Where's red? the boy asked in his head, staring at his pale skin.
Pink was the color of red and white combined; he knew that. And because he knew, he searched for the color red.
I don't see anything.
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see that. It wasn't like he was incapable of seeing the color red. In fact, he could see it in the roses, in the setting sun, or in other random things that were red in large quantities.
What he had a hard time with was separating colors from their primary colors.
When he looked at the pixels of trees back in his apartment, he could see them quite well. However, when it came to discerning the exact colors of things, he could only do so by analyzing their structure. If you know what colors are created when two particular colors mix, you don't need to use methods that might not be a hundred percent accurate. So instead of relying on something as deceptive as his eyes, he would use the knowledge of the world to get closer to the truth. But when that failed, he could only stand there like a ghost, unable to move an inch forward.
The boy stopped, looking at his hands.
He raised and held them before his face, almost touching his pale skin. His fingertips were the first that touched his cheeks, followed by the rest of his fingers and then his palms. He glanced at the ceiling, then back to the woman's forehead.
"There's no red," he muttered, his hands no longer touching his face.
She looked back at him with confusion.
"Red?"
Just to then finally understand what he meant.
"Ahh, you mean your cheeks. Mhm, they're bright red from your ears to your softy face. It's quite cute—no, more than that. It's cutesy."
By this point, he had lost count of how many times she essentially said the same thing over and over. His vocabulary has far exceeded the limits of his knowledge.
"What's the matter, darling? Is it too much?" She smiled with a smirk on her face. "It's ok to be shy. I adore shy guys like you."
Hearing her teasing, the sensation that reached him from before intensified. The inside of his stomach circulated. A ticklish feeling came. Moment by moment, more of his insides felt overwhelmed by it. The sickness came to him. When it reached his throat and entered his mouth, the world started to blur as sounds rang in his ears.
In an instant, his palm covered his mouth. The sound of his face slapping echoed in the air.
"Are you ok?" she asked, her voice trembling.
The boy turned his head to her, still covering his face as he mumbled, "I'm fine—"
Suddenly, his head pulled away.
"Ghh—"
His hand struggled to keep his mouth shut. That taste entered his tongue and slowly reached his teeth. The only thing he could do in that moment was pray for his body to spare him.
He lost.
No matter how hard he tried, the contents in his mouth didn't retreat.
His shoulders lurched forward.
Instinctively, the woman grabbed the boy's neck. Her other hand swept the bucket off the table. Ice cubes fell and shattered. She flipped the bucket and shoved his head inside of it.
Bam!
A large thud echoed. The sound of metal and bone clacking mixed as it rang in the air.
Her head darted.
In front of her, the boy. He barely stood as the bucket tightly wrapped around his head.
She jerked her head to the side, a gasp escaping her.
"A-are you okay?" She held her arms to her mouth. "Does it hurt… ? I was just trying to help you. I-I didn't mean to..." Her voice faded into the background.
The boy didn't answer. All he could do was fill the melted ice bucket with his spew.
It echoed. All he heard was that.
Some time later, the noise coming from the bucket dissipated, leaving only his gagging behind as he briefly pulled his head out. Eyes were like a husk's. He had the look of someone who had just woken up after only two hours of sleep. His lips curled down, still tasting the bitterness stuck to his tongue.
Tears blurred his vision. Hardly seeing a thing, he pressed his fists to his eyes, brushing them thoroughly.
A woman extending her hand blurred before him.
"Here, take this!" suggested the woman, her voice rising.
Huh…? Wha…
A soft, white object blurred like a watercolor painting. Behind the white blob, a yellowish-pink, cylinder-like form came from the edge of his vision until it met the white, blurry object and became one with it.
He blinked repeatedly. Motionless.
When she saw he wasn't taking the white object from her hand, she sighed and stepped closer, their bodies almost touching. She held the white towel to his face, wiping away the spew from his cheeks.
"Can you stand?" she asked, her light voice echoing.
There was no response. He gazed into the distance with almost shut eyes.
She pulled the towel away, throwing it into the bucket.
Then she grabbed his chin, her fingers pressing into his cheeks—his skin soft, as though he were still a child—and guided him to sit, her other hand settling on his shoulder.
His hips met the seat.
She waited some time before opening her mouth. "Are you feeling better?"
No answer.
"If you want, I can bring you a glass of water and…"
The boy, portraying a statue, kept staring into the distance, unable to convince himself to say anything. Unlike before, he heard her. But that didn't mean he could just talk to her like nothing happened.
While recovering from his nausea, he saw her feet getting further from him.
Then, she vanished. Only the white floor remained.
He picked his head up.
The bucket was no longer on the table; her frame returned. She kept moving as her tapping on the floor echoed.
Seconds have passed.
The woman was halfway to the counter.
His body instinctively reacted, separating one lip from the other.
A breath of air escaped.
"w-wait…" His voice weak, just barely even there.
She stopped, a slight tremor running through her hands. For three seconds, only her back and the bucket were visible.
Then, she turned back, looking at him with concern.
The boy composed himself as he said it faintly, "I don't need water."
She stood there, her expression like a mother worrying for her child's well-being. She said, "You need to hydrate yourself. It'll only take a moment, ok—"
She was about to turn when he shouted.
"No!" The boy's hoarse voice ripped through the air.
The intensity of his sudden eruption made him lose his breath, resulting in a large amount of air being expelled from his lungs.
Cough! Cough! Cough!
As the woman watched him suffocating in his coughing, she stopped, put the bucket down, and moved back with hurried steps.
When she made it back, the boy cleared his throat and said, "I wouldn't want you to exhaust yourself just because of—" Suddenly, he stopped. Trying not to make himself sound like a victim yearning for someone to help him in a roundabout way, he arranged the patterns in his head and continued. "I mean, I don't even want water, so for you to do me a favor I didn't ask for might end up being unappreciated."
The words just barely came out when he reflected on the gibberish he spat out.
He straightened his back enough to lean forward—though, still not enough to have a welcoming presence—and rested his arms on the table.
It sounded better in my head, he thought as he lightly slapped his forehead with his palm.