Soulmates. That’s what the legends call them, the two lovers joined together by a red string that only they can see. Bound by fate itself, these two people are destined to find each other and fall in love, forming a beautifully romantic relationship that would last until the end of their days, and then some, if you believed in reincarnation. It may sound fantastical, or it may sound terrifying to know that one day, those connected by that thread invisible to all others will only love each other. The historical evidence for such couples existing is scant, with only a handful of cases recorded in an even smaller number of countries. To the modern person listening to such a fanciful tale, perhaps one would dismiss it as simply that.
Out of all the tales he grew up listening to, the one about soulmates and red strings would have been one of the few that Lukas would have brushed aside, just like most others, had he not had a red string of his own.
He isn’t bothered by the fact he has a red string. In fact, he’s rather ambivalent about the entire situation, living rather comfortably in the knowledge that fate has given him a partner for life. It’s inevitable that he meets said partner, so he doesn’t see any reason to seek out and accelerate the process for finding his soulmate. He’ll go at his own pace until he encounters his soulmate, just as he hopes that his own soulmate would do for him. After all, there’s no need to rush if they’ll have each other for the rest of their lives.
Being friends with one Matthias Kristiansen can mean many things, but one of them is apparently that Lukas will be dragged into the music building with him. While neither of them are music majors or majoring in something remotely related to music, Mads is quite fond of the drumset in the basement of the building. He’s also quite proud of what he can do on said drumset, which is the entire reason why Lukas was dragged to the building in the first place.
The first time he visited the music building, Mads had to give him a tour. From the entrance to the lobby, the performance hall just ahead, all the classrooms and practice rooms in all the hallways that never seemed to end, and the ever elusive stairs, Mads may be many things, but taking his time to observe the building around them wasn’t one of them. To be fair, he had come to the music building plenty of times by then, so he would’ve been familiar with the layout of the place. It wasn’t until after Mads performed his drum solo (surprisingly good in Lukas’ opinion, given the fact that Mads said he hadn’t learned how to play the drums until he got here) that Lukas really had the time to explore the building at his own pace.
“You wanna go to the dining hall to grab some dinner?” he had asked Lukas in the lobby as they were walking out. Either he hadn’t noticed the way that Lukas was still glancing around at the novelty of the music building or he was intentionally ignoring it.
“I’m not that hungry.” Lukas wasn’t lying when he answered, but it was more of an excuse than anything. Something felt different here the moment he stepped foot in this building, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “I think I’ll look around at the library and the study spaces you mentioned for a bit. I’ll text you when I’m done, so if you’re still there, I’ll meet you there.”
“Fair! See you around, Lukas!”
After Mads left, Lukas was the only person in the lobby. Figuring that this was private enough that he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of any random onlooker, he raised his right hand to his face, staring at the string tied to his pinkie. As always, it was still tied securely around his finger, the red fading slightly into translucence from the gentle sunlight coming through the windows. He followed the thread with his eyes, on the lobby floor, getting caught on the corner of a wall before disappearing into the hallways of the building.
It’s never been this easy to follow.
Normally, the string would tangle around almost anything he could see, from his own desk in the dorm to the bushes on the way to class and even entire people rushing out of their classrooms. On some days, it would even wrap itself around buildings, so if he really wanted to, he’d have to run laps around the campus just to unwind the string. Being some construct of destiny, it doesn’t seem to have any effect on his surroundings, but then again, he and his soulmate are the only people who can see this particular thread anyway. It wouldn’t exactly be fair to everyone else who couldn’t see his red string to trip over it or something.
The fact that it hadn’t caught on to anything in this building, save for the corner of the wall that it’d have to catch onto, had to be significant. He took another quick glance at his surroundings to make sure that no one would be around to see him before he tugs at the thread lightly. To his surprise, it only grew more taut, instead of giving way to even more string as it normally did. Strange. Was this a sign that he was closer to his soulmate than ever?
Figuring that he’d be too distracted to check out the study spaces in the music building now, he decided to text Mads and ask if he was still at the dining hall eating. Knowing that man, either he had finished in three minutes or he was still in the middle of his third slice of pizza. No in between.
As Lukas’ luck would have it, it was the latter that time.
Since then, Lukas has had a specific violin piece stuck in his head. How he knew it was violin or that it was actually the violin part of a larger group, he couldn’t tell you, though. “It sounds like a violin, and it sounds kind of empty,” would be his best answer, but since it’s not exactly like he’d tell anyone that he has a song stuck in his head, it’s not like he’s had any reason to give said answer.
