I live with my mother and older brother. My parents got divorced when I was only two years old so I don´t remember my father at all. He was a foreigner who came to Korea as a businessman and stayed for a few years longer because he got happily married to my mom. But after some time it was apparent that the culture differences are too much after all and so they broke it off. My mother was left with two small children who didn´t take much after their father.

When I look at the photos I can tell that my older brother inherited more from our western parent. He has sturdy jaw line and big pointy nose. His height is also above average which makes me pretty jealous you know. More because I take mostly after my mother, except for two things. My curly brown hair and those unfortunate eyes.

Nobody believes me when I say, that I´m half European. At first people thought I had albinism but except for my eyes, all the others attributes are perfectly normal. I have good vision and my skin is dark and far from sensitive. The colour and shape of my eyes is caused by my non-Asian genes. And if it wasn´t enough, the hue is so strange so bright and strong, it´s almost turquoise. So opposite of my brother whose exotic features make him pretty popular, my strange eye colour brings me only bad luck.

I tightened the hold on my backpack and strode slowly to school. I was annoyed more than usual because I had to wear my spare shades that didn´t suit me as well as the previous ones. Also I was still angered by Hyukjae´s behaviour from yesterday. That bastard was acting all nice and cute around me and then made fun of my eyes. How rude! That´s what I get for associating with people. I can´t believe I still make the same mistakes. Grumbling I continued through the schoolyard.

“Lee Hyukjae!” Someone suddenly yelled and many people including me turned around.

“Can I help you?” Came a calm answer from Hyukjae who was standing in the middle of a small group of our classmates.

“So you are the newbie, huh?” The caller, I could finally indentify as Kim Heechul, stopped in front of the blonde. This didn´t look well for the new student. Kim Heechul was the self proclaimed school´s ginka and Hyukjae somehow got into his vision.

“Lee Hyukjae, yes. Is your favourite colour red?” The unpredictable boy instead of becoming intimidated asked. Heechul was somehow taken aback but soon his expression darkened.

“Are you mocking me, Hyukjae?” The ginka got angered of course. Everyone knew that Heechul liked red. You could tell it from his red shoes, accessories and his dyed hair which were probably the issue here. Heechul was the only one with crazy red hair before Hyukjae came with even crazier white mop. I also thought that the blonde was a bit too daring at the moment.

“Courageous, powerful and spontaneous. People like that love the red colour. That´s what I meant,” Hyukjae answered fearlessly. Heechul thought over the strange answer and everyone around was waiting for his verdict. Hyukjae´s future standing at this school was at question here. His existence could be either raised or doomed by the redhead´s selfish decision. The tense atmosphere was suddenly broken by Heechul´s loud laugh.

“Kid, I love you!” He exclaimed and patted Hyukjae´s shoulder. “You are one weird animal, you know that?” Hyukjae shrugged at that and put on a sad expression as if saying that it can´t be helped. Heechul laughed again and with one last pet on the blonde´s shoulder left.

Immediately people started gathering around Hyukjae and praising him for his courageous act. But somehow Hyukjae didn´t seem really affected by any of the happenings. As if he didn´t know how important trial he had just passed or as if he didn´t care about his surroundings in the first place. Indeed this fellow is ´one weird animal´.

For the rest of the morning my head was occupied with Hyukjae and his strange behaviour. For some reason I started thinking that there might be a bit more to the boy. Maybe he didn´t want to be rude at all yesterday. Could it be me who misunderstood and overreacted? I was wondering so hard about Hyukjae that I completely forgot about my lunch. Well at least until foreign chopsticks stole a red tomato from the box. I raised my head abruptly and instantly identified the thief.

“I thought you were asleep,” Lee Hyukjae chewed onto the stolen good and swallowed.

“What the hell?!” I was surprised that he dared to appear in front of me as if nothing happened and even eat my lunch. “Didn´t you say you hated when people steal your food?”

“Yeah, that´s the worst! You should be careful too, Donghae,” he answered seriously and opened his own lunchbox. I never know if he´s joking or not.  I sighed and started eating because I couldn´t even get angry at him.

We continued eating in silence which was quite awkward for me especially in the empty classroom. It was suffocating and I stuffed my mouth quickly so it would be over soon. Hyukjae on the other hand seemed comfortable in my presence and sometimes even hummed a melody. Just when he was finishing too a small group of our classmates returned from the cafeteria and were very surprised to see us eating together.

“Hyukjae, you were here all the time?” One of them asked.

“Yeah,” Hyukjae smiled widely and closed his empty lunchbox. He really can´t read the atmosphere at all, can he?

“Why? You can eat with us, you don´t have to stay with him,” the guy said as if it was the worst punishment to eat lunch with me. I was boiling inside but this time I didn´t want to fight because I wanted to see Hyukjae´s reaction.

“I don´t like eating in the cafeteria,” Hyukjae pouted and continued packing his utensils.

“Yeah but don´t you lose your appetite here?” The guy pushed more. It was hard talking to the dense blonde. “No, why?” Hyukjae answered dumbly again and the guy couldn´t take it anymore and exploded.

