Archive of Our Own

They say there’s a one in five million chance of being born a Cupid, so when a toddler Akiyama Mizuki first points out the glowing red threads to her sister, it’s not just a regular Tuesday. 

There’s a lot more noise, notably an excited squeal from the eight year old Akiyama Yuuki, who is promptly hushed by their parents. Because, even if you’ve just found out your younger sibling’s something of a natural-born psychic, this was still a McDonald’s, and people were starting to stare. 

Mizuki doesn’t quite understand the issue. She’s reaching out to grasp the red strands threading through the sky, finding that her little pudgy fingers only close around thin air each time. After the third failure she starts a cry of her own, and that’s when their parents ask for their eat-in to be a takeout and the family make a red-faced break for it. 

It takes the promise of extra fries and Yuuki sacrificing her red ribbon bow to calm the bawling Mizuki down. So goes the afternoon Mizuki’s ability to see the soulmate threads first appeared.

Not that she can remember it. She was what, three? To Mizuki, being able to see the threads is all she’s ever known. Little intangible red lines strung around pinkie fingers, trailing away and through objects with no respect for their physicality, meandering relentlessly until they reached their end. The world is littered with them. Cobwebs upon cobwebs, nets of brilliant red stitching everything together.

Her own, of course, is the most prominent. It’s tied around her left pinkie in a neat little bow, and while it spends most of the time pointed like a compass, there are some times when Mizuki swears it breathes a life of its own. 

It happens for the first time on her fifth birthday, when she's looking for a lost rabbit doll. She's up way past her bedtime, stifling pitiful sobs and wails with a scrunched-up pillow when the ribbon takes action.

She remembers it clearly. A slow swaying that catches her eye, the lightless luminosity weaving around her, almost hypnotic in the darkness. Then, the leading began. There isn't a better way to describe it, how the ribbon sometimes acts, bunching itself up and extending like a mime imitating friction. It continues this action fervently as the young Mizuki follows, eventually finding herself at her stationery drawer.

She opens the drawer to find the ribbon's coiled around a collection of coloured pencils, with the lost doll squashed into one corner. In retrospect the pencils had probably been the intention, but the younger Mizuki is far more excited to retrieve the lost treasure, squealing a "thank you!" in delight as she prances around. Her father, of course, catches her shortly thereafter and she's sent to bed.

As she learns, the 'leading' behaviour is not a one-off thing. It happens and happens, always at the most unexpected of times, an occasional undercurrent to her daily routine. Soon enough, Mizuki finds herself with a small collection of gathered knicknacks—crayons, felt tips, even graded pencils. She decides to collect them all, designating a space in the same drawer next to the colourful pencils. It feels symbolic, in a way. And even if Mizuki still hasn't figured out why her thread kept taking her to stationery, she sometimes sits and rifles through it all.

Mizuki is nine when she decides that being a Cupid is a nuisance. 

It’d started normally enough, just a conversation with a classmate about homework, when Mizuki notices the girl’s thread leading very clearly towards the new transfer student from another class. Innocently, thoughtlessly, Mizuki points it out. Of course, she’s seen men connected to men and women connected to women just as often as any other pairing, so there’s nothing significant about it to her. That’s why when the girl’s expression twists into—into disgust it shocks her. The friendly complaints about schoolwork are abandoned, and suddenly she’s cornered by a flurry of insults and assumptions. Other classmates get involved too, and Mizuki’s not the type to have a big circle of friends, so there’s no-one to defend her. 

Before, she’d taken excitement in how rare her ability was, in no small part encouraged by her sister and family, but it’s only now that she realises the underside to her fortune. There is no fellow Cupid to verify her claim. Not even the teacher, the all-knowing adult, will side with her story.  As truthful as she may be, it was her word against every other. And with a class rallying against her, Mizuki may as well be a liar.

She is called many new things that day, and from that day on. Some of them stick. None of them are pleasant. It’s an ice-cold awakening to Mizuki that being a Cupid is not what she had thought it to be.

