one
loose stringsHaseul wouldn't believe in the red string of fate if she wasn't one of the few people cursed with the ability to see them.
Everyone is supposed to be born with a small red looplet around their finger, visible only to them. When they reach a certain age, the looplet grows a semitransparent string that leads somewhere, untethered, impossible to truly track. The string becomes a vibrant red when you encounter your soulmate and it latches to their looplet. The strings are always private; the only people able to see it are you, your soulmate, and occasionally, if you have a truly strong trust with someone, you can see theirs too. Except there are a few people born in the world who can see everyone's strings.
Haseul is one of them.
She finds out she has this ability when she meets this girl on her first ever day of school, a girl who insists on being called Yves. Yves is a little older than Haseul, and aside from the extreme perseverance to go by some nickname, Yves seems a little wiser. So when Haseul grows curious and reaches out for Yves's hand while they sit on the floor to eat from their lunchboxes and tugs at the red looplet, Yves sets Haseul straight.
"Why do you have this red string around your finger?" Haseul asks innocently, looking over Yves's hand in both of her own.
Yves blinks. "You… can see it?"
Haseul nods. "It's pretty! Can you tie one around mine too?" She holds out her hand for Yves, a wide smile on her face.
"Everyone should have one. Don't you have your own?"
Haseul's eyes suddenly go wide. "...Was it a homework assignment to bring red string to class?"
"No…" Yves shakes her head, "You're born with it. Everyone is. When you grow older, it connects you with your soulmate!"
Haseul looks at her hands and purses her lips. "I don't have one…"
Yves frowns to hear that, and she puts her sandwich back into her ziplock bag and stands up, pulling Haseul with her to the teacher. "Miss Ahn!" Yves calls for her, "Do you have red string? I wanna make my friend a loop!"
Miss Ahn seems surprised, knowing that everyone should already have their looplet, but she takes one look at Haseul's eager face and smiles, moving to the arts and crafts bin in the corner of the class to hand Yves a bundle of red yarn. "Don't use more than you need."
Haseul gets a red string that day, but it doesn't last.
When Haseul grows older and reaches high school, she watches as some of her friends from the grade below her receive their translucent strings. Heejin gets hers first, and Haseul's eyes widen to see a pink, transparent line extend from Heejin's ring finger. She always thought that the red string of fate was some elaborate ruse that everyone tries to trick her with, but Heejin's is the first time she believes it. Heejin acts differently the day she gets it, eager and filled with more energy than usual. She doesn't expect anyone to understand either, since no one else can see, but Haseul sees. Haseul sees it clearly.
Haseul also watches as Hyunjin receives hers a few months later, and then they all meet up for lunch that day, Haseul sees the two pink lines of Heejin and Hyunjin's fingers connect and form a bright red tether between the two of them. Haseul's secret comes out before she can stop herself.
"You two are soulmates." Haseul suddenly blurts the second she sees their red strings connect.
Heejin scrunches her nose to hear such a thing. "What?"
Haseul points to the space between their hands. "Your strings."
Heejin and Hyunjin both look down, seeing how there's a new red line connecting their ring fingers. They only notice it then, thanks to Haseul telling them, and after lunch, after the surprise wears away a little and they think more about the situation and how they came to realize they're each others' soulmates, they both direct their attention back to Haseul. Something isn't adding up.
"If you can see ours, why can't we see yours?" Hyunjin asks, confused, "We're supposed to be close, aren't we?"
Haseul grins faintly, but it's forced and bittersweet as she lifts up her hand. "I see everyone's. We are close, but even if you could see mine… there's nothing here for you to see."
They both express sympathy for Haseul, Heejin more so than Hyunjin, but Haseul waves their concern off and instead tries to redirect the spotlight back on to them, insisting they be happy for themselves and for each other. When Heejin and Haseul say goodbye to Hyunjin and head to their gym class together, Haseul even slips Heejin an old giftcard she had in her purse for some restaurant, insisting that Heejin use it to take Hyunjin out and celebrate.
When Heejin shows up to their shared health class the next day and throws the giftcard back on Haseul's desk, saying with a smile that Hyunjin refused to be taken to Applebee's on their first date and dragged Heejin someplace else, Haseul just laughs.
