ㅤ赤い糸 CHAPTER ONE
ㅤ赤い糸 RED STRING OF FATE。CHAPTER ONE
je t'aime mon ami
“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Minki has always preferred fine dining and socialising with rich university students with horrible pop music playing in the background (even if it wasn’t exactly in his line of tasteful music). He has always been a good person, has never done anything morally unacceptable in his life (except for that one time but that’s another story for another time). So Minki never really imagines himself to be sitting in the middle of seven girls; let alone surrounded by said seven girls and engaged in a conversation about makeup and the likes. It wasn’t like he hated them, they were his girls, but let’s be real here.
He shares a look of ‘did she seriously just ask what I think she just asked?’ with Hyebi from across the table when Hyeji starts an argument along the lines of "Gross gel liner or beautiful liquid liner, my people?" with Yerim, who clearly doesn't agree with her. Hyebi only shoots him a hopeless 'what did we do in our past life to deserve this' stare.
"I mean, gel liner is the best when you're going for dark shadowy look," Yerim says, scanning the table with a desperate look in her eyes because she needs backup.
Minki sighs and leans on an arm, amusing himself with the way Hyebi's eyebrows quirk along with every sentence Hyeji bellows to the whole cafeteria about the pros of liquid liner. At this rate, Minki is positive that they’ll all get their asses kicked by little ole’ Mrs. Jung, who hates noise especially on eating grounds. He stares at the grain of rice that is stuck on the corner of Hyeji's lips and even more of it sprouting out of and wonders why Mrs. Jung is not already on her way yelling at Hyeji about table manners and the like.
Grimacing, he offhandedly shoves a napkin towards Hyeji’s face. She takes it without a second thought and continues to spew whatever fire she still has in her about liquid eyeliner and felt tips.
"—stays on 24/7 without having to reapply!" Hyeji exclaims, turning her whole body to face Iseul, who looks like a deer caught in the headlights, despite her perpetually blank look. "Right? Right?"
Iseul only blinks slowly, her winged eyes perfectly applied, as usual. Her reply comes off more as a question than anything else. "Uh, sure?"
“You don’t even wear make up, Hyeji.” Hyebi states exasperatedly as Minki leans back onto his chair, mentally agreeing with the young lady. Hyeji gasps a loud ‘blasphemy!’, pushing her chair out and quickling standing up to defend her fragile ego.
“Ma chérie, please.” Minki states, finally standing up and pushing a rather heated Hyeji back onto her seat with a plop! before she could even begin to counter Hyebi's words (plus, Minki would rather not witness the wrath of Goo Hyebi, having seen it far too many times).
Hyeji flails her arms before brushing off Minki’s hands from her shoulders, “Yeah, yeah monsieur hon hon baguette. Where are my manners, I know yeah? Deep breaths, got it.”
Brushing off Hyeji’s sarcastic comment with a roll of his eyes, Minki stops anyone else from speaking up and says in a rather sweet lilt of his voice, “It’s nice to sit here and chit chat with you lovely ladies, but I would like to order some food before I die of starvation. S'il te plaît.”
Soyoung, who has had her head buried in what looks like a book on medicine throughout the whole ordeal, looks up at the mention of food. Minki thinks she looks grateful, her eyes shining as she voices out a, "Can I come with you, please?"
"I'll come with you, too," Junah quickly adds, already making a move to stand up.
Minki stretches as he stands, a small smirk on his lips. "If you will excuse us, mes dames."
The betrayed look Hyebi shoots him follows him throughout his walk to the food stand, where his six dollar sushi and overly priced water bottle awaits him, and he feels (more than just) a little smug.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Escaping a lion's den only to run straight for a crocodile's mouth—Great, Iseul thinks as she breaks into a little jog that is very uncharacteristic of her, but now is really not the time to worry about that.
So maybe she blames Hyeji and Yerim for yapping her ears of about things she doesn't really want to care about—she prefers liquid liners, by the way—but now she is running late for a meeting with her father and Hyeji just won’t stop texting her (and here she thought she’d finally gotten away from that brat—Iseul will deny of course, her fondness for the girl, but honestly), so she will have to get back to killing them a little later.
