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BakuTodo Valentine's Exchange 2021
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Published:
2021-02-18
Completed:
2021-04-11
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19,950
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4/4
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Shades of Blue

Chapter 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Monday comes but Katsuki doesn’t, not on Tuesday or Wednesday either. By Thursday Shouto has to face the reality that Katsuki is avoiding him. 

Mina acts as friendly as she ever has but there’s something locked behind her eyes and Shouto wonders how much she knows. He asks her on Friday, “Have you heard from Katsuki?”

Her face falls into a sad smile. “Not really. He’s-” she pauses and starts ringing Shouto up at the register. “He seems upset. Not returning my calls or texts except to tell me to stop bothering him.” Mina tries to hand him back his change but he waves her off. 

“I tried texting him on Tuesday but he didn’t respond,” Shouto responds solemnly. 

Mina looks at him cautiously. “Did the date not go well?”

Shouto’s stomach flutters as he recounts their day at the park in vivid flashes and then he blushes when he remembers Katsuki’s hand on his cheek and the gentle press of their lips.

“Oh~” She teases. “It went very well, I see”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Pft. Yes. It was . Katsuki just can’t be bothered to be straight forward when it comes to things like that.” She collapses to the counter, supporting her head with her upturned hands. “Hard to blame him though. He’s never had to do it before. Not all of us-”

The bell over the door jingles and Mina freezes. “Speak of the devil,” she whispers in the space between them and her words make Shouto’s body begin to thrum with uncertainty. 

He looks over his shoulder and finds that Katsuki is staring him down from the door, his eyes pin him with their burning determination. He’s reminded of the first time their eyes met in this coffee shop, how everything had dropped away and the air had grown thick with an inexplicable force, and that’s how it feels now as they look at each other unwaveringly.

“I think he wants to talk to you,” Mina says and Shouto hears her but feels worlds away. “Should I make your coffee to go or...”

Katsuki backs out of the door without looking away and Shouto moves after him without hesitation. “Sorry, Mina,” he calls to her half heartedly as he pushes the cafe door open. Katsuki is waiting for him just past the storefront and when he sees that Shouto has followed him he makes a gesture with his head that says, well, c’mon.

Shouto falls into step with him easily, the sidewalks aren’t particularly crowded at this time so they are able to walk side by side. The tension he would have expected is there but, not nearly as hostile as he’d built it in his mind. Instead of the anger and betrayal from the last time they saw each other there’s a sadness to Katsuki’s energy. The kind that’s quiet and tender.

They’ve walked a whole block and are turning a street corner when Shouto finally tries to say something, “Katsuki, I know I upset you-”

“I need to show you something.” Katsuki cuts him off but his eyes glance to look at Shouto. Irises that he’s seen hold such strong, red emotions are now swimming with something that makes Shouto think of a dark blue. Open, fragile, vulnerable .

They come to an expansive plaza spotted with stone statues of what appear to be amorphous blobs. The space is dotted with benches and flower beds planted beneath shade trees. The scenery is enough to distract him from the name on the large building they’re approaching until they reach the door and then it’s plastered across the glass doors in vinyl stickers: Hendrick’s Museum of Art.

He can’t even get in a question before Katsuki is continuing inside, leading him to the ticket taker where he presents two pre-purchased tickets. They get in the elevator, “Which floor?” 

Katsuki is fidgeting, hands stuffed in his pockets as he shifts his weight on both legs. “Five.”

Shouto presses the button and reads the text next to it: Modern and Contemporary Art.

The doors open up and Shouto is immediately hit with vivid color. There’s a large painting of butterflies hanging on a pillar right outside the elevator. Their wings shimmer and, when he gets closer, he sees that there are flecks of gold in the paint. To his right there is a floor to ceiling window and he can only imagine what the painting looks like in the light of the setting sun. 

Katsuki scoffs but there’s humor in his tone. “You got colored sight and you didn’t immediately go to an art museum?”

The lightness in Katsuki’s tone makes him relax, “I bought a book?”

“A book?”

