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You have to be kidding me.
The silver-haired girl let out an exasperated sigh.
This was exactly what she needed on this already overcomplicated day.
She was sitting in her classroom in the middle of a break. The space around her buzzed with noise, chatter, the scrape of chairs, people coming and going. The entire room was bursting with color.
Red, to be exact.
Threads of varying thickness were scattered everywhere, tangled in a coiled mesh around desks, chairs, the floor, and even the ceiling. Almost everyone around her had a crimson string tied to their finger, and whenever they moved, their thread followed, snagging and weaving into others, adding to the chaos.
Subaru pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to ward off the looming headache threatening to settle in, and focused on her latest discovery.
A flicker of light near her right hand had revealed a very thin thread wrapped around her pinky.
It was so small she had missed it until now. She’d been distracted by all the red strings that had appeared that morning, assuming herself to be stringless.
But it was there. Barely noticeable, barely distinguishable from her own hair.
She scoffed at the irony.
It had to be silver, of course.
========
That morning, something had felt wrong to Subaru about the way she woke up.
She normally woke up with her first alarm, but today she opened her eyes half an hour before it was due to go off. She felt restless, her psyche somewhat disturbed. Had she been having nightmares she could not remember?
The heavy feeling was ominous, and she could only hope it was not a bad omen for the rest of the day as she brushed her teeth and her hair as part of her routine, then put on her uniform, a pink sailor-style school uniform with a skirt.
Once downstairs, she saw her mother walking through the living room.
“Your breakfast is on the counter, sweetheart,” her mother said while arranging her bag to leave for the office. She waited for an acknowledgment from her daughter, but Subaru remained standing in the doorway to the living room, her brow furrowed and her eyes fixed on an empty spot on the floor.
“Mom, I think you have a… piece of thread…” Subaru mumbled, staring at a long red string that stretched from her mother and crossed the floor of the room.
“Where?” Her mother began checking herself and her clothes for any sign of an untidy or loose piece of fabric.
“No, not on you,” Subaru clarified. “I mean the red thread on the floor.”
“I don’t see anything,” her mother said, waving off her concern after briefly scanning the room.
Subaru, on the other hand, fixed her gaze on the origin of the thread: her mother’s pinky finger. As her mother put on her shoes and headed out, Subaru noticed the thread following her. She then traced the other end of it, which led up to the outer wall and seemed to pass through it, as if it were ethereal. Once her mother exited the house, the thread shifted to follow her and eventually disappeared completely from Subaru’s view.
Weird.
Subaru was perplexed, to say the least, but her caffeine-deprived body had priorities. She decided that her poor sleep and empty stomach were probably playing tricks on her mind.
The issue with ignoring problems is that they have a way of following you around, demanding your attention. So now, a well-caffeinated Subaru was aboard the train on her way to school, hugging her school bag, surrounded by people and a mesh of red strings of all thicknesses, spread all around her.
The most unnerving part was that no one else seemed to notice.
People moved about cluelessly. When they reached their stop, they walked to the doors, and if a red string was in their path, they made no attempt to avoid it. Subaru had jolted the first time she expected a passenger to get tangled in a couple of threads, only to watch them pass straight through, as if the strings were made of smoke.
With some time on her hands, she took out her phone and scrolled through the news feed. Nothing mentioned the city being covered in red, only the usual articles about the economy and a local governor’s scandal.
Red string on pinky was her next search query. She skimmed through the results almost immediately.
Soulmates?
Her brow furrowed again. She slowed down and began reading the explanations more carefully. It all sounded superstitious and ridiculous to her, but as she looked around, she struggled to come up with a better explanation. For the time being, she decided to accept that version until it was proven wrong.
She paid closer attention to her surroundings. Everyone seemed to have a thread attached to their pinkies.
Not everyone though.
She saw some people throughout her commute with no string attached, as well as a few with severed strings. She closed her fist. She did feel something, a strange, slightly lacerating tension around her hand, similar to what a small ring would feel, which would have drawn more of her attention if she had not already been distracted by having the strangest morning.
She knew for certain that no red color was following her around.
She did not know how to feel about it. As soon as she had decided to accept the soulmate theory, a tight knot formed in her throat. It felt as though the absence of a red string was confirming something she had already known about herself. It did not surprise her, but she was still taken aback by the bitter disappointment that washed over her.
Well, I guess I was wrong after all, Kaoruko, she scoffed bitterly, thinking of how the black-haired girl had asked her months earlier to reflect on her feelings for Saku.
=================
After class, they had gone far from the school to study together, and the group had reunited once more to prepare for the upcoming midterms and the national entrance exams, which were rapidly approaching.
And it was the first time that hellish day that Subaru had felt genuinely happy. A warm smile spread across her face when she noticed Kaoruko’s string connected to Tsumugi’s.
Maybe it’s about soulmates after all.
When they met, she had not seen any red thread around Saku, at least not one that was easily discernible. Using the excuse of T University exams, Subaru took the seat next to him without raising any suspicion among the others.
There was something she had been wondering about for most of the day, and she was on a mission to find out.
“The last step is to factorize it, which should be simple. You'll end up with both values pretty easily.” Saku explained, following the steps with his pen held in his right hand.
