His fingers are cold through my shirt, like he’s had his hand in the freezer for ages. The tips of his fingers, dyed blue and purple, a patch of colour on the inside of his wrist. Dyed skin making mine look pale, like he’s wearing gloves. I lean against the wall, pressing the bone of my shoulder into the plaster until it hurts. I tilt my head away from him and close my eyes, I don’t want to see anyone right now. I feel his breath, cool, on my face, but it passes and the feeling goes and when I open my eyes he is disappearing around the corner.

It’s not that I don’t like him, I just don’t want to see anyone right now. I don’t want to look on another human face, not even my own. I smashed every mirror in the house. All the pieces are gone, except the one a cut my foot on yesterday. Bloodied, it is still lying in the bathroom sink. I can’t look at anyone. Not after seeing him like that, so cold. School is hell, I don’t know why I’m going. I can’t stay here, there are too many memories of him. Maybe if I move out and only go places we’ve never been I’ll be OK. Maybe his ghost won’t be following me everywhere.

Back again, here I am, leaning against the wall with my eyes closed but I know it’s him, I can remember the feel of his fingers, the roughness caused by all the dyes he uses in his work. He says his name is Kitao. I already knew that of course. He asks why I won’t look at him, I don’t answer, but in my imagination his eyes are wide, the same blue-purple of his fingers. Violet and indigo.

I’ll never forget the way he looked. My Saul. His eyes were wide and grey, not the beautiful dancing misty colour they had been, but the colour of dust. Of misery. It was misery and pain that stained his white blond hair red like that. Misery and Pain and letting himself fall from the roof of our school. There is still a stain on the tarmac.

Kitao comes and leans against the wall with me without a word. We’ve spoken loots before, although never alone. I know what he looks like, but I’m trying to block that out. There is no need for him to say anything and he knows that somehow. Slowly, as though scared that I’ll break, his cool fingers slide across my palm and he holds my hand tightly.

I was the last person to see him alive. Someone said they’d seen him on the roof, I ran up there, wanting to give my brother the good news. I passed, I passed. And he was standing on the edge of the wall.

Saul?

He half turned to look at me with starry eyes and unwound from his neck the blue scarf that was his favourite, letting the wind carry it to me.

One day little brother.

Wait!

But he was gone, falling through the air with a such a strange smile on his lips, like he was doing the right thing.

I think I died too that day.

Kitao and I are walking together, we do this often these days, we don’t speak too much and I never look at him, not directly. I’ll catch a swift glance of his face in a passing reflection and that will be enough to keep me going. He tells me about his work, the things he’s making, something to do with wings. He makes paper and fabric and mixes dye. I sat and watched him grind up a plant in a pestle and mortar, an old one that belongs to the school. He should have his own. His fingers are strong dark blue from all the dye.

We walk together and everything is fine, the sky is bright and the leaves are open and fluttering on the trees and the air is like a warm embrace. Yet my brother is dead.

Out on my own, I walk past an art shop and I think about him. In the same moment I think about them both. They both loved art. I go in. The smell of oil paints reminds me of Saul and I almost break down in the doorway. But then my eyes fall on a palette of indigo ink and I think of Kitao. I walk out of the shop with a pestle and mortar and a set of Japanese inks and brushes. That night I take a fresh sheet of paper and grind the ink stick against the stone. The brush hovers above the page, vertical and loaded with black ink. Very slowly I write my name, then below it I write my brothers name. Next to my name I wrote Kitao’s name. Then I stopped.

We sat side by side on a bench in the park, the tree sent beautiful dappled shadows across us. Kitao stretched out and lent back beside me, his purple fingers touched my side briefly, and I turned, daring to look at him. His black hair curled a little at the ends and fell over his closed eyes. His skin was smooth, clean, his face sharp with high cheekbones and a square jaw. I followed the lines of his body, wrapped in a somewhat see through red shirt and worn out blue jeans, his coloured fingers trailing over his flat stomach. He opened his eyes. They were green, rimmed with a ring of indigo-violet, just like the stains on his fingers.

Can I fall in love with you?

I looked at him and he smiled up at me, his eyes questioning.

Yes.

He raises himself up on his elbows and I leant down. He tasted like honey and mango. I was gasping.

I love you.

I smiled.

Do you love me?

I only smiled at him, but he knew what I meant.

We kissed again and all I could feel were his violet stained fingers tracing across my bare skin. The aroma of him filing me as we gasped in the dark, lying naked on his bed. His eyes filled my vision and nothing existed apart from him. My Kitao.