Chapter Text
Soulmates sound like a pretty fun idea. For all who believe; it plants a seed of hope, that regardless of time and tide, someone is, or will be, out there for you. The mere concept of soulmates fuels one's drive towards a seemingly unending chase of finding your other half, and, for all that it's worth, an inkling of faith that you'll find the one to complete you.
Of course, that's just the sugar-coated version of reality.
The more you think about it, the more terrifying it gets. What if the person you end up loving for your whole life wasn't your soulmate? What if you didn't actually have a soulmate? What if the universe simply didn't want to assign you a soulmate? One may never know the truth.
So there's the red string of fate. The thin coil of fabric that knots around your left pinky, the other end bound to your soulmate's left pinky. Symbolised as a continuation of an artery that flows from your heart to your pinky, it connects two people's hearts together, making them bonded as one. The only catch is that it's invisible.
However, there's an exception. There are people with an extremely rare condition that alters the photo receptors in their retina, making the entire network of red strings visible to them. They are exposed to the cruel reality of the secret world of soulmates, making them aware of the predictable heartbreaks everybody around them will inevitably suffer from.
To say that people who can see the strings might be incredibly lucky or painfully unfortunate- it can only be decided by the beholder themselves.
The incessant rapping of knuckles on Yuta's front door startled him as he shot out of bed, the sudden rush of blood to his legs making black dots cloud his vision as he stumbled ungracefully to the door and unlocked it.
A blob of orange greeted him, and Yuta blinked the haze out of his eyes a couple of times to be met with an expression that was scarily similar to an angry bunny.
"Finally," Doyoung rolled his eyes, pushing his way past a half-asleep Yuta and into his messy apartment. "Why do I even still bother to come up here every single day to make sure you get up on time and have something in your stomach before you pass out during work? If you even make it on time?" Doyoung's incoherent nagging faded into mumbles as he poked his head into Yuta's fridge to scavenge for any scraps of edible food for their breakfast.
"Thanks," Yuta stifled a yawn as he sat on the kitchen table, watching Doyoung fish out a strange-looking, foul-smelling, probably rotten chunk of meat from the depths of his fridge and toss it into the garbage chute. "Where's Taeyong?"
"Still downstairs," Doyoung grumbled. "He insisted on spending at least fifteen minutes gelling his hair up into this- I don't- I don't even know what he's trying to accomplish," he sighed and slammed the fridge shut, turning around to start chopping the vegetables he placed on the table beside Yuta.
"What for anyway? It's not like he has anybody to impress, well, besides you that is," Yuta stated boredly, leaning back and putting his weight on his arms, effectively invading Doyoung's work space and 'accidentally' knocking a bunch of onions and tomatoes to the ground.
"That's not-" Doyoung tightened his jaw and his hand stopped in midair, unfortunately, the hand with the knife in it. "Get off the table and go change into proper clothes or something! Stop giving me a headache," his knuckles tightened against the knife and Yuta hopped off the table in genuine fear.
"This is my house, you can't order me around," Yuta stuck out his tongue at Doyoung, not missing the blush that had crept up Doyoung's cheeks before sprinting out of the kitchen to take refuge his bathroom in the very likely case that Doyoung might be hot on his heels with the knife in his hand.
Yuta put his thoughts about Doyoung ignoring his blatant liking towards Taeyong at the back of his head as he looked at himself in the mirror. Or more specifically, at the faded end of his red string pacing about back and forth, its movements reflected clearly on the mirror. His string was definitely moving way more than it ever did before, making Yuta's mind wander to all sorts of places.
Yuta was very much aware of his special ability to see the strings, and even more aware that he was in the extreme minority of the world's population that had the condition. He had been informed as a kid that being able to see the strings was exceptionally lucky- you'd be able to track down your soulmate by using the string like a compass, and you'd be sure that that person was truly the one you were meant to be with.
He believed all of this, of course, who wouldn't? As he grew older, with more and more hours of spending the whole day with his eyes glued to the computer screen due to his job, Yuta was pleasantly surprised when he woke up one day and the red string tied to his left pinky in a cute bow became visible, as if gaining the ability to see the strings was a little present to his boring life.
