Back To Black

Colors Are Everything And Nothing

This is NOT my story. All credits go to smiley-seulgi on asianfanfics.com

When they first get their hair dyed, Seulgi holds Irene's hand as they sit in salon chairs next to each other, gazing into each others' eyes with the intent of never letting each other out of sight. Her fingers are softer than silk as they fill the space between Irene's digits perfectly and Irene can't tear her eyes away from the deep chocolate pools pouring into her and filling her to the brim with feelings she's only just now starting to understand. The night before, the two of them had been laying in Irene's bed and Seulgi played with Irene's fingers as if they were keys on a grand piano.

"What's your favorite color?" She whispers as Irene leafs through a dog-eared paperback novel with one hand and strokes the skin of Seulgi's thumb with the other. This would be one of last quiet moments for them after they debut. Irene looks up, her gaze settling on the half open window of the room letting in the crisp air fill the room. Autumn was coming, and she remembers that this is her favorite time of the year because of the way the sky looks every second of the day, as if there's more color to the clouds and the blue background they float across. The sun is just setting, and the air is the perfect temperature between cool and cold, and Irene notices that the sky is turning the a vibrant yellow-orange color. And then she smiles.

"Sunset orange," Irene murmurs back as Seulgi shifts to lay her head on the older girl's sweat shirt covered shoulder, nuzzling her way underneath the crook in between Irene's chin and neck. She turns to look at the younger girl with interest, and watches the reflection of the sun setting in the young girl;s eyes, gleaming with life and glowing with the vibrant colors playing across the sky, and she knows she must be in love. A smile crinkles the corners of her lips. "What's yours?"

She watches Seulgi's hands run over the creases of her bed sheets, watches the delicate slope of each digit as they curl into the fabric and uncurl twice as the girl thinks to herself and the world goes quiet. "Pink," Seulgi finally breathes before the two settle into a comfortable silence where Irene occasionally runs a hand through Seulgi's hair and reads excerpts of her favorite pages from the book aloud.

"Are you ready, Miss Joohyun?" The hair stylist asks as she holds up four bowls full of bubble-gum colored paste, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips as she watches Irene squeeze Seulgi's hand slightly. Irene grins back after feeling a reassuring squeeze back, "Never been more sure in my life," she responds as she watches Seulgi's eyes crinkle up at the edges with a smile. That must have been the clearest moment they remember when they were the most in love, when they were at the peak of their relationship and their hearts and minds were open books. And then Irene watches Seulgi's gaze drift over to Wendy, who in turn smiles at her through the reflection of the mirror. Somehow, the leader gets a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

A month and a few weeks pass and suddenly they're back in the same set of salon chairs but with different intentions, their eyes unable to meet, their hands folded carefully like origami in their laps as the hair stylist leaves them alone to get more bowls of dye. They're in the same room, but worlds apart, and they still talk, but they don't talk the same way they used, and it's killing them on the inside.

"What's wrong with you two?" Wendy had asked, bewildered when the pair announced their decisions to dye their hair back to their natural hair colors. "Promotion's still going on for few more weeks or so," Joy adds as they sit around the table of the living room, "What's going on?" It's silent, but not the kind the two girls are used to as they sit among their questioning members. The air seems dead around them, heavy to breathe. Seulgi wants to get away, but she also wants to fix this, even if Irene stopped hanging out in the same room as her. "Nothing's wrong," Irene's normally soft and sweet voice is like a knife cutting through the air, and Seulgi tries not to wince when she hears it. When did this transformation happen, where did they go wrong?

"We just want our hair to stay healthy," Seulgi adds, even though she knows that their efforts to cover up the weird instances between the two of them haven't gone unnoticed by their other two members. Her crummy excuse seems to work, and the three girls depart into separate rooms, leaving Seulgi staring out of a window at the sky wondering how it all got like this. Exactly when did they start to lose that spark, that urge to always be together? And Seulgi's trying to bite back the tears threatening to form in her eyes because Irene's voice sounded exactly as it had the night they "broke up" whatever they had, and no matter how hard she tries to forget how the other girl makes her feel, she knows she only wishes that they could have whatever they had before back.

When she blinks away the blur of liquid welling up in her eyes, she looks out the window of the kitchen, and the sky is a fierce pink color. In her sorrow, she wonders if Irene's looking out her window and wondering the same thing she is. She gets up slowly and shuts the blinds.

"Did you not like the pink ombré?" The same hairstylist is tending to their every want and wish, and tries to break the icy atmosphere with cheery talk, but Irene's voice comes out raspy and unused, as if she spent the morning crying. Seulgi had been. "No," she meets Seulgi's gaze for half a second and the younger girl can see the pain in them. It was as if half a second was all Irene could bear. "It was perfect while it lasted." And Seulgi can feel her heart shattering within her chest like a fine china vase hitting the ground. It was perfect while it lasted. "And what about you?" The stylist smiles thinly as she mixes Seulgi's hair dye in a bowl and Irene swallows in the chair with aluminum rolled within her dark locks.

"It's still perfect, but I don't love pink anymore," she whispers, and Irene must have known she was just saying that to try and hurt Irene back as much as she'd hurt her, because there's the faint outline of a smirk on her rosy lips. Seulgi wishes she could kiss her just one more time or maybe all the time, but Irene's not hers, not anymore - if she was even hers to begin with, and Seulgi's unsure of where she stands in the world now.

Another week passes and Seulgi can't stand this anymore. She can't take the unanswered texts or the shrugs that answer her ever question, and she barges into Irene's room. The lights are off and Irene is in bed, reading a book. The window is seeping with an inky darkness. "I'm still in love with you," she whispers. Irene doesn't even look up from the pages of printed paper. Seulgi's knees shake and she knows what's coming next when the older girl opens her mouth. "I'm in love with Joy, now," Irene says simply.

Seulgi backs away, and backs off all together. She starts spending most of her time with Wendy because she can't stand to see Joy and Irene being happy together. She stops trying to link their arms together when the group walks to their music shows and she stops looking at her out of the corners of her eyes and doesn't meet her eye ever. Seulgi can feel herself fading from Irene's heart faster than the sky turning purple when the sun sets, and she doesn't like it, but there's nothing she can do about it.

One morning, Seulgi overhears Joy and Irene up talking till dawn. She tries not to eavesdrop, but it's hard when the walls are thinner than a sheet of notebook paper and their voices are pitched with uncontrollable giggles. "What's your favorite color, Irene?" Seulgi thinks her heart stops, and it's so quiet that she can eventually hear the racing beat of her heart pulsing within her ears as she strains to hear Irene's answer. It's quiet for too long, and Seulgi thinks she's missed it when Irene's voice pipes up, filled with longing and faraway-ness.

"Sunset orange." Seulgi thinks she chokes on her tears and wakes up with a strangled gasp and her pillow case soaked through. Irene is settled on the edge of her bed with a box of tissues in her hand. "Hey," Irene sighs. "Hi," Seulgi whispers back. Irene shifts closer and Seulgi wants to reach out and touch her, but she stops herself. Joy and Irene, Joy and Irene, is racing through her head, and she doesn't want to mess this up any further.

"Seulgi," Irene's eyes are piercing right through her, "what's your favorite color?" And the sunrise streaming through the open window is the same exact tint that used to decorate the tips of Irene's hair, and Seulgi knows she's in love. "Pink."