celestial strings | h.js

five.

"What? Why would they do that!" he exclaimed.

"Magic have consequences," you replied. "You get one good thing and another bad thing happens."

Jisung shivered. That took a dramatic and miserable turn. It would make an interesting story plot but knowing that it could happen in real life made him feel an unknown sense of fear. The complete memory erasure of an important person, all the unknown feelings of nostalgia that always caused pain to him... those would bother him.

Glancing at you, he blinked to himself as the thought of how you could have easily just erased yourself from him floated into his head. He wondered why you never chose to do that even though you didn't start out being fond of him at all. And he felt glad that you still haven't tried to do that to him yet. He hoped you never would. It would be a shame to forget about you completely.

"You can see who your soulmate is, right?" He suddenly asked, both wanting to break free from the negative thoughts and because he was curious.

You hummed a little, bringing your right hand up to your face and glaring at your pinky finger. The red tie slowly appeared in your sight and you scoffed. Never have you ever obsessed over such a trivial thing before, it had always just been a long strand of string to you and nothing more. Whoever was at the end of it likely never cared as well, since they never tried tugging at it.

"I can. I just never looked for them," you said.

"Oh... can you see who my soulmate is?" Jisung asked then.

You rolled your eyes a little and turned to him with a faint groan. Reaching out to grab his hand, you held his finger gently and waited before the red knot appeared around his pinky. You pinched the thin string carefully, your eyes widening in surprise when you saw the bright redness coursing through the lining of it. The vibration surrounding it was strong, which either meant their mutual feelings for each other was strong or that his soulmate was near.

"There is magic in here," you said, shifting your gaze to Jisung. "You've not just met your soulmate already, you built a relationship with them."

"I have?" Jisung whispered out in anticipation.

His heart picked up its pace suddenly at the knowledge that he has brushed shoulders with his soulmate before. His mind raced to check past all the faces he's met and interacted with before and he tried to guess, as best as he could, who his soulmate could possibly be.

This has just gotten exciting, the suspense was killing him slowly.

"I can try to pull at the string but if it gets too long, we're not going to follow it to the end," you said, carefully grabbing a hold of his fate string with your fingers. Glancing up at him, you warned, "Don't come crying if the universe made the wrong choice."

Jisung nodded. He watched you intently as you continued to pull at the string, going at a fast pace until you abruptly came to a stop. You huffed out in frustration, unsure why the string was not leading you anywhere. It usually should, especially if the soulmate was standing at a distance. Jisung's string felt in place, as if it got cut off somewhere and was no longer attached to someone from a far distance.

With furrowed brows, Jisung tilted his head and took a step closer to you, his voice urgent as he asked, "What is it?"

You blinked at your hand as you continued to pull at the string. Eventually, you made it to the last millimetre of the string just to find a knot attached and burning at your own pinky. Confusion clouded your mind for a second before it was replaced with disbelief and refusal. You let go of the string and grabbed onto Jisung's hand, then you dropped his hand and raised your own, pinching your fate string instead and pulling at it.

Jisung stared at you with a troubled expression, concern etched on every part of his features as he watched you rapidly pulled on your soulmate string until all of a sudden, he felt a strong pull at his hand. He lurched forward towards you at the impact, his eyes widening in the process. That was when his surrounding came to a magical halt. It was like nothing he has ever experienced before.

Time stopped, literally, just within the atomic spaces you two stood on the street near his school. Fateful magic creased up both of your skin, yours shedding from your blood to travel through the red string to him so he could see what a magic-wielder could see; a long, bright red string surrounded you two in a multiple loose circle, creating a bubble.

"Oh my god," you whispered.

Jisung glanced down at your hand and back up at your face, where you looked more shocked than ever. He finally understood why he got pulled forward and what the messy map of red string he briefly saw in the air when he got closer to you meant. He finally understood the constant, special pull he felt towards you. Those electrifying feelings he kept feeling when he was with you.

"Are you... are we soulmates?" Jisung asked, anticipation flooding into his brilliant eyes.

You gulped with a nod. "Yeah, we are."

He broke into a slow smile then, his chest heaving in excitement. "That's great," he said. "That's exciting."

"It is?" you asked incredulously, a reaction Jisung wasn't quite expecting but he was suddenly too fond of the idea of soulmates for him to nitpick at your less-than-happy expression.

"Of course!" He beamed. "Because I really like the universe's choice."