17 - Yearning (for the monochrome)

"So…"

Rika-san began with her story. "My parents are both colorblind. They're this… lovey-dovey couple, and they're so affectionate towards me and my younger brother. Thanks to them, I enjoyed an amazing, warm childhood, and they always supported my dreams. My only complaint would be…" She chuckled, her love apparent in the tone. "They're so annoyingly in love even after all these years!"

I joined her laughter, too. "That's so lovely, though!" My parents were divorced a long time ago, so I couldn't relate to her—but I felt so warm inside, hearing about her caring family. Perhaps they had a grand role in shaping her charismatic and confident personality?

"Anyway, like I was saying: they always supported my dreams and tried to provide me with the things I wanted, to the best of their abilities. They got me all of the art materials possible. And since I was a huge fan of reading manga, they always gave me new titles to get lost in." Oh, now this I could relate with! Manga was always something dear to my heart as well.

"It's just… As one might expect, since I was a child, I was made aware that the colors I saw were different from what people usually saw—and that they saw way many more hues than I did. It comforted me to know that at least, the black and white I saw on the pages of manga series were the exact same with everyone else. That's why I developed a fondness for worlds presented in these two elegant elements. They felt safe. I didn't have to question if what I saw was different from everyone else all the damn time!"

I had never considered that before. It made me sort of emotional, to picture a small Rika-san, diving deep into the comforting worlds of monochrome—with fascination in her eyes…

"Other than the weird, nagging feeling that made me doubt every single color I saw, as a child I didn't really face any more issues. I learnt the colors by their kanji, and did my best to tell apart fruits and vegetables by their shapes during language classes. However, once I began middle school… That's when the problems began."

Uh oh. Middle school. I roughly had an idea of what kind of things I'd hear… I embraced myself for the impact.

"One day, at art class, I messed up the colors, alright? I was always confident in my art skills, so I had decided to try acrylic paint that day. I tried to paint some fruits from memory, but I guess the colors were wrong… Once my class noticed me working diligently on the canvas, they forcibly took away the painting from me, and passed it in their hands one by one—and laughed. 'You don't even know the colors of fruits?' 'Trying your luck with modern art?' 'These look rotten!' and much more… My teacher quickly tried to handle the bullying quickly, but her informing the class about my colorblindness just made things… worse." She shook her head, remembering the painful memories.

"They'd… constantly point at objects and ask me what colors I saw. They suggested I go back to elementary school if I didn't even know the differences between primary colors. They all… made me hate myself, and curse my situation. Except for one person." She turned to me and grinned bitterly. "My boyfriend. Well, ex one now, I guess." I wanted to tell her that she didn't deserve any of it, but I felt like intervening right now would be a bad time. I kept on listening.

"Back then, he was an underclassman, but once he heard the rumors about me, he came to visit me during recess and reassured me. We quickly became friends, and I was honestly a bit dependent on him as a way of self defense from the bullies. Anyways, he told me that he loved my drawings, and that he loved to draw, too—so we would spend a lot of time drawing together. It was him who helped me regain my confidence in art, even if I switched to a monochrome style for comfort.

"But then… His family had to change cities. So we lost contact back then. That was… until we ended up in the same uni, somehow. We saw each other in the cafeteria, and immediately recognized each other." She thought for a bit. "I… thought that it was fate that we got to meet again."

No wonder. If someone this important to me reappeared in my life in such a way by pure chance… Yeah, I'd think it was fate, too.

"Rika-san…" She looked into my eyes. "Heh, heh. Your dear Rika-san was a major fool. Despite it being obvious that he wasn't the same person from my memories, I… fell in love with him. Somehow, he did, too… But the happy times didn't last long."

During our stroll, we had gone far ahead already. I gestured towards a bench, so we could keep talking while resting a little. "Oh, thank you. It's quite nice in this neighbourhood, so it'd be a shame if we ended up somewhere else, lost in the conversation, heh. So… where was I? Right—we fell in love, but things didn't go very well. Here's why."

She played with the Prince Sancho keychain attached to her handbag. "Just like how I had fallen in love with just the… 'concept' of him, he'd done the same for me. He would constantly tell me what to do and what to wear—he had this idea that women should all be the same, I suppose. He didn't like my personality, my fashion, my hobbies— heck, we would even constantly fight about me doing male character cosplays. He said that if I was going to waste my money on such garbage, it should actually go towards pretty characters."

All people of the same gender should be the same… Now that was a sentiment I was quite familiar with. However, I couldn't believe that behind Rika-san's charismatic and confident cosplays, there were such unexpected behind-the-scenes stories.

"You might be thinking, why the hell were you with such a backwards thinking guy in the first place? I… don't know. I guess it's just that, I desperately wished that he'd change and finally love me for who I am. That he'd accept me, and stay with me, no matter who I was… I don't know. I just loved him so much…" She sighed. "But I guess it's about time that I accept that our time in middle school was just him pretending to be a hero. Plus, I was more of the classical 'Yamato nadeshiko' type, without much personal development back then. Maybe that was who he liked. And that's who he wanted to be in a relationship with. Just like how I wanted to enjoy love with my childhood hero…"

I looked at her beautiful face, and heartbroken eyes. I couldn't help the anger brewing up inside me. You were with someone as unique and incredible as Rika-san, and this was how you treated her?!

"Rika-san…" It was a time for me to state my opinion, I couldn't keep it in any longer. With a most respectful voice, I said, "I… don't think… that person is worth your time anymore. This is unacceptable behavior. He has no rights expecting you to be someone you're not." She turned to me and laughed bitterly. "Hoo boy, I didn't even tell you the worst of him yet. Not only does he have backwards thinking, he also has a fragile ego—as thin as a Pocky stick. He constantly monitors my accounts, my messages and goes on an anger fit when he sees me interact with other people closely. Would you like to guess how he reacted to our project together? This dear project, one that means a lot to me personally, and one that I greatly enjoy working on?"

I could tell that it wasn't anything good.

"Yeah, he started to violently shout at me that I wasn't allowed to meet up with another man alone. When I said that it was just for a manga contest, he told me not to waste my energy drawing such nonsense and focus on my graphics degree, that way I could finally get myself a proper job at my age. And that… honestly made me snap. I was already used to his jealousy outbursts, but for him to try to block my artistic path? Aaargh, give me a break, man!!!" She leaned down and rested her arms on her lap, looking defeated.

"I'm… sure that he'd hate to see me do this, but…" I gently patted her back, hoping to give her some sense of comfort. This made her chuckle. "Honestly? Good. I don't even care anymore. He said that it'd either be him or our 'stupid project together', and of course, I chose our project. I chose you." She straightened her back, and turned to face me. Her words, her smile, the shine in her eyes, they all made me an emotional mess.

"I feel free now, as if I have broken the chains keeping me down. I don't even regret my decision one bit, but he suuure does. He keeps calling me and sending me a million messages asking for me back. But I'm havin' none of that. I literally lost nothing with him out of my life.

"But I gained a beautiful, kind, understanding and incredibly talented friend with my decision. Yuuma-kun…" She opened her arms wide for a hug. "Let's work on our project right until the end and do what's important for us, yeah? And keep having a blast with our beautiful friendship while we are at it!"

I opened my arms as well. "Of course. Let's do our best—and please, never forget that I'm here for you." We both leaned forward to complete the hug, and it was one of the most intensely emotional moments in my life. The feeling of being important for someone dear to me, and her warm embrace—it was priceless.

We stayed hugging for a long while. "Heh heh, now that I know that you give such good hugs, I'll be using your 'hug services' often from now on, on top of your 'angel services'!"

"Anytime you'd like Rika-san. Anytime."