She’s uncomfortably acquainted with the feeling by the time middle school comes around and other parts of herself become more prominent. Even if she's escaped those lingering rumours, that only leaves room for new ones to start. It takes a term to find the rooftop and its sanctuary, hidden and away from looks and judgement. Ironically, it becomes her shelter.

There’s a boy there too, sometimes. He’s from the year above, but Mizuki decides that doesn’t matter when they’re lonely together. She’d sworn against it, but she finds herself getting used to the oddly charming way he speaks, his unusual comfort. It’s not long before she finds herself grasping the chainlink fence, hoping he’d join her as the physical education classes start below. 

What comes next is what some may call only natural. A new beat in her chest; uncontrollable reactions; flushing cheeks and fluttering eyelids. Rui has become someone precious to Mizuki. 

But what may be only natural to a person is so much more complex to a Cupid. Despite all these new changes, that pleasant burst of emotion when he greets her by name, it could never be so simple. Because Rui is not Mizuki’s soulmate. His thread connects to someone else. 

In fact his thread splits three ways, yet not one leads back to Mizuki.

It’s an open secret that many long-term relationships in the world aren’t between soulmates. The concept has never been unfamiliar to Mizuki; her own parents aren’t soulmates, after all, yet they still hold a perfectly healthy marriage. What Mizuki has realised over the years is that, what the threads really symbolise isn’t "fate"—they’re more of an overglorified compatibility test. Soulmates didn't even have to be lovers; plenty of bonds only led to friendship. There’s no invisible force pushing people together, nor a set chain of events that ensure they won’t separate. Cupids exist, sure, but only as gifted matchmakers. Most ignore the existence of soulmate threads entirely.

In other words, the whole system is pointless. It's akin to pseudoscience, just a branch she's apparently biologically programmed to specialise in.

But even if that's the case, it's an unshakeable thought that Rui could pair better with someone else. Mizuki can't ignore it; the thread is always there to remind her. Her own, too, ribbons out and away, as constant as it’s ever been. It flies off the rooftop, far out of the school and serves a reminder that she does not fit in this place. With that knowledge, every second or skipped beat her heart takes seeds another stab of guilt.

It’s not the first time Mizuki bottles her emotions, and she’s certain Rui sees through her anyway. Gracefully, charitably, he never asks, pushes, or prods when she turns away to let the steam from her cheeks before it becomes too obvious. He’s careful not to offer physical comfort either, and while Mizuki’s hand twitches with the desire to link with his, or her shoulders hunch with unsubtle loneliness, he only lets her bask in platonic proximity.

She figures it’s a kind rejection. 

They wordlessly agree to wait out the feelings together, and blessedly it only takes a short while. Between the awkwardness, Mizuki had been certain she would be alone again, but Rui does not leave. Not yet. He patiently waits alongside her, continuing to share his bizarre stories and theories, and in time she’s once again able to enjoy his company without those selfish pangs.

Middle school never held pleasant memories for Mizuki, but she’s certain that time with Rui was the best she had. Such things could never last.

Her solitary thread comforts her with an eraser the night after Rui’s graduation. It’s tactless, bitter, and Mizuki hates how pathetic it looks on the floor. A defeated cloud of empathy leads her to dust it off and pocket it in the draw of possessions her thread had singled out. It's starting to heap now, a mountain of relatively untouched art supplies. Between the rainbow selection of pens and fineliner tips, and her evergrowing collection of brushes and graded pencils, Mizuki is certain they can’t be a coincidence. She’s tried to understand it before, once when she was younger wondering if she was supposed to have a talent for art, but the activity had never stuck. She was always too distracted to draw something properly, much preferring to watch Yuuki do it instead. Even so, her pessimistic mind is sure that this time it’s meant to be a mockery.

Erase the rooftop conversations, it says.

Erase the companionship.

Erase Rui.

