Red Strings of Fate

Words: 3392

Jihoon couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with Seungcheol. He didn’t even begin to realise he had those feelings until someone pointed it out. Thank you, Seungkwan. He didn’t even realise that he was also capable of love like everybody else around him.

He could see them; the red strings of fate that tie people together by the pinkie. It was odd though because not everyone had a string attached to them or their string was black a dangled from their finger lifelessly. He learned quickly what the latter ment. The black represented the passing of your soulmate and it saddened him when two soulmates never met. Not that he cared too much. He hated love. He hated death more though. The missing string though had multiple solutions; they were aual, their lover wasn’t born yet or they were the one unfortunate enough to be Jihoon’s soulmate.

Jihoon first met Seungcheol when he was 5. Jihoon’s parents owned a coffee shop and Seungcheol’s mother was unlucky enough to work there. Jihoon didn’t often leave the safe confinement of upstairs, but one time when he did, he met Seungcheol. Seungcheol had entered the shop with his father to meet Seungcheol’s mother at the end of her shift. They stayed for 9 minutes and 49 seconds, not that Jihoon was counting. During that time, Seungcheol made his presence known to Jihoon after Jihoon’s mother made a fuss of how big he’s gotten since she last saw him, which was probably the week prior, but she was weird and Jihoon didn’t understand her.

After the first meeting, Seungcheol’s visits became more frequent and Jihoon spent a little bit longer downstairs, usually colouring or reading. It wasn’t until their 3rd visit that Jihoon’s mother managed to formally introduce Seungcheol to Jihoon. The easiest way to put it is that it was awkward.

“Seungcheolie meet my little Jihoonie!” Jihoon’s mother slid an arm around Jihoon and pulled him into her side. It was an action that always made Jihoon tense, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it was just his mother.

“Hi Jihoon!” Seungcheol beamed, letting off the image of a golden retriever. “I’m Seungcheol, but you can call me S.Coups!!” Seungcheol laughed. It was one of the stages he went through. This one was that he decided that cool nicknames were a must. He regrets it now. Jihoon has never let him live it down.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Jihoon replied in a quiet voice that lacked the emotion and enthusiasm which Seungcheol bore.

“I’m going to call you Woozi!” Seungcheol stated.

“Why?” Jihoon was the slightest bit flustered, having only really communicated with his family at this point in life.

“Because you look like you’d struggle to stand with those weak legs.” He responded, with more laughter. Jihoon threw all his crayons at him after that and Seungcheol ran away to the comfort of his father.

Seungcheol and Jihoon spoke more often after that. Their meetings became daily and sometimes Jihoon would take Seungcheol to his room and they would play together or Seungcheol would talk to him, mainly at him, for a few minutes before he had to go. The visits became longer as Seungcheol got older and got more independent. His parents had more faith in him as the cafe was only down the street from his house. The two eventually became the best of friends.

Jihoon told Seungcheol about his ability to see the red string of fate at the age of 10. Seungcheol was amazed and being the curious child he was, asked who his soulmate was. Jihoon responded with, “You don’t have a string.”

“What?!” Seungcheol was in shock, “What does that mean?!”

“It could mean multiple things.” Jihoon stated. “It could mean you are aual. It could mean your soulmate isn’t born yet,” Jihoon hesitated, “Or, you could be the one who is unfortunate to be my soulmate.”

“What? So I could not have a soulmate? Or I could be 10 years older than mine? Isn’t that weird? I mean I don’t think we’re soulmates! We’re just the best of friends!” Seungcheol responded. Oh how wrong he could be.

Talks about soulmates and the red string of fate became more common after that and at the age of 12, Jihoon told Seungcheol about his parent’s situation.

“My mum and dad don’t really love each other.” Jihoon stated after a long period of silence had settled between the two. Jihoon’s parents weren’t home and the two boys were both just lying on Jihoon’s bed.