Maybe she does believe in soulmates a little more after that.
Haseul doesn't get to see much of Sooyoung during high school. Their schedules always end up being the exact opposite- their lunch times don't even add up -and Sooyoung's always busy with sports and Haseul's always busy studying. They manage to find some time on a weekend to go out for lunch together, and they finally get to catch up.
"Hyunjin and Heejin are soulmates." Haseul says suddenly well into their lunch, with full of salad.
"Are they?" Sooyoung repeats and eventually nods, "Good for them. They seem like a good match."
"Can you believe that? Finding your soulmate when you're only, what, fifteen?" Haseul shakes her head a little at the thought. She's still vaguely bitter about the idea of soulmates with her curse and her lack of string, and maybe because she doesn't have one, she's talked herself into not wanting one.
"They are pretty young to be finding out who they'll be spending the rest of their lives with." Sooyoung agrees, though there's a hint of restraint to her voice. She's been making a conscious effort to hide her left hand from Haseul the whole lunch.
"Half the time I don't even want to spend the rest of my life with me, much less add another person into the equation…"
Sooyoung just laughs and relaxes a little. "Can't relate."
"Not everyone else is as egotistic as you are."
"Not everyone else is as amazing as I am."
Haseul rolls her eyes and smiles to herself. "Your soulmate is going to have a fun time with you, I can tell."
Sooyoung just shrugs, smiling too. "She seems to like me very much, thank you."
An admission like that makes Haseul raise an eyebrow curiously. "'She'?" Haseul asks, interest bleeding into her voice, "You've met her already?"
Sooyoung finally slips her left hand from out of her coat pocket so Haseul can see the bright red string leading somewhere out of the restaurant. "Remember that exchange student I told you about in my theatre class?"
"Vivi?" Haseul already knows the answer.
"We became linked on her eighteenth birthday." Sooyoung quirks a brow teasingly, "She told me I was the best present she could've ever received."
"I hope you gave her a receipt so she could return you someday." Haseul teases back, laughing faintly into her drink as she raises her glass to her lips.
"Oh, shut up, Haseul! I'm a catch!"
Haseul rolls her eyes and looks away, waving Sooyoung off. "Ah, please… I've been trying to lose you ever since I reeled you in back in kindergarten."
Sooyoung places a hand over her chest and feigns offense. "Really? Even after I tied our fingers together and made myself your first soulmate?"
"'First' soulmate?" Haseul repeats, incredulous. Her gaze drops down her plate of food and she sighs, her smile turning bittersweet as she thinks of her bare ring finger, "You're probably my only soulmate…"
Sooyoung glances at Haseul's hands on the table and frowns. They were close enough where even if Haseul couldn't see everyone's strings, she'd at least be able to see Sooyoung's now. She sees the complete absence of color to Haseul's left hand and softens her expression out of sympathy.
It seems as if Haseul really is cursed to be alone.
University proves to be a bigger punch in the face to Haseul's curse.
Students in high school are normally too young to find their soulmates- Heejin and Hyunjin are just a special case. The pink strings only form between one's later teenage years, so Haseul didn't have to always see pink strings or red strings during high school save for a few rare occasions. When she gets to college, everything changes.
Everyone has a pink string. Haseul sees them everywhere. She walks through them on the way to class. And for every four pink strings Haseul sees, she sees a vibrant red one too, taunting her, mocking her, lingering around her at all times. Vivi and Sooyoung end up attending Haseul's rival school, and once Heejin and Hyunjin graduate, they join Haseul at her university. Even being around her friends can be suffocating just to see all those strings, seeing everyone's soulmate or seeing that they're promised a soulmate in the future. Haseul's talked herself out of wanting one, but she can barely breathe when her whole life is just strings and soulmates and strings and soulmates. She curses everyone else who doesn't have to see everyone's strings, or even those people who have unbreakable bonds with their friends and yet are unable to see strings but their own. Haseul has to see every string every second of every day. She hates it.
