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Word Count: 2569
I’ve had this stupid string for as long as I can remember.
I can see other people’s strings too, but I didn’t realize that I’m the only one who could see them until I asked my parents why Daddy and Mommy’s strings went out two different windows.
It only made sense when she left, years later.
Since then, I’ve seen countless couples like them, where neither string matches and every single time I have to resist the urge to snap and say that they’re not meant to be together.
Okay, so maybe I don’t have the most optimistic view of love, but I like to think that despite what my friends tell me, I have a pretty damn good reason to think this way.
“Shin-Ae, look! That right there is one fine specimen –”
“Maya please,” I roll my eyes as I cut her off. “I’m not interested.”
She sighs. “There’s nothing wrong with trying,” She mumbles.
I pick up my drink and take a sip. I glance down to her pinky, eyeing the crimson string and following it thoughtfully as it spills out the window. Her soulmate is out there, waiting for her and here she is ogling random guys in a café.
But I can’t blame her. So I stare out the window again and take another sip of my drink, pushing down any negative thoughts that jump to mind.
I see red shifting out of the corner of my eye and I brush it off–strings shift all the time as the distance between soulmates changes–but then I realize that it’s Maya’s string and the way it’s shifting is indicating that the distance between her and her soulmate is getting smaller.
It keeps swaying. Maya is waving her hand in front of my face, asking if I’m okay but I keep my gaze on the window, watching as her string shortens and wondering if this is the day they meet.
The door to the café opens and a gust of cold air rushes in. Two boys walk in then, the tall, dark-haired one chatting loudly with the blond, blue-eyed boy.
“Ouch!” I glare at Maya, bringing my hand up to my forehead as she smirks at me. “What was that for?”
“You were ignoring me,” She says simply, smiling evilly at me. “So I flicked you. See something you like over there?”
“Fuck no,” I sip my drink again. “Not my type.”
Maya whistles. “Little Miss ‘I don’t care about romance’ has a type, huh? Who knew?”
I glare at her again as she bursts out laughing. Soon, I start chuckling too. As much as she teases me, I really can’t stay mad at her. I glance at her string again, noting how her string now leads to somewhere in the café instead of out the window.
The two boys who came in are at the register now, ordering their drinks. The dark-haired boy lifts up his hand to swipe his card and I jolt when I realize his string is connected to the cute, blue-haired barista. I watch as she smiles and blushes as she scribbles something down on his cup before handing it to him.
The boy turns around and beams at his blond friend and I can’t help but smile. Then the blond boy steps up to order, and he raises his right hand and I try to follow his string, but it gets lost in the web of strings that stretches across the middle of the café.
It’s only when he and his friend sit down at the table next to us when I see where his string leads.
I nudge the brown-haired girl in front of me, doing my best to hide my smile. “Maya,” She turns toward me and I lean in and continue speaking in a low voice. “What do you think of the blond boy to your right?”
“What?”
I gesture to him subtly, smirking when I see pink spread over her cheeks as she takes a good look. I lean back in my chair, watching as she checks him out.
“See something you like?”
I stifle a laugh as she glares at me. She shoots me a threatening look and I hold my hands up in defeat, still laughing.
I glance to my left again and watch out of the corner of my eye as the dark-haired boy leans toward the blond one. I watch as he glances at Maya and pink spreads over his cheeks as well.
Just then, the dark-haired boy catches me glancing at them, and his smirk grows wider once he sees that we’re in the same situation. It’s time to make my move and I can only hope the dark-haired boy takes the hint.
“Maya, I’ll be right back,” I say, getting up and grinning when she shoots me a panicked look. Call me a masochist, but it’s pretty funny to see Maya go from bold to a blushing mess in under two seconds. “I just need to use the bathroom.”
I walk away from the table and head down the small hallway that leads to the bathroom, stopping about halfway to lean against the wall. I check my email while I wait, being mindful of the fact that Maya will be suspicious if I stay here for too long.
