I don't really know what inspired this one, but in any case I hope you like it.

Thanks to Ruize for helping me name it.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not even a little bit.

If you had asked anyone at Kinkan Academy what Ahiru's favourite colour was, they almost certainly would have told you that it was yellow. After all, it was the colour of her favourite items of clothing – the floaty sun dress, the shorts and polo-neck combo – the colour of the ribbon she sometimes tied on the end of her braid, the feathers of the family of birds that seemed to constantly follow her around, the petals of the daffodils that she coaxed into bloom each spring in the garden of the house she shared with Fakir and his adoptive father, and even the colour of the flowers that she would absent-mindedly pick from the grass verges while out on a walk and tuck into her hair. But while it was true that they had plenty of reason to believe that Ahiru's favourite colour was yellow, it was also true that they would have been wrong.

Ahiru's favourite colour was green.

If anyone had been told this, they would have guessed at grass green – like the patch of grass in the garden out back of the academy that she was fond of napping on during lunch break – a kind of nice, leafy green that reminded you of plants and nature, and, indeed, if you had asked her why her favourite colour was green she would have turned red and mumbled something about springtime.

But if you'd pressed her, if you'd asked exactly what shade of green was her favourite, she might, eventually, have explained to you that there was, somewhere along the spectrum of green, a shade that had just a tinge of gold in it, and, further along, a second hue, dark green, very dark, much darker than grass green, both with a hint of grey – a colour greatly at odds with her cheerful personality and the bright colours that she surrounded herself with - and that her favourite colour was every shade between those two tints.

And if, confused, you asked her why, she might have smiled and told you that they were the colours of Fakir's eyes.

"Colours? How can eyes have so many shades?" you'd ask, and she'd laugh and say that they changed with his mood, and though she wouldn't have told you, she could – but she wouldn't, no matter how much you pressed – tell you exactly which shade they'd be when he was angry, when he was determined, when he was sad or content, or even – the one shade that she would, if pressed to give an exact shade as her favourite, choose – the colour they would be when he'd flash her that tender smile that he reserved just for her.

And as for Fakir, who most people would have guessed at having green – or maybe dark blue, like that ripped-up shirt he always insisted on wearing – as his favourite colour, well… his favourite colour was yellow.

And if, by some miracle, you managed to convince him to tell you why, he would have told you the story of a little duck with golden-yellow feathers.