Silence echoes throughout the four walls of the bathroom. Seulgi takes in a shaky breath, “She wanted to know then if Seungwan was her soulmate. Just like that, while I was still hungover from the night before.” The author lets out what Sooyoung imagines was supposed to come off as a chuckle, but had turned last minute into a bitter snort.

        “I just wish she’d done it before they’d gotten engaged, you know?” Seulgi sighed, shaking her head from left to right. Meanwhile, Sooyoung’s mouth is wide open with shock. A chill ran down her spine at just how long Seulgi has been fighting against the universe.

        No amount of words could ever help Sooyoung truly understand the way the author must have felt in that moment, where Joohyun had begged Seulgi to tie her string to Seungwan. She couldn’t imagine ever being in Seulgi’s shoes, experiencing something like that. But even despite this, the mere act of listening to what Seulgi had just finished saying was enough to form a hard lump in .

        To have Joohyun, her soulmate, tell Seulgi to her face that she was willing to give her true soulmate up in order to settle for Seungwan? Of course, Seulgi had already told Sooyoung earlier what Joohyun had wanted…but she hadn’t expected the older woman to go about it the way she had.

        The words settle and Joohyun had never mixed in Sooyoung’s mind before. Joohyun was someone who tirelessly pursued what she wanted until she obtained it, until she held it in her hands and claimed it as her own. She was a hardworking young woman with a dedication that put each and every one of them to shame.

        Sooyoung could see where Joohyun was coming from, however. After year upon year spent with Seungwan, Joohyun must’ve momentarily forgotten about her grand quest for finding her long lost soulmate. It wasn’t as if Joohyun could’ve gone out searching for her soulmate anymore, anyways.

        She was with Seungwan and she had been with Seungwan for a long time. Perhaps it was this amount of time spent with the Canadian that had allowed Joohyun’s resolve to dwindle away into nothing but a hopeless plea. Joohyun’s shattered dreams of settling down with her soulmate…Seulgi being unable to confess year after year.

        The entire ordeal sounded like some kind of soap opera smash hit, something you’d watch on the enlarged movie screen with a bucket of greased up popcorn sitting in your lap for late night entertainment. The longer Sooyoung thought about it, the harder the action of clearing became, the strangled sound causing Seulgi to lift her bowed head.

        “So, you’re saying Joohyun didn’t know by then?” Sooyoung queried, voice struggling to hide how much Seulgi’s story was affecting her. There began a soft burning in Sooyoung’s chest, budding into a raging fury over the fact Joohyun had had the nerve to ask Seulgi, who had been hurting all this time, to cut their strings for Seungwan.

        Why wasn’t Seulgi as mad as she was? Why hadn’t she ever lashed out from the pain and anger she’d been feeling for all these years? What had happened to her spirit, her will to fight?

        “Know what?” Seulgi fired back, still lost in her sorrow.

        “That you’re her soulmate? That you’ve been her soulmate this whole time? That asking you to do this was just a tiny bit self-centered of her?” With each question, Sooyoung’s voice rose higher and higher, like the growing flames of a forest fire.

        There was another pause. She could see the cogs of Seulgi’s mind slowly turning while she tried to control her breathing and the rapid pumping of her heart.

        “How could she know?” Seulgi answered, sounding slightly exasperated. Her strength was beginning to fail her and she leaned back against the sink for support. At that moment, Seulgi wanted nothing more but to curl up beneath the blankets of her hotel bed and sleep the rest of today and tomorrow away.

        Maybe if she slept long enough, the wedding wouldn’t actually happen. Maybe if she dreamed it away, she’d wake up and Joohyun would finally be hers. But all of that was just wishful, childish thinking. The wedding was inevitable. Seulgi would cut the strings for Joohyun, for the love of her life.

        Seulgi would pass her soulmate on to another without a second thought. Then she’d disappear from their lives like a phantom. She would move halfway around the world or maybe she’d travel the world. The goal was to get off the grid, and as far as Seulgi was concerned, she had gotten pretty good at disappearing.

        “I never told Joohyun outright that our strings were tied together,” Seulgi said, her words heavy. The regret in her voice is so thick that it’s palpable in the air between them. “I feel like Joohyun would’ve said something if she found out the truth, right? She wouldn’t be with Seungwan if she knew. At least, I’d like to think she wouldn’t be.”

        Truthfully, neither one of them knew for sure what went on in Joohyun’s mind. Even after years of friendship, the engineer was still an enigma to both of the young women. Neither of them truly knew the older woman’s thoughts. Unlike her, they didn’t possess the ability to read her character like an open book.