In her classes, Haseul always insists on a seat in the front, and if seating is assigned, she begs her professors to let her sit in the front row. In the front row, Haseul only has to see the professor's string. If she sits in the back, she has to see dozens of strings leading everywhere. Her whole life becomes avoiding strings. It's so exhausting, and Haseul just wishes she could take scissors to everyone's strings just so she doesn't have to see them. Too bad the strings weren't tangible…
Haseul studies music and psychology at university, but she doesn't get the opportunity to take many psychology classes until her second year because of general classes she's forced to take first. On the first day of her neurology class her second year, Haseul sits in the front as usual and tries to ignore everyone else coming in. The professor is late, and it's about seven minutes past the start time when the door opens again, and Haseul looks over for some reason, probably because she wants to see what professor just wasted her time like that, but instead it's another student who just walks in. The student- tall, blonde, and obviously exhausted -just freezes as she looks at the empty front of the room, seeing no professor. Haseul is the first person that blonde sees, and the blonde makes eye contact with her and points at the empty podium with her free hand.
"Is he really not here yet?" The blonde asks, eyebrows furrowed.
Haseul just shakes her head. The blonde just shrugs and makes her way to the seat next to Haseul; since she's late, that's the only seat left to take, everyone else trying to stay away from the front if possible.
"I'm impressed. Normally I'm the late one." The blonde says as she sits down. She sighs as she accepts her fate in the front row. "Sad. I was hoping to sit in the back and doze off in the middle of class… Can't do that when I'm in the front."
Haseul smiles faintly to herself and shakes her head, amused. She expects that to be the end of the conversation, a mutual bonding over the pain of staying awake during class, but Haseul instead watches as the blonde pulls the lid off her coffee and pulls a can from her bag, opening it and pouring the energy drink straight into the coffee. Haseul raises an eyebrow and opens to speak, but she can't say anything. She can only just watch, stunned into silence and frankly very concerned for this blonde girl sitting next to her.
"I'm gonna die." The blonde says before taking a drink of the unholy concoction she just made, and she glances at Haseul once she swallows down that nasty taste, catching sight of Haseul's horrified expression. She can only laugh at the sight of it, "Relax! It's not my first time mixing energy drinks and espresso."
Haseul just blinks, shaking her head with still open. "That… only makes me more concerned…"
The blonde laughs again. "Me too, honestly. But you know how uni's like." She taps her temple, telling Haseul to think it over.
"I guess…" Haseul shivers at the thought.
The blonde grabs her cup and holds it out for Haseul, laughing to herself under her breath, trying to hide it. "What, wanna try a little?"
"And make my heart stop from caffeine overload?" Haseul asks incredulously, looking between the girl and the coffee. Her expression falls, however, when she realizes that dying would get her out of her classes for the semester. "...On second thought, let me give that a shot…"
Haseul gets handed the coffee and she takes a sip, squeezing her eyes tightly shut at the bitter taste and trying to air out her tongue to get the taste off her tastebuds. "That's horrid." She pauses and blinks, sitting up a little straighter, "...But it really does wake you up."
"Right?" The blonde laughs again. Haseul realizes that she laughs a lot, though she doesn't really mind it. "I'm Jinsoul."
Haseul looks Jinsoul over once that taste is out of , and she flashes a brief grin. "Haseul."
Jinsoul smiles too, bright and vaguely lopsided, but before she can say anything, the door opens behind her and the professor walks in, not caring that he was ten minutes late. Jinsoul glances back at Haseul while she pulls out her laptop to take notes, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Let's hope we can last this whole class without crashing and passing out on the counters from the mix." She teases, a playful grin on her lips.
Haseul's eyes widen. "There's a crash?!" She asks in a hushed whisper.
"Oh, a terrible one…" Jinsoul laughs.
Haseul curses this Jinsoul, curses how she talked her into drinking from that evil brew, and she ultimately just focuses on her notebook when the professor hands out his syllabus. The professor goes over the syllabus in about ten minutes before he starts his lecture, and Haseul hears Jinsoul typing down her notes for the first few minutes of the lecture, but she glances over halfway through the lecture to see how Jinsoul's watching cat video compilations off of Youtube, and Haseul just wonders how this girl hasn't flunked out yet.
