#stringtheory

In your world, the red string theory wasn’t just a pretty bedtime story. It wasn’t a metaphor parents told their children to give them hope. It was real, tangible, undeniable. Every person was born with a thread tied to their pinky finger. At first, it was a soft, pale pink, a tender promise. As you grew, it deepened into a vivid, unmistakable red, the shade of certainty. It meant fate was in motion, carrying you toward the one person meant for you.

You wished it wasn’t true.

Because for some godforsaken reason, the string around your pinky never turned red.

When you were small, you didn’t notice the difference. You thought maybe it was just slow, that it would catch up eventually. You told yourself it didn't mean anything. That your friends weren’t really staring when you showed up at school with a thread the color of wet earth, dull and plain, as though someone had drained all the magic out of it.

You thought it might be hormonal, which your aunt had suggested once, trying to comfort you. But as you grew, the truth became harder to ignore. While the strings of others bloomed into brilliant crimsons, yours faded to a warm, muted brown. It wasn’t ugly, exactly but it was wrong. It didn’t hum with the same unshakable destiny.

You didn’t know what that meant. And you didn’t care to find out.

Because you had already chosen who you wanted.

You were five years old when Park Sunghoon moved into the house next door. The first time you saw him, he was standing on the porch with a carton of milk in one hand, his other hand waving shyly as his mother urged him to greet you. He was the prettiest boy you had ever seen, clean lines, soft eyes, a quietness in his posture that made you want to be near him.

And from then on, he simply was.

He was the inevitable thread woven through your days, long before you thought about what the one on your pinky meant. He was in the summer afternoons when you caught dragonflies together, the winter mornings when you shared hot chocolate before trudging off to school. He was there when you cried after scraping your knee, when you celebrated your seventh birthday, when you stood in line for ice cream on the hottest day of the year.

Sunghoon had no string.

That part baffled everyone. Some whispered it was a deformity that his string had been invisible from birth, or cut somehow. But he never seemed to care. If he noticed people’s stares, he ignored them. If he felt different, he never said.

But to you, it mattered. It mattered a lot.

Because in your head, the answer was obvious, if his string didn’t exist, then yours could be tied to him. Maybe the brown meant something different, something special.

When you were ten, you decided to make it official. You sat together on the curb outside your house, trading candies you’d bought from the corner store. You tugged at your brown thread absently, feeling its slight resistance. Then, with a decisive little huff, you held the end of it out to him. “Here,” you said, looping it around his bare pinky finger. Your voice was matter of fact, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re mine forever.”

Sunghoon glanced down at the knot you’d tied, then up at you. His lips curled into a smile, just soft amusement.

“Forever’s a long time,” he said. You grinned. “Then you’re stuck with me forever and ever.”

He didn’t untie it right away. He just let it hang there, the rough little knot resting against his skin. You didn’t know it then, but that moment that tiny, childish promise would root itself so deeply in you that even as the years passed, even as the brown thread frayed and thinned, you would keep believing it was the only one you wanted.

Because you didn’t need the universe to tell you who your person was.

You had already decided.

Your friends never stopped talking about their soulmate. In the cafeteria, in the locker room, in the quiet corners of the library where the librarian pretended not to hear them whisper all of them gushed about their first kisses and the day they finally met the person at the other end of their glowing red thread.

You listened, smiling when you had to, nodding when appropriate. But each story pressed a hollow ache somewhere in your chest. It wasn’t that you were jealous. It was just…..you didn’t fit in their world. There was practically no one nearby who shared your strange brown thread. And if fate was real, your match wasn’t anywhere close. Still, you weren’t worried. Why should you be?

At sixteen, you were already experiencing the rush, the dizzying excitement, with Park Sunghoon.

It had started like an experiment. Just one kiss. You remembered the way his breath had ghosted over your cheek before your lips met, the electric shock that jolted through your body. You thought you’d stop there that you’d laugh awkwardly and pull back. But the moment you tasted him, all soft warmth and something faintly sweet, you didn’t want to stop. Neither did he.

One kiss became two, then five, then more than you could count. Somewhere in that hazy stretch of time, you forgot about the hollow ache, forgot about strings entirely. Your underdeveloped frontal lobe was flooded with oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, pure chemical euphoria.

And who were you to complain?

Sunghoon never hesitated to touch you, to let his fingers skim your jaw, your waist, your hair. He didn’t flinch from your closeness in fact, he seemed to savor it. You could tell by the way his mouth quirked when you pulled back just enough to catch your breath, your face flushed and eyes shy. He liked seeing you like that.

“What if your future soulmate jumps on me for kissing you?” you whispered once between breaths, lips still glistening from the last kiss. You could feel his heart against yours, your hands drawing slow, restless circles on his back, the faint warmth of his skin under the thin fabric of his shirt. His dark eyes locked with yours, the light in them not entirely serious. He laughed that familiar, low sound you’d known since childhood and tapped the tip of your nose with his knuckles.

“Last time I checked, the one with the weird-ass string situation is you,” he said. “I don’t even have one… and even if I did? So what?”

So what?

The words slammed into you like a wave, stealing your breath for a moment. They were careless to him, a throwaway remark, meant to tease but to you, they were everything. They were permission. They were a declaration.

