extremely rare. But not impossible:
When one person touches someone and sees Real Sight. Sees the color. Just... sees.
And the other person is left in the Grey. They feel nothing. They see nothing. You and your meant to be weren't really meant to be.
You are just a Glitch. Both of you.
These are the freaks. These are the ones we avoid.

•••

"John!"
"Sorry-" I yelped, pulling a jumper over my head and racing down the stairs, three at a time. "Sorry, coming Mom!"
I skidded on my woolen socks, sliding into the kitchen where my mom stood at the stovetop, where she was preparing Eggs Benedict (my favourite). My dad sat at the table, reading the newspaper, but he glanced up as I sat down and nodded a greeting.
"Oh, here you are. Oversleep a little?" my mom jokes, ruffling my messy hair and sliding me a plate of eggs. As I tuck in, my mom sits next to my dad, who immediately slips his fingers around her bony wrist, sighing contentedly and blinking a few times as he goes from the Grey to the Real Sight.
"What color jumper am I wearing?" I asked interestedly. The words meant nothing to me, of course, but I liked to hear them.
"Beige." said my dad after a minute.
"Beige." I repeated, rolling the word around, trying it out on my tongue. "What's it look like? Is it dark? Light? Happy? Cold? Warm?"
"Light." said my mother kindly. "Happy and warm, and a little bit... well, a little plain."
"Oh well, just like me then." I said. "I do love the reliability of plain."
My dad rolled his eyes. "You are so weird."
I chuckled. "Where's Harry?"
"Clara's house. She spent the night."
Clara. Harry's soulmate. Harry had discovered Clara at a night club Clara had been bar tending. She'd reached across Harry to get someone's bottle, accidentally brushed Harry's arm, and now they were planning their wedding ceremony.