Crushin' Colors

Chapter 1: Red

Red is the color of forbidding, or so I notice.

I see red everywhere I cannot enter or move forward; as the base color of a stop sign, the backlight of cars where they nonverbally asked other drivers to stop, and alarm button for machines.

Red is the color of danger, or so I was taught.

There is a phrase called seeing red, for one's intention to go berserk. Red is the color of victims, often mentioned to describe a gruesome tragedy. Red is the color of burn, of pain. Or so I witnessed.

But just as other things in this world, red has two faces. Aside from its malicious reputation, red is also well known as warmth. Although, it's often being toned down into softer shades so that children would be aware of the difference of its faces.

Red is the color that perfectly describes you. Or was.

I could remember the day I spent with many thoughts of you, and the time we spent together; what could have been said between us, what could have happened. What should have happened. Scenarios after scenarios were overflowing in my head, manifested into the bath water that sunk me neck deep; its color resembling blood, but the scent was that of roses; those were your favorite.

You were never bothered by thorn-cut on your skin, its complexion was similar to those tinting your cheek as we stared into each other's eyes. You murmured something about them being painful, but you refused to be defeated by them. Nothing comes out in this world risk-free, you said. There was no beauty that was unguarded. If there was, then it's a beauty wearing off fast.

I remember a spark of red glinting in your eyes, as you emphasise that beauty could only be paid by pain. And pain was hardly a generous trader.

We were pulled together by a string of a warm red. It was adorable, addictive, and it looked like it could last forever.

But red had two faces, and as time went by, our red stirred into a more sinister side of itself.

I remembered red from the skin below your eyes, it was swollen and wet and it sent pain right through my chest. They happened because of me, the tears and the storm entailed. Your emotion was explosive red, burning every warm string that brought us together. Your lip was bitten red, a product of holding off your tongue from speaking words equally destructive. You cared enough not to burn everything. There were still warmth in between your flame. It was painful, but it was bearable. I knew you would put out those blinding red in the end. After all, you hated them too.

You prefer red to be softer and paler than a pure, natural form. Red as we see in the sky when the sun sets, red we see in the cherry blossom petals. Oh, God. You adored them like they were a miracle, those petals. They were hardly red, I remembered saying. But you told me that it was there, just the right amount to bloom warmth to our heart quicker than sunrise would warm our blood in the morning.

I remembered collecting every single petals I can find, in everything I could find. They reminded me of you; their beauty, their subtle flame, their vulnerability.

I saw them torn off by the rain as the sky darkened.

I saw you ripped yourself away from our stitched fate as my eyelids fell shut.

People often describe darkness as pure black, and so it had become the popular color for emptiness. But I beg to differ. The pure, utter darkness was in fact, red. And it was a little bit confusing, seeing that red should be the color of you. The color of your presence that brought warmth to my chest and to the surface of my skin. But again, red comes with two faces, and this time I was brought forward to the sinister side of its face; the opposite of your presence.

Unlike the warm red that resembles a flaming fire, this red was violent, in the deepest shade one could imagine. A little bit like blood, right at the moment where the last of its moisture was yet to dry off. The color was so painful to watch, it strikes fear to my heart and chaos to my mind. It was terrifying. If I could choose, I'd go with black any day. But fate was rarely kind to the likes of me. Choices were taken away from me the moment we burnt the last strand of string that was once connected us, and we were stranger once again.

This terrifying red looked perfectly like your kind of wrath; one that felt unforgiving and endless.

I have done all I could to save myself from this kind of red, to see a more beautiful version of it, but that chance was long lost from me, slipped through my fingers like dried sand. And they were now blown away, refusing to be brought together again. I couldn't even open my eyelids, because even though it was violent and painful, that kind of red was better.

It was better than seeing a world where you aren't by my side.

It's almost sad, that all I can remember of you is that you always said that the world was gruesome, each and every being was defending themselves against the other.

But I never thought that you would defend yourself against me.