“What do you mean? Are they not soulmates?” Seungcheol looked at Jihoon and had to resist the urge to pinch his squishy cheeks. Now was not the right time.

“No. My dad’s soulmate must have passed away and I’ve never seen my mum’s soulmate, but I know they exist.” Jihoon still didn’t show any emotion on the outside, but Seungcheol knew that it affected Jihoon, even if he didn’t admit it. He slowly held Jihoon’s hand and squeezed it once. It was his way of reassuring Jihoon with the smallest amount of physical interaction possible.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Seungcheol tentatively asked.

“Maybe they’ll meet and I’ll end up with split parents or they’ll never meet and my parents may manage to stay together.” Jihoon shrugged it off as casually as possible.

They met. When Jihoon was 13 years old, his mother’s soulmate walked into the cafe and asked his father about job openings. Things were fine at first, but eventually, Jihoon began noticing the looks the two would share and the occasional moment of physical contact that they would exchange. It was then that the arguments began to start between his parents. At first it was just small disputes which would end with them glaring at each other before moving on, but inevitably, the arguments got longer and louder. Sometimes, Jihoon’s mother would leave the house after particularly rough arguments and would come back the next day with no explanation. Jihoon predicted that she was with her soulmate and he wasn’t wrong.

When Jihoon was 14, his parents finally had enough and they separated. Jihoon remembered sneaking out afterwards, at night, and ending up at Seungcheol and they had an impromptu sleepover. A few days later, Jihoon’s mother moved out to live with her soulmate. Jihoon visited her on the weekends for a while, but eventually he began to have other plans more often, as he and Seungcheol were beginning to make friends with other people.

It was around that time that Jihoon received his first confession and broke his first heart. It wasn’t intentional. He just saw the string on Soonyoung was attached to another guy, Seokmin. Those two wouldn’t get together until they were in their last year of highschool. He and Soonyoung still remained friends and after Soonyoung and Seokmin became a thing, Soonyoung became a friend he could confide in, when Seungcheol failed him.

Seungcheol didn’t have many relationships throughout highschool, but the ones he did lasted months, before the other would either meet their soulmate or realise they didn’t have those kind of feelings for him and decided they were better off as friends. Seungcheol never turned anyone down and he was never the one to initiate the breakup.

At the start of their last year at highschool, Jeonghan transferred to their school. Jihoon imagines, if Seungcheol and Jeonghan had never been a thing or if Jeonghan had transferred to their school a year earlier, that he would have gotten along with the long haired beauty.

Jeonghan began hanging out with Jihoon and his friends; Seungcheol, Soonyoung, Seokmin, Mingyu, Wonwoo and Seungkwan. Jihoon didn’t care. He was in his final year of highschool and he had other things to worry about. He was also struggling to choose between following his dream and becoming a composer or playing it safe and taking business, in the hopes of taking over his father’s cafe that he now part timed at.

3 weeks and 4 days after Seungcheol and Jeonghan had met, Jeonghan confessed and Seungcheol, being the gentleman he is, accepted. Jihoon didn’t care. Seungcheol wasn’t his. He could do what he wants. They hadn’t spoken about Jihoon’s ability since Jihoon’s parents divorced anyway so who was Jihoon to tell Seungcheol that Jeonghan belonged with Jisoo. He thought nothing of it.

“Hah?! Seungcheol’s spending time with Jeonghan again? When’s he going to pay attention to us?” Seungkwan whined. “Jihoon do something!”

“Why me?” Jihoon put his barely eaten sandwich down. For some reason, he hadn’t had an appetite recently. It might not help that he was scarred after he saw Jeonghan with his tongue down Seungcheol’s throat a few months ago, and then nearly every day after.

“Because you and Seungcheol are obviously made for each other!” Seungkwan stated, raising his pinkie, “The red strings of fate binds you!” Seungkwan didn’t know that Jihoon could see the strings; only Seungcheol did.