'Pleasantly surprised' would be an understatement. Yuta sprang out of bed- overjoyed, thrilled, that he'd be able to find his other half that he had been fated with. He left his apartment in high hopes, got out as far as the busy streets on a typical weekday morning, took a closer look at everybody around him, and his excited grin gradually turned upside down.
Surrounding him were the familiar faces of people he saw everyday- the old lady at the pastry shop who always gave him a free croissant everytime he visited, the elderly man who walked his two chihuahuas at exactly eight in the morning, his colleagues Doyoung and Taeyong who lived in the apartment a floor below him. Such happy, bright people who never failed to put a smile on Yuta's face every morning.
But that day, Yuta realised as he focused on their pinkys instead of their cheerful smiles, he'd never be able to see them in the same light from then on.
The lady at the bread store- she had three different strings tied to the same pinky, all three stretching out into different distances. But the thing was, the last time Yuta had checked, she was close to seventy and was still single.
The man with the dogs- he didn't even have a single string tied to his pinky. Yet he was happily married to a wonderful wife and living with his two dogs, having the time of his life. Yuta wondered if the thought that his wife wasn't actually his soulmate crossed his mind, and his chest stung a little.
Doyoung and Taeyong- they might not have announced their relationship yet, but everyone saw that they obviously liked each other and nothing in the world was ever going to change that. The catch? The strings on their pinkys continued in opposite directions, fading into thin air after a few inches, never once connecting the two of them together.
Yuta's gaze had returned back to his own pinky. Suddenly, the once-important, over-hyped red string seemed terribly insignificant and redundant.
He thought about all the little children out there, getting told stories about soulmates, how great they were, how important they seemed to be. He thought about all the little hearts that would be broken, all the hope that would be extinguished once they found out the brutal truth: that the joys of having a soulmate were all fabricated, that the idea was just created out of the greed and selfishness of the human mind.
From that moment onwards, everything tumbled downhill. Yuta walked along the streets, silently examining everyone's red strings, foreseeing the heartbreak that they were going to experience at some point of their life. He didn't see excitement, hope, anticipation and love anymore, all he saw was pain, lies, dread and hate. Because of this, he kept his secret ability to himself, not letting anyone in on his findings, afraid that he'd pass on his negativity and pessimism on a perceived joyful topic.
Doyoung's voice through the thin wood of his bathroom door startled him out of his thoughts. Yuta realised that while his mind was running on its own, his string had crawled off to the other direction.
"Yuta? You've been in there for kinda long, is everything alright?" Doyoung's concerned voice floated into the bathroom and Yuta hummed in response. "Alright, just wanted to let you know that breakfast is ready."
Yuta took one final glance at his string, before he briskly changed into his work outfit and returned back to the kitchen. Taeyong was already there with his proudly styled hair, trailing closely behind Doyoung and attempting to stick his face a little too closely to Doyoung's. As Doyoung was setting the cutlery, Taeyong not-so-subtly planted a kiss on his neck, startling Doyoung and causing the forks to fall on the plates with a loud clatter.
Yuta pretended not to witness the scene, but the corners of his lips curved up into a suppressed smile when Doyoung looked like he was going to stab Taeyong's eyeball with a fork, but softened immediately when Taeyong flashed him a cute grin and pecked his lips for good measure.
"Are you two really flirting with each other? Right in front of my salad?" Yuta sighed disappointingly and Doyoung didn't waste a single second in shoving Taeyong away from him, the latter chuckling heartily as he sat down on the seat opposite of Yuta.
"If you can't already tell, I made scrambled eggs, not salad, Mr. Nakamoto," Doyoung scowled but Yuta just smirked knowingly as he chewed on the eggs. "I- I mean, we're not flirting? I'm not flirting with him? He's not- I- ugh," he gave up and stuffed his bunny cheeks with food to save him from the embarrassment of Yuta and Taeyong's snickering.
"Anyway, Mr. Zhang said that there's going to be a new intern in our department today," Taeyong commented in the middle of their meal. "I wonder how they're going to be like. Yuta, please don't order them around and scare them off like the last time."
"I didn't order them around!" Yuta protested with a mouth full of eggs. In his defense, that intern had spilled coffee all over his keyboard, sending Yuta into a terribly pissy mood the entire day, getting annoyed at them for the smallest of things. He wasn't particularly proud of himself when he never saw that intern again.
