64 Black and White

"Don't worry hun," Gradis assured, "he won't do anything to you."

"Right, I'll be there with you the whole time. But for now..." Julian grinned, walking towards Matheio obviously hiding something behind his back and pulled out a cute grisly bear onesie pajamas, "wear something comfy so you can sleep well tonight."

Matheio eyed the outfit and scoffed, "I'm NOT wearing that!"

"Awww comeon~~" Julian pleaded, lifting Matheio up from the bed and turning around, swinging him in the air, "you always wear this one to sleep."

"NO! I'm not gonna wear it today!!" Matheio resisted.

Julian's spin slowed down and the gingerly dropped Matheio back onto the bed.

"Hmm?" Julian cocked his head, his eyebrow rising in confusion, "isn't this your favorite pajama?"

Matheio turned to Gradis then back to Julian and the onesie on his bed, his face turning red. "NO IT ISN'T!" He lied nervously. He dropped the phone onto the bed, startling Gradis in the process.

His blush grew hotter as he jumped off the bed and hurriedly took the onesie from Julian's hand, stuffing it back in the wardrobe quickly, "I don't want that onesie… I want the one gramps got for me."

"That one?" Julian asked, picking up the phone on the bed and walking to Matheio, then handing him the phone, "you sure?"

"Hmm," Matheio lied, locking eyes with Gradis for a second before turning away shyly.

"Ok then…" Julian shrugged, chuckling when he realized why Matheio was like that and bent down, turning the phone in Matheio's hands to face him. "This might take some time hun," Julian winked at Gradis.

"Haha, sure," Gradis laughed, understanding Julian's wink.

Julian dug deeper into the wardrobe, his hands feeling the back of the wardrobe for a button and immediately pressed it when he found it.

CLICK

The click was brief and soon the soft hum of gears followed as the wardrobe started to expand, revealing a door in the wardrobe.

Julian turned to little Matheio, nodding in the direction of the wardrobe,"Where was it again?"

"I don't know, I gave it to you, daddy," Matheio shrugged.

"Sighhh, great," Julian sighed, "seems we're going to have to look further into your wardrobe."

He pushed open the door in the wardrobe and stepped into the long, tunnel-like room, helping Matheio who was struggling to get in behind him.

"What section do you think it's in?" Julian asked Matheio as they stared at the clothes hanging on hangers on the walls.

"I don't know…" Matheio sighed, his eyes running up and down the clothes on the walls and the compartments beneath them that housed his shoes.

Julian read the signs poking out of the clothes lining the wall, looking for the one that read; pajamas and sighed happily when he found it. He walked a few feet into the room, his fingers brushing against the clothes hanging on the walls as he neared the pajama section with Matheio behind him, cutely mocking him by copying his movements and giggling with Gradis.

Julian stopped abruptly, his fingers stopping on an outfit, "There it is!"

Matheio bumped his head into Julian's legs, glaring at Gradis when she burst into laughter.

"Daddy? What are you doing?" Matheio asked, his voice slightly raised in anger.

Julian pulled out a plain black and white soft shirt and pants and waved it in Matheio's tiny face, "It's this outfit, right?"

The color drained out of Matheio's face as he stared at the outfit, shivers running down his spine as the bland colors of the pjs lit up a burnt out memory in his mind. Color was something he didn't have the chance to experience while he was in the orphanage. He was given 4 outfits each month, all of them the same design and color; plain grey on plain shirts and pants.

The walls of his shared room in the orphanage had matched his clothes and the games he played with the other kids in the room had a dimmed color from the years of being used. There was really nothing to look forward to in that place he had once called 'home.' The workers there played with them at certain times of the day and even when he had made pinky-promises with them to have their playtime extended, they would continue to arrive at the same set time the next day to break their promise with him with books for school in their arms. He had made friends with one of the workers there but they left one day without a goodbye, and when he finally made a friend around his age, they got adopted.

The happiness he had felt when he would talk to his friends was nothing compared to the happiness he felt when he had gotten to leave the orphanage. But that happiness was short-lived when his father gave him no attention for the first five minutes of their meeting and the first sentence he spat at him without eye-contact was: smile for the cameras.

He was about to believe that his life would always be in black and white when he had met Julian. He could still remember looking up at the stoic faces of both gramps and Julian and feeling horrified until Julian had talked to him separately when gramps wasn't watching. 'Don't worry, I'll take care of you so he doesn't scare you,' he had whispered, lifting the fear embedded in Matheio's face with one smile.

The two years he remembered in the orphanage was filled with the bland colors, black and white and his eyes were starting to see them too but Julian's smile was all it took for a smile to come on Matheio's face again. He had sworn to never wear anything that seemed remotely close to what he wore at the orphanage so the bland memories never got a change to come back to change him. Was he about to change that?