Haseul admittedly grows distracted by the cat videos, watching a few in between powerpoint slides, and she finds herself smiling and biting down on her tongue to stop herself from laughing at a few of them. Jinsoul watches a full thirty minute compilation video and goes to the search bar to look for something else, and Haseul glances over to see Jinsoul type, and that's when she freezes, eyes shooting wide at what she sees.
No string shoots out from Jinsoul's finger. There's no pink or red trail. There's just the mere red looplet around her left finger, leading nowhere. By their age, everyone receives their pink or red trails. Unless Jinsoul is one of those gifted students who's only like sixteen in advanced college courses, but Haseul looks Jinsoul over again and knows there's no way she's younger than twenty.
But no. There's just a looplet around Jinsoul's finger.
And Haseul smiles to see it.
She isn't the only defected one when it comes to those damn red strings.
Cat videos and deadly caffeine mixes don't quite help Jinsoul become a better student. She's struggling to understand the material, Because you're too busy watching vines in the middle of class, Haseul always tells her, but Haseul always helps her anyways. They grow closer because they study together, and at first Haseul is a little wary to help, concerned that Jinsoul is just using her to save her grades and to do the work for her, but along the way Haseul sees how much Jinsoul cares about the subject but just hates class. Haseul can respect that. Haseul comes to love their study sessions together. Studying with Jinsoul makes things seem less stressful, even if they accidentally watch vine compilations until 11:30pm and , they have an assignment due at 11:59-
Haseul just laughs when she gets hers in at 11:59:37 and Jinsoul's gets in at 12:00:01. Jinsoul almost cries right there on the spot. Haseul just wraps her arm around Jinsoul, helping her calm down as she uses her free hand to type up an email on Jinsoul's laptop to their professor, saying how problems with the internet delayed her submission until two seconds after the deadline. The excuse works, and the two of them just laugh about it afterwards, promising to hold off on the vine compilations until after they submit their assignments.
Even if studying with Jinsoul makes cramming and last-minute assignments less stressful than they should be, finals turn out to be hell for them both. For once, Haseul feels like she's gonna lose herself to her stress, or to death, if she keeps drinking Jinsoul's energy drink-coffee mixtures. They study in Haseul's dorm, her roommate returning back home for the weekend before finals, with Jinsoul using Haseul's desk and Haseul sitting on her bed. They study for four hours together, taking minimal breaks and doing their best to absorb every ounce of information they can. Eventually Jinsoul closes her textbook and smiles widely, clapping her hands together and sounding absolutely ecstatic.
"I finished reading all the chapters!" She exclaims, "And I actually understand it!"
Jinsoul looks over at Haseul, expecting to hear Haseul subtly gloat by saying she finished reviewing the textbook an hour ago and was moving on to study something else for the class but still remaining happy for her for finishing, but instead Jinsoul just watches Haseul close her eyes and cover her face with her hands, letting out a frustrated whimper. Jinsoul immediately freezes, blinking from surprise, utterly shocked that Haseul is the one stuck learning and that Jinsoul is the one actually doing okay for herself. As she's frozen, Haseul closes her laptop and pushes it closer to the edge of the bed to give herself space, and she just leans over, keeping her face covered.
"I'm only on chapter four…" Haseul says weakly, voice breaking and mixed with something Jinsoul can't recognize right away. When Jinsoul sees Haseul pull her hands away and moving to just cover , Jinsoul notices the redness of Haseul's face and the way Haseul draws in a sudden breath, like she's sniffling. That causes Jinsoul to jump out of her chair and immediately join Haseul on the bed, wrapping her arms around Haseul's shoulders.
"Chapter four… that's… that's just a little under a third of the way there! You're just taking your time!" Jinsoul forces a smile and a laugh, squeezing Haseul's arms, "I probably skimmed through it far too quickly! I'm gonna fail at this rate if I don't read harder. You're doing better than me!"
Haseul just shakes her head, refusing to look Jinsoul in the eye. "No, Jinsoul… I forget everything and I'm just getting more and more confused as I go along… I don't understand half of this anymore." She admits, moving to grip the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes.
"Hey, don't say that…" Jinsoul frowns, pursing her lips as she tries to think of ways to cheer Haseul up, "I can help you go over it! I only understand it because you taught it to me earlier in the semester, so if I just use your own words against you… that should help!"