She runs a hand through her hair and racks her brain for the supposedly important client while lamenting over her horrible choice of staying at the campus cafeteria a little longer just to amuse Hyeji. What's with Ryu Hyeji and her weird magical ability to get people to do things for her anyways? That was supposed to be her talent, not Hyeji’s.
The sigh of relief escaping is a little uncalled for, but she has never been so glad at the sight of the white Aston Martin parked in front of the university campus.
"Sebastian!" She calls out to the man leaning slightly on the car, a little breathless.
"Mademoiselle," Sebastian replies, bowing ever so slightly as a greeting. "How was your day?"
Oh, her day was—"Great," she says tightly, already trying to squash the image of Hyeji's smug, pathetic little grin out of her mind. "But we're running a little late, aren't we?"
"Oh, are we?" Sebastian slurs, smiling playfully.
Iseul can't help the small quirk of her lips that stretches across her face. "Guess not, huh?"
Sebastian drives like a sane madman (if that even makes sense), but Iseul thinks he can drive any way he wants as long as she is safe and, most importantly, on time—which she is, praise the Lord.
She takes her time composing herself in the time Sebastian takes to get out of the car and open her door, and by the time she steps out her hair is in place; her attire consisting of a white blazer with sleeves that stop at her elbow under a long dolman sleeved trench coat with a pair of clean cut pair of trousers.
"Bonne journée, Mademoiselle." Sebastian says, the wrinkles on his forehead prominent with the way his grin stretches wide.
Iseul flutters her eyelashes and smiles when that earns a chuckle from Sebastian. "You too, Sebastian."
Being out of the car and in front of glaring limelights meant she'd have to push Hyeji and Yerim's out of her mind for, hopefully, the rest of the day. Iseul heaves a long sigh before walking towards the entrance of her father’s company. Despite having been there more than just a couple of times, the architecture of it never ceases to amaze her. Building and interior design may not be an interest of hers, but Iseul does appreciate beauty.
Walking down the halls of her father’s company and being greeted by the employees are nothing new, but she can't help but feel just mildly uncomfortable. She greets them with a nod, the way she always does, and observes her surroundings carefully (dreadfully noticing that one of the employees fly was down). Iseul turns her head around and focuses instead, on the glass windows, the bright white lights on the ceiling, and the chuckle that follows behind her. Wait a minute.
“You’re too stiff. Loosen up, will you?” Someone whispers from behind, “You look like you’re going through an existential crisis every time you step your lovely pair of feet here.”
Swiftly turning around, Iseul opens only to close it with a quick huff.
“Oh? No ‘Hello Kyungsoo! How was your weekend? Are you eating well? Sleeping well?’ No? Not at all?” Kyungsoo chuckles as Iseul begins walking again, easily matching her pace as he strides beside her.
“Well—please, I don't recall ever talking like that—to you, especially.” Iseul answers indignantly, quickening her steps as she side-eyes Kyungsoo’s outfit (a super plain black on black that Iseul knows is Kyungsoo's style, but looks like it was bought from a flea market for half its price), “Oh, and Kyungsoo? Je t'aime mon ami, but that outfit isn't working for you.”
"I am hurt and offended."
Iseul scoffs at the reply, lips disobeying her as it twitches upward. She rolls her eyes, "I am also hurt and offended that after years and years of knowing each other, my insanely glorious sense of fashion still has yet to rub off on you."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Her stomps are probably shaking up the whole campus, but Yerim honestly can't bring herself to care. She’ll stick it to anyone who looks her way. To think that her preference of using gel liner is insulted—what's with the girls and liquid liners anyway? Gel liners are invented for a reason!
Yerim purses her lips in a petulant manner before slowly letting out a defeated sigh. How many times has she been caught in a messy argument created by Ryu Hyeji? Way too many times.
The toilet is a welcome sight, and she hopes she doesn't sound too creepy but their university's toilets are the best among others (automated flushing toilets? Amazing). She heads immediately to the mirrors, and grimaces when she notices that in morning haste, she had applied the eyeliner in an uneven, crooked line.
Rummaging through her backpack for her makeup purse, she sighs. Maybe Hyeji is right about liquid liners and their durability, but still. Aren't liquid liners a bit too much for daily use? How the hell is she going to apply that when her hands are always so shaky?
Her handy compacted gel eyeliner in sight, Yerim blows her fringes that lay messily away from her eyes and sets to work.
