White. That’s all that ever was. The walls were white and the sheets were white and the drapes were white. It was a surprise, really, how Dara managed to keep the white outside her soul. Then again, Park Sandara always had a close relationship with colors.

They knew her; the colors, that is. They followed her around and helped her ever since she was little. She could see them in the air, feel them in sounds and tastes. And since her social skills were always rusty, they helped her decipher people. If a person is red, they are angry. If they’re yellow, they’re happy. Green is for envy, and blue is for sadness.

When she was around 15, the colors became darker and darker. The world turned into a hue of grays and purples and dark, deep blues. Sometimes she would blink and the entire world became pitch black, leaving her alone in the darkness. Her parents were worried, of course. Her little brother would come running whenever she started screaming in the middle of the night, hugging her and trying his best to cheer her up. But it didn’t work.

The doctor said that there was something completely messed up with her, and that her parents should submit her to a mental hospital. They did so with great sorrow in their hearts; Dara could see the deep, endless purple all around them.
The hospital was obnoxiously white, and Dara was starting to get a little bored with it. The nurses and doctors were always a worried and busy blue with a fake yellow shell all around them. The patients were gloomy shades of gray. Sometimes she would see a patient that was claimed by the white completely, and she would sigh and shake her head. White is not a natural state for a human being; it made them sick and empty.

Then there were Minji and Bom. She met Minji first, and boy, was she a delight. Minzy was a rainbow that followed Dara anywhere, always smiling. She breathed flowers into the air and inhaled colorful polka dots. When Dara told her about that, she laughed so hard that the entire room became orange, and Dara couldn’t help but to laugh too.

Bom was an intense pink, always cheerful and energetic. She wouldn’t shut up for a minute, always babbling and gossiping and telling the exact same joke over and over again. When she entered Dara’s room, she would splatter her pink all over the place, and Dara would go to sleep with pink spots on her sheets and a smile on her face.
 

They said it was a mental disorder, but Dara didn’t believe them. She could see the colors of the world and the true shade of people; and if you ask her, that’s the greatest gift there is.