"We've been here for hours, Jinsoul…" Haseul mutters, "I'm not going to waste any more of your time."
Jinsoul frowns deeper, lowering her gaze away from Haseul. "It's not a waste of my time… You spent all that time teaching me this stuff. I'd be happy to do it back."
Haseul finally glances over at Jinsoul cautiously, skeptic to believe Jinsoul's words. "You really would…?"
Jinsoul can see the redness around Haseul's eyes, and the glossiness that shrouds the almond brown her eyes used to be. It makes Jinsoul want to frown even harder at the sight, but she forces a smile instead to show Haseul she means it. "Yeah! I'd love to!" Quickly she glances away, and she pulls out her phone from her pocket and unlocks it, bringing up a page in her web browser, "Look! This cat's trying to fit into a box! It's way too large for that box!"
Haseul snorts, unable to believe Jinsoul is trying to use a cat video to cheer her up, but she indulges Jinsoul and watches it, and it ends up bringing a wide smile to Haseul's face. She still sniffles, residual from crying before, and she wipes at her eyes and tries to get herself back together. "It broke the box…" She laughs weakly, seeing the video loop to show that moment again.
"I know. It needs a bigger box." Jinsoul laughs a little too. She pulls up Youtube on her phone and finds a short compilation of more videos, only about ten minutes long, "Come on, let's take a little break before we continue studying."
Haseul just nods, and she rests her head on Jinsoul's shoulder as Jinsoul holds the phone between them so they can watch together. Haseul finds herself laughing and cheering up with each little clip. Her head feels a little more cleared and she feels like she has a better mindset going into studying when Jinsoul reaches for Haseul's textbook and opens it again for them. Haseul moves a little further away to give Jinsoul more space to join her on the bed, and they sit shoulder to shoulder as Jinsoul points to various sections and diagrams to go over.
"How did you phrase this to me again…?" Jinsoul asks herself, and she's able to find the words with ease in a matter of seconds.
Haseul just looks at Jinsoul and smiles every time she recalls some of her words, and as her gaze follows Jinsoul's hand as she points to a picture in the textbook, Haseul can't help but look at the red loop around Jinsoul's finger. Haseul draws in a breath at the sight, letting out a soft sigh.
Whoever turns out to be on the end of that red string one day will be so lucky to have Jinsoul as their soulmate.
When they become upperclassmen, Haseul and Jinsoul decide to move into the campus apartments together. It's a pleasant change, being able to have a larger living space and some independence from the university. They're also given the opportunity to cook for themselves and to finally be free of that cafeteria food. That's probably the most attractive quality for Haseul. Jinsoul likes the idea because students are allowed to have pets in the apartments. She doesn't tell Haseul about her plans immediately, but she does someday.
Haseul and Jinsoul end up taking many of the same classes together, both having degrees in psychology, and they develop a system that they perfect together. They work for a few hours or until a certain checkpoint in their assignments, and then they watch some sort of video or TV show as a reward before calling it a night or before going back to work. They don't have many assignments for their shared class together one night, but they just work in each other's presence anyways, and eventually time rolls around for their break.
Haseul pulls up a cat compilation video for them to watch, her turn to decide what to do during break, and about five minutes in, Haseul glances over to Jinsoul to see Jinsoul with a wistful look on her face.
Haseul furrows her eyebrows out of concern and pauses the video, turning to face Jinsoul. "What's wrong? Normally you're dying from cuteness overload or laughter by now."
Jinsoul pouts her lower lip and crosses her arms, staring at the screen instead of Haseul. "I want a cat." She says, sounding like a five year old kid with how she says it.
Haseul's silent for a second, and she turns back to the screen, thinking it over. Soon she just shrugs, tapping her lip with her finger. "We can get one."
Jinsoul gasps to hear that, covering with her hands. "You mean it?"
That brings a smile to Haseul's face and she nods. "Of course. I've been watching so many of these that I really want one too… Can you just promise me one thing?"
"Anything. Honest to god anything." Jinsoul nods rigorously, "Name your terms and I will abide."
