It's a Black and White World
Title: It's a Black and White World
Pairing: Friendship Shige/Tego/Massu
Rating: G
Words: 1685
Summary: Tegoshi and Shige rally to understand and support Massu when they discover his disability. Considerate!Tegoshi, Thoughtful!Shige, Smiley!Massu. Birthday fic for catskilt . Title was the prompt. Originally posted here. Remixed by speckled_writer into Shades of Grey.
“Massu,” Tegoshi said imperiously, “bring me that prince shirt in the red.”
A few moments later a vivid blue version was passed over the door. Tegoshi clucked his tongue irritably and opened the door. He shook the shirt at Massu. “This is BLUE not red.” Massu looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Were they out or something?” He peered over Massu’s shoulder at a pile of the shirts in red. Wheels creaked in his head, flashes from the past coming together carefully. “Massu, what color is my shirt?”
Massu shuffled his feet a bit and gazed intently at the shirt before venturing, “Green?”
Tegoshi promptly put his would-be purchases down and marched Massu to a ramen shop a couple blocks down. Neither said anything past ordering until they’d each taken a few bites.
“So,” Tegoshi started, breaking the awkward silence , “can you not tell red or blue or something apart?” He looked at Massu with interest.
“No,” Massu said, dragging out the vowel and avoiding Tegoshi's eyes. “I can’t tell any colors apart. I mean, with practice I’ve gotten better but sometimes they look too similar shade-wise.”
“Like they all look -“ Tegoshi was at a loss. If one couldn’t see colors, what did one see?
“Black and white,” Massu supplied helpfully.
“How long?”
“Always.”
Pieces clicked into place in Tegoshi’s head. All those little quirks Massu had; his “Masuda space,” his extremely neat packing, everything made sense.
Massu, taking Tegoshi’s silence as a question, started speaking, his hands absent-mindedly fidding with his chopsticks. “It took several years but when my parents finally realized, they took me to the doctor. My mom became hysterical, telling the doctor to ‘fix’ me.” The last two words held a bitterness Tegoshi had never heard in his friend’s voice. “As though I were broken. They did tests and tests and tests. The doctor finally asked if they could research my condition.” Massu put quotations around the last word. “I was scared.” His eyes sought Tegoshi’s. “No kid likes the doctor, you know? My father finally put a stop to it. He said, ‘There’s nothing WRONG with him, he just sees differently is all.’ And he took us home. He and mom fought all the way home and for the next few weeks but mom finally gave in. I don’t know whether he believed what he had said or if he just didn’t want anyone to find out about my problem.” Massu had picked up his napkin and begun twisting it in his hands. “But I’m glad he didn’t let them study me.” He shuddered visibly.
Tegoshi sat watching him, the chopsticks in his hand gently resting on the edge of his bowl, forgotten. Massu intently regarded his food before taking a delicate bite, obviously savoring the flavor before digging in. They ate in contemplative silence.
He was sort of fascinated by the idea and thought about it all night. There were small hints and if Tegoshi had been thinking about it, he would have realized it a long time ago. Massu tagged an M in the collar of his costumes and Tegoshi had once asked about it but hadn’t really waited for a reply. Massu never drove. Massu, notoriously stubborn about concert and music videos decisions never had an opinion on costume colors. And his fashion sense was a dead giveaway, really. Although his sense had to be wonky anyway to pair polka dots with stripes so maybe his fashion choices weren’t as much a giveaway as they could have been. But still, he couldn’t fathom how Massu dealt without seeing color.
The next day he talked to Massu about it again.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked.
Massu just blinked at him and smiled. “Do you miss Spain?”
“What?”
Amusement creased Massu’s face. “You can’t miss what you don’t know, right?”
Thinking on it, Tegoshi decided that was pretty deep. And that maybe he should visit Spain sometime so he could know what he was missing.
A couple weeks after the discovery, Tegoshi spoke to Shige.
“Shige,” he said thoughtfully. “You take really nice pictures.”
Shige, knowing Tegoshi too well, asked, “What do you want?”
Tegoshi looked wounded. “How do you know I want something? Can’t I just compliment you?”
Shige pondered for a moment. “You haven’t before, so apparently it’s impossible for you.”
He thought about leaving, then, and giving Shige the cold shoulder for a couple days but - well, he was right and Tegoshi still wanted the favor.
“I need you to take some pictures for me.”
“Of?”
“Just stuff, you know, like you normally do. But really ordinary stuff. Like, everyday things.” He paused. “In black and white.”