Yes… so what?

So what if the universe disagreed? So what if your thread wasn’t the right color, if it didn’t hum with the same magic as everyone else’s?

Sunghoon was yours.

In that moment, your sixteen-year-old self believed it completely, with the kind of absolute certainty only teenagers possess. You didn’t think about the future. You didn’t think about the possibility of regret. You just thought about the way his mouth found yours again, the way your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, the way his laugh lingered against your lips.

You thought things would stay the way they were sweet, familiar, unshakable.

But time was strange like that. It could give you everything, and just as easily, it could sweep it all away without asking.

Sunghoon grew into himself, and the boy you’d known since you were five became a boy the world noticed. A pretty boy. The kind of pretty that got whispered about in hallways and giggled about behind locker doors. And the fact that he had no red string made him even more dangerous. A mystery. An open invitation for fantasies. “Guess who helped me with my homework yesterday?.... Park Sunghoon,” one girl would say, her voice bubbling with delight.

“Oh my god, he’s so hot. We had, like, five minutes of eye contact last week, and I swear I was going crazy,” another would confess, fanning herself dramatically.

You’d hear it all. The sighs. The little gasps. The almost reverent way they said his name. You told yourself it didn’t matter. It never had. None of those girls knew Sunghoon the way you did the way his hand always found the back of your neck when he kissed you, the way his laugh curled up at the edges when you said something ridiculous, the way his gaze softened in that barely there, private way when it was just the two of you.

But you forgot something important time isn’t just a thief. It’s a sculptor. It changes people while you’re busy pretending it won’t.

It happened slowly, then all at once. Sunghoon’s missing red string became a fascination for girls who hadn’t met their soulmates yet. It meant he was available, unclaimed, untethered. They swarmed around him like moths, their fingertips grazing his shoulder, smoothing the crease of his collar, brushing lint from his sleeve. They gave him the kind of smiles that spoke a language you didn’t want to understand.

And the worst part?

He didn’t rejected the touches.

The hands that once traced the curve of your waist now rested casually on other girls’ elbows when he leaned in to talk to them. The same fingers that had once threaded through your hair became a topic of discussion in your class.

“He has such pretty fingers, oh my god. When we held hands—”

You didn’t hear the rest. You’d already stood up in the middle of the conversation, your chair scraping against the floor, your chest tightening like it had been pulled too suddenly by your own brown string. You left before anyone could see the look on your face.

You hated yourself for caring.

Growing up, you learnt there was nothing more humiliating for a woman than to be just one of the girls orbiting a man. You swore you will never be that girl. But there you were, feeling small, watching him from a distance, wondering if you’d been demoted without even knowing it. You wanted to confront him. The words pressed against the back of your teeth every time you saw him with one of them. But the other voice in your head the crueler, colder one always cut you off.

Who do you think you are? You’re not his girlfriend. There’s no claim here. No commitment.

Still, you tried. You asked him one afternoon, casually

“So… are you already moving on from me?”

He looked at you, the corners of his lips twitching like you’d just told a harmless joke.

“Move on? Move on from what?”

It was a single sentence, but it was made of glass. And it came straight from his pretty mouth, shattering something inside you as it landed. True, you thought bitterly. Move on from what, exactly?

There had never been a label. Never a confession. No strings attached, at least not between you two. Just the brown thread around your finger, frayed at the edges, and your own foolish belief that it meant something more than fate had given it credit for.

Cool.

If that’s what it was, then that’s what it would be.

You sat in your room, quiet except for the soft hum of the fan and the faint rustle of your curtains. That low, dull ache had settled into your chest again, not sharp enough to make you cry, but constant enough to make breathing feel like work. Your fingers fumbled absently with the brown string wrapped around your pinky.

You needed to clear your head. The trouble was, you had no idea how. This was new — the storm your growing mind didn’t yet have words. Feelings stacking on top of feelings until they pressed against your ribs, leaving you restless, a little breathless. You stared at the string, the thin thread of fate you’d once thought of as harmless, and you cursed it.

It was all the string’s fault.

Maybe if you had a proper soulmate a red string tied to someone permanent you never would’ve gotten tangled up in Sunghoon to begin with. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, you hadlet yourself fall into something undefined, something that now felt like a void you didn’t know how to climb out of.

Frustration prickled at your skin. Your eyes fell to the scissors lying on your desk.

Without giving yourself time to second guess, you grabbed them. You had tugged at the string before, tried untying it, even yanked it hard enough to leave your pinky sore but it always slipped back into place like nothing had happened. This time, you pressed the blades to it and squeezed.

There was a faint snip.

A tiny piece of thread fell to the floor, curling against the wood like it didn’t belong there. You stared at it for a long moment, the smallest flicker of satisfaction burning in your chest, before you scooped it up and tossed it out the open window.

Your string was shorter now. And strangely, that made you feel… calm. Lighter, almost.

You didn’t know it yet, but you’d just found your first way to quiet the noise in your head. You also didn’t know the cost.

The day you cut your string was the day Sunghoon stopped appearing being your constant. He was still there in person, of course still walked beside you to school, still lingered by your desk between classes , but something had shifted. You both tried to talk like you used to, throwing out the same half jokes and passing comments, but the tension was louder than your laughter.