“Because of him!” He pointed at me and I clenched my fists. “You saw his eyes, didn´t you?! It´s so ugly and sickening, how can a human have such a strange colour?!” He kept pointing at me and I automatically closed my eyes although I had them hidden under my shades.

“My eyes are also a bit brighter,” Hyukjae said something that didn´t really fit the conversation properly as always.

“But they aren´t blue!” The guy stated the main point finally. I saw Hyukjae jump a bit. If he was startled by the loud yell or the information I didn´t really know, but it was clear that something had changed in the boy.

“I see,” Hyukjae answered quietly and hung his head. I noticed he was biting his lip nervously. Then he simply took his things and left with others back to his seat. This game he´s playing is getting annoying.

___________________

And probably to annoy me even more, Hyukjae haven´t spoken to me for the rest of the week. It looks like he finally decided whether he wanted to be my friend of not. And the answer was negative of course. But he didn´t seem scared of my eyes before and I thought he enjoyed my presence. Did the guys scare him off or maybe Heechul did? The redhead announced that Lee Hyukjae was under his royal protection and nobody was supposed to touch his skinny dongsaeng. The blonde only shrugged it off as always.

Ugh! Donghae, it´s the weekend already, stop thinking about school. After the bad weather that was so unbearable through the week, the sun decided to appear on Saturday at once. It felt nice outside and so I decided to take a ride on my bike around the river.

I stuffed my backpack with water and snacks, put on my favourite checked shirt and shades and brought out my red bike. I sat on it and stepped on the pedal. The wheels began moving and soon I could feel the air brush through my brown locks. The sky was completely clear and the wind felt even better when I arrived at the path following the river. I slowed down to enjoy the view but what I saw shocked me so much that I immediately pulled the breaks. There on the concrete bank of the river was lying a body! I jumped down from the bike, threw the backpack on the ground and started climbing down on the bank. But just when I was above the body, the big eyes of the corpse opened widely.

“You´re casting a shadow over me, Donghae,” the familiar blonde spoke up quietly.

“Hyukjae?! What are you doing here? Are you alright?” I was still a bit worried even if the body was still very much alive. Hyukjae laughed heartily and I relaxed.

“Yeah, I just wanted to get out when the weather is so nice,” Hyukjae didn´t bother to sit up and stayed sprawled on the concrete just like that.

“I thought you were a washed-up corpse,” I admitted and naturally sat down next to Hyukjae. He didn´t seem to mind me at all and giggled.

“That´s why I need to get tanned so I wouldn´t look as pale as a dead man,” he joked. Then it was my turn to laugh.

“Did I tell you that I like your voice?” Hyukjae then closed his eyes again. It felt strange hearing him compliment me so easily as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I only hummed and eventually laid my body down too.

The afternoon sun was warming up our bodies and the cold breeze coming from the water was keeping them from over-heating. It felt so peaceful and I thought that we passed already a lot of time together in silence. If Hyukjae felt comfortable next to me, I could try it too. I was looking at the sky through my shades. It was so clear without any clouds and I wondered where all those black thick clouds from this week went.

“It´s so blue today,” I said to myself but Hyukjae heard me and abruptly sat up.

“Can you see it through those shades?” He asked me seriously. What´s with that face?

“Ugh, why not? It´s just slightly darker but it´s still nice,” I answered truthfully. But Hyukjae didn´t like my answer at all. He frowned and his usual playfulness was gone.

“You can´t do that, Donghae. If you look at the world always in a darker way, it will eventually become dark,” the blonde suspiciously smiled.

Hyukjae then climbed on my lying body and once he was sure I couldn´t properly move, he took my glasses. With a smirk on his lips he was sitting on my lap holding the shades up in his hand so I couldn´t retrieve them.

“Yah! Give it back!” I yelled and tried to push him down. But the thin blonde was unexpectedly strong.

“Don´t move, I want to take a look,” Hyukjae exclaimed and leaned down. He was still seated on my waist and held my glasses behind his back. But now he was supporting himself with his other hand next to my head and his face was only inches away from mine. The position was in the least intriguing.

“Hm,” Hyukjae was looking straight into my eyes from his close proximity. I couldn´t even breathe so fighting back was futile. “Really, they are much brighter than mine,” Hyukjae said in a deep voice but I had no idea what he was talking about. Why does he care whether my eyes are brighter when his are chocolate brown and my blue?

Hyukjae then lifted himself again and I could breathe more easily. He continued to sit on my lap though so I didn´t move yet. The blonde was thinking really hard about something and the worried expression on his face indicated that it wasn´t anything comfortable. After a while his attention returned to me and once again I found myself under his intense stare. But this time it was as confident as usual.

“I think I should apologise,” he then said still in that deep voice. He bit his lip and then continued: “I didn´t understand why you got so angry on my on Tuesday. I found out on Wednesday that your eyes are blue and that´s why they bully you. I was so ashamed that I couldn´t even talk to you. I´m sorry,” Hyukjae looked away.