I look up when I hear footsteps approaching and grin when I see the dark-haired boy walk down the same hallway, stopping to lean against the wall in front of me. He grins back.
“You know, if you hadn’t made that move, I would’ve done something way more embarrassing.”
I snort. “Maya wouldn’t like that. She’d never talk to him again.”
He laughs. “Dieter’s the same way,” He pulls his hair up into a ponytail. “He’d go all red and stutter and run out of the restaurant.”
“It’s like they were meant to be.”
He holds his hand out for me to shake and I take it. “I’m Soushi.”
“Shin-Ae.”
“Well Shin-Ae, I think it’s time to head back and see if your evil plan worked,” Soushi chuckles. “I’ll see you around, partner.”
“Likewise.” I wave at him before leaving the hallway, pretending to check my phone as I head back to the table. Maya is still there, but this time she’s holding a conversation with Dieter.
“Hey,” I slide back into my seat. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
“Ah, no! We were just talking,” Dieter smiles nervously. “My name is Dieter. It’s nice to meet you!”
I smile and introduce myself then, watching as the two of them pick up their conversation where they left off. They’re awkward at first, but it’s easy to see that they’re interested in each other, even if it’s not romantic yet.
My smile grows wider. It may not be romantic yet, but it will be. The strings never lie.
The chair to my left slides back and Soushi plops down onto it. “Yo!”
“You’re back! Soushi, this is Maya. We started talking while you and Shin-Ae were in the bathroom.”
Soushi grins at me. “You’re Shin-Ae right? I’m Soushi!”
I smile back. “Nice to meet you.”
Maya asks Dieter a question then and their conversation sparks again. I sip my drink and watch quietly as they interact, and I try my best to keep the smug smile off my face, but it just keeps coming back. Soushi notices my struggle and leans in to whisper in my ear.
“Your plan worked, eh?”
“Absolutely.”
We weren’t quiet enough.
“Shin-Ae.”
I freeze mid-sip, slowly looking up at Maya. She’s staring at me in disbelief as Dieter looks at us in confusion. I set my drink down slowly as Maya continues to bore daggers into my head.
“Yes, Maya?”
“What do you mean by ‘Your plan worked’?”
There’s no way for me to escape. I can’t lie–she already knows what I did. And she knows that Soushi went along with me.
We’re both fucked either way, so I took the next best option.
“Hey, Soushi, a new history museum opened up down the street! We should check it out!”
Soushi tilts his head to the left. “Huh? Sure, but I’m not a huge fan of history–”
I grab his wrist and our drinks as I drag him out of the café without missing a beat. “Well, you are now!”
Once we’re down the block, I let go of his wrist and turn around to face him. “Maya knows what we did and I had to get us outta there as fast as possible otherwise we would’ve been dead.”
“But how did she–”
“She heard us talking about how my plan worked,” I glance behind him to make sure Maya didn’t follow us. “And she figured it out. She’s smart when it comes to romance and shit.”
“Damn. Well, it still worked, so I think the win goes to us.”
“Soushi?”
I turn around to see a tall redheaded boy walking towards us, holding hands with a blond woman who I’m assuming is his girlfriend. It’s only when they walk closer to us when I finally recognize who she is.
“Alyssa?”
“Shin-Ae!” She tackles me in a hug. “I haven’t seen you in forever! How are you?”
“I’m doing okay,” I awkwardly hug her back. “Who’s this?”
She pulls away to look at who I’m gesturing to and laughs. “This is Nol! He’s my boyfriend.”
Out of habit, I glance at her string and smile when I see that their strings are connected. He waves at me once he sees me looking at him and I wave back. “Well then Nol, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise! How do you know Alyssa?”
“We were friends in school!” Alyssa beams at me and I shake my head, chuckling at her excitement. “We lost touch when we went to different colleges. It’s so funny that we’re meeting again here! How did you meet Soushi?”
I cough then and look pointedly at Soushi before we both start laughing. Nol and Alyssa stand there confused until Soushi speaks up, after he catches his breath.