“Hey, I…” he started one morning. You slowed your steps, curious.

“I don’t know,” he muttered after a pause, rubbing the back of his neck. “Suddenly I feel… self conscious around you.” His ears were red the kind of red from embarrassment.

You didn’t know what to say, because the truth was, you felt the same.

“Is this just… what happens when you grow up?” you asked lightly, masking the unease in your chest. Then, to make it easier for both of you, you punched his arm gently and laughed. “Guess it’s normal, right?” He smiled faintly, like he was glad you’d given him an answer he could agree with. But for the rest of the day, neither of you talked much. It was as if every topic you used to fill the air with had evaporated overnight.

After school, you spotted him waiting near the front gate like always. Your chest warmed at the sight, maybe you overthought everything. Maybe he wasn’t pulling away.

Then you noticed he wasn’t alone.

A girl stood beside him, her long hair catching the light. You recognized her immediately Sooha. She was leaning close, saying something that made Sunghoon laugh, his eyes crinkling in that way you’d always secretly claimed as yours.

Except they weren’t yours anymore.

Even from a distance, you could see it, the way his gaze lingered on her, soft and unguarded. Heart eyes. It was rare, seeing Park Sunghoon look at someone like that. You didn’t know why you stopped walking. Maybe it was awkwardness. Maybe it was the quiet, painful need to watch him unravel for someone else.

That same dull ache returned to your chest.

You pulled out your phone and typed a quick lie about having an extra class, then slipped toward the back gate instead. You told yourself you didn’t want to be a bother.

That night, you cut your string again.

The snip was cleaner this time. The relief was immediate. Every time you did it, the weight in your chest seemed to lift, even if only a little.

Sunghoon didn’t text you back.

And you didn’t expect him to.

Almost a week passed without a single real conversation between you and Sunghoon. No teasing comments. No casual “good mornings.” It was as if someone had built an invisible wall overnight, tall enough and solid enough that neither of you could find a way around it.

At first, the silence gnawed at you. But eventually, your days began to arrange themselves around the space he left behind. You assumed it was the same for him.

The next month, your parents’ anniversary arrived, a small but important tradition in your household. Sunghoon, being the constant in your life since childhood, had always been there to celebrate. So you weren’t shocked to find him in your kitchen that evening, sleeves rolled up, helping your mother frost a cake like it was second nature.

What did shock you was the faint pink glow circling his pinky.

Your chest tightened instantly.

No way.

The dull ache you’d been managing so carefully came rushing back, hot and restless. Had Sunghoon found someone? You wanted to ask, wanted to demand answers, but the words stayed caught somewhere between your throat and your pride.

Dinner came and went. Cake was cut. Laughter filled the air, but you sat at the table like a guest in your own home, smiling at the right moments and pretending your gaze wasn’t drifting toward his hand every few seconds. When the plates were cleared, you excused yourself under the pretense of studying for finals. Graduation loomed closer with each day, and it was strange to think that barely four months ago, you and Sunghoon had spent hours sprawled on your bed, tossing around college names like they were pieces of candy. Now, that memory felt like something from another timeline some warped, too bright dystopian version of your life.

You sat at your desk, a book open in front of you but your mind miles away. That glowing string kept flashing in your head. Your eyes fell on the scissor lying beside your notebook, its metal glinting under your lamp.

Your hand reached for it.

But before your fingers touched the handle, a faint knock rattled your door. You froze. A part of you hoped, desperately, stupidly that it was him. You stood, stealing a quick glance in the mirror. Running your fingers through your hair to smooth it down, you took a slow breath and pulled the door open.

Sunghoon stood there.

His cheeks were red, not from the winter air but from something heavier. His eyes were pools of things he wasn’t saying, a quiet weight pressing in around you both.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t empty, it had a rhythm. Silence of two people who had been in each other’s lives so long that even stillness felt like a conversation. Then he stepped forward, pushing the door shut behind him with a quiet click.

You swallowed. It had been years since Sunghoon was in your room. The last time was on your sixteenth birthday, your fingers laced together, his lips brushing yours in a clumsy but unforgettable first kiss. The memory swept over you before you could stop it, painting the moment in colors you weren’t sure you wanted to feel again.

He let out a breath, scratching the back of his head. “I just… I wanted to see you. I mean, it’s been a while, you know?” His voice was unsteady, edged with a nervousness you weren’t used to hearing from him. You laughed lightly, hoping to cut through the awkwardness. You weren’t sure it worked. A bead of sweat trickled down your spine, and your skin felt too warm.

What is even going on right now?

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again, his gaze flicking away. Whatever he was trying to say seemed stuck somewhere deep. Finally, he closed his eyes and drew in a breath.

“I’m going out with Sooha—”

“I saw the string around your pinky—”

The words crashed into the space between you at the same time and both of you froze. Weight of what had just been said sat heavy in the air, too dense for either of you to move through. Neither of you spoke, and yet everything was suddenly, painfully clear.

A small congratulations slipped from your lips, brittle and hollow, carrying none of the warmth the word was meant to hold. It landed between you like a shard of glass, sharp and cold. “Mm,” he hummed back, a sound dry enough to crumble in the air.

