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“Do you believe in soulmates?”
Ann turns to look at Shiho lying beside her and staring at the cloudless sky. She looks pensive, somewhere lost in thought.
Pausing to recall, Ann hums, raising an arm as if to reach for a cloud above. “You mean the myth where you see a red string of fate connecting you to them?”
“Mhmm.” Shiho lifts her arm, letting it rest against Ann’s in the air.
Ann thinks for a moment. As far as she’s aware, soulmates are only a myth, nothing more. She’s asked her parents countless times about it whenever they’re around, but the only response she’s ever gotten was that it was little more than a tale for children, fantasising about love.
Then again, Ann doesn’t really think her parents would have been soulmates anyway.
“I want to,” she admits quietly. “I think . . . it would be nice, to know that there’s someone so perfect for you that you’re meant to be, you know? Someone that just clicks with you, like you and I clicked.”
Shiho hums lightly, moving her hand to thread her fingers between Ann’s. “But if I had a soulmate, I would want it to be you.”
Ann’s heart melts at the gentle gesture, saying, “Me too,” before the words even fully register. “Oh—wait—”
But just before she can rephrase, a soft pink light emanates from both their raised hands, then dissipates, leaving a red thread tied to each of their intertwined pinkies.
“Oh,” Ann breathes.
She turns to look at Shiho lying beside her, whose face is framed beautifully by her untied hair splayed about in the grass beneath them. Her mouth is open ever so slightly as she stares in awe at the thread that connects their hands.
“The red string of fate,” she murmurs, eyes fixed upon the thread, before she turns to Ann, eyes aglow.
Ann joins her in looking at it. “I guess we did click after all,” she murmurs, and she’s sure that if she wasn’t lying down, her eyes would already be pooling with tears.
Finally, Shiho turns to face Ann, eyes sparkling. “If it’s physical, do you think we could use it as a jump rope?”
Laughter—and with it, warmth—bubbles up from deep in Ann’s heart, and even if the string wasn’t there, she’s sure that by now, she would know that Shiho is her soulmate.
Watching Shiho’s eyes sparkle, she thinks that if they’re together, they’re fine.
The string, Ann learns, is somewhere between physical and not. It can’t interact with objects, goes through walls and floors, and doesn’t have a shadow. But, while Ann can’t take the string off her finger, she’s able to hold it and play with it in her hands.
Sometimes she finds herself tying little knots into the string or tugging at it, only for Shiho to tug back in response, which eventually devolves into the two of them learning to say their names through the string in Morse code.
Lately, Ann’s been observing the string when no one else is looking. When Shiho laughs, Ann can see flecks of gold entwined between each strand of thread, and on sadder days, the colour seems to fade altogether, turning into a dull grey. Arguments make some of the threads fray, but when they make new, happy memories together, the string gets slightly thicker, with new threads supporting the older ones.
And when Shiho and Ann’s hands touch, the string begins to heal itself with its pink glow, her heart jumping with emotion every time.
Ann knows, of course, what it is: Love.
She loves Shiho wholeheartedly, and she knows that Shiho loves her, too.
She just can’t say it out loud just yet: She’s been told that in Japan, expressing your love for someone is personal, something you save for the privatest of moments—if expressed at all for its magnitude.
But Ann loves Shiho, and Shiho loves her, so that’s what counts—even if they can’t say it yet.
High school, Ann learns, is very different from middle school. No one cares about love or talks about soulmates after they think they outgrow shoujo manga.
And the shunning is worse. Instead of just commenting on her hair and face, the students start commenting on her figure and speech. They align her grades with her looks, which makes her want to study even less. Eventually, it’s all she can do to keep her head down and ignore it.
But the worst hell of all is P.E.—and its teacher: Suguru Kamoshida.
There were rumours about how fantastic he was, about how amazing Shujin is as a school to have such an acclaimed volleyball teacher. Those, at least, had been there from the start—it was the reason Shiho had wanted to go to Shujin for high school rather than anywhere else, while Ann herself doesn’t have any ties to Shujin other than Shiho.
But then things started to change around Kamoshida: Other P.E. teachers resigned or were fired, and Kamoshida took control of their classes and clubs. Ann hasn’t seen him around much, but whenever Shiho does, Ann notices the string dulling.
Distrust sinks in immediately.
The problem is that it gets worse. Halfway through Ann’s first year, after effectively becoming the head of faculty for all sport-related endeavours, Kamoshida notices Ann herself.
“Takamaki!”
