Celadon

Chapter 2

The guy approaches me, and I'm whirled into a self-aware case of deja vu. Sick. I feel sick. People are looking. I panic. There might be people I know here.

As the boy with black hair approaches me, he smiles, wide, and- he's beautiful. Wow, he's beautiful. He's pale, and if I was still seeing in monotone, well, he would've been sheet-white. But his eyes, his eyes are glorious. Bright, and deep, and rippling like running water, and I wonder what this color is called, because I can't rip my own eyes away from him.

"I- um," he begins, glancing at the floor sheepishly. And I realize I need to explain to him, explain that this is wrong, explain. I have celadon. I'm not supposed to be seeing color.

I grab onto his wrist gently, beginning to pull him from the shop.

"Wait, what are you-" I interrupt him.

"Please just come with me, for a second," I plead quietly, and he nods, walking with me compliantly. We're out the door, and he calls that he'll be right back in. The sky had gone darker as I walked here, clouds filling the sky, and fat white flakes of snow begin to float down gently onto the pavement.

I realize I haven't let his arm go, and so I release him, glancing around us to be sure no one can hear.

I want to talk first, but he beats me to it.

"So you...you're my soulmate." He's close, and he smiles again, gently, no teeth showing, just an attempt to contain his excitement. He reaches up and cups my cheek with his hand, thumb brushing across my cheekbone, and I really should stop him, but I can't bring myself to, because I feel it. That electricity Charlie always talks about. I feel it. "You're beautiful," he says, so quietly I wonder if I'm hearing things. My hand finds its way over his, relishing the moment for a second before gently pulling his hand away. I can't, can't let him say any more before I break his heart, but my hand refuses to drop his, so I stand holding his hand like a stupid romantic, and people are walking by smiling at us, and I want to scream at them to stop because it's a sacred moment, but also a tense moment, because I know something he doesn't and the whole irony of the thing is making me unbearably sick.

"What's your name?" I say softly.

"Phil," he says, glancing to sky, seeming to consider something, before glancing back at me solidly and claiming, "Philip Michael Lester." He has the ghost of a northern accent, choppy and a bit more slurred, the vowels more curved, and I love it.

I can't keep myself from smiling. "Daniel James Howell," I say, using all my willpower to drop his hand and instead slide my hands into my pockets. "You can call me Dan, though. I mean, everyone does. No one calls me Daniel, unless I do something wrong."

He nods. "Yeah, my job isn't high-end enough for anyone to call me Philip. It's a name a bit too suited for royalty, I guess."

I smile, my eyes dropping to the pavement. "Phil- I don't know how to tell you this."

A look of worry, and slight horror crosses Phil's face. "What- are you..." he lowers his voice "do you have celadon?"

I open my mouth to respond, only to find the words catch in my throat. He isn't wrong, really, but what's happening right now, it's an impossibility. I'm two people's soulmate, and I'm not poly-amorous. I'm an outlier in the scientific study of celadon.

"Oh god..." Phil breathes, turning to lean heavily against the concrete wall of the coffee shop, his smile dropping instantly. My body suddenly responds again, and I jolt forward grabbing his hands and turning him to face me again.

"No... No, you don't understand, Phil, I had celadon. I'm someone else's soulmate. But you... You're my soulmate. You made me see the colors." I wonder why tears are threatening to spill from my eyes, and I finally understand Charlie's reaction that day in the park.