Silence followed, not the comfortable kind you used to share, but one heavy with things unsaid. You didn’t know what to do with it neither did he. Why was Sunghoon even in your room? He asked himself the same question, searching for an answer in the fog of his mind. He had no obligation to tell you who he was dating. No unspoken rule bound him to share that piece of his life. And yet, here he was, standing in a space that used to be familiar but now felt lined with invisible edges.

You let out a sigh, louder than you meant to, the sound slicing through the tension.

“Sunghoon… it’s late. I think you should go back,” you said, your chest tightening with every word.

He nodded, as if the decision had been made for him. Maybe it had. Being here wasn’t helping either of you. Without another word, he turned toward the door, his hand reaching for the handle, his profile already retreating from you.

“...W–wait.”

The word caught in your throat before it escaped, trembling enough to make him pause. Your hand shot forward before you could stop yourself, closing around his. His skin was warm, the faint pink string curling around his pinky glowing like a quiet betrayal.

He turned, startled, his brows knitting together.

You held his hand more carefully now, your thumb brushing over the thin strand of light, tracing it like it might vanish under your touch. “I’m sorry…” you whispered, lifting your gaze to his face. That was when you noticed it, the darkness gathering in his eyes. Not anger, not exactly, but something heavier. Something tangled between longing and restraint.

The air shifted. It was as though the tension had been waiting for this exact moment to bloom, filling every corner of the room until there was no space left for words.

You didn’t think, you just moved.

One second you were standing apart, the next you had pulled him toward you, your arms winding around him like muscle memory. His scent, his warmth, his nearness it all came rushing back in a dizzy wave. Your lips found his. It was quick, barely two seconds, but it felt like falling and catching fire all at once.

When you pulled back, the look on his face broke something in you. He looked like a kicked puppy, wounded, confused, and achingly vulnerable.

“Y/n… what the fuck,” he murmured, his voice low but trembling with something unspoken.

His eyes held a storm, but his next words were what knocked the air out of you.

“Stop making it unbearable… more than it already is.”

Oh.

The world tilted slightly, your breath catching in your chest. You froze, the echo of his voice clinging to your skin.

“What?” The question was barely a whisper, but he didn’t answer. He only looked at you for a moment longer, like he wanted to say everything, like he wanted to say nothing and then he was gone.

Gone from your room, the door clicking shut behind him and maybe, gone from your life too.

You and Sunghoon met again after almost five weeks. The air between you felt different now, heavier, laced with the unspoken knowledge of what had happened and what hadn’t. Word of his breakup with Sooha had traveled through the school like wildfire, whispered between classes, posted in group chats, dissected over cafeteria lunches. You didn’t know the details, but a quiet, unshakable guilt had taken root inside you.

Still, guilt, sadness, pain, none of it could compete with the heat of Sunghoon’s touch.

Inside the storage room behind the gym, the door clicking shut behind you before you even had the chance to ask why you were there. His hands cupped your face like they had every right to, pulling you into feverish kisses that left no space for thought. The faint pink thread once tied to his finger was gone now, like it had never been there at all.

“I missed you…” he murmured against your skin, lips trailing from your cheek to your jaw, ignoring the storm that had raged between you the last time you’d met.

You were breathless, the sensation ticklish and overwhelming all at once. Pushing at his chest gently, you rested your head there instead, listening to the rapid beat of his heart. “Sunghoon… we can’t keep on doing this. I—”

He pulled back enough to look at you, a frown forming. “Don’t you want me anymore?”

Your gaze wavered. “No… it’s not like that. I just… there’s no future.” The words tasted bitter on your tongue.

Silence stretched between you. Then, with a slow, deliberate step back, he let the distance grow. “Fine.”

And just like that, Park Sunghoon slipped from your grasp again.

Finals arrived like a storm, sweeping away every free moment. You were days away from graduation, the countdown to adulthood ticking louder with each passing day. Sunghoon had shifted from being the subject of school gossip to something more untouchable, a campus icon. He was the boy everyone wanted, girls who watched him from the bleachers, boys who envied his effortless charm, and people who never stopped talking about his perfect smile.

But to you, he was a puzzle you couldn’t solve anymore.

He gave you looks that lingered too long, followed you with his gaze even when he was surrounded by friends. Sometimes he trailed after you when his latest girlfriend wasn’t around, a shadow you both noticed and pretended not to. Each time, it left a knot of frustration twisting in your stomach.

That day, you’d barely stepped out of the library before it happened again.

“Stop—what are you doing?” you yelped as his hand caught yours. His grip was firm, insistent, pulling you down the empty hall. The sound of your shoes echoed against the polished floor until he shoved open the door to the gym.

The air inside was cool and stale, dust motes drifting in thin beams of afternoon light.

“Who was that guy earlier?” His voice was sharp, almost demanding.

“What?” you asked, still catching your breath.

“That guy you were talking to by the lockers. Why was he smiling at you like that?”

You stared at him, caught between disbelief and amusement. “Why do you care?”

His jaw tightened. “Should I not?”

You opened your mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Because the truth was, he shouldn’t care, but part of you wanted him to. Part of you wanted him to care enough to break the rules, to ignore the strings, to stay. Your silence filled the room, heavy and fragile. His eyes searched yours like he could read the thoughts you weren’t ready to speak. And you wondered, not for the first time, if you were both trapped in a game you didn’t understand, one neither of you knew how to win.