The memory of that night, of staring so blankly into her drawer at the eraser she’d mechanically forgiven and retrieved, sticks into Mizuki like a thorn. It twists and throbs alongside her heart as she reels from the unprecedented coldness of it all.

The media doesn't portray it like this, she thinks bitterly. If only they knew. The reality of soulmate strands, of being a Cupid. That parasitic strand clinging to her finger, everpresent and obnoxious in her vision—she's grown to hate it, to expect nothing good and just wish that it would go away. Really, she often finds herself thinking, why does she have a soulmate anyway? Is there really someone so unfortunate to be tied down to her, the girl who can't believe in destiny at all?

It's almost two years later when Mizuki finds her answer. She comes in the form of a girl, the girl, tethered to the same ribbon, the one Mizuki had followed blindly her whole life.

Ena.

Of all people… Why…

Why does it have to be her?

Logically it makes enough sense. Mizuki has always gotten along with her, and she enjoys their collaboration on music videos; they click well, she thinks, but… that's almost the exact problem. Ena is, and has been since Rui, Mizuki's longest lasting friend. Her closest friend.

And someone Mizuki utterly cannot risk losing.

A small, private part of herself wonders if their friendship has only lasted so long because it's been online—a strange, distant utopia where sudden and short periods of avoidance could be excused away so much more easily than in person, where conversations could be more thought out, with a firm divide between offline and online lives. Whether Ena takes advantage of these things too, Mizuki is unsure, but she herself certainly has. Although, come to think of it…

Mizuki met her soulmate on Nightcord. The shame of it all is almost enough to decentre the discovery of a literal pocket universe in her mind. Unfortunately, as life would have it, there are more pressing issues to address, so Mizuki tries her best to shelve the earth shattering revelation for the moment.

And as it turns out, the shelf is where it stays. The longer Mizuki spends with Ena, falling into a new routine of regular outings and meetups, of endless teases and selfies, the more she realises things cannot change. No matter how tightly her thread—their thread—winds itself around them, as if it could bind their arms together, no matter how brightly it shines when they laugh—Mizuki ignores it. She has to. What she has with Ena is too important to throw aside, just for the sake of a half-promised reality Mizuki increasingly can't see through.

And if that means looking past it when moments turn intimate, when she swears Ena's looking at her like there's no-one else in the world… Well, she'll do it.

Intimate. Mizuki shouldn't even use that word. Even if she can't help how it slips into her mind at unhelpful moments, like when their hands brush as she tries to show Ena a meme on her phone, or when they find a cafe with booths a little too small and their knees end up touching. Each time Mizuki shrugs off the feeling; she sends the image over text, or nudges Ena in the shin just enough to annoy her so she'll insist on shuffling apart.

It's better this way.

What Mizuki is feeling… She knows what it is. It's what she felt with Rui, the exact same, yet so wildly different. The thread adds a new element. Their closeness changes things.

Mizuki wishes it could be as simple as before.

The idea of falling in love with Rui had been so much easier. For one, their lives were far less intertwined. They shared a school rooftop, not a pocket universe. But more than that, more than anything, they'd met at Mizuki's lowest. With Rui, there'd been nothing to lose. He knew everything, even the secrets Mizuki hadn't shared. All this without uncomfortable pretenses; uncomfortable questions, or impossible promises; not even the ignorant whisper of forever.

But Ena is honest. Too honest. She wears her heart on her sleeve, keeps her thoughts blazingly obvious, and if it's ever not obvious enough, she'll repeat them again and again with far too much ease. When she promises forever on the rooftop, Mizuki doesn't think it's real. For such devotion to be spoken so earnestly… could only be too good to be true. She knows, at least, if she were saying such a thing, the words would come between clenched teeth and wrenched from guttural sobs.

Forever.

It's… naive, isn't it? Life is too unpredictable to risk promising such a dangeous thing. Even so, Mizuki finds herself wanting to believe it. Wanting to hang onto those words, to hold them like a lifeline. To believe that forever is something that exists that she can rely on.