I was once more confused. He didn´t know that I had blue eyes? But I´m positive he had to see them since I couldn´t wear my shades at all that day. And he didn´t talk to me because he was embarrassed? Does this make any sense? Who makes such a lame excuse for their behaviour? If he apologised normally, I would have accepted it but saying that he didn´t notice the colour is just plain dumb.

“Stop lying, how you could have not noticed?! You even forced me to look at you, remember?” I sat up so abruptly that the blonde fell from my lap and was lying now on the concrete. I didn´t even think of helping him out. I stood up and started walking back to my bike.

“Donghae, wait!” Hyukjae collected his thin limbs from the ground and was rushing to me. But I was already sitting on my bike ready to drive home. Unfortunately as I was about to step on the pedal the stupid blonde jumped in front of the bike and held the handlebars. For the second time today I couldn´t move.

“Listen to me, please,” Hyukjae pleaded and I huffed, “I´m willing to trade my security for your friendship!” He then blurted out. His eyes were wide and his hands on my handlers were shaking from nervousness. When I saw him so distressed I couldn´t reject him. I nodded my head and Hyukjae continued with his speech. He was still shaking though.

“Promise me you won´t turn your back on me. I really want to be your friend, Donghae,” he pleaded and I only hummed. “The truth is, I know how it feels to be hurt and bullied by others but until now nobody has found out my secret at this school. I´m well aware that you don´t trust me and that´s why I´m telling you. If I were ever to betray you, you can tell everyone.” Hyukjae´s hands clasped mine on the handlers but his eyes were still wide and staring into mine. I shivered.

“I´m colour-blind, Donghae. I didn´t know your eyes were blue because for me they are grey just like mine or anyone else´s. My world has no colours, it´s monochrome,” Hyukjae then closed his eyes to calm down. I knew I needed to speak up or the poor blonde would collapse.

“And why do you trust me?” I asked cruelly. I could very well just go and tell everyone so the bullies would then focus on Hyukjae and not on me. Thought bullying someone for being colour-blind would be dumb. As dumb as for blue irises?

“Because you are blue and I feel safe around you. Don´t ask me why, I just do,” Hyukjae was on the verge of tears and his speech was becoming hasty. I decided to ignore the statement that I´m ´blue´ for now and decided to calm down my new friend. Yes, my friend. I decided to give him a chance.

“Where do you live? I´ll take you home,” I patted the place on the seat behind me. It took Hyukjae only three seconds to wipe his tears and climb on the bike. Although I had my backpack back on, the blond managed to round his long arms around so he was holding onto my stomach. His fingers were still a bit shaking. Was he regretting telling me?

I brought Hyukjae home safely and without more than a simple ´good bye´ I left. I´ll surely ask him more about this colour-blindness but not today. For now I´ll just search the net and do my own research. I can put some effort since it´s my first friend after a very long time. Lee Hyukjae, huh.

___________________

When I came to school on Monday, I felt unusually good. It was strange because I didn´t even have my shades on today. I forgot them on the bank on Saturday and when I went there on Sunday, they were already lost. And since these were my spare ones, I didn´t have any to wear today. I´ll go and buy new shades today after school. I shrugged and with a small smile on my face I strode towards my classroom.

“Yah, alien!” Someone called and before I had time to react, I was pushed against the wall. Kim Heechul and some of his friends laughed. Well good bye my nice morning.

“It´s Monday for the god´s sake! I was already annoyed and you come here beaming like a sun with those ugly eyes. Disgusting!” Heechul exclaimed and grimaced. His underdogs immediately followed his example and the hallway was soon filled with various disgusted faces. And you tell me, I´m ugly.

“Where are your glasses, huh? Want me to beat you up so you won´t open those eyes anymore? Is that why you didn´t put them on?” Heechul´s angry was becoming gradually stronger and I was sure that at the end of this I would get hit. Maybe even sooner because the redhead was about to jump on me when-

“Here,” impossibly calm voice stated and everyone including the angry ginka turned around. Long white fingers were holding my shades and that delicate hand belonged of course to Lee Hyukjae, the strangest animal in the world.

“Oh, Heechul hyung. Good morning,” said Hyukjae as if he didn´t notice the redhead before. He even smiled widely and while everyone was still frozen by the impossible situation, Hyukjae calmly stepped forward and pushed the shades into my hand.

The little blonde looked completely vulnerable in front of the angered redhead. What to do?

Red means extroverted and optimistic, courageous and confident. Red is action oriented and physically active, have strong survival instincts. Colour red, likes to be the center of attention - in fact all reds crave attention - other people are drawn to the vitality and sense of excitement they emit. Reds are ambitious and competitive and like to be the winner - are achievement orientated and second place is not good enough for them

So here´s the real start of the story. I hope it´s not confusing anymore. Donghae´s eyes are okay from the inside but look different from the outside. For Hyukjae it´s the opposite. :) I wonder where my humour went. :D I´ll do better next time. Let´s meet again soon! - PandaHero