Park Sunghoon confused you just as much as your brown string did. Both were unbearable, both addictive in ways you didn’t want to admit. The string you could snap when you were frustrated you had done it enough times to know the sound, the relief of that clean break. But Sunghoon… no matter how many times you told yourself it was over, no matter how many times you tried to cut him out of your life, he came back.

And he never came back when you needed him. He came when his girls didn’t give him attention anymore, when there was a gap in his carefully curated life for you to slip into. You hated yourself for still letting him in. This time, you were already on edge when you saw him.

The class was nearly empty, the afternoon light slicing across the hall in golden stripes. You’d been on your way out when he appeared, leaning against the wall like he’d been waiting. That lazy, unreadable look in his eyes always made your chest feel too tight.

“Sunghoon,” you said flatly.

He didn’t bother with a greeting. “We need to talk.”

The words burned before you even knew you were going to say them “Stop being a fucker.”

He didn’t flinch. Instead, a slow, nasty smirk curved his lips. “Yeah? Why are you annoyed?” His voice was almost casual, but his eyes were sharp, calculating. “Months ago, no one even looked at you like anything. I was there. And now you’re telling me to go away?”

Your stomach twisted, but he wasn’t done. He took a step closer, the sound of his shoes echoing in the quiet gym. “You think I don’t notice your gaze burning holes into my girlfriend’s back?”

It felt like the air was knocked out of you. He was right, and that stung worse than any insult. But the shame lit up into anger so quickly you couldn’t stop it “That’s none of your business,” you shot back, stepping forward until you could see the shadows under his eyes. “Because last time I remember, it was you who comes back to me like a horny bitch.”

The words hit, and for a second his smirk faltered, replaced by something harder.

It was ugly after that. Neither of you held back. Voices rose, your words tangled together, both of you throwing truth like it was meant to wound. You didn’t remember every sentence, only the heat of it, the way his jaw tightened, the way your throat ached.

Finally, you spat the words that felt like they could shatter something permanent. “I don’t wanna ever see you again.”

He laughed, sharp and humorless. “Yeah, fuck off like I care.”

That was it.

You didn’t wait for him to say more. You turned and ran, your shoes pounding against the floor, the sound ricocheting in your ears. The door slammed shut behind you, but it wasn’t enough to keep him out of your head.

By the time you reached the gate, your chest was tight and your eyes burned. You clutched at your bag like it could hold your heart in place, but it felt too heavy, too fragile, as if it might spill out onto the floor if you loosened your grip for even a second. You told yourself you just ended it for good. That this was closure. That the sting in your chest would fade if you stayed away long enough.

But the image of him stayed, Sunghoon standing there in the golden light, smirk gone, eyes darker than you’d ever seen them. You didn’t know if you’d broken him or if he’d just let you think you had. All you knew was that, in that moment, something had been cut between you, not cleanly like your brown string, but jagged, uneven, leaving threads hanging loose. Threads you weren’t sure you could ignore.

You swore to yourself you’d never see his face again. You told yourself you’d mean it this time. But even as you walked away, you couldn’t shake the sick, sinking feeling that promises like that didn’t stand a chance against Park Sunghoon.

You hadn’t heard about Sunghoon for months. No texts, no sightings on social media, not even a casual mention from mutual friends. It was as though the world had swallowed him whole, and for a while, you had convinced yourself you were fine with that. But then he reappeared.

It happened at your college’s annual ceremony, a blur of speeches, music, and too many bodies in one hall. He was standing across the room, framed in the spill of stage lights, and your breath hitched before you could stop it.

He looked like a ghost.

Or maybe a dream.

More beautiful than you remembered, but carved thinner, sharper, as if the months apart had stripped something from him. His skin was paler, his shoulders slightly slouched, and his eyes… God, his eyes still had the power to find you in a crowd. They carried something they hadn’t before sadness, heavy and unspoken. He had people around him, of course. The same type of effortlessly magnetic faces that always seemed to orbit Sunghoon, laughing too loudly and touching his arm like they had a right to. You could barely hear over the pounding in your ears. Your throat tightened, the same dull ache crawling back into your body like it had been waiting for this exact moment.

He still got under your skin. And your body still refused to forget him.

Your fingers found the sleeve of Heeseung’s shirt, bunching the fabric in your fist without thinking. He turned to you immediately, concern flickering across his features.

“babe you okay?” he asked, his voice low, careful.

You nodded too quickly. “Yeah… I just need some air. I’ll be back.”

You didn’t wait for him to offer to come with you. You slipped out of the hall, your heartbeat too loud in your head. The cold air outside hit your face like a slap, sharp and bracing. You dug into your pocket and pulled out a cigarette. The flame from your lighter danced briefly before settling into a steady burn. You inhaled deeply, letting the smoke scrape your lungs. It was harsh, but it was familiar, and it forced your thoughts into slower, more manageable shapes.