Haseul laughs to hear that. "Just promise me we won't argue over the name?"
Jinsoul nods completely seriously. "Yes. Of course. We will be great parents to our little Oliver."
"Oliver?!" Haseul repeats with near disgust, "No! We're naming it Mittens!"
"Everyone and their mother has a cat named Mittens!" Jinsoul protests, sticking out her tongue, "We're gonna be unique with our name! Oliver!"
"Oliver isn't a unique name either." Haseul lets out a huff and turns away as she crosses her arms, "I want our cat to be named Mittens."
Jinsoul crosses her arms too, lifting her chin in protest. "And I want our cat to be named Oliver."
They never solve their argument. They just ending up getting two cats.
Her music classes will end up being the death of her.
Haseul returns to her apartment after she suffers through her nightly voice class, and she unlocks the door only to be assaulted by the faint smell of something on fire.
"Jinsoul?" Haseul calls out into her apartment, "Have you eaten yet? I'm starving and exhausted."
Jinsoul jogs out of the kitchen into the living room, an apron tied around her waist and a smile on her lips. Oliver follows her, rubbing up against Jinsoul's leg. "Hi! I made dinner!"
Haseul blinks before narrowing her eyes. Jinsoul never makes dinner. She's not allowed to make dinner. "Is that why the apartment smells like it's on fire?"
Jinsoul's smile turns nervous and she looks down at her feet. "I burned dinner."
Yet Haseul just smiles amusedly. "It was a thoughtful attempt."
"I wanted to surprise you when you came back from your night class because I know it's hell." Jinsoul scratches her cheek and forces a smile to her lips again, "Here I thought it was hard to mess up making lasagna too… But not to worry! Pizza Hut is on its way."
Haseul lowers her head out of view and grins to herself, trying to hide a smile that wide from Jinsoul. "Well, I really appreciate that you tried… It's really sweet."
"And I put out the fire in the kitchen too, so we're fine. It just still kinda smells like a fire. It should go away soon."
"I hope you know we'll get fined for messing this place up."
"I fixed it, I fixed it! Have a little faith in me for once."
Haseul smiles again, and she walks further into the living room as an excuse to keep her face away from Jinsoul. "So what did you order?"
"Ahh… Let's see…" Jinsoul taps her chin, "I got some chicken alfredo, some wings, some soda, a large pizza, breadsticks…"
Haseul furrows her eyebrows to herself. "That's a lot of food."
Jinsoul smiles faintly. "I couldn't decide. Oh! And I got you cinnamon sticks too. I know those are your favorite."
Haseul feels her chest go warm to hear it, but she tries to play it off. "Good, because I was going to be really mad if you didn't get me those cinnamon sticks."
"I wouldn't forget!" Jinsoul beams, though that nervous attitude returns soon enough, "And, ah… can I borrow forty dollars? I need it for the order. I would pay for it myself, buuut Spotify emptied my bank account for Premium."
"Forty dollars…?" Haseul looks over her shoulder at Jinsoul, "Do you really think we can eat that much food?"
Jinsoul shrugs. "Leftovers for a couple days…?"
Letting out a sigh, Haseul has to agree. "Yeah, you got a point. Makes up for the hefty bill that I have to cover."
"You're the beeeest." Jinsoul hums with a smile, trying to make Haseul less reluctant.
Haseul smiles to herself and rolls her eyes as she digs through her purse to get her wallet. "You're lucky I love you."
"I love you too!" Jinsoul replies eagerly.
Haseul feels a sharp pain in her left ring finger once those words leave Jinsoul's mouth, and she winces and pulls it out of her purse, expecting to have cut herself somewhere inside, but she sees how there's no mark on her finger. It's odd, but Haseul shrugs it off. She finds her wallet and carefully pulls it out, not wanting to hurt herself again.
They pay for the food once it all arrives, and they spread everything out on their coffee table in the living room and put on some movie for them to watch together. Haseul leans into Jinsoul's side as they eat, nothing new to the two of them. Haseul starts to lose interest as the movie goes on; the acting is bad, the writing is bad, the graphics are bad… Haseul just can't be damned to pay attention anymore.