Ann stiffens, chancing a glance at the direction of the string—Shiho’s upstairs—before briskening her pace and ducking into a stairwell.
It becomes routine: Kamoshida approaches Ann; she pretends she doesn’t notice or mutters a half-baked excuse, and runs.
It doesn’t escape her that if he tried to chase after, he would catch up with ease.
In the last semester of her first year, though, Kamoshida does try to chase after—just not in the way that Ann expected.
Ann stands in the entryway of the P.E. faculty office, shoulders back, wearing the most confident, unbothered expression she can muster.
“Ignored my summons for long enough, haven’t you?” Kamoshida asks, swivelling his chair.
With a practiced smile, Ann says, “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
He sneers. “Come on, you and I both know what you’ve been doing this year, Takamaki.” His tone is snide, and Ann really wishes that her name would never leave his mouth again. “You’re friends with Suzui, right?”
He already knows the answer, so . . . there’s no point in lying about it. “Yes. Is this about her?”
He laughs, and something about it makes Ann’s gut twist in disgust. “In some ways, yes. I was impressed by her talent when she tried out for the volleyball team, you know?”
“Oh . . . ?” Ann doesn’t know how to respond—what kind of response would be right in a situation like this? She doesn’t even know what he’s getting at.
“But, well . . . she’s been slipping a little in practice lately.” Ann wants to back away, run and never come back. But . . . the string has been less lively lately; there has to be some truth to Kamoshida’s words.
“What . . . happened? Why are you telling me this?” she asks, trying not to give anything away to him—neither promises nor vulnerability.
“Aw, you don’t need to look so worried, doll,” he croons, and it takes all Ann’s effort to not visibly cringe. “I just thought you should be aware of your friend’s . . . situation.”
Ann steps backwards, hand hovering over the doorknob.
Kamoshida stands up. “You know . . . if you want to make sure she’s doing okay, check in on her in class and all that . . . I’d be happy to update you by phone. Just give me your contact details, and I wouldn’t mind filling you in. Otherwise, who knows what might just happen to her on the team, you know?”
Ann knows it’s a thinly veiled threat. She knows Kamoshida’s trying to get cozy and ask for her number. She also knows that Shiho wouldn’t want this, but . . .
She thinks back to the downtrodden expression Shiho wore the other day after practice, about how dead the string on her finger has looked recently.
Ann sighs, grabs a napkin, and as her hand moves to pen down her number, the string grows another shade duller.
By the next school year, Kamoshida’s presence has become a constant pestilence in Ann’s life.
Shiho’s been spending all her time after school either training or at practice at Kamoshida’s behest, and in that time, he makes sure that everyone knows he has an eye on Ann. Like he thinks that since he has her phone number, they’re together.
But if nothing else—and Ann feels a little cruel for being relieved about it—attention had been taken off of her, instead redirected to the rumours about the criminal delinquent Shujin agreed to house for the year.
It’s been barely a week since he joined, but Ann’s already relieved to have her presence fade into the background, the spotlight having shifted from her to the seat behind.
The relief, however, doesn’t last. In her first class of the day, Ann feels a tug on the string—a series of tugs, just as—
“She’s going to jump!”
The string flickers.
“—Shiho!”
By the time Ann realises that the earlier tugs were her name, it’s too late.
Kamoshida’s true form isn’t a surprise to Ann—it’s what he’s looked like to her since the beginning. In her attacks, Ann shows no mercy, the red string curling and hitting in tandem with her whip, strengthened by her desire to protect Shiho.
By the time Kamoshida’s weakened, Ann’s still flaming with fury—flames that are only fueled further when she sees Kamoshida’s sickening (and soulmate-stringless) cognition of Shiho.
As she attacks, her heart twists when Akira declares that the cognitive Shiho is weak to physical attacks; a hollow echo of the effect of Kamoshida’s brutality in reality.
Ann Takamaki is merciless.
And when the choice comes to tear him down permanently, she summons Carmen forth, conjuring up a fireball filled with enough raw power and emotion to obliterate the Shadow on the spot—
—when the string lights with a golden glow.
Shiho isn’t gone, Ann reminds herself. But if she had to suffer the fate he pushed onto her, he deserves to suffer just as much.
Instead of incinerating the Shadow where he stands, she looks him in the eye. “You’re going to pay for your crimes.” Ann leaves no room for argument. “For what you’ve done to Shiho and me. And not just us—for Akira, Ryuji, Mishima, and every other student you’ve injured and abused. You don’t get an escape.”
