“Now you know everything I have to say,” Seulgi whispers, studying the younger woman with a set of tired eyes. After telling Sooyoung about Seungwan, she somehow felt lighter, heavier in a different sense. Sooyoung had been right, talking about this had been a type of catharsis for her. But she knew better than to believe it was all over. You can’t run from fate forever, it’ll catch up to you eventually, so what was the point of trying?

        The wedding was still on, the dinner rehearsal is nearly over. She can hear the muffled chatter outside the safety of the door, the clinks of wine flutes in toast, the gentle scraping of fork and knife against porcelain. The broken woman faces the mirror once more to fix any imperfections in her makeup as best as she could.

        Sooyoung sighs and comes to stand at the sink beside her, rummaging around in her clutch. Thankfully, neither of them look like half the mess they thought they did. “Here,” Sooyoung murmurs, passing Seulgi a small container of loose powder to daub away where her mascara had begun running.

        “Thank you,” she said, grasping the compact within her shaking hands. Seulgi had been tired of bearing the weight of her secret alone, of harboring her feelings away and pushing herself to remain strong in the eyes of her friends. Joohyun’s wedding and pushed her to her breaking point. In the end, she was glad it was Sooyoung she’d spilled everything to.

        What if it had been Seungwan who’d been gifted the sight? Or even worse…Joohyun? At the thought of her, Seulgi subconsciously pulled up a mental picture of the bride to be. She envisioned her sitting at her table, listening along to a joke Seungwan’s father telling stories about his daughter, holding Seungwan’s hand in her lap.

        Joohyun’s eyes would crinkle up at the corners and sparkle like black diamonds beneath the light. The corners of would draw back ever so slightly and she would laugh, quietly at first to remain polite, but harder once everyone else joined in. She was beautiful tonight, more so than Seulgi had ever seen her.

        Joohyun had been glowing with life, as vibrant as a spring field filled with flowers. Seulgi had sat at her and Sooyoung’s table, picking at her food and only half listening to the conversation around her, watching her soulmate out of the corner of her eyes. She had felt lifeless in comparison to everyone around her, and the sensation still remained, riddled deep in the marrow of her bones as if she were already withering away.

        Seulgi bit her lip to snap herself out of it and passed Sooyoung’s makeup back with a small smile. There wasn’t any sense in hoping that tomorrow wouldn’t, either. Seulgi had learned that lesson years ago. She glanced at the younger woman beside her, expecting her to motion for them to leave.

        Yet despite the older girl having finished talking, Sooyoung remains motionless and expressionless, waiting for Seulgi’s next move with calculating eyes. Suddenly, nothing felt real to her. Not when she glared at her right hand, or glanced at the bathroom door, or listened to the sudden eruption of laughter from the outside.

        Anger spiked through her at the sight of the red string tied to her pinky, the burning color seemed more vibrant than ever against the pale ivory of the sink. For the first time, Seulgi wished she could untie the string, pretend as if it weren’t permanently a part of her. She wished she’d been soulmates with someone else. She wished she’d said something, anything to Joohyun. She wished she didn’t have the sight.

        But then the regret came flooding through her, dousing the flames of her rage, and Seulgi knew she wouldn’t have chosen anyone other than Joohyun. Even if she had a choice, she knew everything happened for a reason. “You won’t change your mind?” Sooyoung asked in a low tone, though both of them already knew Seulgi’s answer.

        Slowly, the author shook her head from left to right, confirming Sooyoung’s suspicions. “Think about what you’re saying, what you’re doing,” Sooyoung protested, pinching at the bridge of her eyebrows. She felt as though she were talking to a brick wall, hitting dead ends and getting nowhere with the stubborn woman.

        They had been in the bathroom for what seemed like ages now, and had been lucky enough to avoid anyone knocking on the door, but Sooyoung knew her time with Seulgi was short and precious.

        Desperation began creeping into her voice, her eyes going wild. “Listen to me – even if this makes Joohyun happy, you’re going to be miserable, Seulgi...hell, you’ve been miserable for years already. What about your own happiness? I’ve read the lore on the red strings, I know what will happen if you cut your string.”

        Seulgi shrugged, but Sooyoung knew the older woman was barely holding onto her nonchalant attitude. “You’ll lose her forever, Seul. You can’t retie a string once it’s been cut, you know that. Your connection is severed until the day you die and then what will you do?”

        Seulgi lifted her head, trying but failing to keep back the tremor of her voice. “I can always find someone else.” Sooyoung scoffed, “Yeah right, as if you’d want anyone other than Joohyun. You’d probably try and find a new friend group, too, huh?” Seulgi swallowed, hard, Sooyoung’s onslaught of harsh words were causing a lump to form in .