        “I think she knows,” Sooyoung said. “She must have known at some point…or wondered at least about the possibility of you being her soulmate. You almost always get an inkling when someone close to you has a crush on you. I knew when Yeri had a crush on me practically the second we met!”

        “I mean maybe deep down Joohyun knows the truth,” Seulgi began slowly, pondering Sooyoung’s words. “But then again, maybe not. With all those other people she’s dated, with Seungwan in her life…it’s possible Joohyun could’ve interpreted her feelings for me, if she had any to begin with, as something else.”

        “She could’ve buried or battered them down into nothing in order to kind of protect herself from the truth. She might be just oblivious, not everyone can tell when their best friend is madly in love with them,” Seulgi runs a hand through her disheveled brown hair, trying to find the right words to make sense of her thoughts on the matter.

        “Besides, people all around the world react differently when they meet their soulmates. It’s never the same feeling twice, never the same experience again. Not every love story in this world unfolds as perfectly as yours and Yeri’s, Sooyoung-ah. I think you should remember that,” she says gently, doing her best to remind the younger woman of the vast world they were a part of, that nothing was guaranteed for anyone.

        There were some questions that no one had an answer for. There were just somethings that didn’t work out. The universe played tricks on people all the time, and for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, it had chosen Seulgi for its grandest scheme yet.

        “Anyways, it’s hard to know the answer since Joohyun’s the one getting married tomorrow, huh?” The pair were silent once more, contemplating everything that had been said. Seulgi squinted as she checked her wristwatch. Seungwan and Joohyun’s dinner rehearsal would be over soon. She knew they only had so much time left before someone came knocking on the bathroom door, wondering why the facility was locked from the inside.

        A prickle of nervousness washed over Seulgi for the first time since Sooyoung had slid the deadbolt over the threshold. What if Joohyun or Seungwan noticed they’d been missing from the dinner party for so long? What if they started looking for the two of them? How could they explain the way they’d locked themselves up in the bathroom without them suspecting anything?

        To her surprise, however, Sooyoung continued to keep asking questions rather than letting everything drop. “Did Joohyun ever answer your question?” Sooyoung asked, biting at the inside of her thumb thoughtfully. She had somewhat regained her temper after listening to Seulgi’s reasoning.

        “Huh? What question?” Seulgi threw the nurse practitioner a confused look from across the room. “You know,” Sooyoung replied hesitantly, eyes shifting back and forth. “Did Joohyun ever give you an answer when you asked if Seungwan was worth it?”

        Seulgi choked out a forced laugh. “She didn’t have to tell me for me to know.” Sooyoung bit her lip. She still had a plethora of questions Seulgi hadn’t answered yet. “Aren’t you angry at her for choosing Seungwan over you?” Is the first to bubble forth from her lips.

        To her surprise, Seulgi’s eyebrows furrowed, and her calm expression transformed into one filled with confusion. “What are you talking about, Sooyoung-ah?” Sooyoung rolled her eyes. Trust Seulgi to be this dense, even after everything that’s happened.

        “I mean how could you not have built up some kind of vengeful feelings towards Seungwan? If I were in your shoes…I think I’d end up hating her at some point or another. I couldn’t bear to be friends with her, especially after the engagement and the wedding announcements,” the younger woman confessed, biting her lip.

        Unexpectedly, Seulgi burst out laughing, as if Sooyoung had told the funniest joke she’d ever heard. The author doubled over, holding her stomach for a few minutes before leaning back against the bathroom sinks and wiping away the tear that had rolled down her cheek. “Oh, you’re hilarious, Sooyoung-ah. You really are,” Seulgi giggled.

        Sooyoung remained as she was, arms crossed, studying the older woman until she completely collected herself. Reminding herself that Seulgi was currently under an immense amount of stress, Sooyoung did her best to refrain from being too rash with pushing her to answer her questions. She wondered how Seulgi hadn’t broken down completely while recounting the lengthy tale of her and Joohyun.

        “You know, I could never bring myself to hate Seungwan-ah. No matter what,” Seulgi murmured thoughtfully, having calmed down enough to continue. “She’s helped me in more ways than one over the years, especially during college. We were in the same graduating class. We walked the stage together for god’s sake! Even in spite of her asking my soulmate to marry her, there’s no doubt that she’s one of the closest friends I’ve had. That I still have.”

