#like I get to go home and not deal with any major school pressure. and then come back and have regular schedule | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hanibalistic · 2 years ago

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CELESTIAL STRINGS | HAN JISUNG.

genre | fluff, angst, romance, friendship / soulmate au, magic au

synopsis | having been alone most of your life, the last thing you thought would gain you a few friends and a home was helping a random boy get past the school gate after he was late.

word count | 34.5k+

warning | violence, mentions of blood and injuries / mentions of death and killing

note | limiting 1000 blocks per post is the single most stupidest thing tumblr pt.2

parts | one, two, three

Seconds ticked by as you and Jisung stared at each other, him with determination and you with anxiety. He was watching your every move, or at least it seemed like he was observing every churn of your muscles.

It almost felt as if he had already predicted your backup plans and was ready to strike out a solution at any given moment. And if he noticed how your hands were trembling, he had given you the time to deal with it instead of butting in.

What could you do, [Name]? You have dealt with so many problems on your own before. You have managed to sneak out of your home and leave the city you once resided in without leaving a single trail. You have managed to create a brand-new identity and conceal your magic from plain sight. You have managed to go several years without shelter or stability over your head.

You got over so many things, including letting the wrong people know your magic and the act of memory erasure, so why did your head suddenly start stumping just because it involved Han Jisung this time? Why was it hard for you to wipe a small piece of memory this time?

You looked up at him, your eyes wide and glittery as though there were tears of concern withering underneath them. Jisung softened at your vulnerable state, which almost compelled him to drop the matter altogether. But you had thrown him over the edge of a gate and blasted him across his own bedroom, and you have dead parents and no home to go back to.

Nothing that happened was an ordinary thing. None of what he heard about you was daily news to him. Not only did he deserve an explanation from you, he would also never forgive himself if he does not take the opportunity to get everything answered.

“I am your friend, [Name],” he whispered, his eyes wide with sincerity.

Right. He is your friend, and just that simple fact made everything so much harder for you to disclose. You were juggling this friendship at the tip of your fingers, uncertainty floating everywhere. The idea of him slipping away was haunting. The idea of your dropping back to where you began was haunting.

“You can tell me,” he persuaded, not stepping over to you yet but simply choosing to use verbal comfort. “I can help you. Let me help you.”

You let out a strained noise at the back of your throat. He was talking like you have major problems going on in your life, which you certainly have! You just haven’t gotten the time to realize it. As days pass, you have gotten used to how your life turned out, and the bad has become normal.

Your dead family, your empty home, the city council, the fear of authority, the pressure of early maturation, the loneliness—they all suddenly started to fill your head up like a storm, twisting and swirling to destroy all that was left inside you. Everything came back to you at once, forcing you to remember and reminisce.

Jisung held back a gasp when you glared at him. Your eyes were teary, but no tears fell, and he somehow knew that the anger burning within was not directed at him. He was baffled, for sure. He had never seen you on the verge of tears before. But he was more empathetic than surprised. He wondered how much you have been through in your past, how much you had to endure on your own and he never knew of.

“Jisung…” Your voice was small as you finally spoke, but he heard you and replied. When you looked at him, you gulped. “I don’t know where to start.”

Finding the right words to describe your childhood, from its timeline to its tragedies, should be easy since everything happened for a reason, and one thing led to another. But you did not know where to begin, somehow. Going to the root of all things felt like you were trying to make sense of your trauma, but there is never sense in those things. There is only a cause and an end, and you have yet to reach the end.

It was an organized mess with too many events and repressed emotions for you to explain it like a glorified story.

“That’s fine, I got you,” he said with a quick nod. Finally approaching you, he gently tugged at your hand and pulled you to the edge of his bed, where you both sat down. He hummed for a little, gathering his questions before asking, “Let us start easy. I don’t need that much detail, but can you tell me about the strings on your hands?”

“Yeah,” you said after a sigh. “They are–”

“Magic?” Jisung looked at you. His tone was more serious than you have ever heard him. When you gave him a shocked expression, he shrugged. “I kind of figured. You threw me over the school gate, which is tall as hell. And you just sent me flying across the room in your sleep. I wouldn’t believe you now if you tried to tell me otherwise.”

You pursed your lips together. The determination in his eyes was familiar to you, yet they felt vague and confusing. You feared what the burning was for. Was it the intention to hate and expose you? Or was it to accept and understand you? The question lingered, but you kept it inside.

“Yeah, they are magic,” you muttered, rubbing your wrist in a circular motion. “I was born a magic-user. I used to live in a magic-populated city. It’s the one close to this city, so I escaped here to Seoul. This is the fastest place I could run to and hide, and it is a bonus that this city is huge.”

Jisung raised an eyebrow. He was hearing too many buzzwords. “What are you escaping from?”

“Like I said, it is a very long story,” you informed.

You were not holding out hope that Jisung would choose to back down and let the matter drop. It was more to give him a fair warning that he was about to dive deeply into your childhood and everything that led you up to this point. Glancing up at him, you took a deep breath to calm yourself when you saw that he seemed ready and steady to listen.

“All magic cities have two councils, one for the magic users and the other for the ordinary people living there. The one we are focusing on pertains to people like us. I was never too sure what it is that they do. Legal things and whatnot. I was too young to understand them. I just know that my family has always held a high status within the council because of the unique magic we use,” you explained, rubbing your hands to calm your nerves.

“A new group of councilmen is selected whenever the current ones turn too old for the job. There isn’t a set interval like the government system you guys have. Things don’t change every couple of years. Things change when people die," you said. "And, like I said, my family has a history of working for the council. They go through the elections and tend to be chosen to be part of the group of councilmen. It has been like that for a long time.”

Jisung was nodding along as you spoke. He listened carefully to everything you said, about how the last election was no different than the rest and how your father was supposed to be the next in line after your grandfather had passed away. Until that point, a sense of dread had gradually started to paint over his face. He could almost predict how things would unfold for you, and he was devastated.

“The election ceremony happened at night. I was not told any gory details about what exactly went down. I just heard that there was a blackout, and when the lights came back up, my entire family was gone. Dead. If not dead, injured,” you said, your voice trembling and your brows furrowing as you tried to remember.

It felt like there was a knot clogging in your throat, and it was taking you too much effort to speak. “The injured ones were all rushed to the hospital, but only my uncle managed to come out alive. He has been in a coma ever since. I… I am not sure why, though. I can’t wrap my head around why they decided to keep him alive.”

Jisung wanted to comment on the event, but he clasped his mouth shut instead. He didn’t know what to say. Nothing felt appropriate at the moment, not even a simple ‘I am sorry for what happened’ because it did happen, and it was terrible. An overused, sympathetic line would not suffice for anything.

“The family of each election candidate is supposed to attend that ceremony. You can imagine how big and glorified the process is. Everyone is supposed to be there! But I couldn’t because I got the flu that day.” You glanced down at your hands, where you squeezed your nail to the skin of your palm as a sore laugh left your throat. “People like to tell me I got lucky that I wasn’t there. But you know… sometimes, I kind of wish I had been there.”

What was it like? He wondered. What was it like to receive that much death news in one go? Were you too sick and too young to comprehend it at that time? Have you been sleeping the night away, only to wake up and find out you’ve been completely isolated from the world? Were you lucky to have slipped away from death’s grip, or were you unlucky to have lost everyone you’ve loved at such a young age?

“Since everyone was dead and the only person who could replace my father’s place was stuck in a long coma that I am not smart enough to reverse, I thought they would elect someone else,” you said, then you shook your head as a dissatisfied expression confused your face. “But they didn’t. They waited a few years until I turned ten, and then they forced me to take classes to learn about the council and prepare me for a future campaign. ”

Jisung furrowed his brows. “What about that? Is that bad?”

“I didn’t think so originally, but I am slowly coming to an understanding now,” you told him, your tone gradually lowering as you started to glare at the empty air. “My family has always done well in the council. It is so much easier for our family to gain trust from people. I like to think it's because we rarely mess up, but the way the other candidates see it is that we are just legacy hires. People with my family name have always been in the council, so might as well let that continue!”

“But, with this sudden mess, the other households finally saw a chance of breaking the pattern, and that was through me.” You pointed at yourself. “Working with people so much older than me, who know more about the council's inner workings than I do... it's all a disguise. They paraded me around like a sad orphan rescued, but they were trying to screw me over. When they do successfully mess me up, my failure will inevitably lead to the downfall of my family’s reputation, even though only two of us are left now.”

Jisung’s jaw dropped in thought. He was piecing the information together now and, thankfully, it was much easier to understand than he expected it to, albeit definitely much more dramatic. It sounded straight out of a television show. If only he could utilize the same method to solve your problem.

“Besides, I don’t even want to be in the council. The whole authority thing just doesn’t sit well with me, even if I am the one having it.” You shivered with a grimace. “But it doesn’t seem like I’ve got a choice. I tried my best to give them shit for trying to teach me anything, but that was proven to be unsuccessful.”

It is certainly troublesome to have a child who is unwilling to obey, but it is even worse to have an adult who refuses to listen. Everything you did, including trying to straight-up ignore those who attempted to pamper you to be qualified enough, has gone completely unnoticed on purpose.

“Eventually, I decided to just pack my bags and leave for good,” you sighed, a troublesome pout forming on your lips. “It is hard for me to visit my uncle now. I can’t guarantee I won’t get caught if I go back, so I haven’t seen him for some time. I doubt that he had woken up, though. I am sure people are pulling strings to ensure he never does.”

Jisung clicked his tongue as if he were the one with an uncle lying on his almost deathbed. Just listening to the story was infuriating for him; if he had the power to beat those adults asses, he definitely would do it. Not just for you but for the city's greater good.

You laughed at his scoff. “Yeah. me too. But it doesn’t matter much now. I am here. He is there. There is almost nothing I can do about the situation, so I am focusing on laying low and making sure I won’t have to run off somewhere else anytime sooner.“

Jisung fiddled with his fingers. His head was hung low in thought, thinking about the possibility of you ever being discovered. He certainly wouldn’t hope for you to leave. Mostly because he would want you to stay, that thought deriving from very friendly reasons. But also because he would love for you to settle down somehow.

Find a home, perhaps. And find people who could and would take care of you; that was an important goal on the bucket list he made on your behalf. Frowning a little, Jisung’s mind twinkled within the obscurity that if you permitted him, the boxes on the list would have long been checked off.

The thought never crossed his mind that he may be put in harm’s way simply by being your friend. Frankly, to calculate the harm a victim can do unto you immediately after they have told you their story was indecent to him. He was more humane than that. He has better morale than that.

Things were pretty much out and clear now. At the very least, he thought he knew what he should know. Not that he wouldn’t dig deeper into your traumatic childhood experiences. He most definitely would like to share the burden a little if allowed, but the night felt too full already, and he didn’t feel like adding more pressure to it anymore.

"Okay,” he responded quietly to accommodate the nighttime. ”Thank you for telling me everything.”

"You are welcome.” You offered him a faint and unsure smile.

Jisung was taking things too well, and you have told him a lot more than you have said to previous others. You only used to talk about your magic, never about your family. No one was ever interested in your family. Pursing your lips, there came a thought that maybe Jisung was different than everybody else. From how he reacted to your story to how you always feel this strong magnetic pull towards him.

What was up with that? You still have not figured out why you felt so drawn toward him.

“[Name]?” Jisung called, tilting his head to the side questioningly. When you looked at him, he asked, “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to go to bed?”

“I’m fine, it’s just… I didn’t tell you anything about the strings, actually,“ you muttered. "Just thought you might want to know.”

Jisung laughed after a moment, his eyes widening in realization. You had branched off from his initial question, and he forgot what he asked because of the intensity of the information dump. Grinning at you, he shrugged with a dismissive wave, “You can tell me tomorrow! Just go to sleep. On the bed. Sleep on the bed.”

You gave him a furrow of your brows as protest, and you tilted your head when he stubbornly held your gaze.

“Okay, fine.” You rolled your eyes, turning around to adjust the pillow on the bed so you could lie down after Jisung left for his desk.

Covering yourself with the blanket, you felt a rush of fluff drowning down your chest. The warmth and the softness of this little cocoon you’ve created were none you’d ever thought you could have again. You pulled at the hem until it reached your shoulders, and you peered over at Jisung slightly.

The lamp illuminated his back, almost as if casting a natural glow around his heavenly self. Your heart slowed down at the peaceful sight, and you fidgeted with your mind to check whether you wanted to say something.

“Um… Jisung?”

He turned at your timid voice, brows raised in concern, “Yeah?”

“Thank you for not being weird about this,” you said.

Jisung softened, his grip on the pencil lightening up, and the eraser tip tapped against his textbook. Whatever has left you with the impression that you needed to thank people for not acting out on a life you didn’t choose to live, he wished you had never needed to go through that again. And all that life has thrown at you by far, he wished you never had to go through that again.

“Yeah, of course,” he replied with a mutter.

You gave him faint snores as a response, and Jisung breathed a short laugh of relief. He left the blessing of a good night's sleep for the dimming of his lamp and the fact that he would be just a few steps away if anything were to happen.

Jisung was too tired to throw a hissy fit early in the morning when he found out you stuck him back onto his bed and slept on the floor with a thin sheet of blanket anyway.

When he was called to wake up in the morning, he happily urged you to freshen up in the bathroom first so he could have an extra five minutes to sleep. The appalled expression on his face was priceless when it only took you roughly two to three minutes—or what Jisung felt to be ten seconds—to clean yourself up for the morning.

“Come on, Jisung,” you said as you tugged at the bedsheet he had pulled over his face. “I don’t want to have to haul you over the school gate, and I cannot guarantee that I won’t throw you too harshly again this time.”

He whined from under the blanket, his voice muffled as he pulled harder at the blanket in refusal. It was a game of tug of war, one that you knew if you tried, you would win. All you needed was one strand of red string. But you decided to humor him a little, your hands still pulling gently at the fabric as Jisung stubbornly wrapped his legs around it to keep you from removing the warmth.

“Alright, I warned you.” You let go of the blanket after allowing him a minute to be childish about going to school. Stepping away from his bed, you moved to the corner of the floor and grabbed your backpack. You headed to the door and looked behind your shoulder at him, sighing. “My shift starts in the morning, so I’m leaving now. Thanks for letting me stay the night, Jisung.”

Jisung furrowed his brow. The farewell was too sudden. He wanted to think you were just bluffing to make him wake up. Yet, when he was piecing the puzzle together, what you said was not only within your character, but it also made sense. You did seem like the type to leave with a short announcement, and if you weren’t attending schools, you would have to work to sustain yourself.

He peeked an eye over the blanket to see if you were standing in his room, and a part of him jumped to find an empty room. Trailing his gaze to the side, your bag was also gone from where it lay yesterday night. You did leave! Gasping under his breath, Jisung quickly sat on his bed, flipping his blanket over to the side.

Panic rose in his chest; he needed to catch up with you! Who was to say you wouldn’t ghost him for another week after you leave?

“Shit–hold on, [Name]!” He swung the door open, planning on heading to the living room to see if you were still in his home. But he abruptly stopped when he found you standing right outside his room with a deadpan expression on your face.

“Good, you are finally awake,” you muttered as you removed your backpack from your forearm and swung it over your shoulders to wear.

Taking your action as an incentive to leave, Jisung quickly took a step closer to you and took hold of your arm, his eyes rounding innocently as he spoke. His voice came out low and raspy, so he cleared his throat before he spoke again, “Wa–um…wait, you are staying for breakfast, right? And then we are going to school together?”

Shrugging his hand off, you gave him a grimace. “Yeah. Your mom already made me breakfast outside, so I have to stay for that,” you pointed out, looking towards the door leading you directly to the living room. “But it doesn’t take me that long to eat, so if you aren’t ready by the time I finish my bowl of rice, I will leave first.”

“I’ll be quick, I promise!” he exclaimed. “Just don’t leave without me, okay?”

You pursed your lips in defeat, a faint eye roll struggling to surface. “Okay. Just hurry up. I have work.”

The relieved smile Jisung showed you only made your grimace widen.

This boy was infuriating at best without even trying to be so. As cheesy and corny as it sounded, he was different than others, drastically different that you were unsure how to react to him sometimes. Until now, you still could not understand why he was so hell-bent on befriending you. He has practically done all that he could, hasn’t he? He refused to leave you alone; he put a shelter over your head, and now he was making sure he could spend his entire morning with you as well.

And no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t wrap your head around why he wanted to spend all that effort on you.

The idea of you exuding any appeal was unfathomable, so that reason was immediately thrown out. Could it possibly be the magnetic feeling you felt with him? Did he feel it as well, that intriguing pull akin to faint electricity dancing across your skin whenever you two are near each other?

“You’re so weird, Jisung,” you commented under your breath. When he threw you a questioning tilt of his head, you couldn’t help but huff out a curt laugh. “No one has ever gone this far to make sure I become friends with them before.”

