So this one has a back story.

When I first started this story, I was watching Sunggyu's I Need You MV and the idea stuck in my mind. It was originally supposed to be a drabble for this blog, but then I thought to myself 'Hey, this could really work for KrisBaek!' So I ended up taking the story in that direction and posted it to my LiveJournal here.

Then thinking about it again, I did intend it for Sunggyu, so I adapted the story to fit him. It's really not as good as the KrisBaek version, so I really recommend reading that one, but I know not everyone is into reading OTP fics so ... here you go! ~Admin Kelc

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In the books that were written at the beginning of time, they say that the world shall be seen in black and white. From the summer sky and the flowers that bloom in spring to the leaves that fall in autumn and the twinkling lights that decorate trees in winter, everything will be in shades of grey.

But the People wanted more. They wanted to see the hues that were written about in legends and sung about in songs. They wanted to see more than the monochromes that painted their world bleak and lifeless.

They begged. They pleaded. And they were given an answer.

“One shall only see the colors of the world when with the one he is destined to be with until the end of eternity.”

Kim Sunggyu has read the books and heard the stories. But the thing about Sunggyu is that he is a firm believer in the phrase “Seeing is believing” and based on the lack of color in his life, he’s not quite ready to jump on the rainbow bandwagon of love and sunshine just yet. Besides, he considers black and white to be his favorite colors. 

“It’s like seeing emotions,” his friend, Dongwoo, drawls out with a dreamy sigh.

They’re sitting in a quaint bistro, sipping on iced teas and eating flatbread sandwiches. The lighting is dim and murmurs of neighboring conversations are quiet as rainclouds that carry the annual spring showers start to hang over the city. 

Sunggyu looks up at the boy across the table, “So you’re telling me that when you met your other half, all the colors looked like psychophysiological expressions?”

“Yeah!” the younger beams, “Like blue looks calm, yellow happy, and red angry. You know what I mean?”

“I can’t say that I do.”

The smile on Dongwoo’s face fades slightly as he watches Sunggyu take a sip of his tea. The older proceeds to examining the liquid that is a darker shade of grey, but not quite dark enough to be black. 

“If you tried looking for your other half, you would know that iced tea is brown.”

Sunggyu looks away from his cup and finds Dongwoo staring down at his plate with his bottom lip jutted out. 

“You know that’s not true. I could search and search until the day I die, but I would never be able to See like you and the others unless I actually find her.”

“But if you just tried at least there would be a chance that you do. She may be closer than you think.”

Sunggyu sighs and slouches back in his chair, “What’s the point anyway?”

“The point is,” Dongwoo promptly replies, “the world looks better in color.”

Sunggyu raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t really know how to explain it, but it seems more alive. And I guess you do too,” Dongwoo bites the inside of his lip, “No more reading tags to determine the color of your clothes or memorizing that #0db200 is a shade of green when it’s really just the color of the grass in the park.” 

Sunggyu silently pushes his straw with his finger, watching the ice cubes float to the surface then sink back down to the bottom. 

“But when you’re with your other half,” Dongwoo’s lips stretch into a lovesick smile, “life simply seems better. Maybe that’s why we are only able to see in color when we are with our other halves. Because when they’re not there, everything turns dull again.”

Sunggyu studies Dongwoo for a few moments. In his twenty-three years of existence, he would never have imagined that Dongwoo, the boy who once claimed “True love? Screw true love. Food is my one and only,” would be sitting across from him, preaching to him about the importance of finding his other half. 

“Well, you can’t miss what you never had,” Sunggyu murmurs and the two fall silent. 

---

Sunggyu steps out of a Starbucks a few nights later. He wraps his scarf loosely around his neck and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, one hand gripping his hazelnut macchiato and the other stuffed in his jacket pocket. He tips his head back and takes a deep breath, the nighttime shower’s mist dancing across his face. 

Sunggyu trudges down the slightly damp sidewalk. He passes the couples taking moonlit strolls and falls behind those rushing to the station before they miss their rides home. But all the way, Dongwoo’s words weigh heavily on his mind and the loneliness Sunggyu has learned to cope with is suddenly pressing on his heart. 

He takes a sip of his coffee, blowing out hot air as the liquid slithers down his throat and warms his body. 

Four blocks till he reaches his apartment complex. Four blocks till he’s out of the cold. Four blocks till he can distract himself from Dongwoo’s haunting words with the novel he’s reading or a rerun of a drama he’s watched twice or maybe – 

CRASH. 

“I’m so sorry!” a voice cries. 

Sunggyu stares down at the hot liquid that’s seeping into his jacket before slowly reaching down and picking up the paper cup and plastic lip he dropped onto the cement during the collision. 