Your college life was already a mess. Deadlines slipping through your fingers, friendships kept alive on shallow conversations, nights spent chasing distractions that never lasted. Your dating life wasn’t any better. Red strings knotted themselves around your heart over and over, only to fray and snap before you could believe in them. Heeseung was the third guy you were dating in the past two months. A good guy, objectively. He didn’t believe in red string fate, always said it was just a way to keep people chasing someone who might not even be good for them. He told you he loved you. He said it with ease, like it was the most natural thing in the world. But his words, sweet and sugarcoated slid off you like water. They didn’t sink in. They didn’t anchor you.

You took another drag, watching the smoke curl up and disappear into the dark.

The door creaked open behind you. Footsteps. You didn’t turn right away. You didn’t need to.

“Still killing yourself with those?” The voice was the same as you remembered, deep but lazy, like every syllable was dragged out for effect. You turned, cigarette between your fingers. And there he was, leaning against the doorframe like the past months hadn’t happened. Sunghoon.

“Still in everyone’s business?” you shot back. Your voice came out sharper than you intended, but you didn’t regret it.

His mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Some things don’t change.”

You looked at him properly. He was thinner, yes, but not just physically. There was something in the way he carried himself, slower, heavier that made you think of winter trees stripped bare.

“Why are you here?” you asked finally, exhaling smoke. “Why are you?” he countered, and that infuriating spark in his eyes was still there, even under the weight of whatever had happened to him.

You scoffed. “I’m a student. This is my college. You, on the other hand…”

“I was invited,” he said simply, pushing off the doorframe and stepping closer. The night air shifted with him, carrying his scent, faint cologne, familiar enough to twist your stomach. “Didn’t know I’d run into you.”

“Liar,” you said before you could stop yourself.

He tilted his head, studying you. “Maybe.”

Silence stretched between you, only broken by the sound of your cigarette burning down. You flicked the ash, your pulse hammering too hard for someone who’d sworn they were done with him.

“I heard you have a boyfriend,” Sunghoon said finally, his tone unreadable. You glanced away. “I do.”

“And?”

“And what?”

His gaze pinned you. “Does he make you feel anything?”

You hated that question. You hated how easily he could cut through the layers you built for everyone else. You took another drag instead of answering, but you knew your silence was already an answer. Sunghoon’s eyes softened, just for a second. “You used to look at me like that.”

You let out a humorless laugh. “You used to deserve it.” That landed. You saw it in the flicker of his expression, the way his jaw tightened.

“Guess we’re both not the same anymore,” he murmured.

You crushed your cigarette against the wall, the ember dying in a hiss. “Guess not.”

But when you brushed past him to go back inside, you felt his gaze follow you the same way it always had. And even after months apart, you still hated how much your body noticed. The night air felt sharper now, each breath scraping your lungs. You had almost reached the door when fingers closed around your wrist.

That familiar touch burned through you like a live wire.

“Y/n, I—”

Sunghoon’s voice faltered, the words catching somewhere in his throat. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was enough to keep you there, suspended between the urge to pull away and the part of you that didn’t dare to move. You stared at his hand around yours, veins and tendons shifting under skin you knew too well.

Then, slowly, he let go.

You almost wished he hadn’t. The moment his touch left you, something in your chest ached, like you’d been bracing for impact only to be left swaying on your feet. The walls you had been building for months careful brick by careful brick cracked. Sunghoon’s gaze was different now. It was quieter than his smirks, heavier than his teasing. He looked at you as though he was desperate to tell you something but couldn’t find the right shape for it. Your other hand twitched without your permission. The index and thumb tugged at the thin brown string looped around your pinky a nervous habit, one you didn’t even realize you still had. The cord was warm from your skin, the fibers slightly frayed from years of absentminded fidgeting.

Sunghoon’s eyes flickered to it for the briefest second before he exhaled. And then, like he’d been holding the words back for too long, he said it.

“I’m moving to the U.S. for my master’s.”

The air seemed to still between you. You didn’t know what to say. The crack inside you only split wider, sharp edges pressing in from the inside. You heard yourself answer before you had time to think.

“Yeah, and? Good for you, I guess.”

Your tone came out dry drier than the thin, brittle air that clung to the night and you hated the way it sounded. Like you were unmoved. Like you hadn’t just been hit in the chest. Sunghoon’s lips curved into something soft. Not the arrogant smile he wore in crowded rooms, not the mocking twist you’d thrown insults at before. This one was gentle. It made your stomach pull tight, unsettling in its tenderness.

“I… want you to see me o—”

Snap.

The sound was barely audible, but you felt it like a jolt through your bones. The brown string, the one that had sat stubbornly tied around your pinky since you were old enough to understand what it meant, fell away. It drifted down between you, twisting in the cold air, before it landed against the pavement like nothing at all.

Your breath caught.

Sunghoon’s words died mid-sentence. His gaze dropped to the fallen thread. For a moment, neither of you moved. Neither of you dared to breathe. Then his face shifted, something unreadable sliding into place.

“Actually… never mind,” he murmured.

The softness from a second ago was gone. He took a step back, then another, retreating into the shadows like he couldn’t get far enough from what just happened. His head hung low, his hands buried deep into his pockets.

You didn’t stop him. You couldn’t.

Your hand felt strange without the string, bare in a way that wasn’t just physical. He walked away, each step pulling him further into the dark until the only proof he’d been there was the faint echo of his heat on your wrist. You stared down at the thread lying limp on the ground, but you didn’t pick it up.