Shige stared at him. “And why should I spend time doing that?”
“Because I asked?”
Shige continued staring.
“Ok fine, but look. Don’t say anything. I mean, I don’t think he’d mind but … but I just want to know. Massu - he’s … colorblind. Not like blue looks green or green looks red. Like … no colors. Just black and white.”
Shige stared a little more and then laughter started bubbling out of him. “Oh it all makes sense now!”
Tegoshi frowned at Shige until he stopped laughing.
“What? What’d I do?”
“It’s not really funny, you know. How would you like it?”
A contemplative look came over Shige’s face. “I don’t know, I guess.”
“Exactly!”
They stared at each other for a few minutes, Tegoshi with a satisfied smile and Shige with an expectant one.
Finally, Shige cracked. “I don’t get it!”
Tegoshi cocked his head cutely to the side. “I want to see how Massu sees, of course.”
Shige was taken aback. He blinked a few times. Was Tegoshi actually being … considerate?
Tegoshi threw his bag over his shoulder and made to walk toward the door. “Ok, so take some good ones. Stuff Massu likes and would see all the time, ok? Thanks!” His hips swayed to some hidden music as he pranced away.
Shige palmed his face - definitely not considerate.
But this was interesting. Massu colorblind. Shige thought about bright red stop signs, punk kids with hair dyed blue to make some sort of statement (though what it was he didn’t know), the pale pink of cherry blossoms, vivid lemon zest gracing a pretty confection. Shige took his camera out of his bag and turned it over in his hands. He’d always thought that a camera was a tool one could use to capture views the human eye didn’t quite catch and bring it to the forefront- to reveal something in another light and paint a picture, so to speak, from another point of view. He’d never thought of using it quite this way but he was intrigued.
He took the cap off the lens and slowly raised it up to take a picture of the dressing room.
Tegoshi’s simple request became an obsession and over the next couple of weeks, Shige took hundreds of pictures. Children playing in the park, gyoza at his favorite restaurant, a bowl of ramen, a couple walking under an umbrella, a woman crying alone, his favorite pair of sneakers, Yamapi and Ryo leaning into each other, whispering, Tegoshi conning Koyama into something, a bento from a convenience store, a sunset, ocean waves lapping up on a shore.
He was so consumed by the project that he handed over his SD card and cash without even thinking about asking Tegoshi to pay. He did call Tegoshi, however, when the prints were finished and they met in a café to look at them over cups of deep brown coffee in olive green mugs.
They looked at the photos slowly and in silence. The photos were somber and touching, dark and light interplaying so intricately that sometimes they couldn’t tell where the dark ended and light began. The sheer intricacy between shades of grey was staggering. Shige paused even longer on the photo of Yamapi and Ryo. The lack of color brought out the deep creases around Ryo’s mouth in his half-smile and Yamapi’s smile looked so secretive and sly that Shige began to blush and he wondered how he’d unknowingly taken such an intimate photo.
The lack of color made the photos somber and, though lovely, a little depressing. How did Massu smile so brilliantly when his every waking moment had to be filled with this beautiful solemnity?
They ended on the photo of the black and white sunset. There were no dusky pinks or brilliant red-oranges - no yellow sun half obscured by tinted clouds. Even so, the beauty came through. There was a different shade of grey for every color and the light bouncing off the clouds took on a shimmer unseen by those burdened with color-sight.
“Wow,” was all Tegoshi could say.
After a few moments of silence had passed Shige said slowly, “Massu … is definitely missing out.”
Tegoshi looked at Shige and waited.
“But maybe so are we.”
Tegoshi’s features softened and he smiled softly as he turned back to the photo.
Forefinger tapping his cheek, Tegoshi said thoughtfully, “Maybe that’s why Massu likes food so much.”
Shige cocked his head.
“I mean, if he can’t see color, maybe taste is more of a way for him to explore life. Instead of seeing the red of an apple skin and the white flesh beneath, he tastes it. Instead of seeing the orange-brown of curry, he tastes it.” Tegoshi laughed. “Talk about tasting the rainbow.”
Shige joined in laughing at the bad joke.
But from then on, Massu noticed that his costumes were always at the end of the rack. There were more offers to go shopping with him. There was a more varied choice of restaurants to eat at. And there were treats. Every trip Shige or Tegoshi took resulted in gift bags filled with treats special to the area and flavors they’d never tasted before or at least not in that combination. Their kindness was always rewarded with a beautiful smile from Massu and it was easy, in the face of that often breathtaking expression, to forget that for Massu it was a black and white world.
