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Netsume doesn’t think about color very often. She has no inner monolog cataloging the exact green of the trees from her childhood, no weather-faring questions solved by the color of the sky. Most of the time, it’s a concept she can almost forget exists.
Once in awhile, however, Netsume will be caught off-guard by a passing thought. What color Dokite’s hair is to provoke such a bewildered reaction from everyone. What color bands Shion has chosen for her braces this month. What the shade of Kakushi’s eye-bags can tell her about the last time he slept.
It’s a curiosity that’s become increasingly familiar to her, but thankfully easily ignored. It may be a question she has, but not an answer she’ll seek out at any cost.
Netsume wonders how many mirrors she’d need to buy to get those answers.
--
Suzuku once asked Netsume what her favorite color was, immediately back-tracking to try and not seem insensitive. Netsume had laughed it off, made a joke about black being comforting. It’s what she chose to see all the time, after all.
Hontou had murmured about being fond of black as well. She tried not to think too much on that, putting a stop to any connections.
...
It was just funny that someone who had had the world dulled for them would have the same opinion as someone who should never see the vibrancy in the first place.
--
When Netsume was little, she had decided to hate red. It was the color a child would most readily associate with fire, after all, and fire only hurt people. Her fire only hurt people. Her mother had contemplated sending her to a counselor when Netsume professed her hatred for red unprovoked, taking one look at her vibrant red hair and becoming concerned that that had been the start of rampant self-loathing.
Well, her mother was right, but for the wrong reasons.
--
It was around the time Netsume stopped being scared of fire that she gave up trying to hate red, and realized a resentment toward white. Just as fire was understandable, could be used for life and fun in the right hands, red was the color of passion, of strength, of energy.
White was the color of death, plain and simple. The color of swirling ashes from a great fire that had decimated an entire forest. The color of faded masterpieces, art that had once been admired and revered, reduced to a weak memory. The color of mold, of sickness, of things once filled with life withered away.
The color of her mistakes, the color Netsume’s face paled to as she took in the white-hot monstrosities she created every time she opened her eyes.
It’s no surprise that Netsume has always opted for a grey blindfold rather than a white.
--
Netsume doesn’t take it personally when she hears Kaname trying to stifle giggles when she shows up to the meeting spot for their out-of-school hang out. Kaname laughing was a sound their class had grown used to, almost overly so, even if it near certainly meant it was at someone else’s expense. No, it isn’t until she notices Dokite snickering along, and Mizuai trying to shush them with a soft, “Guys!” that she feels like something is off.
“I would ask if you got dressed in the dark, but I know you totally did.”
“Do you own anything that doesn’t have the saturation boosted to a hundred?”
Netsume just shrugs with a strained smile. “Not like I’d know.”
That isn’t fully true. While Netsume is ignorant to what most of her wardrobe looks like due to actually wanting to have clothes, she knows that the colors tend toward bright. Having insisted on an extensive collection of fruit themed socks, people had just assumed she liked bold colors. Netsume doesn’t really care much either way, but comments over the years have told her that her clothes are hardly dull.
She had never gotten the motivation to try and revamp her wardrobe into something more docile, but with every remark she garnered, the thought did cross her mind. But she was used to it.
What she wasn’t used to were the comments that followed.
“Just as I thought, the weakness in your hearts have been made apparent! You can’t handle the strength of Aomori-chan’s threads! So avert your gazies, revel in the frailty of your peeps!”
“Pff, yeah, like you’re one to talk, Doki. Ao-chan, I think you look great! I really need to get some socks from that store you told me about--aw, we could match, that’d be so cute!”
Her friends continue to squabble, but Netsume is quiet--and not just from trying to still her quickly beating heart from the idea of wearing a matching outfit with Shion.
Netsume still forces her world into darkness, but life certainly feels more colorful.