"Tell me how to make the secondary color, green," the teacher demanded, pointing at a slice of a carefully drawn color wheel on the class whiteboard. The majority of the fourth period Advanced Art class turned to stare at the girl in question.
The girl shifted uncomfortably. She could swear she caught a glimpse of an evil look in her teacher's calm complexion, but she brushed it aside. Teachers were only obliged to punish careless daydreamers like her. The shy female sighed, gazing down at the dragon she had just sketched on her pad before dropping her charcoal stick for two colored pencils to shade it in.
"Mix an equal amount of yellow and blue." The dragon was now a pleasant shade of green. The girl had won her battle for today.
"Very good," the teacher smiled like he hadn't just lost the silent skirmish and pointed back at the color wheel with his meterstick. He tapped the next slice. "What comes after green, and how do you make it-"
There was a dreadful pause as the teacher scanned the room for his next victim.
Finally, the man decided, pointing a finger at his target. An even deeper silence permeated the air this time as the whole class and the girl turned to look at the student - a boy with noticeably shaggy dark bangs covering his eyes.
The boy moved slightly, shifting his black-covered sketchbook, and frowned intensely at the board. A long period of silence passed, and murmurs arose from the rest of the class.
What was wrong with that boy? The girl continued her silent observation as the teacher began to reprimand the boy for 'lack of study' once again. Surely it couldn't be that. She had seen the boy put actual effort into his artwork, which turned out better than hers even, but the teacher still shunned him. Why?
She decided to find out right after this artistic hell period was over.
The girl ran to catch up to the boy as the bell rang. "Hey!" she called, not recalling his name at the moment.
She was about to scream again when the boy turned around, gazing at her resentfully. "What is it?" he said in a hushed voice barely audible above the shouts that signaled the oncoming lunch hour around them. The girl sped up to walk beside him.
She decided to begin with a simple statement. "Your artwork is magnificent." He used dark colors much like she did, and the girl felt they could share in the enjoyment that way.
True to her expectations, the comment made a smile grace the lad's lips. "Thank you." He turned away, careful to hide the light pink dusting his cheeks.
"Dark colors are really fun to use, since I can't see the way other artists can." The gloom seemed to return to the boy's face, and he began walking faster to get away from the girl.
However, the clever female moved to catch her prey in an iron grip.
"I'll lunch with you today, if that's alright." The trapped boy only gave her a silent nod, advancing to a shady corner of the school building.
They lunched listening to birdsong for a while. "So what were you saying about not being able to see?" The quiet girl leaned into the boy's face with a gentle smile. His blue eyes were certainly great enough to get lost in, so how were they not great enough to see all?
A heavy sigh came from the boy. He seemed to have relaxed from the pleasant lunch. "Well, the truth is . . . I can't perceive colors the way you do, and-" He proceeded to tear at his dark locks angrily. "The fact that our wretched art teacher keeps on forcing me to answer questions involving green and red specifically doesn't help! Why does he have to be such a colorful person?!"
Silence.
The bolt had just hit the girl out of the blue, or rather black. If she hadn't done so many works in dark media, she would've noticed sooner. It wasn't the boy's fault, after all.
They were both dark artists in a colorful classroom.
Screw Mr. Colorwheel, indeed. Dark colors were more preferable if you couldn't even tell the bright colors apart.
"Cool. Welcome to the dark side, bro." The two artists sat in the shade, sharing their newly found appreciation for each other.