Ena isn't dumb. Mizuki knows she isn't, can't be, and her promise to wait was spoken with full intent. But Ena is not Rui. She will not allow Mizuki to run away, to fade into the shadows and mask herself behind a veil of the past. No matter how paralysing her bed may be, there would always be a Niigo call to attend, and if not, Ena would be there, messaging to check in.

It's scary to think how used to the routine Mizuki is. How reliant she's become on the safety of it. How awful it would be to lose that regularity. Not to mention, perhaps most pressingly of all, she knows that if she messes it up with Ena, she'll never be able to forget. The thread alone is proof of that.

(Maybe that's why, when Ena puts a lesbian flag on her profile for June, Mizuki swallows down her hopes. Because it can't always be that easy. Not for her.)

And it’s not just that. The more time Mizuki spends with Ena, the more she finds herself questioning their compatibility at all. 

Fragility is something Mizuki first assumes they have in common. At the start, Ena shatters from criticism or disparity, falling into an wave of anger and self-hatred that Mizuki can't help but recognise. The rhythm of lashing out then hiding away; that superficial intent of total isolation. It's eeriely close to her own heart. And in a twisted way, seeing Ena like that, feeling that unsettling familiarity, is a comfort. It's a disturbing kind, the kind you identify and immediately repress from the sheer reflexive horror, but it's a comfort nonetheless. There's an unspoken mutuality to the words Mizuki murmurs when she tries to support Ena. A selfish, pocketed warmth as she watches the troubled creases in her expression ease.

It's cathartic, she thinks, late at night when there's no-one to judge her. In that way, Ena and I are the same. I understand her, and she understands me. We are broken together.

But she's wrong. Ena is not fragile. While Mizuki is glass, Ena is pottery. She cracks, she splits, but sooner or later, between each mark will glow an undeniable kintsugi gold.

It's dazzling. She's dazzling.

She stands on a pedestal Mizuki cannot reach. And with each greedy glance of admiration, that gap between them only grows clearer.

The most damning times of all are those late nights in SEKAI, spent sitting together as Ena rambles about her progress. The new lighting techniques she's been developing, the praises and criticisms she'd been given in class, her thoughts on university… All while Mizuki is painfully aware of the thread between them, pulled taut by her own hand. The sight of it makes even Ena's smallest gestures—her sparks of enthusiasm—seem strained and painful. It makes Mizuki hate that, at the end of this, she's just going to lie in bed and maybe watch another episode of that anime she'd picked up last week.

Progress, change… The future. She can’t imagine it. With every breath Ena takes describing her options and thought process, Mizuki feels her stomach sink lower. Her chest throbs, her head throbs, even just the prospect of thinking about it makes her mind spin. It’s a reminder, an omen, that change is coming. What she has now will not last. Sooner or later, the close comfort of Niigo is going to crack, and she’ll be back where she started.

Ena might move away. Mafuyu, too, who could very well take Kanade with her. If that happens, what of Mizuki? Would they still find time for meetings or text conversations? An's going to America. Who will drag Mizuki out on weekends, and what’s the point in her social media feed being optimised to show new cafe promotions? She’s setting herself up here. Soon it’d just serve as a bitter reminder of what had been lost.

But what can she do? Living in the present is a survival mechanism for Mizuki, not a choice. She can’t look to the future, not like Ena. Her sense of stability rests on a shuddering house of cards, and all she can do is feel the tremors. 

She doesn’t have any dreams or aspirations. Just living is enough; getting through each day and keeping to her basic work schedule, for Mizuki, is fine. She’s made it this far, after all, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that this mentality, this survival, is not compatible with Ena.

The thread is wrong. Mizuki is not compatible with Ena.

This realisation, of course, hits her at exactly the wrong moment. It’s in one of these late night conversations, in the midst of Ena’s rant about her latest assignment.

“Whoever decided that the most beautiful paints should be so difficult to work with should be sued,” she huffs, spearing her brush into a water pot.