“Well, they should!” he said, almost proudly. “I think you would make an incredible friend!”

You laughed, “Oh, great. I thought you would say something about me having magic.”

“Oh, yeah, that is pretty cool too.” Jisung smiled sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. He let his arm drop to his side after a moment, his eyes growing more sincere suddenly. He was looking at you intently, ensuring he had your attention before saying, “But I think even if you don’t have magic, I’d still want to be your friend.”

Surely, he gained interest in you because you threw him over the gate, and he wanted to find out how. And, surely, it was interesting to know that you were one of the rarely heard-of magic-wielders living near them. And, surely! He felt an unnerving pull towards you. He could feel its presence wherever you were around, like it was waiting to reveal itself.

But, ultimately, your slip of the tongue about your parents got his empathy up and running, not the magic.

You looked up at him, the glimmers in your eyes wavering at his words.

Jisung was different in that he showed you genuine affection and interest. He easily balanced out the magic part of you and the personal part of you, it was never only the magic part of you unlike how it has always been. He took all aspects of you to his heart, and he held you carefully in his hands despite your many attempts to fall from the gaps in his fingers.

“You are making this too sentimental for me,” you commented monotonously, giving Jisung a smile so rigid and forced that even he started feeling awkward.

“You know how I get emotional, [Name],” he muttered funnily, his eyes squinting to mimic how his heart was squeezed by your disappointing response to his touching words.

“I don’t know, Jisung.” You tightened the grip on your backpack straps, blinking at him with a small frown. “You see, we’ve only been friends for a couple of days, and so far, only I spilled my childhood traumas.”

“Oh, no worries. I can spill all my childhood traumas to you if you want. I’ll get you spooked about all the chocolate I’ve stolen from the cabinet.” Jisung said as he glanced down at his invisible watch. He looked back up at you then, feigning professionalism on his serious features. “I am free tonight at ten o’clock. We can have a background check session in my room before we call it a day. We have much to talk about.”

“How about you finish your morning routine first? The clock is still ticking, and you are still in your pajamas.” You poked his shoulder with a glare. “Like I said, hurry up or go to school alone.”

Jisung glanced at the clock on his wall and yelped in shock. Brushing past you quickly, he slammed the door to the bathroom. You sighed inwardly when you heard the lock click and slowly made your way to the living room with a mind filled with thoughts.

The day had barely started yet, and he was already trying to make sure you would stay for another night. You didn’t plan to stay another night, frankly speaking. No matter how agreeable he and his family were, you just could not get past the feeling of being a burden.

Your shoulders relaxed a bit when you realized you’ve got to think up a plan during the day; at least that would keep your mind off all the unfortunate people you would meet during your shift.

“Han Jisung!”

A lunchbox slammed itself down on the table, and its tremor caused the bird that had landed in front of Jisung to fly away. He glanced up at the intruder and clicked his tongue when he found Hyunjin staring back down at him with an apologetic yet guiltless grin. Following suit behind him were Seungmin and Felix, one with a faintly annoyed expression while the latter held a natural smile.

“You scared the birdie away!” Jisung complained with a pout. “I was feeding it my sandwich.”

“Alright, I’m sorry.” Hyunjin sat down from across the boy. “Since when did you start playing around with birds anyway?”

“It flew over and refused to leave, so I thought it wanted my sandwich.” Jisung shrugged. “I peeled some of my bread for it, and it was eating just fine until you decided to slam your lunchbox on the table, you damn brute.”

“Hyunjin was just excited today. He didn’t get the chance to talk to you during recess because he needed to finish his make-up test, but he has been dying to talk to you the whole day,” Seungmin mumbled when he finally approached the lunch table as well. He gently set his homemade bento box down and scooted onto the bench seat next to Jisung. Turning to the boy, Seungmin tilted his head. “Come to think of it, I am also quite curious.”

“Curious about what?” Jisung questioned, taking a bite of his sandwich and munching on it as he looked at all his friends.

“We saw you arriving at school with someone today,” Felix finally joined the conversation, trying to balance the paper plate of food while picking balls of rice with his other hand.

Seungmin groaned when Felix approached the table, and he quickly slid the boy a pair of chopsticks to use. Meanwhile, Jisung stayed rigid on his spot, unsure what his friends wanted him to tell them about you while their eyes focused on him with anticipation.

“What about it?” Jisung asked, taking another bite of his sandwich to occupy himself.

Hyunjin scoffed with a roll of his eyes. He moved away from the table briefly before leaning back in, his forearm on the edge to give him a more menacing vibe. Arching a brow at Jisung, he urged his friend to speak up. “Who are they? We didn’t know you had friends outside of us three!”

“Not to mistake that as us thinking we don’t want you to have friends outside of the three of us, of course,” Felix clarified with a shrug. “We’re just curious since you two walked to school together.”

“And they also did this!“ Hyunjin jumped up from his seat and reached over to Jisung. His finger tenderly traced a line over Jisung’s forehead before he smacked Jisung over the eyes playfully, a laugh erupting through the table when Jisung swatted his hand away with a frown.

Felix blinked from the side when he noticed something from the brief moment Hyunjin moved Jisung’s bangs away from his face. His eyes were wide and observant when he said, “Hey, Jisung, I think your scar is gone!”

Hyunjin hummed at Felix’s words. He hadn’t seen it before because he was too busy trying to get Jisung riled up about you. But now that he had taken a closer look, he finally noticed the smooth surface on the side of Jisung’s forehead where there was once a scar he had gained from falling off the gate he had tried to climb the other day.

Jisung reached up and pressed his fingers against his forehead. He gasped lightly when he couldn’t feel the stinging pain anymore. “Oh yeah,” he chuckled as he glanced at the table. It must have been your doing, possiblely when you healed him yesterday night after you threw him across his room. “My mom got me these medicinal creams from a facial shop. It healed me up quicker than I thought.”

As Hyunjin sat back down, he gave the boy a moment of relaxation before he looked at Jisung expectantly again. “So…” He started expectantly, “Who are they? Friends? Crush? A lover from outside the school? Soulmates?”

Seungmin snorted with an eye roll. “Wow, the lineup gets worse.”

“How is soulmate the worst?” Felix furrowed his brows in disagreement.

“They’re worst in the way that they don’t exist.” Seungmin shrugged as he replied, his focus on his lunch. “There is no point in pinning over non-existent things.”

“How do you know they’re not real?” Felix retorted again, holding desperately onto the romantic concept. His grip on his plastic spoon was as strong as his determination to hold onto this concept. “Do you also think people who can use magic are not real just because you’ve never met one before?”

“Where is the correlation?” Seungmin muttered impatiently, nonsensical annoyance flooding briefly into his eyes. “Also, as far as we know, those people are only alleged to exist. We have never heard any news about them. Nobody talks about them online, and they live in their own city or region or whatever. They are way too good at excluding themselves from reality to be real people.”

Jisung laughed awkwardly from the side, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. His past views on magic-wielders were not as extreme as Seungmin’s, but part of his friend's statement was correct. The perfect ability to conceal a whole population of people this well did make the existence of said population rather dubious. Everything anyone has heard was just heresy and fairytales. The concept of soulmates must be included as they were part of the cosmos and, therefore, magic.

Jisung pat Seungmin on the shoulder when he saw the boy was about to throw another devastating truth (that Jisung now knows was mostly not true at all) at Felix.

Come to think about it, from what he remembered, your family did have a history with strings. Perhaps you might know a thing or two about the red string of fate, and he might be able to discreetly give Felix some solace about it.

“Don’t mind him, Seungmin,” Jisung said. “There is this college boy Felix is having a giant crush on at the tutoring center.”

“Really? What happened to the girl from your class?” Hyunjin asked in bewilderment, turning his attention to Felix then.

Seungmin heaved a defeated sigh. “It’s Felix. He probably likes them both right now.”

“They’re just crushes!” Felix said defensively, a mouthful of rice and spitting everywhere during this heated moment. “Oh, what, I can’t have crushes now?

Seungmin grimaced at the rice that had accidentally scraped past his face. He began his daily distasteful scolding while Hyunjin chimed in from time to time just for the sake of getting Felix more flustered than he already was. Jisung laughed along at the side, feeling a little glad that he could divert the attention away from him and you.

Glancing down at his lap, he discreetly peeled a piece of bread from his sandwich and handed it to the bird that had quietly nudged its way back to him mid-conversation. As it pecked the crumbs of the bread off his palm, Jisung couldn’t help but giggle.

“Did [Name] send you here, birdie? How are you so mellow?” He muttered under his breath before he laughed.

That would not be impossible, but he thought it’d be unlikely.

Felix glanced down at his phone and sighed before he shoved it back into his pocket. He glanced up at Jisung, his eyes softening at how Jisung kept glancing back and forth along the street. Felix had only planned to wait a while with him since he was quite curious about who you were as well, but they have been waiting for longer than Jisung had verbally anticipated and you still haven’t turned up yet.

“Jisung,” Felix called, his voice showing mild distress.

“Yeah?” Jisung looked behind him at his friend, his brows furrowed and his eyes holding a glare not meant for Felix.

“Are you still waiting?” Felix asked, ignoring the firm gaze thrown at him. “It’s been an hour.”

Jisung nodded, his lips pursing tightly as if to prevent the negative thoughts from being voiced. You would be here, he believed. You promised him. “Yeah. I told them I’m not leaving unless they show up.”

“Oh… I…” Felix sighed in confusion. “What is the situation, exactly? Did you have to give them something important?”

Jisung was already reluctant when he mentioned that he planned to wait with him. Felix chalked it up to Jisung being possessive of your relationship and chose to stay behind anyway. But, seeing that it had been an hour and most students had already left the school premises, this felt like an urgent matter rather than a slight obsession with a new crush, which was still just an assumption on his part. He knew nothing about you and who you were to Jisung, after all.

“No, but it is about something important,” Jisung replied with his eyes dead-set on the street far down. “They promised me they would be here, and I told them I won’t leave until they arrive, so I’m waiting.”

“Oh… well, I have to leave, though,” Felix pointed behind him at the bus stop far away. “I have to head to the tutoring center.”

“You should go then,” Jisung urged, waving his hand dismissively without sparing a glance at his friend. “You don’t want to be late.”

Felix quietly left his side. A part of him didn’t plan for his friend to see him act all nervous and fidgety anyway. It was an uncommon sight for him to be all sweaty and anxious like this. Not to mention how pathetic he felt when it dawned upon him that this tightness came from the simple thought of you backing out on your words.

His frown deepened as each second ticked past, and you were still nowhere to be found. He was seriously contemplating heading to where you left off this morning in hopes to see if he would stumble upon the shop you worked in somehow. But you would have already left your work, would you not? Your next job should be at the convenience store… no, that was on weekends!

Before Jisung could make sense of his plan to find out where you were, he looked up from the ground and found you rushing towards him with an unamused expression. He breathed out a heavy sigh and straightened his back as you approached him quickly. He threw you a pout when you were within earshot, frustrated that it took you so long to arrive and without an ounce of anger in his being.

“What took you so long?” He whined. “I thought you backed out!”

“I had to stay behind for a bit because someone didn’t show up today,” you replied. “I thought you knew? I told you not to wait for me.”

“When did you tell me?” Jisung asked incredulously.

“I sent you something! I put it on a birdie and sent it to you!”

Oh, that was you.

“[Name], I don’t understand birds!” he exclaimed with a growing smile, throwing his arms up in defeat.

You stared at him, eyes wide in deep thoughts. Then, comedically, you pointed a finger at him and tapped against the air. “Yeah, I always thought how much that must suck for you guys,” you mentioned, causing Jisung to drop his jaw in disbelief.

“Anyway, I strapped a note on it,” you muttered to yourself then, recalling your lunch break when you clearly made sure you tied a ribbon around the sparrow before flying it off to the school. Pouting, you scrunched the side of your mouth. “Maybe it dropped my note somewhere.”

Jisung huffed out a hopeless laugh as he began walking, making sure you were following him and never going too quickly for your pace. “You know, people here don’t send birds, we use phones,” he commented. “You should probably invest in one.”

You grimaced, reaching into your pocket and pulling out an old smartphone. You showed it to him, waved it, and said, “I do have one.”

The look of betrayal Jisung flashed you was dramatic at best. He looked like you just told him you hate puppies and that you have purposefully run over a few with your nonexistent car. You rolled your eyes at him, not really in the mood to deal with whatever stunt he planned to pull about you having a phone and not telling him so you just handed the device to him.

“Just add your number in,” you said.

He grinned as he snatched your phone away from your hand. He examined it initially, his brows failing to hide a judgemental scrunch when he realized what year the smartphone came out. He was quick to disregard that as he unlocked your phone; he wrote a mental note to himself to remind you to give your phone a password.

You could hear his excruciatingly obnoxious typing sounds, and you prayed for your phone’s poor screen. After he was done, Jisung called his mobile to make sure he made no mistake before handing it back to you. His grin was cheeky and wide. It seemed like he was up to no good.

You turned it on to check for your contacts. It wasn’t hard to find him. With no relatives or friends, you only have a few essential numbers stored in your phone, like your boss and co-workers. But the thing that made his contact pop out the most was the name he set for himself. It left an immediate frown on your face.

“Best friend Han?” You questioned, blinking at the red heart emoji sparkling next to his name.

“Mmhmm.” He nodded as he showed you his phone. “I put your name like that too, my best friend!”

You looked at his phone, a fit of giggle bubbling up threateningly when you saw the same red heart next to your name. “Do you add hearts to everyone’s name or are you just weird when it comes to me?” you asked when he retreated his hand to look at his screen.

He innocently scrolled at his phone and puffed out his cheeks. He let his cheeks stay jutted out with a pursed smile as he shook his head. “No, it’s just you. And it’s not weird, it’s…” He told you, his eyes rolled up to the sky as he thought for a while. “I don’t know what it is. I just felt like doing it.”

The hysteric laughter that once surfaced reduced to small, gentle hiccups of joy under your breath. That was a very Jisung thing to say; impulsive, but somehow it worked out in his favor, and the impulsivity brought you solace due to how closely you related it to him. Putting your phone back into your pocket, you nodded at him as a simple response.

You two shared a moment of silence. For once, Jisung chose to delay a topic of choice and instead enjoy the laid-back sensation where both of you walked quietly down the street, presumably where the bus stop was since you hadn’t raised the idea of teleporting both of you back to his home yet. You, too, enjoyed not having to constantly think of something to say despite rather liking how chattery Jisung has been with you so far.

“So…” It took Jisung a while to clear his throat and break the silence. You perked up at his voice but didn’t turn to look at him. “How’s your day been? How is work?”

You were quick to shrug in response. “Normal. Nothing special happened. I did my job and stayed away from people when I could.”

“That’s not very fun.” Jisung frowned. “You should at least try to befriend other people, you know? They might be able to help you down the line.”

“I don’t like asking for help,” you pointed out honestly, causing him to laugh.

“I know. I learned it the hard way,” he muttered to himself, faintly throwing a smile your way but you weren’t paying attention to him.

“What about you? I’m sure there is plenty of juicy drama circling a high school?” you asked after clicking your tongue in mild annoyance, quickly turning the topic on him.

“I’m not a very big rumor person so I don’t know anything about that,” Jisung said with an innocent shake of his head. He then slammed a fist to his palm upon thinking of what happened during lunch, and suddenly his excitement spiked. “Oh, my friends told me they saw us together this morning and they asked me about you!”

Your eyes widened in amusement as you looked over at him. You fidgeted your fingers and asked, “What did you say? You didn’t say anything stupid, right?”

“Of course not! Why would I do that–wait, hold on,” Jisung paused with squinted eyes. He looked at you, a weak finger pointing up at the sky and then at you. “Why do you care if I said something stupid? That’s not like you.”

You stared at him innocently. “What if you spill my secret?”

His jaw slowly dropped as he processed your words. The light came back into his eyes and he made a noise of acknowledgment, a silly grin appearing on his lips as he laughed out the embarrassment. He initially thought you cared because you might have fancied one of his very attractive friends, and somehow, the thought didn’t sit well with him. But then he remembered: you have never met any of them before, so how could you?

“You should have some faith in me. I might talk a lot but I never reveal any classified information!” He patted his chest to emphasize how trustworthy he was, a move that did nothing to convince you, but he thought it was cool, so he did it anyway. “But really, though, I didn’t say anything. They just kind of guessed who you were, and I never responded.”

You huffed out a laugh. “What does it look like we are? We’re friends.”

“My friend Hyunjin saw you brush my hair, and he thought it was evidence of something more intimate,” he said. “He was all up my ass about it. He even guessed if we’re soulmates, and then Seungmin had a whole pessimistic debate with Felix and it’s just all messy!”

You laughed in bewilderment, not so much at what Seungmin and Felix were debating about but more so at what his friend had suggested you two to be. Soulmates were not a foreign concept to magic-wielders; the concept itself came from one of your kind and anonymously traveled over to the fictional world of normal people. But to think that you and Jisung were predestined to meet each other and, in some sense, like each other was not plausible to you.