When he stands back up, his breath gets caught in his throat and he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Sunggyu’s eyes widen when he comes face to face with a fuzzy ball of yarn atop a knitted beanie that’s neither black, nor white, nor any shade of grey he has ever seen. 

The light rain stops and everything stills. 

Slowly, like watercolors on hot-press paper, the mundane city starts to come alive. It’s as if someone is taking a fine tipped brush and painting the world before his eyes. A dab here and a dab there until everything is filled with a distinct pigment of its own. Every space is filled and no spot is left untouched.

Sunggyu blinks at the small girl who is desperately trying to wipe the spilled coffee off Sunggyu’s jacket with the sleeve of her sweater. 

“I just ruined your jacket,” the girl looks around frantically as she starts to panic, “and it looks really expensive and oh my god, there’s coffee on your scarf too.”

Usually, Sunggyu would feel a bit upset when a stranger bumps into him, causing him to spill his $4 coffee all over his $50 jacket. And although the girl is trying to clean up the mess, she’s probably just making the stain worse. But he doesn’t feel upset or angry or irritated or anything of the sort. He feels the opposite actually. 

Not knowing how to express his emotions properly, Sunggyu does the only action he knows that relatively matches what he’s feeling.

“Why are you laughing?” the girl asks in utter horror mixed with a hint of confusion as Sunggyu doubles over and covers his mouth with the back of his hand, “Are you in shock about your jacket? Does it hold some sentimental value that can never be replaced? Oh my god, your other half bought it for you, didn’t she?”

Sunggyu shakes his head and waves a hand as he tries to breathe. After a few deep inhales and exhales, he blinks a couple of times and views the city with new eyes. It looks vibrant, absolutely glowing, even though the hour hand on the clock tower is leisurely creeping past ten o’clock. And for the first time in his life, Sunggyu is actually able to appreciate the tall buildings and maze of asphalt slabs that surround him. 

Sunggyu clears his throat when he catches the beanie girl’s eyes on him, “Are you seeing in color too or am I the only one?” 

Confusion flickers across the girl’s face. She quickly looks around her and her jaw drops in awe. She slowly turns back to Sunggyu, lips slightly parted and shock blatantly visible on her soft features. 

“Oh, my god,” she says for the third time since they’ve bumped into each other. 

She stares up at Sunggyu with innocent, almost childlike eyes. 

“So you’re my – and I’m your –” the girl closes her eyes for a few moments and decides to just give Sunggyu her name.

“Sunggyu,” he replies softly. 

Sunggyu finds himself gazing at the small girl as she admires the world in wonder. She tips his head all the way back, eyebrows furrowed and bottom lip between her teeth as she tries to figure out the color of the night sky. 

Sunggyu glances down at his clothes and a soft sigh of relief escapes his lips. Despite the blob shaped coffee stain on the front of his jacket, Sunggyu thanks the heavens that he read the tags before getting dressed and the colors of his clothes match. 

“I really like your beanie,” he finds the words leaving his mouth before he can stop them. She looks away from the sky and gives Sunggyu a questioning look.

“It matches my scarf,” Sunggyu finishes lamely. 

Well, his matching clothes might save him from looking like an idiot, but they can’t save him from acting like one. 

The girl lifts a hand and pulls the knitted yarn hat off of her head, tousling hair that looks so soft, Sunggyu desperately wants run his fingers through the strands and brush them back in place. But instead, he quickly stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket before he does something that will send himself into further embarrassment. 

They stand in silence for a minute, the girl comparing the color of her beanie with the color of Sunggyu’s scarf and Sunggyu’s eyes flickering between her and the ground. 

Was the first meeting supposed to be this awkward? Was he supposed to feel this uncomfortable? Where was the warm, fuzzy feeling Dongwoo wouldn’t shut up about when he returned home after meeting his other half for the first time? 

But when innocent eyes turn into perfect half moons, Sunggyu can already feel himself falling. 

Falling in love with colors. 

Falling in love with Seeing. 

Falling in love with his other half. 

He can feel himself falling hard and he can feel himself falling fast. 

They both walk back towards the Starbucks Sunggyu exited earlier that night. The girl owes Sunggyu a new hazelnut macchiato and they both have a lot to talk about. 

Sunggyu smiles widely as she launches off into an adorable ramble of semi coherent words and enthusiastic expressions, still mulling over the fact that their accessories match on the night of their first meeting. 

“Maybe we really are destined to be together,” she beams up at Sunggyu, the color of love dusting her cheeks.

Maybe they are, Sunggyu thinks as they enter the coffee shop and grins when she gasps at the infinite amount of hues that color the small eatery. 

And maybe Dongwoo was right; maybe the world does look better in color.