He’s taken to visiting the music building when he has free time, which as a history and linguistics double major, he has a good amount of. As far as he can tell, it doesn’t matter when he comes, whether in the early mornings (read: 8am) or at the depths of night (read: 2am when the building closes), the string remains just as untangled as it was the first time he came here. That same song that’s been stuck in his head since the first time he visited still hasn’t quite faded from his mind. Coming to the music building doesn’t help get the song unstuck from his head; it actually makes it even worse, but its presence in the back of his mind has grown on him. At the very least, it’ll never be truly silent for him, even if the music is all in his head.
It’s not until Tuesday night, the time when Lukas is most free due to having no classes on Wednesday, that he goes to the music building with the actual intention of following the string or the song, whichever is more noticeable. If anyone asks why he seems like he’s wandering aimlessly around the music hallways, he’ll just say that he’s scouting out for a good place to study.
The difference between how tangled the red string is outside of the music building and how untangled it is inside the building is as stark as the difference between day and night. Day, where the sun shines on everything and obscures all other stars in the sky, and night, where the stars are finally brightly visible against the darkness. Outside the building, the red string could bring him just anywhere, but inside the building, there’s really only one way he could go to follow it, so he does.
He breezes past the empty classrooms on the first floor, most of them locked for the night. As he follows the red string, he notices that it leaves no string behind him, meaning that as he comes closer to meeting his soulmate, it must be shortening. He only takes note of this because of how novel the situation is, not because it’s an obvious indicator of how soon the fateful meeting with his soulmate would be.
The thread leads him down the stairs into the basement, where most of the practice rooms are. In these hallways, he can hear the faint echoes of students still up and practicing their instruments, but it’s still too soon for him to be able to make out the echoes that would mirror the song stuck in his head. He shakes his head at that thought. How could he know that the song stuck in his head would be the one his soulmate was playing? Perhaps it was just a hunch, just as he had felt the first time he came here that the music building would prove to be something fateful to him.
Lukas almost winces at the way that the sound of his footsteps clash against the music coming from the practice rooms he passes and against the music in his own head, as if those were obstacles to meeting his soulmate now. He has to remind himself that if his soulmate is practicing, he has no intention of interrupting them, let alone any intention of meeting them here and now. He will wait for their fated meeting, which evidently is to occur in this building if the untangled string said anything, instead of seeking them out on his own. This little adventure of following his red string is just an experiment to see where it would lead him today. That is all.
Yet something in him aches at the thought that he wouldn’t, no, he refused to see them.
Lost in his thoughts, Lukas doesn’t even realize that he’s stopped walking until finally, the song in his head echoes what he hears from the door to his left. There is no comparison between the song that’s been stuck in his head and the one that must surely be played by his soulmate; it’s as if he had been underwater all this time and he’d only just managed to surface to hear the piece with complete clarity.
Whatever his soulmate is playing, practicing, rehearsing, it’s on a completely different level from what he’s gotten used to from Mads. The notes feel to him as if they’re running, driving the song forwards without catching their breath, without a need to catch their breath. Yet despite moving forwards, it doesn’t feel rushed at all, somehow going at a leisurely yet quick pace. It’s strident, a song played confidently, but somehow, Lukas can still sense some hesitation between the notes, betraying its true purpose as being a practice.
He doesn’t even realize that he’s holding his breath, reaching for the door, until the piece abruptly stops both from the practice room and in his head. When did he space out like that? It’s unlike him to be distracted so easily, but now that he’s aware of himself, he can feel the red string pulling his hand down. Towards the door handle or towards the ground, he isn’t sure, but in any case, it pulls him ever closer to meeting his soulmate.
Lukas jerks his hand back. His heart aches from a sudden pressure on his chest as he backs away, careful not to touch the practice room door. Is this what it feels like to reject fate? He can only wonder, but now is not a good time to meet his soulmate. Especially when they’re practicing, he wouldn’t know how they’d respond to finding out that someone had been listening to them practice for all this time now. He’d rather not find out.
When he finally makes it back to his dorm, the string is as tangled as ever, hanging loosely from his pinkie once again. It’s not until he collapses into his chair and sits in the silence that he realizes that the song has finally unstuck itself from his head.
Allegro moderato.
But now he knows the song’s name without ever having to meet his soulmate.
Lukas has to admit it: he’s a bit curious as to who exactly his soulmate is.
However, he also has to admit that after the close encounter with his soulmate back at the practice room, he’s a bit apprehensive about this whole deal with fate and red strings.
Sure, he’s decided that he’ll let fate decide when and where he’ll meet his soulmate, but when it actually comes to letting fate decide that, now he’s not nearly as sure of his decision. It’s not that he outright rejects fate, but some part of him wishes he had a bit more control over it. Getting one close call with his soulmate shouldn’t have stressed him out as much as it did, but maybe that was because he did outright reject fate. The song in his head still hasn’t gone away, which might as well be fate rubbing salt in the wound, but at least it hadn’t gotten louder or any more vivid than he remembered. As the semester goes on, he opts to dwell on his feelings about his soulmate less and try to ignore the song stuck in his head more.