His choked-up sobs are a vicious catharsis.
The string, nowadays, hangs limply. If Ann had thought it felt less lively before, now it’s barely even there. There’s never any shaking or response, no tugs or pulls from the other side.
It’s just . . . there.
Most of the time, anyway.
Occasionally, it flickers in and out of existence, or some of the threads fray in the middle. Even when Ann goes to visit Shiho and threads her fingers between her own, it doesn’t repair itself like usual.
It’s all Ann can do not to cry.
Kamoshida’s apology offers little respite, but after it, Ann holds the string close, promising Shiho that things would be set right, by her and the rest of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.
And just as a tear falls onto the string to be carried across its threads, a familiar series of weak tugs pulls at her hand:
A-N-N
“. . . Shiho!”
Shiho’s recovery is steady and astonishingly speedy. In fact, it’s only a few short months before she’s able to get back on her feet and move around.
The news that Shiho’s going to transfer schools hits hard, but isn’t surprising—after what happened, there’s no doubt she’ll be labelled and ostracised, and besides—Ann has proper friends at Shujin now.
What does come as a surprise, though, is Shiho’s decision to come back to Shujin’s rooftop in her uniform: “I want to prove to myself that I’ve overcome this.”
Ann really, truly loves her soulmate.
So, with Akira’s help, she finds herself with Shiho on Shujin’s rooftop once more. “Isn’t Akira super reliable?” she asks, smiling as she touches Shiho’s hand.
Shiho squeezes hers with a giggle. “Mhmm, just like you were telling me.” Then, she takes a step forward towards the edge of the roof—it’s been fenced up now, but Ann reflexively steps closer to her. “We’re so high up . . .” Shiho murmurs, staring at the courtyard below.
Akira shifts from beside them. “Why did you want to come here?”
Shiho pauses, twirling the string around her fingers. “I think . . . to settle things.” She pauses, looking out beyond the rooftop. “To tell you the truth . . . I wanted to re-enact that moment. Wearing these clothes, standing here again,” Shiho continues, “I wanted to know what it would feel like.”
Ann nods. “. . . What about back then? What were you thinking?”
Shiho lowers her head. “I . . . I didn’t want to die. I just needed . . . to escape . . .” Her right hand clenches into a fist around the string, holding it tightly. “It was like another person inside of me was screaming, telling me to come up here—and it felt more like that person was trying to kill me . . .”
Ann looks away. More than anything, she wishes she could have been there for Shiho, pulled back on the string, done something. Instead, she hangs her head in shame.
Shaking her head, Shiho turns around. “But I know that person was a part of me too: My weakness. So, I wanted to see if she would show up again now.”
Ann’s throat feels tight, enough so that even if she had the right words, they wouldn’t come through. So instead, Akira says: “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
And for the first time in a while, Shiho smiles fully, almost like on the day the string had first appeared. “Yeah . . . she doesn’t exist anymore.”
Gazing at her soulmate in wonder, Ann murmurs, “You’re so strong, Shiho. The reason you can stand here now is because of how hard you worked for your rehab.”
Her smile unfaltering, Shiho lifts her hand, displaying the string. “Maybe . . . but that was thanks to you, Ann.”
Ann freezes. “Me . . . ?”
“Because I saw how hard you were trying too—to be strong, cool, wanting to be an action star, striving to be a better model . . . you were so positive. Your eyes were always sparkling with motivation.” Softly, Shiho says, “With you putting that much effort in, I couldn’t just let my life go to waste in a hospital bed. That’s why I wanted to stand again: It was because of you. Being able to change others . . . that’s what true strength is.”
Ann can feel her eyes burning with tears. “Shiho . . . I’m not strong—I’m nothing without you,” she says, words spilling out of her mouth before she can stop them. “I’m just a lonely, scared girl . . .”
Shiho shakes her head. “Ann . . .” She mumbles an apology for deciding to transfer, but Ann stops her.
“I’m . . . I’m going to become a real model!” she promises, and it’s not just a promise toward a career—it’s a promise to keep working hard so she and Shiho can keep motivating each other. “Just . . . take care of yourself.”
Footsteps sound, and then Shiho’s right in front of Ann. “Ann . . .” A pause, and warm arms wrap around Ann’s shoulders. “I love you. Once I can smile again from the bottom of my heart, I’ll come visit.”
“You got to say it first,” Ann mumbles. “I love you too, Shiho.”
And as the string starts to glow again, just as it did the day it first appeared, Ann realises that maybe things will be okay, after all.