Besides, non-magic wielders having a magic-wielder as a soulmate was rare, if it even happened.

Jisung had looked at you weirdly when you laughed. He waited for you to explain what about it you thought was funny, and you gave him a quick shrug.

“I think I would know if we’re soulmates, Jisung,” you said, slapping a hand to your hip and shaking your head. “Ahh, soulmates… that is hilarious. I will never understand why you people make such a big deal out of it.”

Jisung tilted his head to the side. His opinion on soulmates has always been neutral. It was certainly a romantic idea; to have one special person created just for you. Truth be told, Jisung secretly yearned for a love similar to the ideals that soulmates hold—a bond so strong that two people can feel each other constantly, an understanding so special that two people can tell what the other is feeling without the need for words.

A conditioned unconditional love that lasts across time and space.

It was a great idea because it wasn’t real, and it rarely happens. Jisung would love to experience it if he was given the chance. But the idea of soulmates just didn’t feel real enough for him to make a big deal out of it. It could be true, but so far he hasn’t been shown evidence that it was.

“People think it’s romantic,” he told you. “It’s also an out-of-reach idea, and people tend to go after unavailable things.”

“It’s not out-of-reach,” you said. “Most of us can find our soulmates with magic. For me, I can find them just by following my fate string.”

Your casual tone should not be paired up with words like those. Widening his eyes in surprise, Jisung turned to you quickly and he asked, “Wait–so it’s real? Like soulmates are an actual thing?”

“They are. Everyone has a special person, Jisung. People aren’t creative enough to make up such a vivid concept, it had to came from somewhere,” you informed, crossing your hands in front of your chest. “But it’s not that big a deal, though. There are a lot of cases of soulmate rejection.”

“Oh, I’ve seen those in stories before.” Jisung snapped his fingers in acknowledgment as if he had found a solution to a world crisis.

“Good, so you aren’t one of those who believe soulmates have to love each other,” you muttered before looking up at him. “Soulmates are a little different than what you might expect. The red string they share actually stores the feelings and memories. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the string is, meaning the more magical it is. If you never share any memories or feelings with your soulmate, it’s just a string.”

He nodded at the newfound information. How he wished he could tell Felix all about this! That freckled boy would be so energetic (and probably a little smug) to hear that soulmates are, in fact, a real thing. Jisung could almost hear the disbelieving scoff in Seungmin’s voice, bright with retorts despite having the blatant truth mapped out in front of him.

“You can store magic in your string?” Jisung asked suddenly then, trying to keep the conversation going.

You nodded at him, and then you shook your head in thought. It was a rather complicated concept, but it also wasn’t. There were a heaping amount of interesting cosmic laws to how soulmates work, and you didn’t know where you could begin explaining it.

“Yeah, it’s so soulmates can help each other out in desperate situations. It is a form of magic that even non-magic users can, I guess, subconsciously utilize,” you said. “Obviously, normal people don’t actually get to cast a spell with it because you guys know no spells. But, when soulmates are together, the string acts as a shield to fend off bad luck or accidents. Those things.”

The soulmate string links two people together. The more in love with each other soulmates are, the stronger the magic is. It is, however, not tragedy-proof. There will always be death within the laws of the universe; the Cosmo feeds off of the human soul because it needs energy to protect those it chooses to stay alive. Love is great but it is not above the truth, and the truth is that everything comes to an end.

The soulmate string cannot prevent death from happening. It, in turn, causes it—when one dies, the other goes shortly after. But it also does not. The most humane thing about that was its voluntary occurrence. People choose to fade. When a spouse dies, the other spouse soon follows. When a best friend dies, the other best friend soon follows. When a child dies, the parent soon follows.

The human spirit yearns so hard for their other half that death becomes voluntary. That is what makes soulmates a big deal, you supposed.

“Magic needs to go through a certain medium, like how I have to use my strings to manifest my magic,” you added. “When an emergency comes, the soulmate string can be our last resort. It’s never really used, though, since that requires breaking the string and transferring the magic.”

Jisung raised a brow, getting more and more intrigued with more information. He asked, “I suppose something bad happens if you break it?”

“I don’t think it’s too bad. The person who breaks the string will be forgotten by their soulmate, that’s all.” You shrugged. “Since the magic builds on your memories and feelings, when you break the string, you just release everything and set them free.”

“What? Why would they do that!” he exclaimed.

“Magic has consequences,” you replied. “You get one good thing and another bad thing happens.”

Jisung shivered. That took a dramatic and miserable turn. It would make an interesting story plot but knowing that it could happen in real life made him feel an unknown sense of fear. The complete memory erasure of an important person, all the unknown feelings of nostalgia that always caused pain to him… those would bother him.

Glancing at you, he blinked to himself as the thought of how you could have easily just erased yourself from him floated into his head. He wondered why you never chose to do that even though you didn’t start out being fond of him at all. And he felt glad that you still hadn’t tried to do that to him yet. He hoped you never would. It would be a shame to forget about you completely.

“You can see who your soulmate is, right?” He suddenly asked, both wanting to break free from the negative thoughts and because he was curious.

You hummed a little, bringing your right hand up to your face and glaring at your pinky finger. The red tie slowly appeared in your sight and you scoffed. Never have you ever obsessed over such a trivial thing before, it had always just been a long strand of string to you and nothing more. Whoever was at the end of it likely never cared as well, since they never tried tugging at it.

“I can. I just never looked for them,” you said.

“Oh… can you see who my soulmate is?” Jisung asked then.

You rolled your eyes a little and turned to him with a faint groan. Reaching out to grab his hand, you held his finger gently and waited before the red knot appeared around his pinky. You pinched the thin string carefully, your eyes widening in surprise when you saw the bright redness coursing through the lining of it. The vibration surrounding it was strong, which either meant their mutual feelings for each other were strong or that his soulmate was near.

“There is magic in here,” you said, shifting your gaze to Jisung. “You’ve not just met your soulmate. You've built a relationship with them.”

“I have?” Jisung whispered out in anticipation.

His heart picked up its pace suddenly at the knowledge that he had brushed shoulders with his soulmate before. His mind raced to check past all the faces he’d met and interacted with before, and he tried to guess who his soulmate could possibly be as best as he could.

This had just gotten exciting; the suspense was slowly killing him.

“I can try to pull at the string but if it gets too long, we’re not going to follow it to the end,” you said, carefully grabbing a hold of his fate string with your fingers. Glancing up at him, you warned, “Don’t come crying if the universe made the wrong choice.”

Jisung nodded. He watched you intently as you continued to pull at the string, going at a fast pace until you abruptly came to a stop. You huffed out in frustration, unsure why the string was not leading you anywhere. It usually should, especially if the soulmate was standing at a distance. Jisung’s string felt in place as if it got cut off somewhere and was no longer attached to someone from a far distance.

With furrowed brows, Jisung tilted his head and took a step closer to you, his voice urgent as he asked, “What is it?”

You blinked at your hand as you continued to pull at the string. Eventually, you made it to the last millimeter of the string just to find a knot attached and burning at your own pinky. Confusion clouded your mind for a second before it was replaced with disbelief and refusal. You let go of the string and grabbed onto Jisung’s hand, then you dropped his hand and raised your own, pinching your fate string instead and pulling at it.

Jisung stared at you with a troubled expression. Concern was etched on every part of his features as he watched you rapidly pull on your soulmate string until, all of a sudden, he felt a strong pull at his hand. He lurched forward towards you at the impact, his eyes widening in the process. That was when his surroundings came to a magical halt. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before.

Time stopped, literally, just within the atomic spaces you two stood on the street near his school. Fateful magic creased up both of your skin, yours shedding from your blood to travel through the red string to him so he could see what a magic-wielder could see; a long, bright red string surrounded you two in a multiple loose circles, creating a bubble.

“Oh my god,” you whispered.

Jisung glanced down at your hand and back up at your face, where you looked more shocked than ever. He finally understood why he got pulled forward and what the messy map of red string he briefly saw in the air when he got closer to you meant. He finally understood the constant, special pull he felt towards you. Those electrifying feelings he kept feeling when he was with you.

“Are you… are we soulmates?” Jisung asked, anticipation flooding into his brilliant eyes.

You gulped with a nod. “Yeah, we are.”

He broke into a slow smile then, his chest heaving in excitement. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s exciting.”

“It is?” you asked incredulously, a reaction Jisung wasn’t quite expecting but he was suddenly too fond of the idea of soulmates for him to nitpick at your less-than-happy expression.

“Of course!” He beamed. “Because I really like the universe’s choice.”

The ticking of the clock was getting rather annoying. You couldn’t sleep. It was not because of the clock. You just needed something to blame your insomnia on aside from that messy head of yours. Shifting your weight on Jisung’s bed, you turned to the other side and scooted closer to the edge.

You peered down at the floor where Jisung slept, your hands unconsciously bringing the covers up to your chin.

He slept in a curled-up position with a thin blanket draped over his small frame, giving you the false sense that he might be shivering from the cold night. Jisung was not a loud snorer; you could still hear his breathing from up on the bed, but it was nothing too distracting. It's not distracting enough for you to blame your lack of sleep on, at least.

Seeing him so fragile and small made you feel guilty.

Slowly and surely, after deciding you needed a breather, you got off the bed and tip-toed out of his room, not before taking a long strand of blue string for yourself. Heading to the living room, you quietly slid open the glass door leading to the balcony and stepped out onto the cold tiles. You sucked in a long breath as you propped your elbows on the fence, taking in the chilly air and letting them bruise your lungs like drugs and alcohol.

After discovering your soulmate ties, your first reaction was not the best you could muster. But, you were usually so good at hiding emotions you thought would harm others and, thus, a disadvantage to you. For some reason, your inability manifested at the most important time; supposed anxiety does make performance worse.

Your anxiety was not the only fault. The more time you spend with Jisung, the more he removes your default need to hide in plain sight. Self-expression became easy and normal, and Jisung has made it so that you were expected to be embraced through all the flaws in your demeanor and opinions. It has gotten to a point where when your first reaction to having him as your soulmate was fear, you just immediately showed it to him.

He didn’t seem visibly upset about how you were unsatisfied with the universe’s choice. All he did was smile and beam that he has you as a soulmate. Yet, even then, some of you wondered if he was mad at you. Or if he was disappointed, at the very least.

Crazy how you two could do the same thing, but while you lied for yourself, Jisung lied solely for others.

That was just one of the many reasons that weighed down on why you didn’t want him as your soulmate. Your selfishness, instinct to protect yourself, tendency to feel annoyed, suspicion and insecurities, lack of desire to experience human interactions, and so on.

You’ve created an uncountable list of negative traits you possessed within two hours of laying on Jisung’s bed because you needed something solid to think about, not just bits and pieces as to why you do not deserve Han Jisung as your soulmate. Not as measly as that, everything that has happened to you and your family was somehow deserved, it seemed. You didn’t have the power to change your inherent characteristics, which was the consequence.

Standing straighter, you counted the seconds you inhaled and tapped your finger against the vinyl rail to remind yourself you needed to release the air slowly. Your heart calmed down, but your chest still had an exhausting slump. The cosmos could make no mistakes; your life was supposed to be this tragic. You were unlucky and bad, and that was the end of it.

Your eyes traced across the night sky and the bright buildings. The empty air hit your ears with a gift of white noises of sounds that traveled from the alive souls of others. Among the chatters you could faintly hear, you remained silent as you always have, with no soul to confide in. Despite all the people that surrounded you, you were ultimately alone within. Nobody could truly understand; the one person who could hasn’t been awake in ages.

A shy tear rolled down your cheek, and you huffed at yourself, reaching up to wipe it away as more rushed to your waterline in hopes of welcoming their escape. You pursed your lips together and faced skyward at the ceiling, forcing down a shaky breath only to feel a croaked sob claw up your throat. Too much was happening in your head, from revisiting your past for Jisung to you suspecting he was probably mad at you.

This was bad, really bad. After keeping your feelings on a down-low, you knew very well that the tears would start flooding once you break out of moderation.

You should fly for a while, you urged yourself. You should jump off the balcony and float for a little. The sky had always cradled you as one of its own, and the ocean had always hugged you as her child. Nature was your second mother and then your first after your own passed. You had slept in trees and sung to the moon. If you wanted to calm down, you should fly. You would feel safer with the clouds.

Rubbing your eyes, you hoisted on the balcony fence and balanced your body to stand still on the thin railing. The wind brushed against your body, causing Jisung’s thin shirt to stick closely to your skin. The wind seeped through the fabric, grazing you with cold. You prepared the blue string in your hands, which makes you weightless, and you closed your eyes.

You tried to ignore the droplets rolling down the corner of your face, but the crying didn’t stop. It never stops. The pain just keeps going, possibly until exhaustion takes over you.

From your past experience of flying, you liked to chant the spell while falling through the air. The thrill was addicting to you. Despite the constant protest of your teachers and family members, you continued to do it, and you have gotten used to it now. Your shoulders slumped with an exhale as you prepared the spell with your strings, and then you poked one foot out into the air after you finished the initial spell-casting phase.

Just as you were about to fall forward, a pair of hands harshly gripped at your ankles, yanking you back to the ground with a huge thud. Jisung scrambled across the floor, ignoring the pain that expelled from his back when he fell with you on top of him.

He couldn’t see straight; only the vivid image of you standing on the balcony fence haunted his knowledge. The instant he has you all forgotten. He knew not that you could use magic or assume that you knew how to fly. All he knew was that he needed to feel you in his arms. He needed to know he pulled you back from falling and that you were safe with him.

His arms fussed around the air, desperately searching for your form before he grabbed a fistful of your shirt and tugged you to his chest, hugging you with every ounce of strength he had. The previous grogginess slowly began to vanish. It was slowly coming back to him now.

He thought you woke up to get a glass of water, but you had been gone from his bed for too long to just be getting water. When he decided to leave his warm cocoon, he remembered seeing you tipping your leg forward into the sky and how it brought him a sense of panic he had never felt before.

It wasn’t the usual paranoid nervousness, something most anxiety-prone people would feel daily. It was not the ones that would surface when it was his turn to do a presentation in front of a class or when his mother found a loophole in his array of lies about failing the Math test. This felt like spikes growing from within his ribs, penetrating his body, and there was nothing he could do aside from waiting for the impending moment of his heart being pierced through.

This was genuine fear. The second he was introduced to the concept of losing you, all Jisung could feel was terror. And then it was the resolution that if you did, in fact, not know how to fly, the next person going off the building would be him.

“What were you thinking?” he asked shakily, still pressing you close to him despite his arms aching from the overuse of muscles. “Wha–what the hell were you doing? You–you can’t do that.”

Your brows furrowed because you were unsure why he acted this way. But then it hit you that he probably couldn’t see the string across your fingers, so his mind just aimed for the worst. You tried to pull away then, to give him an explanation that you knew how to fly, but Jisung refused to let you go as he whined out a panicked sob.

“No, don’t! Don–don’t,” he stuttered, burying his face to your shoulder as he so desperately needed to feel you with him. Starting from your body to your scent, he had to latch onto you to calm himself down. “Please.”

You licked our lower lip in a troubled manner. Jisung was agitated, and it was not in his usual energetic way. You found it harder to deal with him when he was like this since it was an unfamiliar sight to you. You never counted on him to be at a loss for words or on the verge of breaking down. Therefore, you opted for the best thing you could do for him—let him hold you until he feels better.

“Jisung, I’m not…” You exhaled carefully. “I’m not trying to do that.”

The calming process was slow. You could feel his shoulders heaving slower now, but even then, it seemed like Jisung had no plan of letting you go anytime soon. And you felt okay with that. You could stay where you were for a while longer.

“You don’t have to worry. I promise I am not trying to jump off,” you said with your hand on his head, patting him gently to ease him down further.

“Why… why aren’t you sleeping? It’s so late,” he asked with a muffled voice, seeming to slowly relax into your caressing touch.

“I felt a little overwhelmed, Jisung. A lot of things happened recently, and my lifestyle completely changed,” you replied. “I just came out to have a breath of fresh air… and to think about things, that is all.”

He sniffed, turning his face to press his cheek against your shoulder. You smiled at its softness, feeling wet tears staining your skin, making your own rush to your eyes. You were sure Jisung was the first person to cry for you, and that thought touched you more than it baffled you.

“I’m sorry I acted weird when I found out you were my soulmate. It was not my intention,” you confessed to him, feeling the impulsive rush that you needed to do it now when the timing felt right. “I thought the universe made an incompetent choice and got a little mad. You have such a good heart, Jisung, and I think you deserve so much better than having me.”

Jisung narrowed his eyes, his breathing hitching in his throat. Disbelief riddled his senses—how dare you say that about yourself? You were such a strong individual to have continued even after what has happened to your family and yourself, and you have been so endearing to him with your hidden smiles and playful bickers. If the roles were reversed, Jisung doubted he would survive it.