Shouto hums and follows Katsuki as he takes them deeper into the gallery. “Yeah, Now That’s What I Call Color .”

Katsuki shakes his head with a small huff. “I don’t even know where to start with that.”

They come to a stop in front of a sleek white bench. Katsuki sits first and then Shouto follows. Across from them is a painting, lit from the front. The background reminds him of rainbow sherbert ice cream except melted and mixed together in minimally textured swirls of orange, green and pink. The bottom edge of the painting is a white tea table - mostly white. It’s confusing but the table is shadowed and defined with less pigmented versions of the colors that make up the background layered together in a way that still reads as white.

Sitting on the right hand side of the table is a tall, messy stack of brightly colored and damaged papers. The way the paint is layered, maybe even cut somehow, adds texture to each individual sheet. Shouto feels as though he could walk up to the painting and pull a piece out to hold in his hands. 

The top of the stack seems to tilt. The papers push inwards to create a curve, over which the top most paper, the color of candy apple red, has just begun to slip off, as though catching a breeze. 

He must stare at it a long time because when Katsuki speaks it startles him from his own thoughts. “What do you see?”

Shouto swallows, unsure of how to answer. “What do you mean?”

Katsuki shrugs and adjusts his posture. “Just what I said, ‘What do you see?’ There’s not a wrong answer so don’t overthink it.”

“Okay,” Shouto turns back to the painting and tilts his head how he imagines an art critic would. “I-” he starts and pauses once more, scrunching his eyebrows and thinking hard. His eyes are drawn to the divots that separate the papers. The careful lines of black and brown that make the corners of some sheets look burned. The spackled layers that create creases on other pieces of paper. “I see lines.”

“Lines?” Katsuki raises an eyebrow and his voice sounds vaguely amused. 

“And layers,” Shouto is quick to follow up.

“Huh.” Katsuki turns back to the painting. “Lines and layers.” He seems to consider Shouto’s answer and then looks at him sideways, “You wouldn’t last a day in art school if that’s the best you got.”

Shouto feels himself flush hot. “That’s - you -” He groans a bit childishly. “What I mean is,” he bites his lip and gives the painting one last look and continues. “I know there’s a larger picture but, when I look at it, I find myself focusing on the technical elements. I wonder how much time, skill, and - and passion ,” his voice grows with his conviction, “that the artist must have poured into creating this.” 

He points at the painting as if from this distance it’s clear what he’s gesturing to, “Look there, the colors in the background are the same colors that make up the table but the table still looks white . How did they do that? The paper, too. Each sheet looks so thin but all of the paint is smeared on top of each other in layers. It’s as though, to the artist, color is everything.”

Meeting Katsuki’s eyes, he sucks in oxygen having not breathed through his entire defense. “Anything else?” Katsuki asks simply.

With a small shake of his head, “No.”

Katsuki hums placatingly then repeats the last of what Shouto had said. “Color is everything. Huh. Never heard that one before.”

Confused, “What?”

“When my alma mater was using my painting to teach one of their modern art intro classes for colored sight, most people wrote that love was everything. Shit about layers of color representing moments in a relationship to create something both strong and fragile.”

Selective hearing, “This is - You painted this?”

“Yeah. Six or seven years ago. I’d just gotten out of school.”

“But -” Shouto feels his brain treading water just trying to keep up. “It’s in color.”

A little rough but not truly antagonistic, “I know, I’m the one that painted the damn thing.”

Shouto doesn’t know what to say but he gets the feeling he’s not supposed to say anything. He gives Katsuki a few more moments and then he continues. “I met my soulmate already, Shouto.”

Shouto feels the blood drain from his face and his whole body go numb but Katsuki continues to stare forward, eyes locked on the painting but not really seeing anything.

“Eijiro. I met him when we were thirteen. First day of school.” Katsuki rubs his mouth. “It was like drowning and having life breathed into me at the same time.”

“Fear and bliss.” Shouto’s words are but a whisper.