Pairing: Friendship Shige/Tego/Massu
Rating: G
Words: 1685
Summary: Tegoshi and Shige rally to understand and support Massu when they discover his disability. Considerate!Tegoshi, Thoughtful!Shige, Smiley!Massu. Birthday fic for catskilt . Title was the prompt. Originally posted here. Remixed by speckled_writer into Shades of Grey.
“Massu,” Tegoshi said imperiously, “bring me that prince shirt in the red.”
A few moments later a vivid blue version was passed over the door. Tegoshi clucked his tongue irritably and opened the door. He shook the shirt at Massu. “This is BLUE not red.” Massu looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Were they out or something?” He peered over Massu’s shoulder at a pile of the shirts in red. Wheels creaked in his head, flashes from the past coming together carefully. “Massu, what color is my shirt?”
Massu shuffled his feet a bit and gazed intently at the shirt before venturing, “Green?”
Tegoshi promptly put his would-be purchases down and marched Massu to a ramen shop a couple blocks down. Neither said anything past ordering until they’d each taken a few bites.
“So,” Tegoshi started, breaking the awkward silence , “can you not tell red or blue or something apart?” He looked at Massu with interest.
“No,” Massu said, dragging out the vowel and avoiding Tegoshi's eyes. “I can’t tell any colors apart. I mean, with practice I’ve gotten better but sometimes they look too similar shade-wise.”
“Like they all look -“ Tegoshi was at a loss. If one couldn’t see colors, what did one see?
“Black and white,” Massu supplied helpfully.
“How long?”
“Always.”
Pieces clicked into place in Tegoshi’s head. All those little quirks Massu had; his “Masuda space,” his extremely neat packing, everything made sense.
Massu, taking Tegoshi’s silence as a question, started speaking, his hands absent-mindedly fidding with his chopsticks. “It took several years but when my parents finally realized, they took me to the doctor. My mom became hysterical, telling the doctor to ‘fix’ me.” The last two words held a bitterness Tegoshi had never heard in his friend’s voice. “As though I were broken. They did tests and tests and tests. The doctor finally asked if they could research my condition.” Massu put quotations around the last word. “I was scared.” His eyes sought Tegoshi’s. “No kid likes the doctor, you know? My father finally put a stop to it. He said, ‘There’s nothing WRONG with him, he just sees differently is all.’ And he took us home. He and mom fought all the way home and for the next few weeks but mom finally gave in. I don’t know whether he believed what he had said or if he just didn’t want anyone to find out about my problem.” Massu had picked up his napkin and begun twisting it in his hands. “But I’m glad he didn’t let them study me.” He shuddered visibly.
Tegoshi sat watching him, the chopsticks in his hand gently resting on the edge of his bowl, forgotten. Massu intently regarded his food before taking a delicate bite, obviously savoring the flavor before digging in. They ate in contemplative silence.
He was sort of fascinated by the idea and thought about it all night. There were small hints and if Tegoshi had been thinking about it, he would have realized it a long time ago. Massu tagged an M in the collar of his costumes and Tegoshi had once asked about it but hadn’t really waited for a reply. Massu never drove. Massu, notoriously stubborn about concert and music videos decisions never had an opinion on costume colors. And his fashion sense was a dead giveaway, really. Although his sense had to be wonky anyway to pair polka dots with stripes so maybe his fashion choices weren’t as much a giveaway as they could have been. But still, he couldn’t fathom how Massu dealt without seeing color.
The next day he talked to Massu about it again.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked.
Massu just blinked at him and smiled. “Do you miss Spain?”
“What?”
Amusement creased Massu’s face. “You can’t miss what you don’t know, right?”
Thinking on it, Tegoshi decided that was pretty deep. And that maybe he should visit Spain sometime so he could know what he was missing.
A couple weeks after the discovery, Tegoshi spoke to Shige.
“Shige,” he said thoughtfully. “You take really nice pictures.”
Shige, knowing Tegoshi too well, asked, “What do you want?”
Tegoshi looked wounded. “How do you know I want something? Can’t I just compliment you?”
Shige pondered for a moment. “You haven’t before, so apparently it’s impossible for you.”
He thought about leaving, then, and giving Shige the cold shoulder for a couple days but - well, he was right and Tegoshi still wanted the favor.
“I need you to take some pictures for me.”
“Of?”
“Just stuff, you know, like you normally do. But really ordinary stuff. Like, everyday things.” He paused. “In black and white.”
Shige stared at him. “And why should I spend time doing that?”
