Chapter Text
- That Red String -
Everyone has a red string of fate, everyone. Most people will go their whole lives never finding out who it’s attached to. It’s a large world with a massive population and not everyone has the resources to travel the world in search of their soul mate. Most of the population of the planet had long been content to be happy with the people they actually meet and fall in love with instead of wistfully hoping and dreaming their life away waiting for “the one”.
Besides it wasn’t like the sliver of string you could see actually lead anywhere, you only saw that when you met the person on the other end. Some claimed that if you held your hand in just the right way in the right light, the string would stick out slightly in the direction of your fated one, a trick school girls (and boys) used when still in their romantic phase of the red string of fate.
Yoon Bum was by no means a romantic, he’d been through too much already in his life to be so idealistic, let alone think that finding the person on the other end of the string tied to his finger would solve all of his problems and they’d live “happily ever after”. But it was still there, not becoming untied like some horror story and he couldn’t help but find solace in the fact that out there, some where, even if he never got to meet them, he actually had a soul mate.
He smiled just a bit as he held his hand up looking at the string in the bright sun light while walking through the common grounds at the campus, then he noticed the string seemed longer, just by a bit and as he lowered his hand thinking it just a trick of the light and that such a thing was ridiculous, he could see it, the red thread not lengthening but appearing, seemingly out of thin air. Bum watched in shock and wonder as the red thread lead into a crowd of people mere meters from him. Fear froze him to the spot, this couldn’t be real right, most of the population never found the one who they were attached to, some claimed that being attached had no impact on if it would even be a good or healthy relationship , if it would even be a relationship. But Bum had to know, the one person in the world that destiny had picked for him, he took up position under a tree not far away, trying to not be obvious, these were people he didn’t know, and in his state he couldn’t think they’d want to know him. He focused on hands, trying to find the finger with a red string attached.
One of the first things Bum noticed is that the group he was watching were beautiful people, some of the best looking he’d ever seen in real life and he felt a bit of pride that his soul mate was one of them. One of the next things he noticed was that all of these people seemed to be crowding around one person in particular and honestly Bum couldn’t blame them, he’d seen the object of their affection before, normally much farther away, but it seemed like the whole school knew about him and everyone wanted to be near him, even Bum had fantasized about it briefly, being on friendly terms with someone so high above him, but he kept his head down as he passed and never tried to get closer, but he settled on looking from afar, gleaning bits of information from gossip in the corridors and classrooms. That was enough for him.
He let his mind engage in one more fantasy before facing reality, that the center figure of all of their fantasies was actually his, that the red string lead to him, that they’d be happy, that it would all be okay forever. Bum’s mind wandered down the trail of fantasy and the sudden appearance of the other end of the string snapped his attention back to reality. There it was, attached to a hand that had gone up above the heads of the small group, as if shading from the sun, but Bum knew better, knew that gesture all too well, they had obviously just noticed their string was longer and had a destination and were now looking for the other end. Then Bum saw, and he went pale, because fantasies aren’t suppose to become true, because reality will never live up to it, he quickly stood and walked as fast as he could away from the group, shoulders hunched, head down wanting to be faster than the string, remembering the old tale that after a certain distance the strings direction wouldn’t be visible anymore, hoping to get lost in the crowd of other students before he was seen.
Because he was suppose to watch from afar, not actually be near, red string or not there was no way someone like that would be able to tolerate being attached to someone like him. Bum made up his mind, it would be best if he didn’t even look.
//~//~//~//
Oh Sangwoo was pissed, he’d been trapped by this brainless lot while trying to make his way to his next class, and in a chance glace at his hand he’d seen the that the string attached to his finger had lengthened, he’d casually checked all of the hands currently crowding him, relived when he’d made sure it was none of them, but growing increasingly agitated at his soul mate for not stepping forward. The string wasn’t moving which meant that the person was close and stationary, what the hell was wrong with them? This was a moment Sangwoo had been waiting for, finding the one person he could share his life with, the one person who would understand him, stay with him, love him. Where were they damnit!
He lifted his hand in a last ditch effort, he was surrounded by people, maybe they didn’t know it was him exactly, he saw the string flutter in a non-existent wind leading to his right, that’s when he saw them, small and hunched over, quickly walking away, stretching the string, Sangwoo watched in disbelief as they hid among the crowd making enough distance between them that the string disappeared again. What the hell was that? They’d obviously been standing there long enough to know that someone in this small group was their soul mate and the moment they realized it was Sangwoo they ran away? They were going to be in some major pain once Sangwoo got a hold of them, he’d make sure his soul mate never got away again.
~continued~