It still bothers me that Coco hasn't made any partnership overtures to Komatsu, and I make myself sad when I think about why. So I wrote this.

It explores Coco's synesthesia a little, since it's something I pretty much never see in fics, ever, and it's such a shame. This isn't really an in depth look at that, but I need to reread the Gourmet Casino arc. Like, right now.

Coco lays back in the cool, prickling grass, drowning in the voices carried by the wind, in turns starburst orange and a soft, blooming pink as Toriko and Komatsu speak. Even with his eyes closed, he can't escape the colors they paint across his senses, weaving together until the edges blur into something new. He's glad he learned to suppress his own poisonous color years ago, so it doesn't taint the pure, luminous gold that represents Toriko-and-Komatsu, destined and inseparable.

Sometimes he wonders how things might have been, if Komatsu met him first. Perhaps Komatsu would have been his. Perhaps he'd have risked closing the distance he'd placed between himself and the rest of the world (for their safety, and for his) and been rewarded with a partner of his own.

Perhaps Komatsu would be swept away by Toriko, loud, bright, dazzling Toriko, who was everything Coco wasn't, regardless.

Sometimes he wonders how things might have been. Most of the time, he tries not to.

The arm he presses against his eyes, leaving static buzzing across his vision, helps not at all. He considers rolling over, pushing his face to the ground to feel the colors of the grass and dirt and, far, far beneath, the molten core of the very planet, but the orange and pink and gold would eclipse it all.

A presence at his side. Coco slides the arm away and briefly thinks he's lost time, that the afternoon is gone and the sky is shading towards evening. But it's only them, only Komatsu and Toriko and their orange and pink and gold, and things would be so much easier if looking at them wasn't like looking at the sun.

He wants Komatsu. He wants Toriko. What he wants, truly, is a place within the perfect fit they've found in each other.

He doesn't deserve either of them.

Komatsu kneels at Coco's side. Above him, Toriko looms, shadow falling across them both, blue hair haloed by blue sky. His eyes are dark, feral and wild and tempered by the seeds of softness planted there by his partner.

Komatsu reaches out, presses hot, rough fingertips to Coco's cheek. Helpless, he turns into the touch, just a flutter, infinitesimal, but Komatsu cups his face with hands that have made miracles and smiles. His whole body lights up, and Coco's color slips out, unbidden, a blood red muddy with the traces of green he used to be, long ago. But where it brushes the pink, it becomes something warm, sweeter, the red you find in sunsets, in flowers and ripening fruit.

Toriko shifts, flops down with this head pillowed on Coco's legs. He turns, nose tucked against his knee, and breathes deep. Orange and pink and red mix. The gold, rather than bleed away, turns deep and honeyed.

For a moment, Coco let's himself believe there may be a place for him after all.