“Because I asked?”
Shige continued staring.
“Ok fine, but look. Don’t say anything. I mean, I don’t think he’d mind but … but I just want to know. Massu - he’s … colorblind. Not like blue looks green or green looks red. Like … no colors. Just black and white.”
Shige stared a little more and then laughter started bubbling out of him. “Oh it all makes sense now!”
Tegoshi frowned at Shige until he stopped laughing.
“What? What’d I do?”
“It’s not really funny, you know. How would you like it?”
A contemplative look came over Shige’s face. “I don’t know, I guess.”
“Exactly!”
They stared at each other for a few minutes, Tegoshi with a satisfied smile and Shige with an expectant one.
Finally, Shige cracked. “I don’t get it!”
Tegoshi cocked his head cutely to the side. “I want to see how Massu sees, of course.”
Shige was taken aback. He blinked a few times. Was Tegoshi actually being … considerate?
Tegoshi threw his bag over his shoulder and made to walk toward the door. “Ok, so take some good ones. Stuff Massu likes and would see all the time, ok? Thanks!” His hips swayed to some hidden music as he pranced away.
Shige palmed his face - definitely not considerate.
But this was interesting. Massu colorblind. Shige thought about bright red stop signs, punk kids with hair dyed blue to make some sort of statement (though what it was he didn’t know), the pale pink of cherry blossoms, vivid lemon zest gracing a pretty confection. Shige took his camera out of his bag and turned it over in his hands. He’d always thought that a camera was a tool one could use to capture views the human eye didn’t quite catch and bring it to the forefront- to reveal something in another light and paint a picture, so to speak, from another point of view. He’d never thought of using it quite this way but he was intrigued.
He took the cap off the lens and slowly raised it up to take a picture of the dressing room.
Tegoshi’s simple request became an obsession and over the next couple of weeks, Shige took hundreds of pictures. Children playing in the park, gyoza at his favorite restaurant, a bowl of ramen, a couple walking under an umbrella, a woman crying alone, his favorite pair of sneakers, Yamapi and Ryo leaning into each other, whispering, Tegoshi conning Koyama into something, a bento from a convenience store, a sunset, ocean waves lapping up on a shore.
He was so consumed by the project that he handed over his SD card and cash without even thinking about asking Tegoshi to pay. He did call Tegoshi, however, when the prints were finished and they met in a café to look at them over cups of deep brown coffee in olive green mugs.
They looked at the photos slowly and in silence. The photos were somber and touching, dark and light interplaying so intricately that sometimes they couldn’t tell where the dark ended and light began. The sheer intricacy between shades of grey was staggering. Shige paused even longer on the photo of Yamapi and Ryo. The lack of color brought out the deep creases around Ryo’s mouth in his half-smile and Yamapi’s smile looked so secretive and sly that Shige began to blush and he wondered how he’d unknowingly taken such an intimate photo.
The lack of color made the photos somber and, though lovely, a little depressing. How did Massu smile so brilliantly when his every waking moment had to be filled with this beautiful solemnity?
They ended on the photo of the black and white sunset. There were no dusky pinks or brilliant red-oranges - no yellow sun half obscured by tinted clouds. Even so, the beauty came through. There was a different shade of grey for every color and the light bouncing off the clouds took on a shimmer unseen by those burdened with color-sight.
“Wow,” was all Tegoshi could say.
After a few moments of silence had passed Shige said slowly, “Massu … is definitely missing out.”
Tegoshi looked at Shige and waited.
“But maybe so are we.”
Tegoshi’s features softened and he smiled softly as he turned back to the photo.
Forefinger tapping his cheek, Tegoshi said thoughtfully, “Maybe that’s why Massu likes food so much.”
Shige cocked his head.
“I mean, if he can’t see color, maybe taste is more of a way for him to explore life. Instead of seeing the red of an apple skin and the white flesh beneath, he tastes it. Instead of seeing the orange-brown of curry, he tastes it.” Tegoshi laughed. “Talk about tasting the rainbow.”
Shige joined in laughing at the bad joke.
But from then on, Massu noticed that his costumes were always at the end of the rack. There were more offers to go shopping with him. There was a more varied choice of restaurants to eat at. And there were treats. Every trip Shige or Tegoshi took resulted in gift bags filled with treats special to the area and flavors they’d never tasted before or at least not in that combination. Their kindness was always rewarded with a beautiful smile from Massu and it was easy, in the face of that often breathtaking expression, to forget that for Massu it was a black and white world.