#happy sungso day hehe enjoy ✌🏻

[mobiivs]

140720XX

@xinqfu 🍀

sorin’s running off the moment she passes through customs, forgoing the baggage claims—her manager will get that for her, eventually. there’s eighteen hours of a plane ride she’d braved still stuck to her, impatient wave of her hand when she finds the company car waiting. “i’ll tip you extra if you get there in twenty minutes,” are her first words, leaning forward, the unflappable, confident bassist looking just a little more frazzled for once. “it’s really important!”

summer’s packed full with tours, inescapable heat on her back. she misses the lazy summers from forever ago, when all she had to worry about were white dress codes and the startling new discovery of sungho’s... everything. but sorin’ll admit she likes it better now, even though her schedule’s fit to burst and it’s been two years since that beach party and more. she’s never been that much of a romantic, to be honest, but having the literal best boyfriend in world means she’s got to at least make it home in time for their anniversary.

the drive home follows that winding red thread, her leg bouncing impatiently. she worries at her nails, a watchful eye on the clock, hands cradling the little giftbox she’d gotten. red weaves down the road, through the sights of seoul, and there’s a smile she can’t fend off. she’s going to be home.

⚾

they’re sitting face to face, in dead silence. she hasn’t talked to him—not just right now, since she saw him first in the team’s hall, but in months. sorin should’ve known this wouldn’t last, the calm away from the storm when she’d finally sucked it up and left their team, for a second time. the last time, she’d promised herself, that she’d give in to the player.

and months later, because they’re both good at what they do when they’re not trying to ruin each other, sorin and sungho sit in the same room in the olympics village.

the string lies taut and frayed, that last, single fibre connecting them dyed scarlet. “we should meet the rest of the team,” she’d said. “we should,” he’d replied. sorin’s still sitting across from him, arms crossed; he eyes her, and there’s that look she used to think meant something. but she’s got someone who smiles at her with none of the edge, sweet and soft in a way she’s still learning to keep up with. she’d wonder if he’s found someone else too, but sungho probably has half the girls in the village on his phone instead.

she stands up, and team captain’s eyes follow, an arm coming in front of her. it’s all so easy, she thinks, to fall back into this. he still looks at her the same, the thrill that’d drawn her in jumping down her spine. sorin pulls away and lets the string snap between them. today marks the first day of moving on.

👓

sorin sets the cake down in front of him, a smug little raise of her eyebrow. all pleased with herself, even though the lettering is off and the biggest ( and only ) candle is tilted to the left. sungho’s eyebrows shoot up, and she quickly raises her hands. “i only decorated it! i bought the cake. i didn’t bake it, really.” a mock gasp, elbowing him. “you didn’t even get anything, stop looking at me like that—you forgot, didn’t you!”

she’s kidding, laughing over his sputtering, indignant defense—she saw the present sungho tried to bury in the back of his closet, one night when she’d stayed over. a month early, too. she’ll bet she can find one of his posts on reddit and that means her present’s going to be internet-sourced, but she trusts her little nerd. sorin pulls him in, both hands on his cheeks, and plants a kiss square on soft lips.

he’s not the same gangly, awkward nerd he used to be, and she’s no longer the mean girl cheerleader stereotype she’d hung her pride on back in high school. can you believe yoo sungho’s blond, now? probably not as much as lim sorin reading books on string theory to impress a nerd, though. their red thread is the colour of the strawberries around the cake, knotted in places; the loops they’d made around each other and back again, milestones to the fate that links their pinkies together. sorin makes him light the candle and grins at him, and thanks the skies out there for the second chance on their high school romance.

🔪

“i should take a picture,” he’s marveling, and she just knows he’s going to say something smart.

she flicks the wound she just bandaged before he can, hard enough to sting. “shut up,” sorin huffs. the red of their string is bright against bloodied cloths and discoloured iodine, weaving around their wrists. “i’ll leave you to bleed on our doorstep next time,” she warns, has to take a pause when she realises she hadn’t meant my. it’s... been a while since sungho stopped loitering around the ground floor of her apartment, hands shoved in his pockets. the younger guy follows her up now, most days, terrorises the rest of the tenants with his tattoos and scuffed up jackets, his harley rumbling menacingly by the entrance.

the lawyer looks at him, grinning on the couch, and wonders when she got domestic with the boy rough around the edges, cornering her in the office. perhaps, since the day her flimsy morals had folded so easily over his request. “i was just gonna say you’ve gotten better at this,” he says. sorin rolls her eyes at him, teases, “only because i need to keep my boyfriend from dying on my couch,” and immediately spots the flaw in her premise, the keyword not even second guessed. a hand slaps over sungho’s mouth, his eyes smirking knowingly at her. red bridges between them as she points with her free hand. “don’t you dare,” she warns, but sorin’s laughing despite herself and, well, it wasn’t anything they didn’t know already.

🪙

she knows she’s picking at it, unravelling the thread that binds them together, like if she pulls at the loose ends hard enough, it won’t just fall apart. looking out from her glass walls to where sungho’s sitting, neutrality strained on his face while she meets yet another chaebol son, smiling the way weak men who think they’re powerful do.

“just a moment,” she says, standing up. outside, she sees her secretary do the same, brief relief on his face. her hips sway as she exits the glass door, stopping in front of his desk. sorin places a hand on the warm wood, head tilted up to look at him, in full view of her prospective blind date. the muscle in his cheek jumps, understanding and resignation setting in. “c’mon, save me, he’s boring,” she says, and sungho doesn’t move. can’t, really, before she does.

she kisses him, lips coated with something glossy and saccharine, like overripe peaches sitting out for too long on a summer afternoon. sticky sweet and soon to spoil, on his. something gets thrown, audibly, in the office behind her, a door slamming closed soon after. his arms around her don’t let her turn away; sorin presses a hand against his chest and pulls away, doesn’t let the daze distract from the point of this. “is he gone?” she asks, and the other looks up, nods briefly.