She emerges from the bathroom with a boost of confidence, though it soon disappears when her stomach growls. Maybe she should’ve let her roommate feed her in the morning instead of rushing off to hang out with a group of people most likely to cause her ulcers. Maybe she should’ve taken on the offer of going with Minki to buy food instead of immersing herself in a pointless debate over eyeliners. Maybe she should've kept shut.
Shaking her head, Yerim brushes off any thought of regret of her poor actions and instead, prays that the vending machine near her classroom would have those packets of salty peanuts. And oh—Yerim almost wants to cry tears of joy—Suji promised her some banana milk earlier this morning.
With newfound motivation and a greater hunger for something to eat, Yerim speed walks towards her Human Anatomy course (which she only half-regrets, if only she knew the yoga classes were a better choice).
Yerim reaches her destination in record time, her canvas sneakers quiet now that she has calmed down considerably.
The sight of the vending machine has her speeding up, her hands busily searching for some spare change she knows she has somewhere inside her bag. This is the only moment where she regrets being unorganized, but when will she ever learn when Bae Suji is standing beside her class, holding three packs of salted peanuts and a bottle of banana milk?
Yerim doesn't hesitate to tackle her taller friend with a huge bear hug that has the former tipping backward. "Ahn Yerim, I swear," Suji huffs, pulling away with a wiggle and practically dumping the food to Yerim's more than accepting arms.
"I love you the most," Yerim says, tone sincere. "Actually, no, I mean you're like the seventh best? Yeah, there is Hyebi, Iseul, Minki, Soyoung, Junah—oh, maybe you're sixth. Hyeji can stick it where it hurts and—"
“Shut up and eat, you brat."
AUTHORS' NOTES
QUICK NOTES: Yay, language class! So be aware that Minki and Iseul will be using french here and there (and in some minor cases, Italian w/ Minki). Of course, if you don't know French, we are here to help...sort of. These words are probably used in the wrong context but they're only there for comical and pretentious rich kid reasons :~) (but did we just lowkey make iseul's chauffeur french...yeah....)
ma chérie — 'my sweetheart / my darling' in french.
monsieur hon hon baguette — literally has no meaning aside from ‘monsieur’ being mister but it's a joke
s'il te plaît — ‘please’ in french.
mes dames — ‘my ladies’ in french.
mademoiselle — 'miss / young lady' in french.
bonne journée — 'good day' in french.
je t'aime mon ami — ‘i love you my friend’ in french
monsieur hon hon baguette — literally has no meaning aside from ‘monsieur’ being mister but it's a joke
s'il te plaît — ‘please’ in french.
mes dames — ‘my ladies’ in french.
mademoiselle — 'miss / young lady' in french.
bonne journée — 'good day' in french.
je t'aime mon ami — ‘i love you my friend’ in french
TOBIOS: This chapter came out really quickly because Hana and I started this chapter a little before we revealed the chosen characters. Plus, we just had a bunch of ideas that we wanted to put down and this was done. The first two chapters will be just revealing each "main character". Minki, Iseul, and Yerim were done first. Soyoung and Junah will shown more in the next chapters. We haven't decided how we'll be incorporating each character into each chapter yet, but we're just letting this story flow! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter because honestly I'm so proud of us for lasting this far. Plus, I hope we did your beautifully written characters justice ;v; But enough of me talking otl.
KINTOUN: Soooo I guess we /are/ super women (only during holidays). School is starting next week for both of us, so updates may not be as frequent then, so we are just getting this started before we get too busy. We'll be trying our best hOHOHOHO O U O Your characters are all so very lovely, and I just hope that we're actually portraying them correctly (if not, please do tell otl). Anyways, both Chau and I are happy with this chapter, so I hope you guys are, too! ; v ; Thanks for reading and have a nice weekend people! < 3
BIG QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you want us authors to decide the fate of you and your soulmate or do you want to decide for yourself. If you want to decide for yourself, would it matter if they end up together or not? Do you want them to end up together? Please answer honestly base on your character and their soulmate's situation.
BIG QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you want us authors to decide the fate of you and your soulmate or do you want to decide for yourself. If you want to decide for yourself, would it matter if they end up together or not? Do you want them to end up together? Please answer honestly base on your character and their soulmate's situation.
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