You don’t even know how much he adores you, from your spirit to your presence.

“I’m so sorry,” you apologized. “This is all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t. Nothing is,” he mumbled slowly, shaking his head and finally deciding to pull away to look into your eyes. “You just had to find a way to release yourself. I’m not going to blame you for doing that.”

Neither was anything that happened to your family. You never chose to be born into that position, nor did you choose that people possess such cruelty against each other. This was all the universe’s doing. This was all God’s doing if he even existed. Everything that has happened to you was just an unfortunate tragedy that he—a cruel man—could have let happen to anyone else or just not happen at all.

“But please give me a heads up next time you do something like that. I love you, and seeing that just then scared the hell out of me,” Jisung blurted out. And even when he saw how you reacted to his confession, which was to freeze on the spot and stare at him judgementally, he did not attempt to back down.

It was true. He was only being honest. Was it a little too early for him to say that? Perhaps, but what are the standards for human affection, anyway? There is none. There is never any standard. Love is blind and ignorant in the face of time; it has always been. Sometimes, you just have to shoot your shot and believe in yourself. Sometimes, you just have to trust that you are in love with someone and that it will last for eternity.

“Yeah, I said it. I love you! There, I said it again! I love you, and… uhh, yeah! I love you!” Jisung declared, his eyes glimmering with affection when you begin to soften at his antics.

A smile slowly moved up his lips, the force he had always felt in his chest magnifying as he looked at you fondly. He wondered what the string looked like now. Would it be vivid with redness? Would it be rich and overflowing with love? Would it become so powerful that it could save a city of people if a hazard occurs?

Jisung has quieted down now. The calmness solidified when he faced you with care. He leaned his torso forward tentatively, hesitation riddled in his movements as he inched closer and closer to you. For a moment, he thought your lips would touch if he didn’t change his mind. But he altered his action and bumped his forehead against yours instead. You nudged at him with a hearted huff, smiling.

He closed his eyes to feel your presence. When he spoke again, his voice came out as a whisper.

“I don’t want any other soulmate but you.”

You didn’t know what to say. Words have never been your strong suit, especially when it was a reply to a confession that Jisung made so shamelessly. Or screw that. Receiving love has never been your strong suit! It was a habit you had been unaware of after the death of your family. How were you supposed to react to someone who throws verbal affection at you? Laugh? Accept it with the same amount of love? You have not a single idea.

But his lashes were wet, and there were faint trails of tears down his chubby cheeks. It warmed up a smile on your face. Your heart felt more cradled than ever at the sight of his vulnerability. Perhaps you were never too good with words, but Jisung would understand, and you felt it was okay to resort to the second-best thing you could do.

The second best thing to show that your heart was filled and your loyalty was now tied to you and to him. Your hand moved up to his face, and you stroked the dry line on his soft skin, causing Jisung to glance up at you in surprise. Innocence filled the glimmer of his eyes while his mouth went agape at the unexpected action. He had only seen your gaze so celestial like this when you thought no one was looking: bright, loving, filled with the tender light of each star visible in the sky.

He squeezed his eyes tightly in one bashful swift when you leaned forward to plant a featherlight kiss on his brow, somewhere close to his temple and the corner of his eyes.

“Thank you,” you said as you pulled away.

Jisung’s eyes flickered around his surroundings, his cheeks fluttering with a nice pinkness your friendly kiss sent him. He hadn’t got the time to think properly. He could only remember how soft your lips felt and how, surely, the spikes in his chest had pierced through his heart happily from that brief moment.

His heart will bleed for you. He just knows it. He could suffer for you, but the suffering would be kind and gentle because he had done it for you.

“Of–of course…” He lowered his head, a wide smile hidden.

If it wasn’t for Jisung, you would probably be lying on a rooftop somewhere, stargazing freely and flying without a care in the world. It was good back then. You enjoyed the freedom. Now, you could almost safely say you have a place to return to. You have someone who would look out for you, cry for you, sit under the night sky, and hold your hand until you both get tired.

Now, you have Jisung.

It was good back then, and it was much better now.

“Okay, the next thing you do is loop your fingers through here. You just go under section five with your thumb and pull it all the way back to section one,” you instructed while demonstrating to him how you could make the symbol for a healing spell.

Jisung had suggested having you try riding the bus to school (or to work) after the many times you teleported you both there, leading to him having extra minutes of sleep. It was mainly because riding the bus could give him so much more time to spend with you, but he kept claiming that it was to make sure you get the full high school morning experience, which to him simply consisted of waking up late, rushing to get his morning routine done, and meeting with you by the door completely untidied.

Halfway through the bus ride, he finally remembered to bring up the topic of your magic—how it works, where it came from, what kind of systems there are, and so much more curiosity exploding in his head.

“Do you know if your family is the only household that uses string magic?“ Jisung asked as he kept his focus on the pattern on his hands.

After much convincing, he got his hands on one of the strings you had stuffed in your bag. While knowing that the magic would not work on him since he wasn’t born with the blood to activate it, he still wanted to fulfill his curiosity and learn a thing or two about it. He also wanted to earn some bragging rights about knowing how to make such complicated patterns with just a simple string, but you didn’t need to know that.

“No, there are other families that use string magic as well. My family wouldn’t run a magic string company if we were the only ones using it,” you replied. “But I am sure we are the only ones who use it like we do.”

Jisung nodded. “So magic is divided into categories.”

“Yeah, you can say that!” You nodded in agreement. “String magic is, by itself, a whole category. Each category possesses sub-categories that show the different ways people use magic. For my family, we utilize string figures and spells. Each bloodline possesses a uniqueness that allows the person only one kind of magic, and–“ You paused shortly when you looked at his hands. ” “No, Jisung. You move your index finger over circle two in section three.”

The boy groaned faintly under his breath, the tip of his tongue poking out in concentration as he delicately moved his fingers in fear that he would make a mistake and cause the whole build-up to crumble. You beamed at him when he successfully mirrored the symbol on your hand, causing him to sigh in accomplishment.

“Finally!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up due to the impulse of the moment. And as his face morphed into one of shock, he quickly lowered his hands and made sure he did not ruin the pattern. “How fast can you usually do this?”

You looked at the green string around your fingers and hummed, tilting your head to the side. You have not thought about a time frame in a while. After learning all the base patterns that exist as the first step in every pattern, you never really thought about how fast or accurate you have been making the string figures. You could do it with your eyes closed and at a quick speed.

“Well, this is a more complicated symbol since this is a really big spell, so this will normally take me a second longer than usual,” you replied. “But for the easier spells, no more than a second. My family made me practice a lot when I was younger. My family does have a reputation for being one of the more resilient magic users. We think quickly, and we act quickly!”

Jisung gasped in awe, nodding his head in approval. What took him a full, twenty-minute journey to school to do could be done by you in under seconds! Somehow, it made him feel proud to know that you mastered such a complex skill. He wondered how you would find in normal academics; would Mathematics be your strength?

“What is this spell for?” he asked, staring at it with intrigue as he wriggled his fingers, imagining how it would feel if he had the magic to use it.

“This is a healing spell. A very strong one, like giant gashes and bullet wounds,” you said. “The stronger ones tend to fix you immediately, so there is no need to go to the hospital. The medium spells usually patch big wounds, so you can buy time to get help.”

“Oh…” Jisung nodded before he looked at you with furrowed brows. “Have you guys found the cure to cancer yet?”

“Jisung, we do magic, not miracles.” You rolled your eyes with a snorted laugh. “We can buy some time and alleviate pain, but I think regular medicine and chemotherapy also do the same thing. Except you guys pay thousands of dollars for it, and we just…” You looked at your hands and grimaced with a mutter, “Do it ourselves?”

“Imagine! DIY cancer treatments!” He hollered out a laugh, almost doubling over dramatically, but thought better of it because of the fragile string woven between his fingers. “If someone invented that, it would cost thousands for us to have one kit.”

“Hey, maybe someday they will figure it out,” you said. “And I promise I will learn it so you can grab a free ride through me.”

“Or maybe you will figure it out! These strings feel very trustworthy,” he joked, arching his brow at you as a bashful smile appeared.

“Sure. Hello, I’m [Name], the cancer cure founder,” you joked grimly, looking at your hands. “If my own people didn’t take me out years ago, your government will.”

After a moment of thought, you finally let go of the patterned string. You stared at the shimmering line, the sun bouncing off the celestial lights printed on the material, and you felt your eyes glass over with nostalgia. It looked just like the way it was when your parents first introduced you to it. It was such a shame that you could never look at the strings with the same amount of delight you used to anymore.

“I can’t even cure my uncle, not to mention cancer.” You shoved the string back into your pocket and crossed your arms.

It was a fatal flaw of yours: your lack of knowledge.

Magic is diverse. Like the skeletons in every family’s closet, every bloodline utilizes a category of magic uniquely, and each family within the bloodline will have a slightly different variation of the craft. You have not learned enough about other types of magic to fully understand how to defend yourself and others from it.

A simple spell is still a unique spell. Sometimes, the simpler it is, the harder it is to understand. If you never learn in-depth about other categories of magic, you will have difficulty reversing them.

Unfortunately, that was the case with your uncle.

Jisung frowned, his arms lowering in front of him at your dejected state. He still could not imagine, and he knew he never would be able to imagine how it feels to have to constantly worry about a bedridden loved one from across a city, one that was filled with people trying to exploit your life.

He supposed he couldn’t have helped you any better, but he sincerely wished he could have at least been there for you. He blamed it on the universe for messing up. How could it put you both in different worlds but still tie your fate strings together? How dare the universe let his soulmate suffer so much without his presence there for moral support?

“I’m sorry I can’t help with that,” Jisung muttered, gaining your full attention. His steps slowed, and he looked at you, a serious expression replacing his once goofy smile. “And I know this isn’t my fault, but I never got to say I’m sorry for not being able to be there for you when everything happened.”

It just made him feel so frustrated. You escaped your city years ago, yet somehow, you two have never crossed paths. He could have given you a home earlier. He could have helped shoulder your survival responsibilities earlier. He could have done so many things for you, but he wasn’t able to, and he didn’t. And even though he was not at fault, he could not help but feel incompetent somehow. He resented his past for not having you in it.

“Jisung, this isn’t your fault.”

“I know,” he said, gulping down a knot. “I just wish it could have been my fault. That way, I might have been able to do something about it, at least.”

You bit your lower lip. God, Jisung is so lovely. He is so damn lovely. His voice, his heart, his attitude, and everything. He was just born with it, wasn’t he? He was just born precious as such, with immense empathy and the capacity to care and love like no other.

And anytime it would dawn upon you that you got the privilege to experience how tender he has learned to cradle one’s heart and how you could now laugh in a world where he exists right next to you, you just freeze with a mindful pull in your chest. Your heart falls to your sleeve, beating at the sight of him, beating for him.

And you love him. You do love him.

“You can be here for me from now on,” you said quietly, not looking at him.

Jisung softened. These cheesy lines were starting to become less and less rare, and he was so delighted to see the progress of you becoming more and more comfortable with him. Your heart was finally settling down alongside his. He nodded enthusiastically. “I will, I promise.”

A small snort escaped from behind you both. You could not recognize the voice, but Jisung certainly could. Widening his eyes, he spun around and glared at Hyunjin, who had probably been listening long enough for him to make Jisung’s lunchtime a living hell hours later. Pink blushes quickly formed on Jisung’s cheeks at the thought of it.

“Good morning, Jisung,” Hyunjin greeted slyly.

You watched as Jisung shoved his friend on the shoulder before grabbing him by the collar and pushing him back. Hyunjin was giggling and not attempting to get Jisung off of him, clearly enjoying the moment of Jisung’s misery.

“How long have you been listening?” Jisung asked in a low whine.

“Long enough to hear you make that cheesy promise,” Hyunjin snickered. He then feigned a pout, his lower lip jutting out dramatically as he blinked his eyes until they looked soft enough to be romantic. Tilting his head to the side, he dialed his voice up and mocked, “I promise I will stay with you forever. I love you so much, oh my god–“

“I will end you right here, right now,” Jisung threatened, which didn’t feel much like a threat after he clamped his palm over Hyunjin’s mouth.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes and peeled Jisung’s hand away from him. He stepped away, finally settling his eyes on you before he did a curious head tilt, scanning you from head to toe. Jisung frowned from the side, feeling the uncomfortable tension rise in his chest as you challengingly held Hyunjin’s gaze for longer than he liked. You looked rigid, like the first time he met you.

“Stop staring,” Jisung groaned, reaching up to smack Hyunjin’s cheek and mess up his hair when he turned away to dodge the attack.

“You two are why people think students from our school are ill-disciplined.” A calm Seungmin appeared from behind the two, brushing past them and stopping in front of you with the same amount of curiosity Hyunjin showed you. After a moment of silence, he nodded. “My name is Seungmin. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“And I’m Felix!”

Your eyes widened at the shorter boy who popped up from behind Seungmin. Damn, there were just more and more of them!

Awkwardly, you gave them both a nod of acknowledgment before you said, “My name is [Name].”

“And that one over there is Hyunjin,” Seungmin motioned over to the black-haired boy, who gave you a sweet smile as he struggled with the loose headlock Jisung was desperately trying to put him in.

Seungmin rolled his eyes at the two, inwardly fed up with their morning antics but not having the energy to break them apart. He spent most of his time finishing multiple assignments yesterday night. He has not an ounce of energy for fun. “Those two are always on about something. They can get pretty physical with each other.”

Felix snorted at the mistranslated connotation, causing Jisung to finally let go of Hyunjin and return his attention to you three. He was frowning, embarrassment and annoyance crossing his face when he approached you again, giving Seungmin a glare in the process.

“Can you not say it like that?” Jisung complained, crossing his arms with a scoff.

“There is nothing wrong with the way I said it. You just took it the wrong way,” Seungmin shrugged. “There is also nothing wrong with what I said. Who cares, seriously?”

Jisung grumbled under his breath, his pout more permanent now as he sulked with shrunken shoulders. He was feeling down about how Hyunjin ruined such a nice moment you two were sharing. What you said was a token of your acceptance, or at least he took it that way. You telling him that he could stay by your side meant that you had decided you would no longer suffer alone.

But that was ruined now. Then, the rest of his friend group joined in when he could have just tried to shoot Hyunjin away so he could resume talking to you about anything.

Seeing his sudden grim state, you raised a brow and reached out to pat his arm. When Jisung looked at you, you tilted your head, your eyes asking all the questions you needed to ask, and Jisung replied the same way you asked him: with his soul leaping through the windows of his eyes. It was a conversation without words, and that alone showed a kind of bond all his friends could see had grown to be close-knit and sacred in some way.

“Oh my god, Hyunjin! I think you might have jinxed it when you said soulmates,” Felix mentioned quietly, his eyes fixated on you both when you gave Jisung’s arm another nudge to make him smile. His heart was pounding, his head wandering into a romantic space as he imagined one day when he could find someone he could talk to by looking at them.

“Again? Felix, don’t be ridiculous.” Seungmin waved his hand dismissively. “Soulmates don’t exist.”

The words hung on the top of Seungmin’s tongue, and somehow, the words felt wrong when he looked at you two again. The way Jisung was looking at you and the way he was smiling at you—Seungmin didn’t see it; he felt it. It was different. His eyes crinkled slightly more than usual, so the space within could only hold your image. His lips quirked without effort to show how euphoric he felt just being there with you.

How Jisung looked at you differed from how he looked at everyone else. And the more he looked, the more Seungmin wondered if Jisung knew that himself.

A tap on his shoulder shook him out of his thoughts, and Seungmin barely turned his head to the person in response. Felix breathed a short laugh when he saw Seungmin's gaze on you and Jisung. He was uncertain why he was suddenly so concentrated, but he knew it was something he could tease him about anyway. Felix smacked Seungmin’s shoulder harshly to gain his full attention, rolling his eyes playfully when Seungmin glared at him.

“Do you want to invite [Name] to hang out with us after school today?” Felix asked, motioning towards you.

“I don’t care. Ask Hyunjin.” Seungmin shrugged.

“Really? You stare a lot for someone who doesn’t care,” Felix responded.

Seungmin scoffed then. Whatever Felix was thinking about, which he could assume was something related to some dramatic romance, he was not feeling it. He just had a frozen moment of disbelief in what he had always thought was true: that soulmate didn’t exist. He had always been so against the idea because of what he mentioned to Felix before: people desire it when they can never have it, and there is no point in chasing over a petty ideal.

Besides, people will never love each other so strongly like that. There was no way.

“Jisung feels different, don’t you think?” Seungmin asked gently, his hands tightening on the strap of his school bag.

Felix raised a brow and looked at his friend before turning back to Seungmin, a shrug leaving his shoulders. “Not really.”