“good,” sorin says, “you’re mine.” an assurance, empty—she leaves the second half unsaid, even though she can see the thread wrapped around his neck, and still she drags him down and tightens it herself.

📷

“should we film something for our anniversary?”

sorin tilts her head back, crown of her head meeting his thigh where she’s draped across his lap. she’s scrolling through her feed; he’s editing her newest video. red string hang loose between them, comfortable and unseen. “mm,” is his reply, focused on the task. she sighs and reaches up, running her hands through his hair to get his attention. “your roots are growing out again,” she complains, “we should find another colour you look hot in that doesn’t stain my hands purple every two weeks.”

there’s a huff of laughter above her, sungho looking down. “you like it, though,” he teases, and well. she’s got no comeback for that. sorin shrugs her shoulders. it’s a bigger feat than you’d think, while lying down and avoiding dropping her phone on her face. “let’s keep our anniversary for ourselves,” sungho adds,��wraps her like a strand around his finger and pulls her in, wry smile on his face. “just us, no one else.”

she lets herself be pulled closer, snuggling up to watch him touch up the footage they’d filmed earlier. “okay,” sorin grins, “the internet thinks it’s on, like, whenever that last episode of inferno aired anyway.” she laces their fingers together, intangible crimson link disappearing somewhere between their held hands. it’s their little secret, hidden from view.

🎾

the red of their strings are dyed darker, reaching across the tennis court. they’re still the star players, even if they’re not partners on mixed doubles anymore.

“good game,” he says, jogging up to her, and sorin scowls a little at him. “we’re still getting used to working together,” she defends herself, because it sucks to be on the losing side, across from sungho instead of beside him. “since you, y’know, left and all that.” sungho’s graduated and gone, even though he visits the team once in a while, and now there’s that undeniable distance between them, as certain and tangible as the net in front of her. it feels unfair, somehow, the double fault that they’ve fumbled completely, serves and signs missed because they were just a beat too slow. now he’s someone else’s.

but she still thinks of him as hers, first. “it’s fine, we’ll play another round and keep the nets later,” sungho calls to the rest of the members, waves off the clean up with an arm slung over her shoulders, skin warm against hers. like they’re still best friends and partners, the contact innocent and friendly and casual, the sort that mean nothing until everyone else is gone. sorin knows she’s going to regret this. but he kisses her like he still wants her, and at least the regret tastes a little like victory.

🎞️

there’s music booming, the reverb of something bass while the rest of the set cleans up, stylists carefully peeling her out of the last expensive, horribly branded outfit she’s paid to make look good. sungho’s by the monitor, going through the photographs; there’s that focus on the screen that she’d seen develop as their careers started rising, an inexplicable flutter to know it’s her he’s looking at now, even though their best pictorials have always been together.

sorin hops out of the makeshift stall, dressed down and comfortable, and she’s caught up to him before she can think. she’ll blame it on the fact that she hasn’t seen him in a while—haven’t been booked together, as that set they used to come as. it’s spite that drives their synergy today, annoyance over the rumours of a slump in their partnership she’s determined to prove wrong. the rumours were wrong, anyway, crisp lines on the samples on the screen, the splash she knows this one’s going to make.

sungho glances at her, the sort of grin when they’ve pulled off a concept, and something tugs at her. “wanna grab a bite?” she asks, entirely on impulse and that vague, ever-present sense of missing him. there’s a pause, point two seconds too long, sandwiched between sungho’s surprised expression and no answer. oh god, she’s made a fool of herself.

she turns on her heel and flees the room, embarrassed; sorin doesn’t see the relieved laugh he lets out, picking up the red thread that’s spooled out and following it back to her.

🕸️

the tear in the fabric of the spacetime continuum seals itself shut at the tip of sorin’s index finger, pointing at nothing. “wait, was that us?” red strings crisscross unseen, a multiverse of possibilities, and the constant that ties them together shining in between. sungho blinks from where he’s seated at the console, his code done executing. they’d just been looking for an alternative design to the webslinger they’ve got now, and yes, taking a peek at the multiverse is kind of cheating, but if you figured out the formula in advanced physics... it’s fair game, really.

“so... no webslinger designs there...” she fixes him with a look that says duh, because that universe’s sorin is definitely missing the spidey sense if she didn’t notice two college kids gawking at her while she ‘made out’ ( censored for the pg-13 movies ) with the sungho of that other universe... uh huh. sorin of this universe might have bigger problems than faulty webslingers right now.

“hey, the us in that universe, were we...” “... yeah.” “huh.” ”...” “wanna try it too?”

❤️

sorin rushes into his arms and laughs, gives him a kiss that’s far deeper than it ought to be, airplane breath and their door still ajar. the thread tied between the two of them is barely a centimeter long, their hands interlocking as he pulls her in for another kiss. sungho smells a little like the hospital mixed with the candle she’d bought on a whim, hugging her tightly. “missed you, baby,” he says, kisses the crown of her head and moves to take her luggage in, sorin still clinging to him. home feels like a forever, ticking off the years. there’s no other way to describe it, the surety of the two of them after the rollercoaster to get here, red wrapped around their pinkies. fate, choice, and love, everything in between.

“i made it in time, right? happy anniversary!”