She can tell Jinsoul feels similarly since Jinsoul focuses more on what she'll eat next than the plot, and considering it's the part of the movie where the protagonists face off against the villains for the first time, it's a rather odd time for Jinsoul to be eyeing the pizza and the chicken alfredo if she truly cares about the movie.
Haseul watches as Jinsoul reaches out for another slice of pizza, but Haseul swats her hand away. "Hey. We have to keep leftovers. I'm gonna be real mad if we don't have anything left over for these upcoming days when this was all so expensive."
Jinsoul instead directs her hand to pick up the pan of chicken alfredo. "I wanted this more anyways."
Haseul grins slightly, and the two of them seem to focus back on the movie. Except Haseul's gaze moves to Jinsoul's left hand holding the pan of pasta as she eats, and she can't help but look at the red loop around her hand. She's been curious about it ever since she met Jinsoul, yet she's never mustered the courage to ask about it.
"Hey, Jinsoul?"
Haseul's response is a soft grunt from a mouthful of food. It makes Haseul smile faintly.
"What's with your looplet?"
Jinsoul slows her chewing, turning to look at Haseul, confused by where the conversation is headed. "...You can see it?" Her gaze drifts to Haseul's hands, seeing nothing there. Jinsoul sets her pan of pasta down, figuring it's best she doesn't get distracted, "Wait… how come I can't see yours?"
"I don't have one. There's nothing there for to see." Haseul lets out a sigh, glancing away, "I can see everyone's strings. I noticed yours didn't have a color trail the day we met. It confuses me. Everyone else I see our age has a pink or red string already, but you…"
"I don't have a trail, yeah." Jinsoul presses her lips into a thin line and shrugs, "You're supposed to get your first trail when you're, like, mentally or emotionally ready to encounter your soulmate. I've always been a little clueless, so I guess I'm just not ready for mine yet. I don't know. I try not to worry too much over it."
Haseul frowns to hear the sadness and quietness to Jinsoul's voice as she talks. It seems like Jinsoul's been ruffled over her string as much as Haseul's been over her own. "Or maybe your soulmate isn't ready for you…?"
Jinsoul smiles at the attempt to cheer her up, but it's fleeting and it vanishes within seconds as she glances away, scratching behind her ear. "Yeah, maybe… But someone less emotionally ready than I am? Sounds impossible if you ask me."
"I'm sorry to hear it." Haseul looks down at her hands, wringing them in the silence between them, "I've always been upset about not even having a looplet. I eventually just talked myself out of wanting a soulmate to deal with it."
"You don't want one?" Jinsoul asks, tilting her head.
Haseul shakes her head and shrugs, feeling a little ridiculous as she talks. "I mean… I'm perfectly content with my friends and with my family. I don't need a partner or spouse or whatever. I'm happy as I am…" Yet her voice betrays those words with how it breaks, "Besides… People date and marry against their red strings all the time. If I really wanted someone, I could find someone. I don't need a piece of silly string telling me how to feel."
Jinsoul giggles to hear that, but she tries to stifle her laughter, covering with a hand. Haseul just looks at her with a smile, eyebrows raised. "What?"
Slowly lowering her hand, Jinsoul tries to speak without laughing, but her words come out choked with a giggle regardless. "Silly string…"
Haseul shakes her head and nudges Jinsoul with her elbow for that. "Shut up… You know what I mean."
"Yeah, b-but… silly string…!" Jinsoul doesn't hold back her laughter this time, "But I agree. This string is super ridiculous." She lifts her hand closer to her face, looking the red loop around her ring finger over, "Sometimes I wish I could just cut this thing off."
"If I had one, I would think similarly…" Haseul hums, and she leans closer into Jinsoul's side, "If I want to date someone, I don't want to be bound by a string. I want options, you know?"
Jinsoul smiles to that and nods. "Yeah, it kinda , only getting one person. I would rather date who I choose, not who a string chooses for me."
A question hangs at the tip of Haseul's tongue, and she slowly looks up at Jinsoul to glance her features over. "Have you ever met someone who you'd choose if not for the string?"
Jinsoul falls silent for a moment, keeping her eyes trained ahead of her. An apology is already halfway out of Haseul's mouth for overstepping with a question like that, but Jinsoul cuts her off, finally replying, "Yeah. I have."