 “Yeah. Exactly.” Katsuki looks at him sadly. “You would know.” He swallows thickly, “We came here after school the day we met. They had an exhibit at the time called Impasto in Color .” A small laugh, then, “We must have spent three hours in there and after that I knew I wanted to become a painter. I wanted to keep creating that moment of everything being new. Exciting.”

A silence falls between them and Shouto has a moment to sit with his thoughts. It’s impossible to even begin trying to unravel the threads of inexplicable devotion he feels for Katsuki from the ones of utter heartbreak and loneliness. There are so many questions to be asked but no way for him to really grasp what his focus should be. 

Then he looks at Katsuki and sees a similar heartbreak, a similar loneliness. He’s not the only one confused or hurt and he reasons that if he’s fated to love Katsuki he should start by trying to be understanding of his pain. “Something happened. It’s not that simple.”

“No,” Katsuki sighs but not of relief or exasperation, maybe resignation. “He died. Almost three years ago. Motorcycle crash. I was-” Katsuki takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, like he’s practiced what he’s telling Shouto and is recalling his lines. “I was in the middle of painting that large canvas, the one in my apartment. The one the tarp fell off of. And my vision went grayscale and there was just pain . I felt like something was being torn out of me. I didn’t know what to think or do but a few seconds passed, the pain stopped and the color came back. But it was wrong. Everything was faded.

“Then it happened again. Only this time when the color came back it was spotty, fading in and out. And the pain wouldn’t even let me breathe. Even after it was gone again I still couldn’t catch my breath.

“And it happened again. My vision went blurry. The pain kept pulling at my chest and then it felt like something snapped and the pain went away but I felt empty.” 

Katsuki rubs his hands together, mind only half with Shouto and the other half lost in a memory. He tugs the elbow on Katsuki’s jacket. “What about your vision?”

“Complicated. It was grayscale but color floated on the edges. Kind of like how you can see those muddled murky colors on top of oil if the sun hits it right but on the edges. When I look at things head on they’re grayscale.” Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose and grimaces. “Uh, so minutes later I get a call from the hospital. I didn’t even have time to care about my sight or the empty feeling because all I heard was motorcycle crash and extensive trauma. My mom met me at the hospital, came with me when they brought me to Ei’s room and-” Katsuki cuts himself off, voice going tight. “And, uh, that’s when they told me about his injuries and how he coded three times, how they tried to save him but that he was - his body was still there but he was...gone.”

Shouto isn’t sure what to do, he wants to comfort Katsuki. Pull him into his chest and let him cry the tears he’s so obviously holding back but they suddenly feel so far apart and he’s unsure how to bridge the gap. Katsuki does it for them, he grabs Shouto’s wrist and doesn’t let go.

“Everyone wanted me to withdraw care but I was weak ,” he sounds angry now, ashamed, “and I couldn’t do it. You know,” he continues and his hand slips into Shouto’s, “people don’t usually lose their color vision when their soulmate dies. It’s rare. So there I am, twenty-six, widowed, mostly colorless, lost - and the only thing I have left of Eijiro is the color on the edge of my vision. And I was afraid I would lose that too if I let him go. So, now he has a permanent room at the hospital - I go sit with him after getting coffee in the morning and bring him flowers I couldn’t even see the color of on Wednesday. Every Wednesday. For the last three years.”

Shouto squeezes his hand and Katsuki returns the gesture before pulling his hand away and running it through his hair. “You don’t have to tell me, Katsuki.”

“I do, though - because that’s not the end of the story anymore.” Katsuki shoves the heels of his hands into both of his eyes and hisses as he breathes. “When I met you - I felt something. But, I want to be honest, it wasn’t like what people talk about or even how it had been when I met Ei. It was calming. Soothing. Like that emptiness was being slowly filled up or some bullshit like that. But I thought that maybe I was just attracted to you. I never thought about dating or romance after Ei’s accident and it bothered me that you made me start thinking about that shit. 