“You’re sure you have to use watercolour?” 

Ena working on pieces during these hangouts is a new development. It’d started with her sketchpad, which Mizuki had ecstatically posed for, then gradually melted into canvases and colour. The loss of Ena’s undivided attention isn’t as painful as Mizuki would’ve imagined, considering how now, even if she has to beg for it, she occasionally gets glances at the works in progress in exchange for feedback.

And Ena listens.

Selfishly, Mizuki feels like she’s making a contribution. As if her uneducated criticisms and praises, the blind guidance Ena takes, gives the final work a touch of Mizuki. She knows Ena’s working to improve, building herself up with sheer determination and grit, but like a leech Mizuki bites into her skin, a deadweight hanging on with every ounce of strength in her body just to bask in a speck of Ena’s glory.

“Yes.” Ena dabs the paintbrush on a paper towel. “There’s nothing else that will bring out the emotion I want in this piece, but…” 

She sighs, lowering her work to the floor. 

“These paints are pissing me off.”

Her expression is contorted into frustration, but between her furrowed brow and frown lines Mizuki can see the dejection beneath. It’s a harrowing sight, a defeated Ena. Mizuki hates it.

So she nudges her. “Take a break. I’m here, let’s talk.” 

If she catches the way Ena’s face softens, how her hands unclench and her hunch lifts, she ignores it. Such a reaction is too excessive for such a small gesture; Mizuki doesn’t deserve it. She turns away from the clatter and shuffling of Ena putting aside her tools and leans towards the quiet ripples of the lake.

Despite her invitation, when Ena does settle next to her, knees hugged to her chest and chin resting in her arms, Mizuki doesn't plan to bring up conversation. Not immediately, at least. She blames the late night for tempting her into a certain laziness, the kind where she might hope her presence alone is a comfort enough. As they watch the lake water in silence, Mizuki is burningly aware of Ena's gaze following her finger as she traces lines into the surface.

It's Ena who speaks first. "I think," she murmurs, voice muffled by cloth, "there's a real chance I won't get into Tokyo."

Mizuki stills. The admission slices through any drowsiness and she is suddenly on high alert. That's wrong, she wants to say. They'd be fools not to accept you. But her tongue holds itself steady, apprehensive as Ena continues.

"It's not a question of giving up." Ena shakes her head as if the very words condemn her. "More like, if I don't get in, what do I do? Going somewhere else would be fine, but… I want to give it my best shot. And I'm not sure if I'm there yet."

She's almost just talking to herself. Mizuki shouldn't be privy to the thoughts she's verbalising, but she is. Because Ena's allowing her. The awareness of the privilege prickles through her, then gathers in her stomach like a stone. Because she knows, in moments like this, what she says matters. Even in Ena's sleep-drunken state, if she asks her for advice now, Mizuki will have to choose her words carefully. The faint scarlet glow between them is as constant as ever, lurking just in the corner of Mizuki's vision.

Oblivious, Ena continues.

"I thought, recently, that maybe taking a gap year wouldn't be so bad. If I don't get into Tokyo this year, at least, then I could dedicate a year to improving before I apply again." Ena leans more heavily into Mizuki's side, oblivious to the goosebumps rippling over her skin. "It wouldn't be so bad," she repeats. "I'd have Yukihira's classes to focus on, Niigo in the meantime, and… I'd have you."

Maybe Mizuki's imagining it, but the last addition feels oddly weighted. She tilts her head, facing Ena for the first time and meeting twin trusting brown eyes. She could lose herself in them. The sight brings a warmth to her heart, sweet nectar feeding the thrumming butterflies she tries to ignore and for a second—just a second, a sweet split second—Mizuki samples the idea of succumbing to that warmth.

It's dangerous.

It takes everything to wrench herself away from that gaze, stiffly turning back to the placid water. "Another year with Enanan, huh?" Her voice is shaky. Too shaky. She'll give herself away if she says too much. "You'd get sick of me."

