The Red To My Grey

Prologue

 Soulmates were a tricky thing.

Parents told their children about it as bedtime stories, stories about how they first met their significant other and immediately knew. Now, in a world where people only started to see colours upon seeing their soulmate for the first time, it was pretty obvious.

You had vivid memories of lying in your bed, being gently tucked in by your father and listening to him. Sometimes he told you how he first met your mom, and how the world quite literally looked brighter. But the romance part, that wasn't what you were most interested in. You wanted to know what red was, or how the sky looked when it was not grey. Was it just as beautiful as people said? You wanted – no, you needed to know.

You used to talk about it with your friends, and then you discussed what you thought colours looked like. "My mommy says green is the colour of the grass, and that it looks really fresh and that trees have the same colour!"

"My daddy says yellow is the most beautiful colour, because the sun is yellow and bananas are yellow and I like bananas."

"What colour do you think my jacket is? My mommy says it's red, but I think it looks more like blue."

"Oh, can you see colours already?"

"No, but I think it's blue. Blue is gonna be my favourite colour!"

Even when you were little, you could talk about colours for hours. You friends, however, didn't share the same passion you had for colours. Sure, seeing them must be nice, but it wasn't exactly what they were looking forward to. Meeting your soulmate was the real thing.

And hey, it wasn't like you were indifferent to the whole soulmate story; the colours were just more important to you. Hell, you secretly loved the idea of soulmates, the idea that there was somebody out there who was perfect for you in every way and who you could share the rest of your life with. You wouldn't have to feel alone anymore once you met them.

And as everyone grew older, and many of your classmates started to date – because somewhere around the age of eleven, the idea of having the universe decide who you should be with wasn't that attractive anymore for most of them -, you still held on to that thread that would lead you to that perfect person. Because even though you understood their doubts about the whole soulmate idea, you trusted the universe in that decision.

It wouldn't fail you, would it?

You remembered the day you finally saw colours for the first time as if the exact moment was etched in your memory. Because it was.

It wasn't the first time you'd been staring at the sky and imagining what it'd be like to see the different shades of what your parents called blue. You were waiting for something, maybe the bus, when suddenly everyone around you started buzzing more than usual. Something had happened, and a little further a crowd was gathering. It took you a moment before you noticed what, exactly, the problem was.

A scaffolding had collapsed, and two construction workers were dangling from the edge of the building, both about to fall to their death. You were almost shocked to see that, except for one mother and a college student, no one really tried to help them. Of course you knew why - this was New York, so there would probably be a superhero somewhere in the neighbourhood who would save them.

Still, you couldn't just wait and stare; it wasn't in your nature to just stand by and do nothing. But before you could do something, anything, an excited scream erupted from the crowd. People looked up to the sky as one, and you instinctively followed their gazes to see what had caused that reaction.

Next thing you knew, you could see it. Colours.

The first you saw was red, you would learn later. It was a flash of red that drew a line in the air, but it wasn't the thing that caught your attention the most.

The sky. Because now you could finally see the heavenly blue you had dreamed of all your life, and it was so much more beautiful than you'd imagined.

Your eyes were wide as you stared in shock at the sky, so surprised that you only later realized how weird that must've looked for other pedestrians – but this was New York, no one probably even cared. And most of them were more focused on the collapsed building anyway.

It took a few seconds for the truth to settle in. You could see colours, so that meant ... The realization hit you. You turned so abruptly you almost fell, but ... You saw him. The guy in a blue and red suit. He'd managed to grab one of the workmen and bring him to safety, though you had no idea how he'd done it. But then the other one's hand slipped ... and the masked superhero caught him mid-air, somehow swinging from a thin thread in his one hand, while his other held tight onto the surprised, but relieved, construction worker.

When he'd brought the man safely to the ground, applause rose from the crowds. But instead of welcoming the attention, like you knew Iron Man would most likely do, the guy seemed almost ... perplexed by the positive reaction. At first, he stumbled backward, but once he noticed that the people weren't playing a stupid joke on him, he simply saluted a little awkwardly and exited the scene - swinging from building to building.

You were perplexed. Of course that had to happen to you, a soulmate with a red-blue onesie and weird superpowers.

At first, you didn't tell your parents about it. Well, you told them you'd seen your soulmate, that you could see colours now – they were almost more excited than you were, if that was even possible -, but you didn't tell them who it was. You told them you wanted it to stay your secret for a while, until you eased into it a little, and with your parents being amazing and supportive, they understood.

They didn't have to know that you were not even sure who your soulmate was.

You quickly found out, though, because the next day Spiderman was the hot topic of your school. There was a new superhero in town!

Some of your classmates thought he had really cool powers – he was not a Thor or a Hulk, but still. Others were more interested in what he would look like under the mask – was he young? Old? Maybe he was really handsome!

And then your best friend asked what your opinion was on this new Spiderdude, and you made the mistake of telling the truth.

"I think he's my soulmate."

You'd never really been popular, but not a complete loser either. But those words were a terrible mistake, because somehow, nobody wanted to believe you. You understood their caution, but still. It wasn't long before you were looked at differently, you were just some lying attention seeker, after all, and everyone started making vicious comments on everything you did. Because if he really was your soulmate, why didn't he know that as well?

And to be honest, you wanted to know the answer to that last one more than anyone. There was an obvious explanation actually, because that you saw him didn't mean he had seen you too. But it was common knowledge that it almost never happened that only one half of a soulmate duo started to see colours. So why would you be that exception?

When you came home from school a few days later, you told your parents the truth, and how nobody believed you. Your parents comforted you as well as they could, but you knew, you felt that they didn't believe you either.

All those vile comments you received from classmates were eventually the reason you changed from school.

That's why, when you were standing in front of your new school - Midtown High School -, you decided that no one must know who your soulmate was. And if that meant keeping your ability to see colours a secret, so be it.