“I mean, what kind of soulmate wants to date other people after their partner fucking... after they’re gone .” Katsuki slaps his hands against his thighs and sits up straighter. “Mina saw it right away though, she’d been wanting me to ‘get back out there’ for a long time. I thought it was pointless though. Thought, ‘So what? I meet a colorless person and eventually they find their soulmate and leave me? What’s even the point?’” He scoffs.

Katsuki takes a moment to collect himself, breathes out the bitterness and continues, “Then I started seeing color. I started seeing blue.”

Shouto’s heart drops to his stomach, shock, hope, and grief pooling in there. He thinks of Katsuki and how he must have been scared and confused with nobody to talk to about what he was experiencing. Not dissimilar to how Shouto had first felt. 

“I’d never seen blue before. Even when Ei was still with me. Blues were always a steel gray. Even purples were a bit dull.” He gestures vaguely to his painting, “I never used them in my work.”

He looks at the painting again and, sure enough, there isn’t a trace of either color in it.

“Greens were hit or miss for whatever reason but that doesn’t really matter,” Katsuki continues a bit casually but the seriousness of his tone returns quickly. “They say that people usually see one color as more vibrant than others; with Eijiro, it was red. With you it’s blue. Everytime I look at you, the color of your eye is - it’s stunning.” Finally he turns to look at Shouto once more, “But I don’t see red. Orange is a bit dull.” With a small smile, “There are a lot more greens though. Teal for example - like the table in Mina’s cafe. Halfway between green and blue.”

“There were other blues too. The sky. Mina’s nail polish. The delphiniums.” A chuckle of mild exasperation, “Your sweater the first time we met. At first I only saw blue in flashes and now I see blue all the time. Then green. Yellow. Orange.” He sighs, there’s a tiredness to the sound. “Sometimes I don’t see those, but they come back. Stay longer. Disappear less.”

There’s a long pause between them and then Shouto voices the question at the forefront of his mind, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hey!” Katsuki raises his voice but there’s no heat in it. “You didn’t tell me either.”

“I didn’t think you would react well to, you’re my soulmate, let’s go on a date. ”

Katsuki laughs, a small sound but no less mirthful. “Probably not. I know it seems obvious that I started seeing colors because of you coming into my life but you never hear of people having a second soulmate - it didn’t even cross my mind. That morning we met, I had made the decision to take Ei off life support. I set a date for it because even though I was set in my decision I wanted a little more time to come to terms with it. So, I thought maybe this was the universe’s way of rewarding me for not being weak. For moving on and letting his body rest.”

“You’re not weak, Katsuki.” Shouto takes his hand, kisses his knuckles and Katsuki lets him. “And, um, I don’t know that it would have been obvious to me either so, if you’re worried about me -”

“Shouto - stop. I - I know you must have been hurting this whole time. Been unsure and a bunch of other shit and - God, fuck-” Katsuki uses his freehand to rub his forehead. "I don’t know what to do because I want to be with you but learning that we're soulmates brought another layer of bullshit feelings and questions.

“They say you’re fated to your soulmate from the moment you’re born. That’s why even kids will gain color. So if that’s true, then -” Katsuki grips Shouto’s hand tighter, bites his lip to hold back a broken sound. “Then that means Ei was fated to die. And for what? For loving me? I’m the one with the second soulmate. I’m the one that was destined to bond with another person and - and he had to die for that to happen? And what if he wasn’t fated to die and it was just an accident? What would have happened then? Would you have never found me? And If you did, would I have lost my bond with him? Would I have left him because - because soulmate bonds are unavoidable? You can’t ignore the pull.” He looks at Shouto again and there are tears in his eyes. “I didn’t see you for less than a week and I - I fucking missed you.”

He can’t be sure it’s appropriate but Shouto can’t stand to see Katsuki suffering and do nothing. Taking Katsuki’s face in both hands, he wipes away the tears in his lashes and presses his lips to his forehead. “It’s okay, Katsuki. It’s okay,” he breathes the words against Katsuki’s skin, and his hands come up to anchor himself to Shouto by grabbing his wrists.

