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Josh never knew the colour blue.
The sky was always grey for him, a vast stretch of nothing that was bright in the mornings and dark in the evenings, only ever coloured by sunsets and sunrises.
The ocean’s only shade was the spark of golden sunlight dancing on its surface, the pale monochrome darkening into an uncomfortable pitch black the deeper he swam.
He never understood it when people were awed by the horizon of an endless sea cast against a clear sky–it all looked very bleak to him.
He could not see it when Beth wore a blue dress to the prom. He did not notice the beautiful tinge of it on the wings of a butterfly that fluttered into his room. He trusted the employee at the flower shop when they added the pale blue hyacinths to his bouquet for mother’s day because they were her favourite, but he never saw its appeal.
To him, blue was an unfathomable non-existence only to be guessed at in futility, because how can you imagine a colour you’ve never seen?
He went twenty years of his life without ever glimpsing it, told by family and friends alike that he would see it eventually, he would see when he found whomever he belonged to and in turn whomever belonged to him.
Yes, up until that point, Josh never knew the colour blue.
Then he met Chris.
Blue.
He stared in utter fixation at the wide eyes staring back, awestruck at the indescribable shade in his irises, and then it was like the sky opened up.
Suddenly it was everywhere, blue, blue, blue–above him, below him, surrounding him, brilliantly glowing in the eyes of a man his sister insisted he should meet at a stupid beach party.
“Did you…” Chris tore his eyes away from the sun to look at Josh in amazed wonder, and Josh was sure he shared the expression. “Did you just–”
“Blue,” Josh replied quietly, taking a step closer because as breathtaking as the sky was, as magnificent as the sea appeared to him now, nothing could ever be as beautifully blue as the eyes of his soulmate. “You gave me blue.”
Chris laughed breathlessly and already the sound became his favourite. “Yellow, in my case,” he said, reaching out to touch Josh’s cheek with the tips of his fingers, dazed. “You… you have–your skin, it’s-it’s very nice. It looked pretty grey before.”
Josh grinned, finding himself unable to look away from Chris’ eyes. “Thank you. Your eyes are very nice, too.”
“Oh,” Chris pulled his hand back from its caress, as if only just realizing what he’d been doing, and flushed a hot pink. “W-well, thanks. I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before. The glasses, you know.” Then he glanced down at his feet and his jaw dropped. “Holy shit, this is what sand looks like?!”
Glancing up at the sky on his part, Josh hummed in thought, calmly taking in the wide expanse of new colour that was almost dizzying in magnitude with quiet awe, speaking only after a few long seconds of silence.
“Now I guess I can understand why people like to look at the clouds.”
Chris peered at him timidly and Josh looked back, thinking he was never going to grow tired of looking into Chris’ eyes.
“So, um, what-what happens now? Since we’re, uh, soulmates and everything.”
“Well, what do you want to happen?” Josh offered. “I mean, if you’re asking me, I kind of want to kiss you right now. But we don’t have to be–”
“Oh thank god,” Chris breathed out in visible relief before he could even finish his sentence, chuckling nervously. “I thought I was the only one.”
Similarly relieved, Josh smiled lightly and inched closer, hands slipping around Chris’ waist and the motion felt so natural that even Chris’ anxious posture relaxed into his arms.
The close proximity with a stranger shouldn’t feel so right, not when he was completely sober and not planning on a one-night-stand-–and yet he felt so at ease with Chris, as if they’d known each other for years. Maybe that was what a soulmate really was; a resonating familiarity and complete comfort, two people who had never met before still feeling that they knew each other.
Josh didn’t quite kiss him just yet, merely content to brush lips in a tender touch and Chris sighing softly against his.
“Thank you,” Josh murmured, blue inched into his peripherals where before there had been nothing but grey. Chris’ forehead gently bumped against his.
“Can we start making out, now?” he murmured back seriously.
Josh laughed, and kissed him.