"I wouldn't." Ena has such a sickening talent in her reassurance, shaking her head softly against Mizuki's arm as she yawns into her palm. "Not you."

Mizuki doesn't know how to respond. Not when her heart and dinner are fighting each other to sit in her throat, or when that desperate urge to lean into Ena's touch is fraying every corner of her mind. All she can do is swallow thickly and hope again that the minimum can be enough. "Mmm," she manages to hum. This conversation is hurtling towards ground she's not ready to venture, but, as usual, Ena finds a way. She always does. And it happens with a single question, like a freight train.

"Do you ever think about soulmates?"

Mizuki's blood runs cold. Her heart stutters, and she has to fight to keep herself still. "What?"

"It's the prompt Yukihira assigned us, the one I was working on earlier. Well, we're meant to create something with a string of fate, that's what he asked for, but I figured they're close enough." Ena's so unbothered. So oblivious. There's rustling against Mizuki's arm but she can't trust herself to look. "I just… You know, I started thinking about them and I wonder, don't you?"

Mizuki's jaw is rigid, borderline chattering. "It's pseudoscience," she manages, begging that her tone only sounds so shaky to herself, that Ena won't question it. "There's nothing that can prove they exist."

It's a terrible answer. Mizuki's rehearsed it countless times over restless nights, yet it still never feels right. But it's the persona she has to take; the first line of defence to keep everything from coming out. That's the plan, at least. If she acts disinterested enough, maybe Ena won't ask her again.

"You think so?"

I have to.

"I can't deny the idea is nice. That we're all connected to someone and it'll all work out, but… I agree. It definitely can't be like that." Ena sighs softly. "Part of me still wishes I could see a Cupid, but they charge so much for what little they tell you. Not that it matters anyway, 'cuz I've decided…" She shifts more weight onto Mizuki's shoulder with another yawn. "I'm happy as I am, here…"

Those warm words, their implication, should bring warmth to Mizuki's veins. Her weight should feel like a comfort, something for Mizuki to lean into and return the basking warmth. Instead, she is filled with a sense of icy dread. Her stomach feels like it's been sent hurtling down an emotional skyscraper. Ena's weight, her warmth—it sinks into her like guilt. Her eyes, traitorous things, gravitate towards the red thread, entwined between them in a far-too happy pile of knots, a vibrant, near passionate red. As if it's celebrating. But celebrating what?

She's not even sure if Ena's trying to say what she thinks she is. There's a quiet between them now. A strange, stiff stillness that not even the racing thrum of Mizuki's heartbeat can break. She knows Ena's waiting for an answer, can practically sense the other girl's waiting gaze tracing her features. Those rich honey eyes… Mizuki knows if she turns to meet them every brimming anxiety would spill out into an ugly pile, burdensome and unfair. She knows, she knows Ena would accept it all with open arms, trying her best to help her. But there'd be no question of fairness. No conversation of consequences, of everything else Mizuki can't ignore.

She's… she's just not strong enough for this.

"Ena's rambling," the murmur comes out robotically, almost ten seconds too late. "Maybe it's time for bed." The words feel bitter as they leave her tongue, that uncomfortable tang of wrongness, regret, blooming as Ena pulls away. An icy emptiness claws into the space she leaves, to the point Mizuki holds back a shiver. She can already sense the disgruntled scowl the other girl's directing at her, how noticeable it must be that she can't bring herself to meet it. How cowardly she is.

"Mizuki—"

Even so, Ena's voice is soft. She starts to say something else but Mizuki can't bear to hear it, can't bear that softness, that trust, not when she's going to betray it all in the end.

"It's late," Mizuki interrupts, and it comes out calm. Quiet. Collected, when it shouldn't. She almost hates how fluently the excuse weasels from her lips. "We should go to sleep."

There's a sense of finality in the air now, but all Mizuki can feel is Ena's hard, discerning stare, just inches away. She's analysing Mizuki's face, every aspect, twitch, and wrinkle. It takes everything to keep her own eyes trained on the lake, the dam of resolve reaching a breaking point in her chest. Skin splits as she bites her lip to keep it from trembling.

