Color Theory (Nickloon)

Chapter 2

Balloon isn't proud to admit that he's spent the past few days writing about the aura chart, but it's so fascinating that he just can't stop. He's drawn a color wheel in his poetry journal, with annotations in between each hue.

Red: fire, passion, determination.

Purple: rich, deep, magical.

Blue: ice, cool, calm. Blue gentle like foam against the sand. Blue is comforting, like the sky in like late summer afternoons. Blue is relaxing, like your favorite classical piece played on the world's softest piano.

Green...

Green is vibrant like grass against the sand, or trees along a mountainside, green is warm and tender. Green is the feeling you get in your chest when you hear a laugh that only comes twice a year. Green is the color of life, and in some instances, the color of love.

Teal. It's the color he hasn't written much out for. Teal reminds him of the sea late at night and evergreen trees in the winter. It's deeper than green and blue. Teal can be used in almost any scene and it would make sense. Teal is close to blue, and really close to green, but it just isn't either of those. Maybe his had been a mistake, maybe he was actually pink, or gold. But at the same time, teal just feels so right.

Teal seems to balance out green, but if that were the case, wouldn't he and Nickel have gotten along from the start? It doesn't make sense. They were butting heads because they couldn't balance each other out. But now..they can.

What changed? What did he suddenly have in common with Nickel that he couldn't see before? Before he could only see them as polar opposites, but now that they're...

Now that he sees the world this way, it's made his once simple view on life so convoluted.

Balloon frowns at his notes and stares off into the water. He comes here to much more now, but it's not to build sandcastles anymore. It's to admire the hues of the water in a way he couldn't before, shifting from blue, to teal, to violet. While he watches, he writes an acrostic poem:

G - Good
R - Reliable
E - Earnest
E - Environmental
N - Nefarious

The beach wind rings in his ears as he looks up at the moon. They all suit Nickel pretty well.

"Balloon! There you are," Nickel says. Balloon yelps, jumps, snaps his journal closed and sighs. Leave it to Nickel to sneak up on him for laughs.

Nickel snorts. "Come on, we're gonna go see how many sodas Yinyang can— are...are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah!" Balloon sweats nervously, "I'm doing just great! Just, uh, thinking."

"About what?"

There's no way Balloon can tell him what he's up to, but he's had so much time to think ever since he found the paper, and some confirmation could really ease his mind right now. He'll just have to bend the truth a little bit, no big deal.

Balloon takes a deep breath and asks, "Do you think we're similar, at all?"

Nickel face scrunches into confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Like, I know we're friends now, and I'm glad we are! But I'm not sure why. I mean, we have nothing in common with each other. You like pop music, I like classical. You like chocolate, I like vanilla–"

"Your aura is green," Balloon thinks to himself, "and my aura is really close to green, but I just don't understand why."

Nickel frowns. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

"Wh-what of course it matters!" Balloon says, gesturing between the two of them, "I mean, most friends at least share some common ground, but look at us. We're like night and day!"

He doesn't know what it is exactly, but something that vaguely resembles hurt flashes across Nickel's face for a moment before a look of genuine frustration appears. "Okay, you're having doubts then? What, you think I'm befriending you to be strategic?"

Balloon swears he feels the air leave his body. "No, that's not what I meant, that-that came out wrong—"

"I guess me trying to, I don't know, give other people a chance this season, including YOU, and all the time we've spent together as friends doesn't mean anything, because you think that something like sharing a favorite cupcake flavor matters?"

Completely taken aback by his reaction, Balloon stands there in complete shock.

"You know, Balloon, I really thought that–" Nickel cuts himself off. His face darkens, and what's scary is the fact that he doesn't even look angry, or frustrated anymore.

He wants to protest, take back every word he said and start the entire interaction over, but Nickel simply sighs and turns his back on him.

"Just forget it."

And that completely breaks Balloon's heart.

All he can do is stand there as Nickel walks off without another word to him. His footsteps are deep in the sand, almost as if he's stomping. Guilt churns in his stomach, and the pieces of his heart lie broken on the ground, teal leaking out of its core.

He sits by the beach shore by himself, blinking away the tears, and doesn't talk to anyone for a long, long while.