“We uh,” He coughs again, swallowing down another fit of laughter. “We were in the café down the road and the friends we were with took a liking to each other… so we set them up!”
“You forgot to mention that it was my idea.” I cough again, finishing off my drink to clear my throat. “You just went along with it.”
“I already said that I would’ve done something if you didn’t,” He complained. “What more do you want from me, woman?”
“Well, since you asked,” I grin evilly at him. “I think you should call that cute barista who left her number on your drink.”
He chokes on air and stutters as his face turns beet red. Nol looks at his friend incredulously and Alyssa squeals.
“You got a girl’s number? Why haven’t you called her?” Nol waves his hand in front of Soushi’s face. “Are you scared or what?”
That’s when I see it.
On his left hand, the crimson string that’s connected to Alyssa’s sways wildly with his hand movements. But there’s a second string there, attached to his thumb, right below the first thread. I tune out their conversation and follow this other thread, expecting it to lead off to the distance and connect to some stranger.
But no.
I follow the string slowly, and it doesn’t lead off into the distance. It’s stretched tight, clearly indicating that this other soul is very close by.
I follow the string, and once I see who it connects to, I almost stop breathing.
It leads to me .
“Shin-Ae!”
I jolt at the sound of my name, doing my best to blink away the shock of my discovery when I see who called my name.
Oh shit.
Maya is sprinting towards me, dragging a poor Dieter along behind her. Soushi tenses up next to me and I hear him whisper an oh fuck before I start rambling.
“Maya! How’d it go? Well? That’s great! Listen, I need to get to work now, I’ll talk to you later!”
I take off running, silently praising Maya for unintentionally giving me an excuse to escape–even though I can hear her violently cussing me out. I suspect that the only thing holding her back from hunting me down is Dieter.
Dieter, you angel.
The door to my apartment slams closed as I collapse against it. The café isn’t that far away but I ran all the way back and I’m horrendously out of shape and all I can think about is my soulmate is already connected to someone else–
Breathe, Shin-Ae. Breathe.
What the hell do I do now?
I force myself to get up and head to the kitchen. I need something to distract myself so I make myself a cup of tea but I can’t stop my hands from shaking while the water is boiling.
Fuck.
I think of my parents, of their strings going out two different windows and think that this is way worse.
At least I knew they never had a chance.
The kettle hisses angrily and I go to pick it up but I can’t stop thinking about it and I hiss as I pull my hand back and cradle it to my chest.
I stare at my red palm, welcoming the pain–it’s the only distraction that`s actually worked . I stare at it, twisting my palm slowly to examine the mark when an idea pops into my head.
I could tell them.
The thought flickers in my mind and I discard it immediately. I would be putting a barrier in their relationship and why would he leave her when he’s not even connected to me –
Oh, what the hell. What did I do to deserve this?
I walk into the living room, being careful with my burned hand, when I see the box sitting on my bookshelf.
That stupid, dark wood box with gold details is taunting me.
I remember when I got it. I had walked into an antiques store and the store owner took one look at me before he said he had something to give me.
Lo and behold, he pulls out this stupid gold box and opens it to reveal gleaming gold scissors. These are very special , he tells me. They’re meant to cut impossible strings .
I knew exactly what he meant by saying that, and I told him that I would never need them, because why would I ever want to separate two soulmates?
He laughed and insisted that I take it, saying that they’re always good to have because sometimes shit happens and you never see it coming.
Now, as I stare at the stupid gold, detailed box; I can’t help but think that maybe–just maybe –he was right.
I hold the gleaming gold scissors in my hand and console myself by saying this is the only way out. Anything else is inherently selfish and ironically, goes directly against what I told the owner of that antiques store.
Why would I ever want to separate two soulmates?
The crimson string hovers between the blades of the gold scissors and I can only think of one thing as I clamp them down, watching with fascination as the string falls and the piece that’s still attached to my pinky goes limp.
A permanent reminder of what I couldn’t have.
The strings never lie.