My name is Park Chaeyoung and I have this god-given, blessing but kind of a curse gift. I see strings—like a magical connection of everyone to each other. I was born with it and it was really weird at first because since I learned how to talk, I never stopped rambling about the strings I see which of course, everyone around me find weirdly vague. They started seeing me as a freak and crazy kid. You could say I was famous, they all knew me at our village. The sound of my name would make any child cry in terror. Everyone recognized my shadow even from afar, they'll start running in every which way to avoid me like I had some infectious virus, like I was breathing shit.
My family took me to a lot of fortune tellers, shamans, witches, priests and whatever so called powerful people that could talk to spirits and all that crap. It was tiring. They kept on performing made up rituals on me, made me eat and drink all those nasty herbs and well water. It took me to spend 3 days on a hospital because of food poisoning for them to stop dragging me to mountains and caves. Eventually, they stopped and kept me grounded at home.
As I grew up, I learned to shut my mouth. I finally learned how unbelievable and crazy I sounded when I talked about it to people in the past. It was downright disturbing, and since then I never mentioned it to anyone. Except two people; Jisoo and Jennie unnie. I met them at the age of 14 when their family was doing some kind of development project at our village. They were rich—very rich. I'm surprised they're not as spoiled and bratty as the kids on the city. No, they were well-mannered, obedient, friendly and smart. They stayed at our village for almost three months tops and it didn't take more than two weeks for us to be bestfriends.
I told them about my secret the night before they were set to leave, and imagine my surprise when they told me it was actually pretty cool. Like a superpower that nobody has. It made me feel proud and determined. We promised that we'd see each other again and I also made a secret promise to myself that by then I'll find out what the gift meant.
Years later, I found out the corresponding meanings of the string by its color. White strings meant family. That's why I see them more often than other colors. Yellow strings meant friendship. That's explains why I never saw yellow strings reaching out to me from the kids on our village, but that was before Jisoo and Jennie unnie came. Since then I started seeing yellow strings dancing in the air. I actually used to call them "happy strings". Gosh, silly me. Red strings meant love, unconditional, intimate, sexual, unrequited, failed. Whatever form of love.
Although, sometimes the strings aren't returned or reciprocated. I can tell because I've seen a lot. Families going on trips and family dinners but their strings don't connect. Friends laughing with each other but only one has a connection. Relationships with no connection at all. It was heartbreaking to see every day. I mean, don't get me wrong, I didn't just stood idly by as families and relationships fall apart. I tried to interrupt and fix what was broken but no matter how hard I tried, there was no amount of talking and doing and setting up to fix it. I had to learn that the hard way.
But despite the dark part of this gift, there's also a sunny part. Families and friendship strings dancing together and connecting. Lovers with uniting strings of red, yellow and white. The more strings connected, the more it glows brighter. It was a very pleasing sight to look at. It's kind of fulfilling, knowing that some people just ends up together, like they're meant to be, like soulmates. Maybe it's true. Maybe magic does exist. Maybe he exists. But my speculation can be wrong. The only basis I have are my vision, my notes and my memory. I could be literally crazy for all we know.
"Oh my god!" I heard someone squeal near me, making me wince. "She's finally making a full story out of it!"
"Jennie unnie would you please lower your voice down?" I mumbled, my mind completely disheveled from her recent shouting.