        She backed against the far wall slowly, and Sooyoung inched forward, growing bolder by the second. “Don’t do this. We won’t function the same without you, Seulgi. We want to help you, we need you…you can’t just push us all away like we never meant anything to you! We’re just as much a part of you as you are of us, not even cutting your string can make you deny that.”

        Seulgi shakes her head and stalks over to the bathroom door, through with conversation. “What if Joohyun finds out afterwards that it’s you?” Sooyoung interjects, halting Seulgi’s hand as she reaches for out for the lock. “How do you think she’d feel, knowing that her real soulmate just stood by and allowed her to walk into the arms of someone that she isn’t truly supposed to spend the rest of her life with?”

        Seulgi paused. “She’d understand,” she says quietly. “And if she doesn’t understand at first, then she will understand, because she’ll know that she was the one who asked me in the first place.” Sooyoung gapes at her. “You’re…nearly her entire life’s been devoted to searching for you, you know that?” The taller woman takes a step forward, eyes pleading for Seulgi to change her mind.

        “You’ve been right under her nose this whole time, what do you think that’ll do to her?” Seulgi purses her lips together. With one flick of her wrist, the bolt slides out of place. She had finally reached her breaking point. “We should head back before anyone notices we’ve been gone for too long, Sooyoung,” Seulgi murmurs, shakily moving her hand towards the door handle as she wipes away the last of her tear streaks.

        They should’ve left a long time ago. Seulgi casts one last look at the unmoved woman before stepping out of the bathroom and into the light of the dining hall. She doesn’t look behind her to see if Sooyoung’s following her. Something tells the older woman that she isn’t, that Sooyoung is still backed up against the bathroom sinks, staring blankly at the door as it shut behind her.

        As Seulgi makes her way back towards her table, she catches Joohyun’s eye, the last person she wants to see. As she gazes into the eyes of the woman she loves, she sees a hint of confusion and worry lingering in Joohyun’s pitch black pupils.

        Horribly faking a smile in Joohyun’s direction, Seulgi alters her course from settling back down in her assigned seat to walking towards door of the restaurant as soon as she retrieves her purse from her seat. Seulgi needed to get out of there while she still had herself somewhat put together, she couldn’t break down now – not in front of all these people.

        A second longer, and Seulgi would fall apart under Joohyun’s concerned gaze. When she’s made it a few feet away from the tables, she hears the scrape of a chair against the floor and knows it’s her who’s trailing after her, no doubt suspecting that something was wrong.

        But Seulgi’s got a head start and much longer legs, and as soon as Joohyun steps out of the front doors to look for her, Seulgi is gone. There’s not a trace left of the younger woman except for a small splatter of teardrops beneath Joohyun’s shoes.

        Joohyun stands there for a moment, allowing the darkness to envelop her. The streetlight across the intersection threatens to flicker out. Joohyun takes a deep breath of the warm night air. Her head swivels left to right in hopes of catching a glimpse of Seulgi somewhere hidden in the narrow shadows of the street.

        After another minute or two, when it’s clear Seulgi’s truly disappeared, Joohyun worries her bottom lip between her teeth. She swings the heavy glass doors of the building open, and steps through the threshold, returning to Seungwan’s side once more.

**

        Seulgi barely gets a wink of sleep when she gets back to her hotel room. In fact, she doesn’t sleep at all.

        Although she’s exhausted beyond belief after spilling everything to Sooyoung and had flopped down onto her bed the moment she’d unlocked the door, she had remained awake. How could she have slept, anyways? It was a futile endeavor, one that she lost hope in quickly.

        The author tossed and turned in her queen sized bed, staring up at the ceiling, silently asking the gods why they’d inflicted her with the curse of seeing the strings in the first place. Without the sight, she wouldn’t have known Joohyun was meant to be with her. Perhaps she would’ve been spared of the ever present pain radiating in her chest.

        Her heart ache had grown, festered like some kind of cancerous wound in the pit of her chest. Seulgi had read somewhere that a person could actually die from a broken heart. Did that mean when she watched and listened to Joohyun as she whispered the words, I do, to Seungwan, she’d stumble over from her heartstrings snapping?

        Turning her head to the side, Seulgi catches a glimpse at the clock on the bedside table. Four o’clock in the morning. Joohyun truly was getting married in a few hours, and something sputtered in Seulgi’s chest. She felt like a baby bird flapping its wings, too scared to jump from the nest and too weak to learn how to fly. The universe had left her with clipped wings.

        While it was true Seulgi had known this day had been coming, it still didn’t feel like it was unfolding before her. Maybe Sooyoung was right, maybe tomorrow there’d be some chance occurrence that would lead Joohyun and Seungwan’s wedding to be called off. A lot can happen in less than twenty-four hours, Seulgi-yah.

        Maybe in less than twenty-four hours, Joohyun had fallen out of love with Seungwan and would leave that church wit