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From the moment Fadel meets Style's gaze, the world bursts into bright technicolor. He turns from the torn bumper to see the warm sepia streets, the white sports car seems pure in comparison, and the man in a navy-and-orange crop top above pale gold skin. His eyes are dark, but this rich color like earth after the rain. Fadel needs to blink a few times. The other man's lips are a pale pink. He wonders if everyone's lips look like that or it's only his soulmate who has a mouth like that.
Soulmate. Because that's the only thing that could explain the dazzling color that has lit up his city night. He curses himself for pulling over. He feels his heart pounding and decides that if he never sees this man again, it would be for the best.
He stops by the garage satisfy some curiosity — does the other man have the same vision? He seems stunned when he lands in Fadel's arms and Fadel has the urge to kiss him. Insane. But purely to figure out if he's imagining things or if this is real.
"Is this real?" Style asks in an awed voice.
"I'm really here," Fadel replies in a soft voice, one that usually is meant to signal danger, but Style pushes right past.
"No." Style shakes his head, gulps, gazes at Fadel with wide-eyes, so different from his bedroom eyes of the night before. "This."
Fadel takes in the colorful garage, the green trees outside, the blue sky reflecting on the silver car standing just out front. He takes a slow and steadying breath, despite the way his heart hammers in his chest.
"We're soulmates, yeah?" Style says the word in English, like it bestows something special to the word, something magical. He's like a boy from a drama. Fadel wants to fuck him and never see him again.
He feels his grip slipping.
He drives around, he flips burgers, he jerks off. Each time he runs into Style, the color lasts a little longer and when it fades he aches. He dreams about his ex who left him and wonders: if they had been soulmates, could they have made it out together? Would it have been enough for Fluke not to abandon him?
When Style shows up at the grief group, Fadel gives them both what they've been wanting and it turns color on permanently. He squints in the garish light of the diner. He wonders if his little brother has always worn rainbow jewelry and shirts from an 80s American drama.
Fadel can't take it anymore. He can't get through the days without blinking away the dazzle, he can't get through the nights without thinking about waking up with someone beside him. He want to kiss, he wants to taste, he wants so much more than a single fuck in a storage room.
He takes Style out to the greenhouses they've been converting to cannabis groweries. He was out here a few days ago, scoping it out. It isn't ready yet — some kind of red tape from the government — but it's far from town and the insects roar in the middle of the night. It's private. He leaves Style at his car and walks, unable to tell Style to come, unable to tell him to stay away. He just needs to clear his mind, steel his nerves.
He stares up at the starry sky. Out here, there's only the faintest tinge of orange light bleeding from the city. Out here, the sky is an inky blue. He kisses Style when he comes and he cries.
He holds the gun's muzzle to Style's bare midriff and pulls the trigger. Style doesn't even make a sound, his mouth — pink and soft — open in shock, but silent.
Outside, the world is black. Style is heavier in death than in life, but Fadel is strong enough to walk him into the woods and to the quarry pond. He lays him in the grave he dug only days before. He buries him and doesn't cry anymore.
At home, everything is gray. At home, his brother is humming a song that Fadel has never heard him listen to. At home, Fadel dreams in color. He dreams that Style strokes his hair and murmurs the promises that he'd seen in those dark brown eyes but never let himself hear.
When he wakes, alone, the sky is white and his room is charcoal. His brother's bruises are smudges of dust. Blood is black ink. Lilly's gaze is flint and steel. Fadel's eyes are hollow shadows in the mirror.
Each night he dreams in color and each morning alone gets harder and harder to bear. He keeps his eyes shut for just one more glimpse of eyes the color of rain damp earth he'd dug into. He curls fists to his face to see the pale pink lips he had no time to name the color of. Maybe oleander, maybe peony. He buries himself under the covers.
He stays in the dark.