Katsuki tilts his head and kisses Shouto softly, fleetingly on his lips. “I need time.” He swallows and Shouto knows what he’s going to say. “Away from you. Ei - I’m withdrawing care from him in a few days and - I need to answer those questions. I need to be... I don’t know. I need to be at peace with my answers.”

Tears prick Shouto’s eyes and he sniffs to clear the lump in his throat. “I understand.” Belatedly, “I’ll miss you.”

Katsuki nods and their foreheads knock together, “Me too, dumbass.”

Before they pull away, their eyes meet and Shouto can only think of one thing to say. “So, which is it? Is it love or color?”

With soft eyes, Katsuki laughs, small and light before he sets his face into vague amusement. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” He leans in to whisper conspiratorially against Shouto’s ear. “It’s a stack of fucking papers.”

 

 

The first week is hard, Shouto’s heart aches for Katsuki both in longing and concern. He worries about him and how he’s handling Eijiro’s passing. Mina closes the cafe early on Wednesday and Shouto has to assume that’s the day Katsuki had chosen to withdraw care and when she returns the next day her eyes are puffy but she smiles anyway. He asks her how Katsuki is and all she tells him is, “He had plenty of time to prepare for that moment and it still hadn’t been enough.” 

Shouto feels sick hearing that and that sick feeling stays with him throughout the entirety of the second week. He stops himself from texting Katsuki to ask how he is more than once but, he’d agreed to give him space and he wants to give Katsuki space to heal and process. Shouto just wishes there was a way to help him that wouldn’t add additional stress to his mental state.

The third week is easier, if only because Mina has finally spoken to Katsuki. “He’s painting again. With color. ” She emphasizes the word and waggles her eyebrow. Shouto spends hours thinking about what Katsuki could be creating. He wonders if Katsuki is still able to express passion the way he used to. The security guard at the art museum knows him by name by the end of the week and Shouto has studied every brush stroke of Katsuki’s painting.

His curiosity about Katsuki’s art carries into the following week and when he mentions it to Mina she balls up her fists and jumps for joy. She walks him over to the red book shelf that he’s probably sat by a few dozen times and pulls out a book containing the entirety of Katsuki’s body of work. It contains a bit of everything - portraits, figure studies, landscapes, abstract, among others, all executed in the style Shouto has come to associate with Katsuki. At Mina’s insistence, he takes the book with him when he leaves.

Week five makes him feel tired until Mina mentions she’s talked to Katsuki again. “He asked about you this time. Said to, ‘Tell that half-assed pretty boy I’m fine or whatever.’” 

Shouto smiles and thinks about how Katsuki’s charm has no limitations. “Will you tell him that I miss him too?”

Mina blushes, “Oh my God. I’m the quirky friend in the rom-com. I love it!”

And maybe it’s hearing that Shouto misses him that makes Katsuki come to the coffee shop the next day. And maybe it’s the time apart that makes seeing him again feel like he’s being torn open and put back together all at once. 

Shouto’s on his feet and standing by him faster than he can think. With Katsuki finally in front of him, with a lopsided grin on his face and challenge in his eyes, Shouto feels whole. 

“Who the fuck said I missed you at all, shithead?”

Shouto smirks, “I knew it the whole time.”

“You’re a confident motherfucker.”

“Only with my feelings towards you.” They both grin at each other and Shouto finally says something he’s wanted to say since the first time they met. “Your hair reminds me of sunshine.”

Katsuki’s eyes go wide with astonishment as a deep blush takes over his face. “Shut up! You’re so goddamn embarrassing, I can’t stand it.”

“I can’t help it, Sunshine.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes but he doesn’t look all that upset. “Just kiss me hello already.”

They fall into each other, right in the same spot they’d first met, and Shouto does just that.

Notes:

Hello! Thank you for reading all the way to the end, I hope you enjoyed it.

I got progressively more tired as I edited this so if there are a lot of mistakes in this chapter I won't be surprised.

I'd originally intended to include an epilogue but my time management skills are questionable. However, maybe it will become a smutty oneshot instead.

Anyway~
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