Why don’t you ever stay, Sunghoon?

Sunghoon disappeared from your life again. He was simply gone like the thread between you had been cut twice, just to make sure.

And you moved on. Or at least, that’s what you told yourself. You threw yourself into your routines, into work, into faces and names that blurred together. You learned to laugh at the right times, to smile when people asked about your love life, to say, “I’m fine,” even when his ghost lingered in the quietest corners of your mind. But every now and then, in the still moments between night and morning, his face would come back to you. The sound of his voice. The warmth of his hand closing around your wrist.

And every time, you pushed the memory away. The way he left was unacceptable. That was the phrase you repeated when the ache started to creep in. It didn’t matter. It was for the better. You told yourself this so often you almost believed it , until the question came, soft and poisonous

What exactly is better for you anymore?

Years slipped by. The pressure to settle down grew heavier. Relatives began to speak in careful, pitying tones, and your parents’ subtle suggestions turned into gentle demands.

You were tired. So you gave in.

You told your parents to choose for you, handed over your independence like a possession you no longer had the strength to protect. A person like you someone who had never believed in fate, in soulmates, in strings that bound hearts forever would not find their partner on their own. At least this way, you could stop thinking about it.

And then, like a cruel joke, he came back.

Not when you were lonely. Not when you might have wanted him. But now when you were days away from binding your life to someone else’s.

Or maybe… maybe you did want him.

The day of the wedding arrived faster than you could process. You sat before the mirror, silk and gold draped across your shoulders, makeup soft enough to make you look like someone else. Voices buzzed faintly outside the door laughter, music, the shuffling of shoes.

Then the door opened.

A figure stepped inside, tall and familiar, and closed it with a quiet click of the lock.

You froze.

For a heartbeat, you thought this was another one of your cruel daydreams where he appeared just long enough for you to feel the old pull before vanishing again. But no. Park Sunghoon was standing in your dressing room.

Your pulse roared in your ears.

He looked at you the way he used to, like you were the only person in the room worth noticing and asked, “How are you?” Your mouth opened, but nothing came out. Instead, you stood, each step toward him slow, like you were afraid he might disappear if you moved too quickly. Your vision blurred, and you only realized you were crying when the warmth slid down your cheek. Up close, you saw it, the dullness in his eyes, the way his skin seemed paler, the faint slump in his shoulders. Like someone had drained the life out of him.

You tried to break the heaviness in the air with a weak joke. "was the master’s program that bad?”

But Sunghoon didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.

Instead, he stepped forward, erasing the distance between you, and cupped your jaw with one hand. His palm was warm, familiar, grounding and dangerous all at once.

“I missed you,” he said quietly.

The words crashed into you like a wave. For a moment, you stood there, unable to breathe. The urge to collapse into him was sharp, almost unbearable. But you remembered the months of silence, the way he’d left without explanation, the way you’d been forced to patch yourself up alone. “I didn’t miss you,” you replied, your voice steady but your hands trembling at your sides.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. You had not missed him not the version of him who left, not the absence he left behind. But the truth sat heavy under your ribs, you had missed this. His presence. His voice. The dangerous way your heart reacted to him.

Sunghoon’s thumb brushed your cheekbone, his expression unreadable. “You’re lying.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Outside, the sound of music swelled, a reminder that the world was still turning, that people were waiting for you to walk down the aisle. The dress felt heavier now, suffocating. The air between you felt like it might burn if you stayed too long.

“Why are you here, Sunghoon?” you asked finally.

“I couldn’t stay away from you,” Sunghoon said, his voice low, almost trembling. “Not when you’re handing yourself over like this to someone you don’t even love.” The nerve of him sent a bitter scoff spilling from your lips. “It’s none of your business.”

But before your anxious fingers could reach the brown string coiled around your pinky, he stepped forward. In a sudden, breathless motion, his hands closed around both your wrists firm, unyielding.

Then his mouth was on yours.

It was a collision — a desperate, bruising reunion that tasted like longing and old wounds. His lips moved against yours with a hunger that made your knees weaken, his breath hot, his grip on you unrelenting. You gasped, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue sliding past your lips, claiming, searching, as if he could map every corner of you he’d missed.

Your heart thundered, traitorous, matching the fever of his movements. The taste of him was intoxicating, familiar, yet sharper now, like time had only concentrated it. You felt the press of his body, the heat of him seeping through the layers of silk and fabric. His teeth grazed your lower lip, pulling a sharp inhale from you before his tongue soothed the sting, tangling with yours again in a messy, breath stealing rhythm. The kiss was all consuming.

You could feel your lipstick smudging, your carefully done makeup melting beneath the heat of his mouth and the dampness of your mingled breath. His hand slid up, cradling your jaw, tilting your head to kiss you deeper, like he wanted to drown in you. And in a way, you let him.

Until you didn’t.

With a burst of clarity, you shoved him hard. The force caught him off guard, sending him stumbling back a step, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.

“What the fuck—” The words came rough, but before you could gather yours, his composure returned like a tide, swift and unstoppable. He closed the space between you again, his arms snaking around your waist, pulling you flush against him. His hold was tight, almost desperate, as if loosening it even slightly might mean losing you forever.