"Fine," Ena sighs. "We can call it a night, if you want."

The burn subsides.

She's reluctant—the weight in her words makes it clear—and when Mizuki opens her mouth to respond, she can't find anything to say. There's no response fit enough to face Ena, nothing that'd feel even remotely right. All she can muster is a single, stuttered nod as the iron tang of blood hits her tongue.

At the same time, the coil of thread locked in the corner of her vision starts to unravel. Its thin red body slackens like a deflating balloon, slumping to the ground in some silent expression of defeat. As Ena's warmth shifts away she pulls the slack with her. It rises alongside her, dipping as she brushes her shorts off and twisting when she turns to face Mizuki.

"Mizuki,"

Her beckon is irresistible. Mizuki glances up, helpless to meet Ena's careful gaze. She's trying to look unbothered, Mizuki can tell, but she knows the girl too well to not recognise the telltale signs of disappointment.

Her tired eyes,

That pinched brow,

The restrained smile.

Mizuki hugs herself a little tighter.

"Hey, are you listening?"

Ena's knees click as she crouches closer. She's not even trying to hide her expression, concern creasing over as she breaches Mizuki's space, just an inch.

Her eyes are so soft, so open, so trusting and filled with fearless affection.

"Hey, I—"

"I'm sorry," Mizuki chokes out. She stands to wobbly legs and staggers back, just enough to widen the distance. Just enough to breathe. Their thread slumps between them, slacker than it's ever been, though Mizuki can't focus on it as she catches—she catches—

Those same eyes now widening and vulnerable, pooling with hurt. Ena's arm is still half extended to where she used to be, fingers reaching out to comfort a nonexistent body.

Oh, Mizuki is awful.

"I have to go." The words don't feel like her own. She knows Ena says something in reply, shouts it, even, but she can't make out the words as her body is engulfed in shattering shards and the soft flutter of transdimensional evacuation. The notes of her voice, surprised and upset, replay in her mind as she reflexively tries to parse out meaning.

It doesn't work. Mizuki lands in a silent, pitch black room with reverberating anguish in her mind. Her knees buckle, sinking into the floor as she's panting harsh and shallow breaths. Her heart's thrumming in her ears to an uneven beat and her arms are too weak to support herself as she sinks to the floor.

The remains of the thread, a grey and slumping shadow of its usual self, drift into view before her. It collects on the floor in a knotted pile, trailing reluctantly into her phone and she can do little other than hollowly appreciate its discolouration.

It's not satisfaction she feels. Not the comfort she's always anticipated from finally reaching this point—from trumping fate itself. Relief isn't quite right, either. That can't explain the pit in her stomach, nor the weight in her joints.

But then, just as she's trying to name the feeling, it happens. The thread begins to unwind. Each knot pulls loose, smooth as butter, with the slackened length slipping free. All the while faint hues of pink cut through the grey like dye in water, deepening into a familiar red. Mizuki is helpless to watch as the thread snaps back, tight as a bowstring and as renewed as ever. As if nothing even happened. She finally feels it as her face screws up at the sight.

This… cursed thread. It, and everything it means.

Mizuki stares at it, taking shaking, shuddering breaths against the varnished floorboards. A defeated, watery laugh escapes her. Really, she wants to cry. If just to obscure the stubborn guide to salvation she could never deserve. But as always, the tears hate coming when they should, so she's left helpless to clarity.

It could never be that simple, huh?

Ena, you're so… so…

Mizuki doesn't sleep that night.

5:51 [Amia]: Im really sorry
5:51 [Amia]: I was really tired today

6:06 [Enanan]: It's fine, you don't need to apologise.
6:06 [Enanan]: Why are you still up? Don't you have classes?
6:06 [Enanan]: Go to bed
6:07 [Enanan]: We'll talk tomorrow.