“Got it. I'll give it a try.” Subaru focused on the solution. She did not want to seem rude by getting distracted, but her eyes occasionally darted toward his right hand. It was difficult since he kept moving it as he explained the exercises.
Then he fell quiet, and she could see it clearly. A string, quite thin and barely visible, wrapped around his pinky. The most important thing she noticed was its color.
It was red.
For the second time that day, a bitter disappointment washed over her and pressed against her lungs like a heavy weight, leaving her short of breath.
When she had first noticed her silver string, her hopes had slowly begun to rise. She had been counting the minutes until she could meet the boys, hoping to answer the question that had been hammering at her mind and her heart.
But the answer was simple.
Saku had a soulmate.
And that soulmate was not her.
Since she had begun thinking seriously about her feelings after Kaoruko’s probing, the realization had come slowly, painfully so, but that was just how she was.
Through sweet and tender moments by his side, studying together, spending time together, or having him walk her home, she had begun to think that maybe this was love. The romantic kind that made her friends wear adorable, enamored expressions.
Maybe she could have been part of that too.
She felt willing to step into that unknown for him. He was more than worth it, and she could no longer deny how strongly her feelings called out to him.
But all of those expectations were crumbling around her.
She did her best to mask her disappointment by fumbling through exercises she should have finished by now. Thankfully, he seemed rather distracted that day.
Looking at her silver thread again, another uneasiness settled over her.
She was now bound by a silver thread to a complete stranger. The thought alone sent shivers down her spine. That forced connection disturbed her deeply, and she felt the edge of panic begin to rise.
She grabbed her coffee thermos again, still halfway full, giving her hands something to do, something to distract herself from the storm of thoughts drilling into her mind.
She turned to Saku, searching for the ease and calm he usually brought her, her anchor that kept her grounded, but he seemed lost in a trance.
“Natsusawa-kun?”
No response. He seemed distant, lost in thought. He had been quite distracted all day, and she furrowed her brow with concern.
“Natsusawa-kun?” She repeated. This time, Saku jolted, his expression confused.
“Is… everything okay?” She asked, worried.
“Did you need something?” He asked after a brief pause, regaining his composure. Subaru sighed in relief.
“You just looked a bit bothered, that’s all.”
“If there's anything bothering you, I think you should take a break, Natsusawa-kun. You've already helped me and Subaru a lot.” Kaoruko added.
“Sorry. I must just be sleepy.”
Subaru looked down at her thermos, pensive.
In an automatic motion, she unscrewed the lid she had used earlier to drink and help herself focus, pouring the coffee back in.
She thought that even if fate were to drift them apart, tying their destinies to others, she still wanted to share a connection with him, for her feelings not to be in vain.
She placed the lid on the table ceremoniously.
“… Thank you, Hoshina-san.”
Her eyes stayed fixed on his silhouette as he picked up the lid, examining its contents. She swallowed slowly when she saw him bring it to his lips, his mouth brushing the rim.
An indirect kiss.
Her ears burned red, and she averted her gaze. She felt content. She could not have him, but she could share this moment with him.
That would have to be enough.
A ceremonial goodbye to a time that never was.
======================
The next morning came early again. With the unsettling events of the previous day and all the caffeine she had pumped into her system to stay focused during the study session, she had been restless in bed for most of the night, only falling asleep in the early hours of the morning. Even then, her rest had been troubled by disturbing dreams she could not recall, save for flashes of silver.
She woke up early, unable to rest. Her body was still jittery and exhausted, her mind muddled and disgruntled, and her heart still hurting.
She quickly realized that what she had seen the previous day had not been a product of her imagination. Attached to her finger was still the silver, smoky line that slipped through the walls of her room, a constant reminder of her inescapable attachment to another soul.
She hated her characteristic color a little more than usual.
She had just gotten out of bed when she heard her phone ping. Slightly perplexed by the early message, she picked it up to check her notifications.
Saku: Can we meet before school?
Saku: There is something I would like to verify
Her heart did strange things when she saw his name on her screen. There was a rush of excitement, quickly followed by the ache of her recent discovery.
Still, it was quite out of character for him to reach out and ask to meet. Especially at that hour, when they would still be in their uniforms.
Subaru: Okay, it’s something about the exam material?
She watched the three dots indicating he was typing appear and disappear several times.
Odd.
After a while, his reply finally came.
Saku: Kind of.
After a brief exchange to settle the details, Subaru went through her morning routine without ceremony and hurried to the meeting place. They had chosen a park slightly out of the way from school, serene and still bathed in the blue light of early morning.
As she rushed toward the park, she noticed her silver string stretching ahead of her, then slipping through walls along the way.
From the park entrance, she could see Saku standing in the middle, his back turned to her. He appeared to be staring at something on the ground. He wore his usual gray cardigan, his bag hanging at his side.
She quickened her pace, but something made her hesitate. His gaze was fixed on the ground, in the direction of a thin silver thread near his feet.
At that moment, he noticed her and turned around. His expression changed the instant he saw her, his eyes filled with a tender emotion, though dark circles lay beneath them.
He raised a hand to wave, and the movement caught the light, drawing her attention.
To a thin, silver thread, glowing in the blue morning light.
Attached to his finger.
And hers.
She froze where she stood, hands pressed to her mouth as her heart fluttered wildly.