C O L O R S

B L A C K

Thin clouds move like curtains for the sickle moon, spilling unstable light across the entirety of Kris Mondala's room. The moon shines just enough for the cold November night, but for him, everything is pitch black.

Colors define many things. Black can be of plain darkness, or just the shade of one's true persona. But for Kris, he's lost all the colors and everything has become pitch black.

Everything is pitch black ever since he left.

It's half past midnight. He should be doing his homework and reviewing for a major test in his Biology class, or sleeping; sound like her mother in the next room; or snoring like his hated neighbor Kenneth; or spent like the school jock, Yohan, in the house across from his.

But he is sitting.

No. Not like sitting with a Dan Brown book in his hands, or a laptop on his bedside table watching a show for guys, no, neither with his phone pissing himself with the stupid game, Color Switch.

He's just sitting. In his sleeping pants, feet on floor and hands rested on his lap, shaking, as he stares on the empty fixed bed on the other side of the room. It's over a year that day, but it stays just the same.

The same kind of One Direction posters cover the peeling linear wallpaper. The same character sheet hugs the bed, matching the cushions that are wrapped in the same character pillow bags. The school backpack's still rested on the low left corner, as if waiting to be picked up again like nothing ever happened.

That's exactly what Kris feels that time. He just wants his brother back. He wants him to barge inside their shared room that night, acting silly and he will bounce on his bed and mess the cover that Kris' personally made.

He wants him to sit beside him and scold him for being so careless. Kris will lower his head and feel sorry so his brother will smile and ruffle his hair saying, "It's okay."

Like nothing has ever happened.

Because he always says that.

Always, when their mom will reprimand Kris for an errand never done.

Always, when their playmates will push Kris away from the group because he's acting soft and mushy.

Always, when their father won't go home from work to ask them how school's been going.

Kris will be so upset, mostly on nights when he was about to show his father a newly acquired trophy from a contest recently won but his father won't be there. Kris will be so disappointed that he will just want to toss the damn trophy in the trash---a thing his brother will be so mad of.

So in order to make up for their father's absence, his brother will just ask him to wear their identical hoodies because they will get themselves full on the nearby café. A treat, his brother will say. Because Kris won not just for himself, but for his family.

Kris wants his brother to go out of the bathroom with a wicked smile on his face before saying, "Surprise," and everything will turn out to be just a joke his brother had desperately pulled off, and the next day, all will be normal.

But most nights, it is always like that. Kris will wait until his eyes felt heavy. He will wait until he gets tired of just sitting so he will lie under the covers, eyes opened.

He will wait until he would found himself drifting off to sleep.

He will wait until he finds himself spending another night again...without him.

Kris sits uncomfortably on the far end of the Narra sofa in Dr. Sario's clinic the next day. His mom tells him that morning that she knew he hasn't slept last night. She tells him that makes her worried.