Haseul just frowns, and she wraps her arms around Jinsoul's, holding onto it tightly. "I wish things were easier when it comes to love."
Jinsoul rests her head against Haseul's and lets out a sigh. "Yeah… Me too."
Haseul swallows down the nerves that surface in her all of a sudden, and she moves a little closer into Jinsoul's side to get truly comfortable. "Whoever you end up with, chosen by the string or not, they'd be lucky to have you." She whispers, finding it odd how goes dry as she says it, or how her chest feels warm to say it too.
And despite all of Jinsoul's attempts to hide it, Haseul can feel Jinsoul's breath hitch, though she truly thinks nothing of it.
"And I hope that you'll still find someone, even if the string never appears."
Haseul grins faintly before her eyes shut, and she can barely keep track of the movie's plot before she eventually dozes off where she sits next to Jinsoul.
Haseul always wakes up first. Jinsoul tries to get as much sleep as possible before she has to wake up, but Haseul always wakes up early enough where she has time to spare. But after their conversation about their strings the night before, Jinsoul wakes up first, nudging Haseul awake too.
"Psst, Seulie, wake up…" Jinsoul whispers, nudging Haseul's shoulder.
Haseul squeezes her eyes shut even tighter, slowly stirring from her sleep. "Leave me alone…"
Jinsoul just laughs. "Aw, Seulie, you aren't happy to see me?"
When Haseul opens her eyes, they shoot daggers at Jinsoul for that comment. "No."
"...Ouch." But Jinsoul doesn't let that bother her for long. She simply kneels down by the couch where Haseul's laying, resting her arms on her knees. "It's seven. I figured you wanted up in time for your class."
Haseul slowly pushes herself up to sit, stretching out the soreness in her muscles from sleeping on the couch. "Why are you up so early…? You don't have a class until eleven…"
"Because you fell asleep out here and you didn't have an alarm." Jinsoul explains as if it's supposed to be obvious. "Sorry I ditched you, though. I wanted to sleep on a bed. Call me selfish."
Haseul laughs and rubs at her eyes. "Selfish."
Jinsoul just shrugs with a hint of a grin to her lips. "I deserve that."
"But still… thanks for waking me. I would've slept straight through class at this rate…" Haseul runs a hand through her hair, and she watches as Jinsoul's face flashes with surprise before she ultimately frowns at Haseul.
"Hey… You told me you didn't have a looplet." Jinsoul comments sadly, "You didn't have to lie to me just to make me feel better that I couldn't see yours yet."
Haseul's sleepy enough that her response is a little snappy as she furrows her eyebrows. "I didn't lie. I don't have a looplet."
"Yes, you do!" Jinsoul insists, pointing at Haseul's hand, "It's right there!"
Haseul yawns as she indulges Jinsoul, glancing at her hand, but she's immediately woken up fully by the sight of a red looplet tied around her left finger. Haseul looks at it in disbelief, hanging open and her eyebrows creased. "It… was not here yesterday, I promise."
"You really didn't have a looplet until now?" Jinsoul asks, just as confused as Haseul.
Haseul shakes her head slowly. "No… I never had a looplet, not in twenty-one years…"
"Huh." Jinsoul smacks her lips, deciding that the train of thought was too advanced for her, "Wonder what changed…"
Haseul looks down at her hand, wondering the same thing. "Yeah… me too."
"Guess that means you're gonna have to listen to the string now." Jinsoul teases with a smile, "You got a soulmate out there."
"Please…" Haseul laughs softly, "I still won't listen to this silly string."
Jinsoul stifles another giggle. "Silly string…"
Haseul shoves Jinsoul's shoulder with a roll of her eyes, yet there's still a smile on her lips as she does so. Jinsoul falls back onto the carpet, and she slowly rolls over to push herself to her feet. "Welp, I'm exhausted, and I don't have class for four hours, so I'm going back to sleep."
"Sleep well." Haseul says softly as Jinsoul leaves. Jinsoul just offers Haseul a peace sign as she walks out, and soon Haseul is left on her own, staring down at her own hand.
Why does she suddenly have a looplet?
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