Seungmin sighed. Perhaps it was just him and his tendency to detect changes because Jisung felt different. He was still as fulfilling and bright as he used to be, but it wasn’t just him anymore. The blinding innocence in Jisung’s eyes, the way he speaks, his gestures, and everything started to look softer, as if there were extra he could give, but he was holding back for something.

Everything about him went from shining for himself to a light that learned to accommodate somebody else. Jisung used to feel like he had all the love for the entire world, but now he feels like he has put space aside to love someone special. And it was not a mystery who that special someone would be.

“Whatever then, forget I ever said anything.” Seungmin shrugged before he marched forward to catch up with the rest, urging Felix to follow behind.

When the two finally approached you both, the first thing Felix did was strike up a conversation with you.

“We saw you with Jisung once and have meant to introduce ourselves for a long time,” he beamed. “We never got the chance, though. And Jisung is so against us meeting you for some reason.”

“He thinks we are going to steal you from him,” Hyunjin joked with a roll of his eyes.

Amused, you arched a brow at Jisung, who groaned with a faint blush on his face. He thought the teasing would end earlier, but it had just begun. Starting with his mini crush on you when you two first met each other to the strong affection his feelings have gradually blossomed into now. He knew he would not be getting out of his hellhole in a long time.

“You overestimate yourself,” you muttered, turning your usual annoyed look—the signature dead eyes and the furrowed brows—at Hyunjin.

“Hah,” Hyunjin mused with a growing smirk, completely unfazed by your lack of enthusiasm, causing your frown to deepen. Suppose optimism runs in the friend group, but in this case, it felt like a massive load of ego.

“Anyway, we were thinking maybe you’d want to tag along with us to shop after school!” Felix asked, then he turned to Jisung, the smile on his face dimming slightly. “I hope you didn’t forget we planned to hang out today.”

Jisung clicked his tongue in annoyance, finding it very disappointing that his friend had such little faith in him. “I remember,” he replied before looking at you and whispering, “I was going to tell you about it, but I guess they beat me to it.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you’re gonna hang out with your friends, Jisung,” you muttered.

“Well, I mean–since we always go home together, I figured you should know,” Jisung grumbled, his mind short-circuiting as he tried to explain why he needed to tell you everything he does that did not involve you. He did realize how much he had made it seem like he was reporting to a significant other about his whereabouts, and perhaps that was what got him all flustered about it.

Seeing his friend being rendered speechless so quickly, Hyunjin rolled his eyes and let out a short scoff. He hasn’t seen Jisung like this since back in freshman year when he fell briefly—uhh, not quite—in love. Even back then, he hadn’t looked at the girl the way he looked at you today. A crush would suffice, though. Hyunjin hadn’t heard Jisung’s voice trail off that way since he had this giant crush on that senior girl.

He has been trying to find a way to get Jisung to shut up sometimes. All it took was to get him to fall in love. Maybe Hyunjin should have been more seductive in their friendship.

“Well? Do you want to tag along?” Hyunjin chimed in, stopping you from replying to Jisung. He tilted his head at you, raising a brow in encouragement, yet it felt more like a challenging stance.

“Come along! It’ll be fun, and we can get to know you more!” Felix exclaimed, snapping his fingers as if what he said was a brilliant idea.

And he was right. It could be a great idea. Expanding your social network, even if only by three people, could help you with your loneliness. Not that you have been lonely for a while now. Ever since Jisung came into your life, everything flipped upside down. You’ve got company every morning and every night, whether it was in the form of spam texts during lunchtime or messy rambles at midnight when Jisung would slip under the cover with you and just talk nonstop.

And you have never once complained about only having Jisung as a companion. He was more than enough for you and more than what you thought you deserved.

However, not only that, but having more friends could also help you with your future plans. Your nearest goal, which has been in progress for years, was to navigate away from a magical life into a human one. That would require you to suppress a very important part of your identity: being a magic user. But what needed to be done cannot be changed, and you were willing to get on an alternate track for a more comfortable life.

(Given that waking your uncle up was a plan that has decomposed in your mind for a while now.)

You looked at Jisung, asking for his opinion. He gave you a shrug, a warm smile on his face. His friends were great people. Hyunjin might be stepping on thin ice, but according to Jisung, this is just how you two act around strangers. Him being an egomaniac and you being an antisocial, to speak on hyperbolic terms. Once you get to know all his friends, they would be just as amazing as how he knew them.

When you hesitated, Jisung gave you a small nudge on the back, encouraging you to take the invitation. Scanning all three of the unfamiliar boys, you pursed your lips together for a brief moment before you nodded. “Yeah, sure, I’ll come along.”

They smiled. Hilariously, you could assume their personality just from how they smiled at you, just like you did when you first saw them back during your little stalking period. Hyunjin held a smirk; Felix’s grin was wide, and Seungmin only pursed his lips and let his eyes speak the rest. Your heart pounded slightly as you heard Felix begin talking about his shopping plans while Seungmin walked ahead of you with him, Hyunjin following along closely.

It felt thrilling to gain friends your age once again. It made you wonder if the ones you used to have back then still remember you or if they’ve ever tried to go after you. You let out a bitter chuckle. It was unlikely. You have never been friendly enough with anybody for them to drop everything just to find you, especially when sheltering you could mean going against the city council.

“Are you excited?” Jisung asked then, snapping you out of your thoughts.

You softened. “Kind of.”

He turned to look at you then, his warm smile still evident. “I bet you can’t wait to hang out with someone who isn’t me, huh?”

You laughed, your voice as light as feathers. Although you desperately wanted to make a joke, the swirling in your heart prevented you from doing so.

“No. I know it would be great to have a few more friends, but I don’t think I will ever get tired of hanging out with you,” you replied casually. “And just so we are clear, no one can ever take me from you.“

You didn’t look at him. You weren’t sure if you would have been able to say such embarrassing things if you were looking at him. But he was staring at you with the same look again: softened eyes and a loving smile. The look that mirrored the tender falling of first love, the chilling excitement when the first snow touched your nose. A look that screamed he had fallen in love with you all over again.

“I love you, [Name],” he whispered, the thought too big in his head that he needed to get it out of his system.

You laughed brightly. “Yeah.” You reached over to grab his hand and ran your thumb smoothly over the back of his palm, feeling his rough skin and delicate touch. “I promise I will say it back someday.”

He smiled. He’ll wait.

You pulled at your fingers as an uneasy feeling struck your chest for no reason.

You went through with the plan and joined the boys on a window-shopping spree after school. It was mostly just them chatting while they walked through a busy commercial street crowd. Occasionally, they would stop by a shop or two when they found something interesting, but more often than not, they would look at the product of interest and just whine about wanting to buy it instead of buying it.

The only one who bought anything was Felix and his boba milk tea, which everyone else had already taken at least two sips of.

The boys have been engaging you in casual conversations, hoping you could warm up to them more easily. Especially after Jisung spent lunchtime making sure they wouldn’t accidentally step over the line and warning them about you being relatively alert around strangers. You could tell they were cautious about where topics were straying, though. The way they would change subjects, or when it felt like one of them was holding back a joke of sorts, had alerted you.

You appreciated their effort and have been engaging. But while having good intentions in mind, they could not detect that you were only growing more and more anxious as time passed.

When you first met Jisung, you didn’t have anyone else you were trying to please; therefore, you had more chances to distance yourself from him. With him, it was a gradual process of becoming friends. You did not immediately click with him, you did not see him every single day, and you did not have full-blown conversations with him for over thirty minutes.

There were time lapses in between your process of getting closer to Jisung, which was what you were more comfortable with.

Hyunjin, Seungmin, and Felix were three people who kept dragging you into conversations. Seungmin was lesser than the others, you realized, but he was a pain in the ass for being so good at holding onto a conversation you deeply wanted to end. Not to mention, both of you have an argumentative nature. You were just less vocal about it.

It may be a misunderstanding on their part that you would find silence more awkward than sounds, but it was exhausting to talk for so long with people you barely knew, especially when you were in constant fear that what you said simply wouldn’t be entertaining enough for them. They were, after all, Jisung’s friends. You would like nothing more than to leave a good impression and to make new friends, but not at such a quick pace where you need to answer one curious question after another.

It was completely out of your comfort zone and not within your social capability. You needed to be away from them to recharge yourself, yet somehow, whenever you tried to bring that up, you found the words stuck in your throat.

These three were excellent and friendly people. You could not guarantee their reaction when you told them you needed them to shut the hell up for a second, and frankly, you didn’t want to have to say that to them.

Jisung noticed your micro-movements when you turned away to face the zooming cars out on the road. His smile faded, and concern quickly flooded into his eyes. Discreetly moving away from his friends, who were bickering among themselves, he grabbed you gently by the edge of your wrist and pulled at you for attention.

When you looked at him, he asked, “Are you okay?”

His eyes have been home to you ever since the night you told him about yourself; calming, caressing, warming. You could tell him everything he wanted to know, and you have told him everything he wanted to know. But as you caught his eyes right now, all you could think about was how much you must have burdened him for the past few weeks and how much you wanted to stop doing that.

“Yeah,” you replied. “I am just a little hungry.”

He looked at you for a while, accessing your facial expressions, and then he broke into a soft smile.

“We can go get something to eat, I know a store just down the street,” he said before turning around and beckoning his friends over. “Let’s go get something to eat! [Name] said they’re hungry.”

Felix perked up with a nod, agreeing to the idea. Then he stretched his arm out to you, the bottle of milk tea in his hand. “You can have some of my milk tea if you want,” he said, shaking the bottle.

Seungmin chuckled as he pointed at the cup. “I think you drank all the milk tea already. It’s just boba now.”

Felix furrowed his brows as he raised his cup to glance inside. He let out a small yelp of surprise when he saw a pile of boba with the tea drained from the cup. All the weight he felt was an illusion created by the weight of the boba! Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he turned to Seungmin and whined, “You drank everything! What about me? I bought this!”

“Me? What about Hyunjin? He was holding it for a good five minutes back there,” Seungmin retorted as he shoved Hyunjin a little, looking at Felix in disbelief.

Seungmin then turned to Jisung and pointed at him as well. “Jisung drank a lot, too! He just takes big gulps and stores them in his cheeks at a time. That’s why it feels like he didn’t drink too much, but he did!”

“I saw that too! He’s right!” Hyunjin chimed in, also pointing a finger at Jisung.

You watched them. Their tendency to start an argument over the littlest things was, needless to say, entertaining to you. Not only did it give you a chance to relax, but it also gave you free real-life drama to watch.

Amid their bickering, you relaxed a little upon the lack of attention fixated on you. Finally, you decided it would be a good time to help yourself out with some anxiety-reducing magic. You should have done it all along, but there was never the right time to bring the strings out, and you didn’t feel like lying about it.

You reached behind your bag and fished around blindly for the plastic board of strings. Your brows furrowed as you traced their bands with your finger, trying to feel their energy and find the loose ends. As you did so, you also focused on the conversation that the boys were having, which seemed to be getting more and more heated—in a playful way—as the seconds ticked by.

“You guys always drink my stuff! It isn’t just this time!” Felix complained, pouting down at the bottle with angry eyes.

“If you don’t like it, why didn’t you say something?” Hyunjin asked. “We wouldn’t have drunk it if you told us not to.”

Jisung gave Hyunjin a faint, deadpan smile. “You know Felix is a people-pleaser, right? He can’t say no.”

“So you’re saying he is a pushover?” Hyunjin snickered, causing Felix to glare at Jisung in shock.

Seungmin rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to join the argument; it all seemed pointless, and he wanted to end it as quickly as possible. “I’ll buy you one back then, you petty bastard,” he said to Felix, once again not being the best conversation killer.

Felix grimaced bitterly, unamused by Seungmin’s tone. “When you say it like that, it makes me sound like the bad person,” he said. “If that’s the case, I don’t want it.”

Hyunjin huffed out a laugh, turning to look at Jisung and shoving the boy on the shoulder. “People-pleaser, you say?”

“Oh–shut up!” Jisung groaned out, punching him back with an equal amount of strength.

Hyunjin gasped, not expecting Jisung to repeat his movements since he never really did. “No, you shut up,” he retorted, returning the punch and, thus, adding a sub-argument to this seemingly never-ending cycle of heated bickering.

You were too focused on threading a pattern with your fingers to care about what the boys were still discussing. You could hear their voices being thrown back and forth, though, just not quite the words they were saying. After all, there was no need for you to pay attention. Everything would be resolved quickly, just like all the other little quarrels they’d had the past hour about allowance money, parents, grades, and food.

As you concentrated on creating the pattern with your fingers, you found yourself growing less and less nervous when there was a complicated task. You could hear a loud yelp from Jisung and a clumsy shout from who you guessed to be Felix. After that, an array of honks came from the road just beside the pedestrian street you all stood on.

“Hey! Hey! Jisung, watch out!

You snapped your head up. That sounded urgent enough for you to finally break out of your own bubble.

Eyes trailing after the boys, who were all staring with blazing eyes toward one single direction: Jisung. His body was falling backward, presumably being pushed by someone who had miscalculated their strength, and he was close to falling to the ground below the curb when your eyes shifted up at where the honk came from.

A car was rushing forward seemingly slowly, but you knew it was only a perception problem. Your heart rate picked up, and your fingers had already started to undo the pattern on instinct. Judging by the way Jisung was falling and by the distance between him and all of you, it would be impossible for Jisung to be pulled back to safety in time.

It would either be the driver slowing down, which was unlikely, or he gets tackled farther down the road, which would be equally as dangerous as this was a two-lane street.

Without a second thought, as the car from behind tried screeching to a pause to no avail, you jumped out of your spot and onto the road. Your hand had immediately thought of the quickest spell you could think of, tying knots and moving fingers until an easy pattern was formed. The string moved quickly as if it could feel your urgency, and as soon as it wrapped around your forearm, it squeezed your skin with a piercing ache to churn out more energy.

Jisung could feel a hand around his head, a palm pressing against his hair, and his face muffled in your chest. He could recognize your embrace anywhere and at any moment. But instead of feeling solace as he would typically when drowned in your arms, his mind was suffocating with the sound of shattered glass and a beeping engine.

He breathed heavily, his eyes moving to glance to the side, and his eyes widened at the trickle of blood that melted down the string on your forearm.

Magic has consequences. He remembered. This was the first time he had seen it.

The pain was relentless in its attack, spreading from your palm and breaking the top hood of the speeding car to all the exposed skin of your forearm. You channeled too much magic, and even then, it was not enough as your fingers felt numb under the impact of shielding the both of you. You’ve broken your hand with this, but the bone-shattering pain went unnoticed as you pulled yourself away from Jisung and stood up.

“[Name]…” Jisung muttered, his eyes wide at your lifeless hand as you clutched it with your functional one.

Your brows were furrowed, not registering his presence. The pain was finally starting to get to you, all after you had made sure Jisung was fine and safe from harm. Looking around, you sucked in a huge breath at the prying eyes and gossipy cameras those eyes have whipped out. And your new friends—if you could consider them that now—were all staring at you in horror, not sure of what you did or what you received as a result.

There was too much attention plastered all over the crowd, targeted on you, your bleeding hand, and your swelling fingers. It felt worse than your broken bones. You couldn’t move your hand at all without the help of the other one, and you felt your functioning hand slipping as the blood lathered itself all over your skin. The only thing keeping you from succumbing to the pain was the lingering magic sparing you an act of generosity.

Glancing back at Jisung, you huffed quietly and shook your head when he stepped towards you. “I…” You inhaled sharply, and all you could fathom to do was turn around and run for it.

“[Name]–hey, wait!” Jisung wanted to go after you, but the driver quickly stopped him, who was half concerned about your injuries and half angry that Jisung had appeared out of nowhere.

Swinging around and swatting the stranger’s hand away, his gaze was a pit of merciless black when he glared at the driver, wanting nothing more than to run after you immediately. “Look, sir, I don’t have time to talk to–“

“Go, I got this,” Seungmin chimed in quietly as he moved Jisung to the side. He gave the confused boy a firm nod, glancing behind his shoulder at where you had run off to before ignoring Jisung’s questioning gaze and turning to the driver. He had it all figured out by now: a magic user in the land of mundane reality.

“Jisung, we can still catch up if we run now,” Felix urged as he pulled at his hand, forcing him to move.

Jisung blinked momentarily, still trying to comprehend the situation he already knew of. He needed to process it correctly. You got hit by a car–no, you did not get hit by it. You shielded him and yourself, so technically, a crash did not happen. But you were bleeding when you ran away, and the hood of the car was destroyed–it must have been you. He did see strings on your wrist, he believed. He also saw blood, a lot of blood, which entailed a lot of pain.

Jisung breathed heavily, looking around.

He realized you were alone.

The strings couldn’t work with one hand.

You have never considered such a circumstance before, when only one set of your fingers works while the others are rendered completely useless. It was so suddenly presented to you that you weren’t able to think of any plausible solution aside from struggling through the pain and hoping you could somehow make the patterns work with one hand.