        Seulgi’s shoulders slumped, feeling the wrath inside of her dying down and the familiar wave of sorrow rising up again. “Look…I know I’ve been pushing you guys away for the longest time. I know you miss our little get-togethers where we’d catch up with each other’s achievements and life, that I’ve been a shadow in all of your lives over the past couple of years. But now you know why. You understand. Right, Sooyoung-ah?”

        Sooyoung fought back the urge to let her own tears spill down her face. “I could handle a lot of things while Joohyun has remained oblivious,” Seulgi nodded, eyes focused on counting the tiles on the floor. “The boyfriends, the girlfriends, the inquires she had about whether or not they were the one or not. But after a little while, seeing her and Seungwan together for so long began to affect me. I tore myself away, I put myself first. And for that, I’m sorry.”

        Seeing Sooyoung in tears made Seulgi swallow hard. She hadn’t been aware of how much her actions affected those around her, the people she cared about most. “I’m so, so sorry, Sooyoung-ah. I was too blind to see that I was the one getting in the way of Joohyun and I’s fate all along this whole time. I’m the one who’s caused all of this pain, I just know it.”

        Surging forward, Sooyoung shook her head. She wrapped her arms around Seulgi’s shaking frame, allowing the older woman to cry into her shoulder. “Don’t say that,” Sooyoung whispered, looking at their reflections in the mirror, watching the way Seulgi was breaking down before her eyes. Seulgi – the one who was the strongest amongst their tight knit friend group. Seulgi – who was selfless enough to consider cutting her string from her soulmate’s.

        How were they going to make it through the wedding at this rate? How could she stop Seulgi from cutting her string and tying Joohyun’s to Seungwan’s? This was an outrageous mess, and knew she had to fill Yeri in as soon as she was able to. “We’ve still got tomorrow,” Sooyoung murmured, swaying the two of them back and forth ever so slightly as she tried to calm down the older woman.

        Her mind was racing, straining to find a solution to the mess all of them had gotten tangled into. Yeri would know what to do. Her fiancé had a knack for coming up with easy solutions to complex problems. Sooyoung wished Yeri were here right now with them in this fancy bathroom, absorbing every detail Seulgi had to offer them with her heart shattering tale.

        She had to keep Seulgi in the bathroom for as long as possible. She needed to stall the older woman in order to buy herself more time to come up with the answer, to get as much information as she possibly could before the night ended. “A lot can happen in less than twenty-four hours, Seulgi-yah,” Sooyoung said before pulling away from Seulgi’s grasp. “Maybe something will change Joohyun’s mind. Maybe the impossible can come true.”

        The taller woman reached over for another wad of paper towels, passing it to her teary eyed friend with a small smile. “Feels good to finally let it all out, huh?” Sooyoung said softly, helping Seulgi daub away her tears. After everything Seulgi had done for Sooyoung, the least she could do in this moment was hold Seulgi in her time of need.

        She knew that now, more than ever, Seulgi would need her friends’ support, someone she could cling to who would tell her everything was going to be alright. Biting her lip, Sooyoung prayed Yeri’s flight had not been delayed. Gently, Sooyoung Seulgi’s thick brown locks, fighting to keep her own tears from spilling down her cheeks.

        Could Sooyoung ever have taken Seulgi’s place? She couldn’t help but imagine what she’d be doing if she were in Seulgi’s shoes right now, if Yeri had been the one to ask her to cut their strings. Would she ever be strong enough to endure the pain of letting go of her soulmate? While Sooyoung liked to think she could, deep down she knew the answer.

        She was absolutely weak in the knees with love for her fiancé. Yeri was someone she knew she couldn’t live without. In Sooyoung’s mind, the universe allowed them to find each other to help ease Sooyoung’s sorrow for her mother’s passing. Perfect timing, she would always tell Yeri, and the taller woman believed it wholeheartedly.

        She and Yeri had found each other at the right time, the right place, as if they were both searching for the last piece of the puzzle of their lives and instantly fit together. Not a day went by when she realized just how lucky she was to have met Yeri when she did, all those years ago, crying by herself in the women’s bathroom after class.

        It pained her to realize that Seulgi had never experienced this kind of moment, that perhaps the author never would. If Seulgi truly went through with cutting the strings tomorrow…what would the consequences of her actions entail?

        Throughout her life, Sooyoung heard rumors, tall tales, of stories never proven to be concrete, of people with the sight cutting strings and tying them to other people. As one could expect, back in the days when the sight of the strings was a common characteristic, there were people with rebellious natures also roaming the earth. For