They promptly cleared the table once it was almost time for them to leave, Yuta dumping the dishes in his sink, claiming that he'd wash it later ("Yuta, I found yesterday's dishes still in the sink this morning, guess who had to wash them?"). They set off for their office that was only a ten-minute walk from their apartment, Doyoung and Taeyong walking ahead of Yuta.
Being in a place with throngs of people in the vicinity undeniably gave Yuta a splitting headache. The hundreds of short red strings seemed to tangle themselves into one big red ball of yarn, making it hard to concentrate on anything else either than his one and only nightmare.
His eyes unknowingly flitted to Doyoung and Taeyong's pinkys. He'd seen their strings almost too many times by now, how they never seemed to be going in the same direction, how they never seemed to consider that their owner was deeply in love with someone that was not their soulmate.
A frightening thought flashed across Yuta's mind: What if Taeyong and Doyoung really weren't meant for each other? He quickly shook it away, seeing how Taeyong tried endlessly to enclose Doyoung's hand in his, getting multiple punches on the arm in the process, but Doyoung always gave in in the end and he'd even let Taeyong press a soft kiss to his cheek and swing their hands back and forth as they walked.
Yes, Yuta was right. The red strings meant nothing- the person you were connected to physically didn't define who you would end up loving in the end.
They entered their office building shortly after that, not before Doyoung yanked his hand out of Taeyong's, causing the latter to pout and whine in which Doyoung pretended not to hear. Yuta rolled his eyes and was a breath away from butting into their conversation when the abrupt change in direction of his red string stunned him into silence.
He stood there in the elevator with his colleagues, stupefied at the sudden occurence. Yuta definitely had not been seeing things- the red string was shuffling about towards his west and without any warning, swiftly zoomed a hundred and eighty degrees to the right. It was now swaying slightly, still in the general direction of his east, when it suddenly took another sharp turn, now pointing towards his south.
Yuta couldn't pry his eyes off his string, his mind currently drowning in a whirlpool of thoughts. The only reason why it could be behaving so strangely now was that Yuta was getting closer and closer to his soulmate, the distance between them shortening, making their movements more and more distinct.
And the idea that he was getting nearer to his soulmate frightened the hell out of him.
"Yuta? Are you okay?" Doyoung, the ever observant one, placed a hand on his shoulder, causing Yuta to look up at his wide eyes. "Why do you look so scared?"
"It's nothing," Yuta laughed it off, his red string still in his peripheral vision, jerking about more than he ever noticed it to. "I just envisioned the new intern spilling coffee all over my keyboard again. I don't want that nightmare to repeat itself."
"I'm pretty sure it won't happen again, unless the intern really happens to hate you," Taeyong commented just as they reached the seventeenth floor. Yuta shrugged and Doyoung seemed to have bought it as he exited the elevator without any further questioning.
Yuta calmed his nerves as he reluctantly shuffled up to his workspace, casting millisecond glances at his pinky every few seconds. By the time they were at Doyoung and Taeyong's workspace and Yuta waved them off, he noticed that the faded end of his string was slowly coming into view. Gulping down the lump of nervousness stuck in his throat, he advanced closer to his workspace, cursing mentally as more and more of his string made itself visible.
Yuta dumped his briefcase on his desk after what seemed like the longest and most dreadful trek to his workspace. In his oblivion to his surroundings, he didn't realise the usually empty desk beside his was occupied by someone else. Only after Yuta had looked up from the ground, then did he register the unfamiliar, new presence hovering in front of him.
The new intern had short black hair that puffed up into the shape of a mushroom, and he wore a babyish grin on his round little face that highlighted his protruding cheekbones. The ends of his fringe was damp with sweat, a result from being ordered around to complete tasks on his first day of work. His large, round eyes darted around nervously before he cleared his throat and composed himself.
But Yuta didn't notice any of that.
Because his red string pointed directly north, went on for about a feet or so, and ended abruptly at the guy's left pinky, the guy standing right in front of him, connecting both of their pinkys, their hearts, into one.
"Hello, I'm Sicheng, and I'm a new intern here. It's nice to meet you."
And the guy was his soulmate.