You remembered seeing your mother do it when she was multi-tasking around the house, so at least you could have faith that it was possible.

After finding an empty alleyway, you reached the far corner of the dark space and slid down against the dry, rocky concrete wall. Even puffs of air went in and out of your lips as you tried to regulate your breathing and not cause any more pain within yourself; the broken hand and the torn skin were hurtful enough. Glancing down at your hand, your previously steady breath came out shakier than ever upon the reddening bulge, glazed over with the pouring blood that stained the blue string.

You couldn’t feel your arm anymore when you poked at it, but somehow, the pain still lingered strong. It looked ugly.

“Okay… okay…” You kept reminding yourself as you reached to blindly a loose end of your blue string.

It was submerged with your skin entirely, you found out. Using the wrong string for a power-type spell was already bad enough, as it channeled unnecessary energy. But you had to keep using it for pain reduction to keep yourself from collapsing from the injury, causing the string to keep draining your blood through the tissues of your skin by wrapping its bladed surface tighter around your arm.

You had no other choice but to dig your nails through the gap where the string was etched into, hoping to needle out an opening for you to lose your finger through and tug the string out slowly between your flesh.

Tears welled up in your eyes at the agonizing pain when you ever so lightly pulled at the hem of the string, peeling it away. It felt like the sharp end of a blade running across your skin repeatedly, the sharp and stinging pain gutting you with each inch you take off.

The pain-reduction spell was losing its patience with you. You had less than enough blood to give.

Opting to take breaks between each little peel, your heart clenched at how hopeless you were, and a bitterly triumphant smile slowly eased its way to your face.

This situation hit home for you—being in trouble and being alone. You welcomed this eerie nostalgia, even relaxing into it so you could feel better about this situation.

A loud exhale left your lips as you let your arms drop to the ground, your eyes roll skywards at the clouds, and your smile dimmed with satisfaction when it suddenly hit you that you could kindly take your time soothing the pain. You didn’t have anywhere else to be anyway.

Your phone suddenly rang, snapping you out of your thoughts. Letting it ring for a while, you clicked your tongue at how insistent the caller was before you fished it out of your pocket. When you saw Jisung’s name flashed across the screen, your heart halted with a stumble.

Oh god, what were you thinking? Someone out there was desperately looking for you. Han Jisung has been looking for you all over the place.

“[Name]! Where the hell are you?” Jisung’s panicked voice came out as a shout when you picked up.

“I… uhh." You gulped a harsh breath. “I mainly ran straight. You will see a mini-park when you leave the shopping area and go straight. You will see an alleyway if you turn a corner around the crossroad. I’m just far inside.”

There was shuffling on the other side. You could hear Jisung call out to his friends before he pressed his phone back to his ears, and he huffed with each step, not quite running but walking fast enough to be out of breath.

You didn’t dare hang up. He sounded angry when you finally picked up the call, and you assumed he had things to tell you. While he stayed silent to follow your direction, you held your phone between your ear and shoulder as your hand returned to business.

“You better be okay when I get there,” Jisung scolded, his mind flashing back to the bloodied arm you got before you ran away. “How could you just up and leave like that?”

“I’m sorry–“ you winced with a squint of your eye, a yelp leaving your lips when a particularly sharp inch tore at your skin.

Jisung furrowed his brows immediately, the grip on his phone tightening as he picked up his pace. “[Name], what is that? Are you okay?”

“Yeah… no, actually. But I am dealing with it,” you said through gritted teeth. “Anyway, I just got overwhelmed, and my first response was to run away.”

Jisung sighed in defeat. He couldn’t blame you for that, especially since he knew how much you hated being under the spotlight and how much the crowd drains you out. He just wished you could have asked him for help so he could have done something. He could have left with you to fix your hand, which he assumed you would much rather not go to the hospital for. But you were still in pain, and the fact that he was not there to help you was breaking him apart.

It felt like a piece of his heart just left his chest and started to roam around the world looking for you, and he couldn’t protect it. He has no idea where it would go and what would happen to it.

“I think I’m here–oh, please be there,” Jisung muttered as he turned a corner and walked straight into the alleyway. He hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket, his legs rushing until he finally saw you sitting in the back corner.

His heart dropped at the sight of you. Hair stuck to your forehead due to the sweat, your bloodied arm still a raging color of fresh redness, and you were breathing heavily in pain as you tried finishing off with the tightened blue string around your forearm.

Jisung felt tears brimming behind his eyes as a lump of fear jumped to his throat, forcing him to let out incoherent sounds of protest as he rushed to approach you before dropping to his knees.

“No, no–what are you doing? Stop, you’re hurt–you’re hurting yourself.”

His voice came out croaked, and his hands fumbled in the air, somewhere close to yours, hoping to stop your movements. But still, he wasn’t sure if he should stop you because he knew he wasn’t knowledgeable enough.

“Jisung, I have to do this. This has gone far too deep,” you explained calmly, despite wanting nothing more than to break down in front of him. “If I try to heal it, the string will get ripped out of my skin. It’ll hurt way more than me doing it slowly now.”

His friends finally made it to the end of the alleyway then, and you could only give all three of them a firm nod before returning to Jisung.

“You can help me by making the pattern I taught you this morning. Can you do that?” you groaned out.

Jisung nodded. “Wh–what do I have to do?”

“Just go into my bag and find a green string, the same amount I made you use this morning. You will have to make it for me because my bones are shattered,” you instructed, feeling him pause before going to your backpack.

When Jisung gave you a verbal agreement, his voice was much more watery than before. “After you make it, try slotting it onto my hand.”

Jisung was trying very hard to focus on his task. His eyes darted between his hands and you, his mind jumping between remembering what to do and feeling anxious that you were literally going through so much pain right in front of him. He felt like crying, the tears threatening to spill over little by little, but he held it in just so he could appear firmer than his heart was.

You could see him trembling from your peripheral vision as you focused on taking the previous blue string off your forearm, and you could tell by the way he was cursing that he had to start over multiple times.

Jisung was getting fearsomely frustrated that he couldn’t get the pattern done faster, and he was starting to blame himself for everything that had happened thus far.

However, no matter how much you wanted to help him out, you couldn’t break concentration on your task. You have learned to lean into the pain now. If you turn to talk to him, you will have to start over again. You just need to have faith that he remembered what you taught him.

Standing not too far behind you both were the rest of the boys. Awkwardly and unsurely, they stood close to each other and stared ahead at you both. What they witnessed just then was still vivid in their mind, but while demanding an explanation from you or Jisung, they planned to keep quiet for now at this tense minute.

“Should–should we do something?” Felix whispered after he leaned towards his two friends, his eyes focusing on the dry blood staining your skin. The continuous urge to puke lingered, and he could taste the sourness beneath his tongue.

None of them replied to him because there was nothing to say.

Hyunjin barely understood how you didn’t die or how the car got more damage than you did. Seungmin figured out what your identity was, but the process of realizing everything that he thought was fake was, in fact, real gave him a reality check he did not appreciate. Felix was on the verge of throwing up, both the sight of flesh and the confusion of it all contributing to his weakened mind.

All three of them were having issues of their own. How were they supposed to go about helping you out? Besides, this whole incident happened technically because of them. This would not have happened if they hadn’t started bickering.

Jisung screamed in joy when he was finally done with the string. He smiled at it before looking at you for confirmation, but you were still trying to remove the remaining blue string.

Furrowing his brows painfully at you, he waited patiently before you suddenly collapsed against the wall with a relieved sigh, the string dropping to the ground after you let go of it. Jisung felt the rocks on his shoulders roll away as soon as you were done.

“I did it! This is right, I hope?” he said, presenting you with the pattern.

You looked at it, your eyes squinted in thought before you gave him a faint nod.

“Yeah…” You reached your working hand out to him, your fingers spread widely. “Put it on my hand.”

Jisung blanked out then. He has only ever seen you do this with both hands! He was barely skilled at it, let alone sticking the pattern to only five of your fingers!

Shaky eyes trailed towards your face and fingers, then he gulped as he eyed his own hands—Jisung didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t even begin transferring the string to your hand.

“I…” He suddenly turned behind him and yelled at his friends. “Can you guys come and help me, please?”

The three scurried over to you quickly, kneeling by your side and wordlessly listening to Jisung’s explanation. Many suggestions were made as all four fumbled with the patterned string on Jisung’s hands, trying their best to shrink it all to fit at the tip of your fingers and use your palm as leverage. It took a while, but they finally constructed a messy string figure.

Without a second thought, you immediately cast a healing spell and palmed your bloody forearm. The pain vanished gradually, and your wounds sealed themselves up in a fading manner. The boys watched the process unfold; blood suckled back into your flesh, and your skin sewed itself together seamlessly. It was so unreal that it almost looked as if the sight was generated by a computer program.

“Oh, thank god,” you huffed out as you raised your arms in front of your face to wiggle your fingers, feeling your muscles move freely, unlike before.

Seeing your arms going back to normal, Jisung relaxed upon relief. Although the dry blood stains still served as a reminder of what had happened, he took off his schoolbag and scooted closer to you so he could move your arms away and dive right into your embrace. His arms went around your torso as he slumped down onto the ground, sprawling across it.

You widened your eyes, wholly taken back by his action. Not only did you smell like metal, but you also looked like a damn dirtbag. And all of his friends were just there, watching you both with careful eyes.

“Jisung,” you whispered. “I’m bloody, don’t do this.”

He whined with a shake of his head, stubbornly tightening his arms around your waist as he adjusted the position of his head on your chest. He reached for your previous injured hand, loosely lacing his fingers through yours and leaving it on the ground. After all that preparation, he finally stared into the distance, clearing his head to listen to your heartbeat.

It had always calmed him down to hear it. The idea that you’re alive and next to him was delightful.

A pout inched to his face when you asked him to move again because your blood could be staining his white uniform. Jisung insisted on holding onto you at the moment, and he only relaxed when you heaved a sigh and gently patted his head in defeat.

Looking up at the three boys, all with faces of confusion, you pursed your lips together. “I’m sure you three have questions.”

“No shit, we do,” Hyunjin said, his brows furrowing finally as he looked at you.

You told them everything. Almost everything, at least minor details of how your family fell to its deathbed and how exactly magic as a whole works. That could come later.

For now, it was the overall gist of what would clear their confusion about who you are, both as a magic user and as a person who has lived among non-magical people. You watched their suspicious faces turn into clear understandings of the situation.

Hyunjin was the first to stand up after silence ensued. Everyone turned to him with curious eyes, waiting for his next move, and they were all taken back when he wordlessly turned around and just walked out of the alleyway. Not protesting his action, although still unsure why Hyunjin had reacted the way he did, Seungmin and Felix both gave you and Jisung a glance before they got up and left with Hyunjin.

You sighed loudly when you knew they were out of earshot, your hand dropping from Jisung’s head to his waist.

“Do you think I scared them away?” you asked then.

Jisung hummed in genuine thoughts, not seeming to be taken aback by his friend’s actions. “No, I think we have done worse things to each other,” he commented truthfully. “They can handle this. If I can handle it, so can they.”

You breathed out unsurely, your anxiety getting the best of you.

While not quite caring how your background could affect your relationship, since you’ve always had people leave you for it anyway, you wished hard that it would not ruin Jisung’s friendship with them. For one, making him choose between his friends and you would be cruel. For two, you have second thoughts about who he would choose if the dilemma proposes itself to him.

You continuously doubt your place in Jisung’s heart. He would go insane if he knew you didn’t trust your place in his heart to be the top priority because he’s always placed you before himself. He knew that before when you two just realized you guys were soulmates. He knew when he started whispering those ‘I love you’s' differently after you fell asleep. He knew that now, with his arms around your waist and his head still pressed against your chest, refusing to let go.

If you go, he will soon follow. It is the tradition of soulmates. It is the tradition of love.

“[Name]…” His voice was muffled when he looked up at you, eyes innocently wide and sparked with sincerity. They were how he always looked at you, and they always made your heart jump with affection.

Your hand instinctively flew up to his head, playing with his hair as your eyes softened upon the vulnerable atmosphere. Jisung played with your finger, his movement bashful and shy before he held your hand and let it lay on the ground.

“I… “ He sighed. “Next time something like that happens, please don’t run away again.”

You pursed your lips together, feeling guilty about putting him through such stressful events. But the remorseful feeling vanished as soon as he spoke again.

“It scares me to not be there when you’re hurt. Even if I may not be of much help, I want to at least be there so you aren’t alone,” he explained before he looked up at you again.

There was something in his eyes. A swirl of fluorescent light, something celestial but different than the usual ones you have seen. A kind of affection that traverses what you used to know from him. He was looking at you differently. You could tell for the first time.

“I love you so much. Please don’t do that again," he whispered to you.

And somehow, you just knew he had meant that. He meant that confession in the most loving, romantic way possible.

It wasn’t the ones he threw at you during mid-conversation, the ones he would say with a goofy smile when he made a mistake. This was real, as real as the double knots he pretended to tie on your soulmate string that night so it would not be broken, and as real as the feeling of his lips on your eyes when he kisses you goodnight, thinking you wouldn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered, your eyes facing forward. “I…” You sucked in a shaky breath, but you felt ready, “I love you too.”

Jisung’s eyes widened for a fraction. He had not expected you to say it back so quickly. He thought he would have to wait a little while for it, which he didn’t mind. This was a pleasant surprise, and he hugged you tighter for it, a tender smile and a soft blush growing on his face.

He felt childish for being so overjoyed over something so small, even though it is never something small when having your deepest feelings returned by the person of desire. You’ve got to be really lucky for the universe to time your moments right like this. It seemed like the stars loved you both enough to hand you over to each other, and how fortunate it was that they got it right this time around.

Footsteps could be heard from not too far away, and you looked up, anticipating the arrival of three boys. Felix was the first to stop before you, followed by Hyunjin and Seungmin, who trailed behind slowly. You raised an eyebrow at the giddy boy, watching as he knew, and pulled his hand out from behind his back to reveal a small paper bag.

“We got you something!” Felix exclaimed as he handed you the bag.

He sat on his heels and watched expectantly as you pulled out a small keychain knitted into a cartoon squirrel with dirty brown strings. You couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle as you dangled it in front of your face.

This must be because you use string magic, but unfortunately, these strings would probably not do you much good due to their low quality. You weren’t supposed to separate the squirrel anyway.

Jisung snickered for a moment and shrunk back towards you when he received three glares.

“Sorry about what happened. It was our fault,” Hyunjin said. “This won’t compensate for it, but we hope you will take it anyway.”

“I paid for it, by the way,” Seungmin chimed in. “These two just found the store and picked it up.”

It was the thought that counted. You haven’t received a gift from anyone but yourself in a long time, and this one single keychain felt like ten missed birthdays mashed into one.

Giving them a smile, you held it tightly and spoke, “I accept your apology, and thank you for the keychain.”

A smile slowly blossomed onto their faces, widely and discreetly. Felix clapped his hands together, and then, with a hopeful expression, he said, “So we’re still friends, right?”

You paused in speechlessness. The thought that you were friends with them has never crossed your mind. Your position was as miniscule as being a mutual friend, and you had expected things to remain that way. But seeing Felix’s genuine smile, it seemed like these three had already roped you into the group without your knowledge, and you did not have the heart to refuse such an offer.

You nodded at them, and you felt warm on the inside. Like they just barged into your heart, bickering and laughing loudly, disregarding every aspect of you that you thought was unloveable and intolerable, and they lived with you. They just sat beside Jisung, taking up the remaining space he couldn’t occupy. You figured they would stay in your soul for as long as you could handle it.

“Great! Now, can we actually eat something–oh no, wait.” Seungmin frowned at you as he eyed your blood-stained figure. “Your shirt and arm. We can’t go outside like that.”

“Hey, I have my jersey if you want to wear it! It can cover up most of the stain,” Hyunjin suggested with a shrug. “It probably smells like sweat, though, since I haven’t washed it in a week and practiced in it every day.”

Felix removed his bag and reached for a water bottle and a handkerchief. He looked at you and hummed, “We should try washing the blood off. We wouldn’t get past the kids playing in the park, so it’s better to wash it off here.”

“Oh yeah, that’s true.” Seungmin nodded. “Or you should do an invisibility spell if you know one.”

The boys looked at you, waiting for your response. It felt like an opening to a question-and-answer segment, and it was debatable whether Seungmin had suggested the idea to offer a solution or if he wanted to watch you try out even more magic. You usually minded the curiosity, but you did not mind theirs.

“Don’t be insane. They literally just went through tremendous pain because of using magic,” Hyunjin said, piecing the puzzle together in his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to use magic for every little thing, or at least unnecessarily.”

Everyone turned to him, shocked at his surprisingly keen observations. Seungmin pulled a face in dismay that Hyunjin, of all people, beat him to being intelligently considerate, and then he shrugged. “That’s fine. I have a body spray you can use, though. Hyunjin’s sweat smells like literal garbage.”

