The rainbow seekers guide to seeking rainbows

Will

Will sat down at his dad's invitation and unfolded his napkin.

Nico seemed fine with Apollo's cheerfulness so far, but Will was worried about how he would hold up for the rest of the night. He hoped Nico's social battery was very fully charged.

He made a mental note to steer Nico away from alcohol for the entire evening.

Around them, all the other guests began making their way towards the tables and sitting down. Their auras were simply messes of colours - one person's cloud of strawberry merging with their neighbour's mist of whipped cream merging with someone else's chocolate. Only the woman on the table closest to them was near enough for her colours to coalesce into any shape - she had a flower crown of lilac with flowers of various shades of purple sprouting on her dress.

"So," Apollo said, drawing Will's attention back. "What drinks do you want?"

"Lemonade, thanks," he responded.

Austin asked for orange juice, Kayla ordered a mocktail of some sort, and Nico got a lemonade as well. Although they were all of age, Apollo was the only one who ordered a drink with alcohol in it.

He grinned as the person-employed-by-Apollo-to-be-the-waitress-at-this-event left with their orders.

"Nico di Angelo. I know that last name." He looked at Austin and Kayla. "Don't you? I recognise it from somewhere."

Kayla nodded. "Probably the name of one of your business partners, Dad."

"Yes, I've had quite a few Italian ones." Apollo played with the corner of his napkin. He seemed to glow gold - Will swore he could see rays of sunshine radiating from his skin. He had a golden crown too - thin and delicate, but beautiful in its fragility. He reckoned that the almost-circlet even had laurel leaves etched into its surface, although that was probably his synaesthesia accounting for the associations with Apollo, the god. Will cursed his mind for making him want a crown. Couldn't it have at least made the crown slightly less appealing?

Austin looked Nico in the eye. "Tell us about yourself, emo boy!" he exclaimed with a heavy wink.

Nico blinked. "Um, I work in a café. As a barista. It's called the Little Duck."

"He makes a mean iced chocolate," Will said with a laugh.

Apollo tucked a loose strand of gold hair behind his ear, a fire in his eyes flickering. It almost looked like there was a forge behind his irises. To some extent, Will felt irritated by his dad, with all his handsomeness and features of molten gold. Everything was gold about him. He had a very fitting name, Will supposed. He couldn't begin to imagine how hilarious it would be if his last name had been something like Nyx instead.

There was a word for such last names, but Will didn't remember it.

Nico swallowed.

"I'm also, uh, colour blind."

That made the table go quiet.

Will couldn't help but feel a certain surge of pride at Nico's honesty. The latter tended to avoid the subject, and preferred not to talk about himself in general. Some people liked it - they thought this showed selflessness and modesty - but Will knew that he preferred not to talk about himself since he thought nobody would want to know about his shortcomings. Nico thought they would form certain preconceptions about his colour blindness, and either try to 'fix' him or pity him. Will wasn't sure which one of those options Nico despised more.

It appeared that Nico knew that this audience needed to know.

Kayla coughed.

"Forgive me for asking, but what sort of colour blindness is it? Like, red-green, or yellow-blue, or total colour blindness?"