The rainbow seekers guide to seeking rainbows

Nico

Nico took a deep breath before staring at the camera.

"I understand it's probably bad for my publicity or whatever to get into this personal stuff so early. If you can call a month after my first stream early. I don't know this stuff. But it's the theme for my painting today...so I thought I should share."

His breath was already shaky, which wasn't a good sign.

The influx of comments showed that they were bewildered, but they weren't openly angry or annoyed. Which was a good sign. In fact, they seemed to be supporting him, in their own weird way.

bella123: u good?

pain-and-suffering: ooh this sounds interesting

666: Yeah, I want to see what he's doing today.

bella123: guys can't u c he's gonna cry

adarkertimeline: NO NEEKO DON'T CRY *hugs u*

666: We administer the hugs.

"I don't know if it was on the news or not - well, I guess you might live on the other side of the world from me - but around a month ago, before this channel was started...I lost a friend."

Nico swallowed.

"He was very dear to me. I...I miss him every day. He was a good friend, one of the very best. He was always supportive of me, always helped me - he even gave me a job. His name was Jason Grace.

"He was only a few years older than me. Two, I think it was. He was fit, healthy...maybe too much so. He was blonde, had blue eyes, wore glasses. Pretty tall too. He was fit, healthy...maybe too much so. In a way. He had a strong sense of duty - he always had. Jason sometimes looked out too much for others instead of himself. Sure, he was a dork at times, an overprotective dork, but...he was family."

Nico read the comments and saw that people were wondering when he would get the the point. He blinked away the tears that threatened to show.

"This whole introduction might be getting long, but...please listen just this once. I promise I'll be done soon.

"One night, he was walking home from work, and he heard something. A scream, maybe a gunshot. Jason went to investigate. Two women were being mugged.

"I told you he had a strong sense of duty, and this one time...this one time...it was his undoing. He went and...turned out, the robber was some guy the police had been after for a very long time. They called him Caligula, after his brutish, careless methods. And I think he left a calling card, so they knew which were his. I don't remember the specifics. He was responsible for a bunch of robberies and a few murders.

"Jason tried to stop him.

"They were next to a construction site and...according to the police, he had managed to get the upper hand for a bit, but this Caligula - he got a brick and bashed Jason on the head with it.

"He died.

"So today's painting...today's painting is in honour of Jason Grace."

With the deepest breath possible, Nico set to work.

It didn't matter that he couldn't see the colours that he streaked across the page. It didn't matter that he was probably using the wrong colours, that he had gotten everything completely wrong. It didn't matter that he was colour blind, not here, not when he was painting.