Jisung snorted, finally pulling away from you and looking up at Hyunjin, who glared at Seungmin with a deadpan expression.

“I thought you wanted to cover up the bloody smell.” Jisung laughed. “But yeah, totally. Hyunjin smells worse than that.”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, ignoring the mindless insults thrown at him. “You know you only need three people to start a religion, right?” he urged suddenly. “There is Felix, me, and [Name]. I will literally build a Seungmin and Jisung-hating religion.”

Jisung laughed. “[Name] won’t join you.”

You shook your head as you sucked in a breath, inhaling your lips into a mocking smirk. You playfully followed along with Hyunjin’s ridiculous idea. “Yeah, I don’t know about that.”

Jisung widened his eyes at you then, but instead of calling you out for playing along, he turned to Hyunjin and began a string of lousy trash-talking.

You watched as Seungmin attempted to resolve the argument, only to have his quick tongue spill something distasteful to their ears and get roped into the bickering. As Seungmin got dragged into the feud, mindless insults thrown around the air like a plastic ball, Felix stepped close to you and linked his arm through yours.

“We better get going!” he exclaimed lowly, eyeing his three friends. “Or else we’re gonna get involved in all of that.”

You agreed with him silently by letting him drag you out of the alleyway. You smelt of sweat and blood, but Felix did not mind. As you two turned a corner, he inched closer to you with anticipation, to which you responded with a faint body retreat.

“I just want to ask something,” he said. “Soulmates are real, right?”

You blinked; how could you forget? Jisung told you about Felix and his fascination with love, thus leading to his yearning for the existence of soulmates. His innocent eyes blinked, waiting for an answer. You would have lied to him anyway.

With lips slowly pursing into a smile, you nodded bashfully at him. His smile grew in miles, and he was excited and grateful for the beauty this universe has allowed to happen to people. After a beat of a second, he looked toward you and faintly squeezed the corner of your inner elbow by pulling toward his direction.

“Do you know who yours is?”

You told him, and he bursted into giggles when Jisung’s struggling voice traveled through the walls to find you after he realized you had been stolen from him. Felix pulled you into a jog, loving nothing more than to see his friend miserable. You couldn’t help but mirror his joy, letting yourself smile.

You have gotten closer to the three boys than you ever thought you would be. You had been meeting up with them after school, and they dragged you to different places before and after your work.

Coffee shops where you all share one cup of bitter coffee after debating for half an hour if a five-dollar pizookie was worth it. Clothing stores where none of you ever buy anything from, just hold the shirts to your bodies and think about wearing them. Pop-up art museums where you were pretty sure they only went for the aesthetics rather than the actual art.

It felt like you’ve been around the world just by spending time with the four of them. And everything they did—all the dragging you to places and waiting for you to finish with work so they could take you to hang out—was all in an attempt to give you back the childhood you should have had.

They knew they weren’t responsible for what happened to you, but as your friends, they felt it would be their responsibility to make you as happy as possible.

They even went as far as to join you at your graveyard shift after midnight once. It was an event organized by Jisung himself, and Seungmin made up the sleepover excuse so nobody’s parents would worry that their child wasn’t home yet.

They had caused a ruckus in the convenience store that night, but it had been okay because barely anyone approached the outside world in the dead of night. They continuously purchased instant noodles and sodas until they had either tried everything in the store or started getting tummy aches from all the different food mixtures. It was an effort to keep themselves awake.

All four of them ended up falling asleep with their heads on the countertop by the start of sunrise, and you all ate breakfast in the store when your shift ended before bidding each other goodbye.

It was the closest you have ever felt to having a family. When Felix laid his head on your shoulder as he dozed off, still sipping the juice box in his hand; when Hyunjin ruffled your hair when you could finally join them by the windowpane; when Seungmin went to heat the bento box for you and stood by the counter table because he gave you his seat.

All the minor things that made the world a little brighter for you. The small things that make up a group of people and their habits around each other make everything a little better for you.

You could not have asked for better friends.

“I knew we should not have picked today to come here,” Seungmin said as he faced the crowded area.

Most of the time, at least.

You guys have planned to visit a cat café on a whooping Sunday afternoon—well, no, Felix planned it. He made you join him by booking a table for five beforehand. Seungmin had complained about him picking the wrong date, and he was right. The shopping area was packed with people free from school and work, moving from one corner to another as they went about their last free day before the week recycled again.

That made it harder for you all because none of you knew exactly where this café was located, and you guys were on quite a tight schedule.

“There was only today!” Felix huffed. “Hyunjin should have come earlier so we wouldn’t have to worry about being late to the reservation. We would have had time to look for the café.”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue in response to the accusation. “You made the reservation, Felix,” he said. “If anything, you should know where it is.”

Jisung and you shared a look before he pursed his lips and stepped between the two, his hands raised in mock defeat. With an awkward laugh, Jisung began, “Alright, let’s not fight! We can just ask [Name] to find it for us!”

You widened your eyes at him incredulously then, surprised by his suggestion. When the three boys turned their hopeful eyes at you, you only shook your head at them.

“I can’t do that,” you said. “We don’t have location spells like that.”

“What? So, what kind of location spells do you have?” Jisung asked, dropping his arms to his sides.

“The kind that finds people? Or the kind that finds places that don’t have duplicated names like ‘The Meow Café,’ ” You replied with faint disbelief.

“There is probably only one of those cafés around this area, [Name],” Seungmin pointed out.

You sucked in a breath and forced a smile at him. Seungmin was always so clever, but somehow, he was never on the same page as you.

“Right, except the strings don’t point out where it is to me so I can eliminate the places,” you said. “They pull me towards the place, meaning that if there is one of these cafés down the other direction, I will get pulled towards two different places simultaneously.”

Seungmin sighed then. It was a somewhat disappointed sigh. “That’s unconventional.”

“Phone maps that don’t work without an internet connection are also unconventional,” you retorted. “At least my strings work anytime I need them to.”

“Do they, though?” Seungmin questioned. “Because from my recollection, you said that magic has consequences. And from what I am seeing, your consequence can actually end your life at some point.”

Seungmin was about to add to his point when Jisung clamped a hand over his mouth. There was a smile on Jisung’s face, but his eyes possessed a glare. Part of him was happy that you and Seungmin’s relationship had gotten to this point where you could bicker with him as much as he and Hyunjin would. Still, sometimes he thought how much more venomous you two were in comparison.

It may be the product of you both being logical and pessimistic people. When you two argue, it is never like the silly arguments that Jisung has with everyone else.

Jisung possessed a ridiculously unserious nature that you nor Seungmin did, thus making every friendly quarrel stupid banters. You and Seungmin were both stubborn and opinionated. It was not the best combination for disagreement but was great when needing a solution.

Jisung urged Seungmin to shut up and ensured Seungmin would comply before he was released from Jisung’s grip. Jisung turned back to stand by your side, giving Seungmin one last pointed glare to behave.

Clearing his throat, Jisung gave everyone a brief look before he suggested, “How about we split up and look for it? If some of us arrive, they can’t cancel our reservation.”

“Finally, an idea!” Hyunjin exclaimed. “I’ll go with Felix!”

Seungmin furrowed his brows as he looked at the two. When he realized he didn’t feel like joining the chaotic duo, he turned to look over at you and Jisung. He frowned more because of the petty argument you two had, and he grimaced as he took a few steps.

“I’ll ask around by myself,” he said.

You looked away, not wanting to meet eyes with him. It was not because you felt wrong about what he said, but it was out of pure spite to act like you couldn’t care less. You were only willing to be petty about this because you and Seungmin knew this was less than it seemed to be.

It was just friendly hatred. Like siblings, a random question or an offering of food would fix the rigid tension.

You knew he would come around eventually, and you two would be chatting again in no time, so for now, you’d wither under all the spiteful actions you could muster and prepare to apologize to him later.

After the little searching parties were formed, you all went separate in different directions. You and Jisung continued walking straight ahead while the others went on either side, where the roads opened up with more stores littered.

The crowd was still large and buzzing, causing much trouble to stick together as you walked. It was almost as if you two were stuck waiting in a queue in a theme park. Jisung kept turning his head back to glance at you, his brows furrowing more and more each time when he noticed how you seemed to get farther and farther away from him.

Soon enough, when he turned back once again, he could barely see you among people anymore. He clicked his tongue and halted his steps, his eyes darting everywhere for your face. He waited for the people to move around him, some throwing him glares for not moving while others simply moved out of his way. None of them caused him to budge from his spot until you caught up with him slowly, popping out from behind strangers.

“It’s so crowded here,” you complained with a sigh. “Felix really chose a bad day.”

He smiled faintly, giving you a shrug. “At least we can pet kittens later,” he said before looking down at his phone, a map displayed on his screen.

He had no idea where it was bringing him to. Back then, when the group was still gathered, the map clearly showed they were at the destination despite their inability to find it. The route on the screen continuously changed to fit the illogical directions he was heading toward, and he just knew he didn’t trust it. He only still had a map out because it was better than blindly guessing where the café would be.

Putting his phone back into his pocket after he took a good look, he gave the surrounding shops a scan before he hummed. “I think we should try walking further and see.”

“Yeah, I will keep an eye out.” You nodded at him.

Before Jisung moved again, he casually grabbed your hand before walking. A silent squeal fell at the tip of your tongue. For some odd reason, your mind didn’t consider this a grand gesture even though your heart was swelling at how bold that was.

It was just to keep you from getting lost in the crowd and being separated from him. For all you knew, Hyunjin was probably dragging Felix by the hand, considering the sea of people around you.

But it was a romantic gesture, nonetheless.

Jisung kept his gaze forward. The first few seconds of him holding your hand, he went through it with widened eyes and pursed lips, a blushy smile threatening to rise to his face. He was both surprised at his daringness and glad you kept his hand wrapped under yours. Then, he slowly got used to it. The softness of your palm no longer a foreign object of his affection and desire.

You were close to him; you two were holding hands among the crowd, and there was that.

As you two shifted through waves of people, Jisung suddenly paused as his head turned to the side. You followed where he was looking, wondering if he had found the shop already, only to find him looking at a stationery store.

Turning back to him, you asked, “Do you need to get something?”

Jisung hummed in thought, unsure if he should wait until you guys were done with the café before coming back here to get what he needed for school. But he also didn’t want his forgetful self to remember he needed something until you both got home because a coffee shop filled with cats seemed like a nice place to get school-related amnesia.

“Kind of,” he muttered as he started tugging at your hand, bringing you out of the main street and to the side where the shops were.

“It’ll just be a minute,” he said when you two were at the entrance, his thumb briefly brushing past the back of your palm as a form of farewell before he let go and rushed into the store.

You watched his back disappear into the shelves before looking away and leaning against the wall, hiding near an empty corner so you couldn’t be in people’s way. During this dull moment, you decided to glance down at your hand instead of watching people pass by, thus running the risk of making awkward eye contact with strangers.

A small smile appeared on your lips as you squeezed your hands together, remembering the shape of Jisung’s hand in yours.

You felt like such a sap, but it was rightfully so. Everything has changed for both of you since that day in the alleyway. None of you have made a declarative move yet, but there have been moments of affection here and there; there have been many suggestive questions and dodgy replies, blatant smiles and glances, and a lot of subtle touching.

It was all pushing and pulling, not telling each other how you felt, and leaving confusing signals.

All three of your friends knew, though. Seungmin had also dragged you into confronting conversations about how you felt about Jisung (which he already knew). The conversation would quickly be halted by a distracting topic about the differences between your lives. No matter how much of yourselves you reveal to each other, there is more to learn.

The most hilarious thing was Seungmin’s reaction toward your childhood tragedy, which you expected from someone with such strong opinions about everything.

As you huffed out a breath of fresh air, trying to keep your mind off the sappy relationship problems (that were not real problems, really), you made a mental note to yourself that you should initiate the apology this time. Your eyes wandered off in the moment of not thinking, and quickly, you caught sight of a pair of designer shoes stopping in front of you.

You ignored it momentarily, your brain not ready to process your surroundings yet. But you finally snapped your head up when the person refused to leave.

The irritation that masked your face faded when you saw those familiar eyes shining down at you. You paused to assess the familiarity; was it illusional nostalgia or real? Was he who you thought he was?

The man also stared at you for a good moment, having the same question as you. Realization flooded his face, and he huffed out an almost relieved laugh upon seeing your faint smile.

“Minho…” you muttered under your breath, disbelief clouding your judgment upon seeing the man who used to babysit you when your parents were off to council gatherings.

Lee Minho lived within the same residential area as you. His house was within your block, only separated by two houses. His family was also part of the council but was less long-standing than yours. Since his family was more lenient about having him be around at council meetings despite being of age to do so, he had always gotten free time to take care of you.

“Oh my god, it is you," he gasped. “It really is you.”

“Were you searching for me?” you asked.

He shrugged solemnly. "Yeah... kind of."

"Alright," you dragged out suspiciously. “What's up?"

“What's up?” he scoffed with faraway eyes and a few nods. He was thinking, debating whether to bring up what had happened. “I have been worried about you all these years.”

Minho was young then, but he understood the situation's intensity. He had waited for you to turn to him for help or comfort. He did take primary care of you immediately after the accident despite his parents’ protest.

You lived with him for a while; he took care of all the living expenses with his allowance and would bring you to check on your uncle in the hospital. Then you grew older. You turned ten, and the council stripped you from his protective grasp.

You did confide in him once or twice when you were forced to be under the educational curriculum of the existing council members. Then, one day, you vanished and never returned. You just fled without telling him anything.

“People thought you died because nobody in the council has heard from you again. I thought you died!”

You gave him a casual shrug, your lips pursing as you thought of what to say.

He must have felt betrayed somehow. Despite everything, Minho had once been close to you, albeit you were very young and didn’t feel the need to be grateful. He cooked your meals, he tutored you with school, and he lied to your parents for you countless times. Even the trusty spell you used to hide your trails came from him when he taught you how to always win in a game of hide-and-seek.

It was a simple spell. It was easy to break, but nobody thought to break it, not even Minho. Until now, at least.

You wondered why you never looked to him for help, and it felt like the answer was already there: his family was part of the council. You knew not of the details of what happened and who schemed the entire incident, so you were unwilling to place your bets on any family.

Minho’s family was just as likely to have taken part in the murder of yours despite you knowing them as kind neighbors.

Would it directly be Minho’s fault that your family died? No, but he became a liability once the possibility that his parents may have been part of the culprit group, and you refused to take any chances. Even though he cared about you. Even though he was a great friend of your uncle.

“You need to come back, [Name],” Minho said, straightening his posture.

You furrowed your brows at him, unable to fathom how he thought that would be a good idea. Even if nobody was plotting your downfall, why would you return to the city where you lost everything? He was idiotic to make that suggestion.

“There is no reason for me to,” you replied.

“The council still has a spot for you,” Minho said softly.

“Tell them to find somebody else,” you blurted out coldly. “I’m not interested in working for or with people who murdered my family, nor am I interested in helping them be better.”

Minho gave you a brief sigh of defeat, trying to find the right words to phrase everything. He understood. Logically, he really did. If he were in your position… well, he would probably do a few things differently, but your hatred for the council was justified.

However, things have changed drastically since then. Change was bound to happen after so long; as Minho saw it, the council would be safe.

There was no reason for you to suffer alone in the mundane world.

“Look… it has been years. I apologize for being insensitive, but I promise the council is much different now. Most of the people who used to be there are no longer members, and most of us do not agree with what happened, nor will it be allowed again. You should give it a chance. Come back, come home. I can help you.”

You sucked in a breath. Disregarding that you could never get over what happened to your family or that only a majority of things changed and not all things, you could appreciate Minho’s determination to help you out.

But you never wished to go back to that godforsaken place, not only because of the tragic memories plastered all over that city but also because you have important things here with you now.

You built your identity in this city, found your jobs, met your friends, and found your soulmate here. You would never permanently leave this city unless the people you love are leaving it too.

“I am not going back, Minho. I’m sorry.” You shook your head. “I am doing really good here.”

Minho was quick to frown at you.

“Good here?” he said, his voice suspicious and almost condescending. You have never seen him like this because you never got the chance to. Everyone around you used to be magic users. “People here can’t do what we can. You can’t explore your potential here, which is a huge waste. Remember who your family is and what they can do; don’t let all that go down the drain.”

“Who cares about my magic if I will be miserable for the rest of my life? As you said, most of the council has changed, but not all of them. I will not be safe until all of them are gone," you reasoned as you stepped up to him. “I am better here. At least no one is trying to exploit my family’s legacy.”

“Because nobody here knows who you are,” he pointed out.

You laughed sardonically, rolling your eyes in disbelief and letting your gaze linger out at the street of people. You shook your head, reminding yourself of all your friends and all the great people you have encountered. There would always be terrible people; unfortunately, the world would never be perfect. But, the greatness of having the good ones near you made it meaningful.