“Stop pushing me away when you want me too,” he said, voice cracking under the strain.

And just like that, the dam inside you broke. Tears welled, spilling down your cheeks in hot, relentless streams.

“I don’t want you,” you sobbed, your fists finding his chest in weak, trembling blows. Each hit landed above where you could feel his erratic heartbeat hammering against your palms. “You can’t just come back like this and ruin my life!” His breath shuddered. Then, softer, steadier than you expected, he replied, “Then ruin me too.” The words tore something open inside you, and another painful sob clawed its way out of your lungs.

“Sunghoon, you’re not getting it,” you cried, shaking your head. “You’re not— we are not fated—”

Before you could finish, his mouth was on yours again, silencing your protests. This kiss was slower but no less intense, a seal, a refusal, a declaration he wasn’t ready to speak out loud. When he finally pulled back, his gaze locked onto yours, his dark eyes carrying the weight of years you’d both spent apart.

“I was always yours,” he said, his voice raw, unwavering. “And no matter what happens, you’ll never be able to run away from me.”

A bitter laugh scraped from your throat. “How can you be so selfish, Sunghoon? Are you doing this because you want me, or just because of your stupid needs?” You saw it then, the flicker in his expression, the way your words stole the air from his lungs. He looked at you like you’d struck something vital.

But you didn’t stop. Your voice was a blade, cutting through the charged air between you. “Go away, Park Sunghoon. I hate you. There wasn’t any string between us. And it’s fated.”

The lie tasted like blood in your mouth.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. His hands remained on you, not tightening, not loosening. His gaze searched yours like he was trying to find the truth you’d buried under anger and exhaustion. But whatever he found or didn’t find seemed to drain him.

Finally, he stepped back.

The space he left behind felt colder than it should have. Outside, the sound of your name being called echoed through the hallway, pulling you back into the reality you’d almost forgotten existed. You turned away from him, wiping at your ruined makeup with trembling hands, refusing to meet his eyes again.

Because if you did, you weren’t sure you’d be able to walk out of that room at all.

Time was cruel, but destiny was worse. It did not ask. It did not bargain. It simply dragged you to the end it had already decided, leaving you no choice but to clutch the shards it left behind pain, agony, and whatever fragments of love survived the wreckage.

When the news reached you, it didn’t feel real. The words stumbled into your ears, jumbled, meaningless. A name. A location. You sat there, listening, but the meaning refused to click, like your brain was protecting itself from what it already knew would ruin you.

You told yourself there had been some mistake. That it was someone else. That you would walk into the hospital and see him standing there, whole and breathing, with that faint, infuriating smile tugging at his lips.

But when you finally did walk in, the sight before you shattered that fragile denial.

The sterile brightness of the hospital room was unbearable, everything too white, too clean, too unforgiving. On the bed lay a body, still and unnaturally pale, as if someone had drained the warmth and color from him. His lips were slightly parted, but no breath came. His chest lay unmoving beneath the thin sheet.

Park Sunghoon was gone.

The sound of his family’s sobs filled the air, thick and raw. It wasn’t just noise, it was a wound made audible, a sound that clawed at the walls of your chest until you could barely breathe. But it wasn’t the crying that broke you. It wasn’t even the sight of his lifeless face, peaceful in a way that made you ache to shake him awake.

It was his hands.

Both of them were marked. Lines. Dozens of them, thin and deliberate, carved into his skin like he had been trying to recreate something only he could see. The cuts ran across his palms, over his fingers, winding like threads etched in flesh.

Strings.

Your knees buckled. The room tilted and blurred as the weight of understanding struck you. He had done this, marked himself, over and over, as though trying to bind himself to you in the only way he believed was left.

The brown string you’d always thought of as a nuisance, a reminder of a bond you swore didn’t exist, wasn’t fate’s work at all. It had been his. Every time he reached for you, every time he came closer despite you pushing him away, it wasn’t some unbreakable cosmic thread pulling him, it was his own stubborn, self inflicted devotion. You felt the air leave your lungs. Your vision darkened at the edges, the sounds of crying muffled as if you’d been submerged underwater. Then the floor rushed up to meet you, cold and merciless, as your body gave in and collapsed.

You told him there was no string between you. You’d told him you hated him. Sunghoon took the matters in his hands. You told him to go away. But he had not gone. He reached you anyway, clawing through the walls you built, cutting himself on the sharp edges you left for him. And still, he reached.

And now, no string theory, no fate, no cruel twist of the universe could change the fact that you had lost him. Not because destiny took him away, but because you had refused to let him stay. The brown string haunted you because it was not real, because every knot and tangle you thought fate had tied was just him, weaving himself into your life with sheer will until he could no longer bear the unraveling.

You visited him one last time before they took him away. The room was quieter then, the air heavy with the finality of what was coming. You stood beside him, your hand hovering over his before finally daring to touch it. His skin was cold, but you traced the carved lines anyway, your fingertips following each mark as though you could read his devotion in them like a language.

“I was yours too,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “I just didn’t know how to be.” And maybe somewhere, wherever he was now, he heard you. But in that room, with the silence pressing in and the scent of antiseptic in your lungs, you knew that no matter how much you wished otherwise, it was too late.

THE END