Series [Short Story] "Your colors were your kindness itself" Episode 4

Characters
|Kohaku Mimori| Me. A twenty-year-old college student. While realizing I have feelings for Mikan that go beyond friendship, my emotions begin to waver with the appearance of PSY.
|Mikan Tsuruya| My best friend. One year older than me. Incredibly cheerful.

|Shinku Tachibana| Mikan's senior from the high school art club. A contemporary artist.

|PSY| An acquaintance of Shinku. A watercolor artist. Suffers from scopophobia.

Previous Episode Summary

Through Shinku and Mikan, I receive a message from PSY saying, "I want to apologize for the other day." After much deliberation, I reply that I understand, and at Shinku's suggestion, we decide to meet at the university hospital where PSY's work is being exhibited. I take Mikan with me and reunite with PSY. Then, for the first time, I see PSY's work. After viewing it, I finish using the restroom and am about to return to Mikan when I hear a boy crying. Concerned, I head to the back of the hallway, where I find an ultramarine back.

"--What are you doing?"
With my voice trembling slightly, I fearfully ask the familiar back.
The large ultramarine back reacts with a twitch to my voice, and the person turns around while remaining in the crouched position they were in before the crying boy.

--It was indeed PSY.

After turning to face me, PSY turns back to the boy. Grabbing the boy's left wrist with his left hand, he uses the index and middle fingers of his right hand to stroke the boy's thin, white, exposed forearm—which had been rolled up as if for an injection—up and down, as if rubbing in hand cream. When the boy lets out a hiccup, his crying gradually subsides like a receding tide, and strangely enough, he soon stops crying. Then, after wiping the tear tracks under the boy's eyes with his thumb, PSY inexplicably says, "Oh, sorry."

I move my feet, which had been frozen, and cautiously close the distance, one step, two steps. PSY shows no sign of caring about me, remaining silent while holding the boy's wrist, as if waiting for something. The boy, who had stopped crying and was in a daze for a while, moves his head and seems to look at PSY's face. PSY nods once, whispers "Alright"—either to the boy or to himself—and slowly stands up.
Tilting my body to peek at the boy's eyes, which had been hidden by PSY's body, I see they are slightly smudged with black. Perhaps the "sorry" from earlier was an apology for the paint on his fingertips transferring to the boy.
PSY looks back at me.
"Have you finished looking at the paintings?"
"--Oh, yes. For the most part. I can't really put it into words well, but I thought they were wonderful paintings. The whale's expression is good, and above all, I thought the colors were beautiful. --I'm sorry. That's about all I can say."
PSY keeps his gaze fixed near my shoulder and asks,
"Was there anything in Kohaku-san's emotions that was touched?"

--Emotions?

"I was taught by someone that human emotions have colors. People have basic emotions known as joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, and each seems to have its own unique color. Joy is in the yellow spectrum, like a homonym. Anger is in the red spectrum, just like bloodshot veins or a face turning red. These two are warm colors. Then, sorrow is the blue or purple I am wearing right now. Pleasure has an image of various bright colors combined, like a rainbow. Of course, the colors I just mentioned are merely general examples. Some people might layer the exact opposite color on the color wheel over each emotion, rather than a complementary color. The above is a story I heard from someone, but Kohaku-san, what kind of feelings did you have when you saw my paintings?"
As I am asked, I look back and search for the emotions I felt at that time.
--Wait, that's strange. No emotions come to mind. I find it hard to believe, but all I felt at that time was an aesthetic sense of beauty.
"When we paint, there are often times when the colors we imagine are not at hand. Sometimes the paint for that color is missing, or the color we imagine is literally multicolored. What do we do then? We need to mix different colors to create a new color, a color that did not exist in this world until then. In that sense, we might be beings that exist alongside color."
--What on earth did PSY suddenly start talking about? Colors of emotions? Beings that exist alongside color? It was all complete gibberish to me.
"When I first saw you, I intuitively felt that something was missing. Was it missing from the start, or was it lost later? I have no way of knowing, but to me, a part of you looks colorless."

--Now I understand.

This is it. What I felt when we first met.
A gaze that seemed to see right through my heart. It might have been seen through the perspective of a painter rather than PSY as an individual. A deficiency within me that only a being who uses color could see. No, a lack of color. But that shouldn't be something that belongs only to me. Everyone who experienced that blackout ten years ago must have been forced to carry the same thing. I'm not special. And because I'm not special, there's no need to dare to speak of it. After all, it's commonplace. What's the point of talking about such things? To elicit sympathy? That would be stupid. Those who don't know are better off not knowing. Even those who do know should just pretend not to see. Living that way was necessary to survive daily life...

"--Even if you shed tears like that, there is still no color. I had heard about it, but this is the first time I've met someone who experienced it. I never thought that person would, for this reason, have me..."
Regardless of my own emotions, I was shedding tears. Even though there wasn't a |shred| of sadness in my heart, droplets ran down my |cheeks| as if I were being pelted by |light rain|. I don't want anyone to see me with a face like this, in this state.

"--Big sister. Big sister, why are you crying?"
Before I knew it, the boy who had been crying earlier was standing beside me. His tears had completely |dried|, and he looked at me with clear eyes. It was just like the eyes of that whale. It reminds me of my younger brother, Taiyo. I shake my head as if to deny the tears.
"I'm not crying, big sister isn't. There's no way I'd cry in front of Taiyo. --Actually, it's the other way around, isn't it? You were the one crying the whole time back then. When all the light disappeared and we couldn't see anything, we just had to believe that the hands we were |holding| were each other's. It's strange, isn't it? Even though we're siblings, when we lose the light, we can't even tell who the other person is."
"Big sister?"
A small, soft hand touches my right hand, which I had been letting hang loosely. It's a little cold. That hand grips my four fingertips and gently bundles them together. I think it's just like Taiyo, but there's no way I could mistake Taiyo's hand now. That hand is, without a |doubt|, a boy's hand. With my eyes still |moist| with tears, I ask,
"What is it?"
"When you're sad, you should rely on that older brother. If you have him rub your arm, the sadness will just fade away."
When I |blink|, a tear falls onto the floor.

I lift my face and stare at PSY. His eyes are still directed toward me, but he never looks directly at me. No, if he looked directly, what would happen? Perhaps he avoids looking because if he did, he would see everything.
Looking down at the boy again, I say,
"Yeah. Thank you. If the time comes, I'll try relying on him too. On that person."
"Yeah!"
The boy, who answered with a big nod, lets go of my hand as if breaking a pinky promise. He runs off energetically, and in the blink of an eye, he is gone somewhere.

When I return my gaze to PSY, I clearly put into words what I absolutely must |ask| now.
"--PSY. Who on earth are you?"

To be continued

#Novel #Series #ShortStory #Artist #Scopophobia #CollegeStudent #Painter #Gallery #Hospital #Painting #Art #Romance #Whale #JoyAngerSorrowPleasure #Emotion #Blackout #Siblings #YoungerBrother