You have good people around you here. You have had bad ones, but the good ones outshine them by a million miles.

“No, actually,” you argued quietly. “People here do know me. They’re just not greedy and horrible like us.” You glared at him then, finally deciding to meet eyes with someone who you once trusted. “I can’t believe you even tried to convince me to go back. Do I need to remind my uncle is still in a coma? You know, the man who was once your close friend.”

Minho huffed, a flash of tainted guilt covering his eyes before it was replaced with unexplainable disgust. You dared to bring up his friendship with your uncle. You dared all of what you have, which was little to nothing. You knew nothing about the two of them. He knew your uncle longer and better than your measly shared blood. You had no idea how he felt about his friend falling victim to his own family’s greed.

You were a child, and you still were despite all the hardships you have endured. You knew nothing.

Minho was going to speak, to scold you perhaps, but his eyes shifted when a certain boy walked up behind you and tugged at your shirt. You were pulled back from Minho, a hand soon wrapped protectively around yours as Jisung threw a worried glance between you and Minho.

“What’s going on…?” he asked quietly, frowning at you.

“Nothing, don’t worry.” You waved it off with a soft smile. “He’s just someone from my home city.”

Jisung widened his eyes in shock. He was not expecting to see another magic user, especially someone with a history with you. Turning over to look at Minho, he accessed the man silently; lean, stoic, and angry-looking. Jisung wondered if something had happened or if the man was born with a stern face. His observing expression faded into a timid one when he found Minho staring at him in thought.

Minho’s eyes shifted to your hands, and he raised a brow, a smirk of contempt reaching his cheeks when he saw the faint string linking you both together. You kept talking about hating the council, but there was an even bigger reason why you refused to leave this city, wasn’t there? Your soulmate was here, and he was a soulmate who cared.

Unlike his own—a soulmate who never woke up after a tragic incident years ago, one which you conveniently sat out of.

“I see,” Minho hummed. “He is the reason why you won’t leave this city.”

A breath hitched in your throat. Minho sounded threatening, almost as if plotting something in his head. You couldn’t be too sure; you would love to give yourself the benefit of the doubt that he still, with the childish part of him, cared about you.

You hoped when he saw you, he saw the kid he used to love. But your mind was too paranoid that something would happen to Jisung if you showed a bond here, so you didn’t.

“He’s just a friend,” you said, removing yourself away from Jisung on a quick whim.

“You forget who I am, [Name],” Minho smirked as he gestured toward your hand. “I can see the red string just as you can.”

“What is your problem?” Jisung asked as he took a bold step forward, pulling you behind.

You shoved him backward as Minho flashed the boy a menacing glare. Jisung struggled against your grip; he could tell something was up. He wasn’t as stupid as he liked to act normally.

While unsure of what exactly Minho’s deal was, knowing that he was a past figure from your childhood was enough to warrant him doubting Minho’s intention. Why would you be here without help if he was someone close to you?

And he wanted to help. He wanted to shield you from pain and drama and death and everything harmful that could ever come your way. He wanted to be helpful.

“Step aside, Jisung,” you whisper-yelled at him. “He’s just asking me to go home.”

Oh? Now he has to be here because you cannot go back.

“Go somewhere else. Let me handle this.” You demanded again when Jisung stood on his ground.

“No! Are you serious? This man looks like bad news!” Jisung retorted stubbornly, flipping his wrist so his hand would clamp over yours instead. He squeezed your hand, looking at you firmly. “I’m not leaving you here alone. What if he takes you?”

“He is not going to,” you reassured him. “Please just leave? I will catch up with you, I pro–“

“Hey! Don’t touch them!”

Minho had snuck up behind you without your knowledge. Once your attention is focused on Jisung, all else often fades into the background. You had no idea Minho even marched behind you until Jisung shifted his weight, took a giant stride to maneuver over you, and swatted Minho’s approaching hand away from your shoulder. Jisung deathly glared at the taller man, refusing to budge despite the unspoken power dynamic.

You spun around just in time to see Minho clench his jaw in irritation and the tattoo inked on the side of his index finger glowing a halo white color. You furrowed your brows; you had no idea what the rune meant, but it must not have been a regular spell if it was hidden in a place like that.

Although the glow disappeared as Minho calmed himself down, you held your caution like a wall and put your hands on Jisung’s shoulders.

It was unlikely, but there was still no guarantee that Minho would not discreetly do something publicly and frame it as an accident. He was always good at that. Thanks to the less obvious medium he inherited from his family, he was always good at subtle and stealthy magic.

You attempted to pull Jisung backward. “Jisung, leave us alone!”

“No! Screw him–screw you!” He snatched himself from your grip and advanced toward Minho, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You know what happened, and you did nothing to help them! How dare you come here to ask them to go back home like there’s a home to be had over there! You are a terrible person!”

Panicked, you kept your eyes focused on Jisung as he animatedly defended you when there was no issue genuinely present. He was getting louder, and a crowd began gradually forming to check out the source of this commotion. That would cause nothing but trouble and inconvenience for both you and Minho. You had to leave, all of you.

You unzipped your bag and pulled out your string card, quickly unwrapping a small piece to create a teleportation figure. Minho seemed to have caught sight of your rapid movement because he shifted his torso to the side to see better what you were doing.

His sudden distraction caught Jisung’s attention. Jisung turned around, eyes narrowed with distaste, and he jolted in surprise when you took his wrist and dragged him elsewhere.

Minho followed suit, trailing behind you as you led him straight into an alleyway with fewer people. Jisung huffed in exhaustion to follow up with your speed, and when you finally stopped, you spun around to meet him face-to-face.

You immediately put a hand over his head, not sparing him a second to speak. Jisung widened his eyes, uncertain about his assumption that you were putting a spell on him. His doubt was erased once you changed a familiar-sounding spell under your breath, and his voice struggled in its protest.

“I’m sorry, Jisung,” you said quickly. Before you closed the portal on him, you reassured him, “I’ll find you later.”

He was gone in a second, carried away by the wind and magic. Minho watched the disappearance of the portal with disinterest, his hands shoved in his pocket as if he had been idly waiting for you to get rid of your nosy soulmate. When you exhaled in relief once he was gone and your ears were quiet, you looked to Minho with disdain.

“You are so vulnerable with him,” Minho pointed out. “I am surprised.”

You clicked your tongue. “Why? I was the same way when you knew me.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he said with a knowing smile. “Either way, I take it that you’re not going home when he's here, are you?”

There was a shove at your chest. The word ‘home’ sounded uneasy.

The word ‘home’ sounded like Jisung’s house, where his parents were continuously loving and where he loved to joke and laugh around. The word ‘home’ sounded like the cheering with your friends from the bleachers at Hyunjin’s basketball game, inhaling and arguing over Felix’s baked cookies. The word ‘home’ sounded like Seungmin scribbling on his notebook as he studied at the convenience store you worked at, mutters of equations leaving his lips.

The word ‘home’ was none of the above when it left Minho’s lips. He no longer sounded how you knew him to sound; he was not the sweet boy you knew.

“No,” you answered faintly.

“This is not the place for you, [Name]. People like you and I don’t belong here,” Minho said as if it was a desperate attempt.

You clenched your fists, your head lowered to face the ground. You felt unsteady, but you knew your decision was final.

“You’re wrong. People like you don’t belong here,” you told him. “I earned a place here. This is my home now, and I am never going back there. I’m sorry about Uncle Chan, I really am.”

Minho remained silent. He looked disappointed and discouraged.

“I have been researching what to do, and I think I can wake him up.”

Light returned to your eyes for a split second. You caught his gloomy features and realized you had misunderstood him.

He wasn’t here to convince you to go back for the council. Why would he? He must also have a bone to pick with them because of what they did to your family, to his soulmate. He was never here to drag you back, so you have another chance to suffer eternally.

You looked down at his fragile hand and shuddered at the dirty red string. Gashes and nail marks adorned its surface, waiting to be broken so it could save the love of a lifetime and promptly destroy it simultaneously.

Minho planned to risk the fated bond to save Chan, and he needed you to be there for him. Nobody else knows of their bond, and his feelings—nobody else but your family, and you were the only one left.

He would never take you back there and force you to walk in the steps of your parents. Minho was here to beg you to return for him, even for a little, because he was about to lose everything.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered when you were within his reach.

You pursed your lips. “It’s not your fault.”

“Don’t break the string,” you suggested. “We can figure it out another way. I will keep researching. You can try to bring my family’s books over for me to go through them. We will figure something out.”

Minho sighed, his voice shaky. Hearing you reassure him did alleviate his stress, thankfully. “It’s been so long. He’s not waking up.”

“No,” you said, “I think he will.”

He has to. Because it cannot be just you. It cannot be just you on this stranded land.

A somewhat relieved exhale left his parted lips. He looked relaxed now, not as stoic as before. You forgot how gorgeous he was; it all came to light once you put down your shaded lenses.

The heat at your neck released itself throughout the rest of your body once you realized the previous tension was gone, and you felt at ease. Minho’s shoulders slumped in unison, his guard being let down, and he smiled remorsefully at you.

“How have you been?” he started again. "I forgot to ask you."

You hummed contently. “I’ve been good.”

“You found your soulmate. Here, of all places,” he said, looking around him in confusion. There was almost relief in his voice when he added, “But he loves you.”

“He does,” you sighed with furrowed brows, recalling when you sent him away without much explanation. “I have probably upset him a great deal just then, so I need to find him.”

Minho nodded in silent agreement. He kicked his feet subtly and stood up straight again. “Yeah, you should go find him.”

“I plan to,” you said, your eyes lingering on his face. “Stay safe, Minho. I’ll see you again.”

After he gave you a wave in response, you spun on your heels and ran off.

Jisung did not return your calls nor reply to your messages. You did not necessarily want to pull the strings out for this, but after minutes of spinning around in a circle in this shopping area to find no traces of him, you opted for the easier way out: you pulled at him by the soulmate string.

You were there before you knew it, running after where the string was leading you and finding yourself at an emptier part of the shopping area. There were more cars than people here, and most stores were restaurants with few people.

You slowed down to catch your breath, and then your hands were on your knees as you inhaled and exhaled rapidly. When you were finally done, you stood up straight and called for his name.

Jisung froze on the spot. It was just a habit to respond whenever you called out to him, and he would turn around to respond with a bright grin. He turned around this time, but his face remained grim and betrayed.

However, part of him relaxed when he saw that you were safe and sound before him. He waited as you jogged up to him and stopped before you crashed into his body.

“Hey, I’m back,” you said. “Did you manage to catch up with everyone else?”

He shook his head, a frown tattooed on his face. “No, I was busy worrying about you.”

You smiled a little and shrugged. “I already told you I would handle the situation.”

He sighed. You didn’t understand him. You couldn’t understand his feelings of panic and fear. Perhaps this was all just an easy feat to you because you were born with the ability to physically defend yourself, from being able to do fantastic things and the ability to self-heal.

But to him, an ordinary boy, none of this was breezy and understandable. What he saw in Minho was what he would see in someone holding a knife and marching toward him. Minho was a person who could do you harm.

It was not about you being able to take care of the situation. It was about him not knowing what was happening and being forced to be scared in a tiny corner. It seemed his feelings were disregarded when you brushed him off with a half-hearted laugh.

“How am I supposed to know that? I cannot be sure of that!” he reasoned in a fury haze. “Maybe you have the upper hand with danger when you are here, but I doubt you do when facing someone with the same capability as you.”

“Jisung, I am literally standing here now.” You awkwardly laughed. “ It’s really not that big a deal.”

“Yes, it is! My feelings are a big deal!” He pointed at himself repeatedly, his fingers jabbing at his chest as his eyes emphasized how hopeless and inferior to you he had felt. His eyes were staring into your soul angrily. They made you shiver.

“I am allowed to be scared for you and not be teleported away without my consent when you need me!”

You kept silent for a second. Your brain was processing his words and fishing out specific details to fit a narrative only you understood selfishly. You could not understand his frustration; where was it coming from? Why should he be upset? Your issues were never his, even though you knew he had the desire to shoulder your burdens for you. You didn’t need him to, though. You never wanted him to either because what can he help with? Not much is provided in terms of real solutions.

You shook your head and sighed, “Is that it? You didn’t like it when I used magic on you without asking?”

“What–my god, no–yes! But that is not the point I am making!” Jisung exclaimed, messily waving his hand as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to calm the ringing noises in his head.

Speaking came as a strain to him. He hated fighting with you. He wanted this to end. “It’s not that. I’m mad because you pushed me away again when there was a problem, which you promised me before you would stop doing. You won’t let me help you.”

“How can you help? You can’t help me! You were escalating the situation and making everything tenser than it already was! I had it all under control!” you returned the exclamation but did not move from your spot.

You had all your frustration within your body, waiting for the perfect time to explode. “Had you kept that up, a fight might have broken out. Then what, huh? I have to save your ass again because you can never help me!”

You were right. He would never be strong enough to help you; your family issue and your position in your home city were beyond the scope of his ability. He was just a boy, and even if he grew older, what was human flesh before the blade of magic? Not much. Everything you said was right, but they were not to be said, especially by you. You were not allowed to make him feel inferior because of something he could not control.

You made him feel like baggage you had to drag behind you. You made him feel like a burden.

Jisung shrunk back at your words, his heart beating in glass shatters. He backed away when you tried to take a hesitant step forward and refused to look at you.

“Jisung, I’m sorry, I didn’t–“ you flinched when he backed away again, “mean it. I didn’t mean it.”

“Please leave me be,” he whispered. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

You panted with the shivers in your body as you watched him walk away. Your sight blurred with water, and the ringing in your head grew as low as an ambulance’s alarm. There was a hole in your eyes that blinded you from anything and everything and forced you to act upon instincts only. Your senses were being piled into disarray; it felt like you were slowly descending into madness. You wouldn’t like it if you could process your emotions a lot.

Not a single thought traveled through your brain as you walked fast, trying to catch up with Jisung. Your hands ripped at your bag for strings, and you hastily latched onto the sparkly white string. A blank canvas to start things over, a blank towel to wipe the dirt on, a string to erase important memories.

Jisung gasped in shock when you suddenly appeared before him. Your eyes were blank bullet holes with no shades of life in them, and you moved like a robot as you grabbed onto his shoulder and forced him in place. He furrowed his brows in concern when he saw the strings on your wrist glowing brightly.

Magic. On him. Again. You and your fucking magic.

He shoved you away hard, causing you to stumble back a few steps and regain your consciousness. His blood boiled with anger—god, he has never been this mad at you. He was afraid of what he would say at such a hectic time like this. But why should he care? You didn’t care when you said everything you did.

“You used magic on me again!” he exclaimed, annoyed and utterly fed up. But he had no idea what words he was spilling out his mouth, and his heart hammered against the trap his sudden boldness locked it in.

He would never say this. He should never say this. Why was he doing this?

“I just told you I don’t like it, and you went ahead and did it again! It’s like you just do whatever you want, which you do! You can just up and leave your home forever, and you can just destroy a car if you so ask. I do not care if you did it to save me!”

You never thought of a single occasion where you acted out on your own, but if Jisung said so then maybe you did. He was right.

You shook your head immediately, realizing you had made a grave mistake. “I’m sorry–“

“Good lord, that is all you do. All you do is apologize.” Jisung furrowed his brows at you, his eyes mercilessly cold and hurtful as he glared at you. “Get a grip, [Name], please. And stop ruining everything for once.”

It was all your fault. This argument, today being crowded, the cat café being hard to find, your uncle being in a coma, Minho’s desire to tarnish his fated relationship, your family’s eventful death, your solitude for years, Jisung looking at you with distaste, you being born.

Everything was your fault. It was all your fault. There was nothing good coming for you, and there has never been.

You picked at your nails, feeling weights trapped at your ankles and reeling you backward into the cave Jisung helped you out of.

Things were gradually heading back to square one for you. It could be a momentary lapse, but a moment was enough for you to make a decision that could cost you everything you have earned and gained thus far. Your friends, your life, your love—everything is gone within the blink of an eye.

This felt like the beginning of a relapse; you could do nothing to stop yourself from spiraling.

All you needed to do was leave and never appear again.

“I’m…” You caught the apology at your throat and refused its escape. A tear rolled past your eye, but you could not see how Jisung softened immediately.

“Don’t guilt-trip me,” Jisung muttered as he looked away. His knuckles were white from gripping the straps of his bag. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want to see you right now.”

He has all the right to be mad. You knew that to heart. You hurt his feelings enough for him to churn himself over and act like this. Deeply enough that he chose to walk away from you when your image of him was that he would never leave you first. This was your fault. Your soulmate leaving you was your fault because you weren’t smart enough to fix this.

You weren’t smart enough to save this situation, nor yourself, nor your uncle, nor your friends, nor anything.

Your existence was a rejection of life. That was your fate, and nobody was present to tell you otherwise.

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