That being said, his decision to work in the music building lobby isn’t a coincidence either. On one hand, he’s discovered that the music building is an underrated place to work in, probably because most students aren’t music majors and wouldn’t have a reason to be here in the first place. He can always find a spot to work in, even in somewhere as obvious as the lobby. The music coming from the performance hall is also a nice bonus and a welcome distraction from the song left in his head by his soulmate (no offense to his soulmate, but even he gets a little tired of the same piece stuck in his head for so long).
However, on the other hand, it gives him a good chance at seeing his soulmate, even from a distance. Granted, it doesn’t matter how far away his soulmate is; his red string will always connect him to them, but it’s a nice indicator pointing right at his soulmate. While he’s working, he can always look out of the corner of his eye to see if his red string connects him to the next passerby in the lobby. One key takeaway from his close encounter with his soulmate is that if they’re close enough, the red string is liable to pull them closer together.
Understandably, this doesn’t make him especially productive when working in the music building lobby, but he manages to finish his work somehow.
Today, Lukas is working once again in the lobby of the music hall. He packs lightly for working in the music building, with just his laptop in his bag, not even a charger or a pen or two. If he really needed to, he could work at the computers in the music library and borrow a pen from the front desk, but since it’s just an online linguistics problem set, and those come quite easily for him, he figures this shouldn’t take too long. He shouldn’t get too comfortable on these couches in the lobby anyway; they’re probably bad for his back if he sits for too long. His professor estimated that it would take the average student two hours or so to complete, so even if it took about as long as his professor expected, he should be able to finish by the time the performance ended so as to avoid the inevitable crowd blocking the doors.
This time, the song that had been stuck in his head for all this time is now the very piece that he can hear through the walls from the music building lobby. If he had come earlier, would he have entered the performance hall to watch his soulmate onstage for the first time?
For all the time he spent in the music building doing his work (which was a lot for a history and linguistics double major, to be fair), he hadn’t heard anything remotely similar to what his soulmate was playing that day. Of course, it doesn’t surprise him. Given the diverse names and faces he’s seen on the music events board and calendar, it’d be even more surprising that any two musicians would play the exact same piece. This performance that he happens to be eavesdropping on wasn’t one he saw listed anywhere, so he can only guess as to why they’d be performing now, if it even was a performance. Mads said that for his music class, he had to attend a dress rehearsal that took place in the performance hall, so maybe this was simply his soulmate’s dress rehearsal.
But to answer his question, the answer must surely be no.
Even as he tries justifying to himself that he has homework to do, the very linguistic problem set he had set out to complete today, that line of reasoning falls flat, a mere excuse to get out of meeting his soulmate. If he really wanted to attend, he would have made an effort to find the time to do so. He would have found out who was performing and made a conscious effort to attend. The fact that his soulmate’s performance began right after he settled down in the lobby couldn’t just be a coincidence, but he’s hesitant to call it the workings of fate. And yet, he knows that there aren’t many other explanations for why he still remembers the piece his soulmate was practicing when he almost met them and why he ends up at the music hall right when they perform that piece.
Lukas tries to distract himself from the whole ordeal that was having a soulmate by working on his problem set. He really does. Linguistics is a subject he loves, and while historical linguistics isn’t exactly his strongest suit, it’s still one that interests him, and one that should not be taking this long for him to finish his homework. He prides himself of being able to finish his homework quickly, faster than any estimate his professors gave him, at any rate, but distracted by his feelings on having a soulmate and the music he could hear from the performance hall, it’s a losing battle.
It’s not until he looks up from his laptop to see the small crowd of people streaming out of the doors to the performance hall that he realizes just how long it’s been since he started working. He’s made some headway into his problem set, but the noise from the people coming out, discussing the performance, sending their compliments to the performers, whatever it is that people say when they come out of a performance like that, it’s just too much noise for him to continue working.
When he’s about to close his laptop, he freezes as his red string untangles from his backpack (since when did it get in there?) and points him directly to his soulmate.
Lukas practically throws his laptop to the side, jumping up to see if he can get a glance at whoever would have the other end, bound to him by the mysterious workings of fate. While he still has his dignity and will not deign to jump to see whoever they are, there’s not much he can do when he’s trying to see over the heads of everyone who seems to be taller than his soulmate, short of standing on the couch. Would it be too awkward to go through the crowd by following his string? Is that something he even wants to do?
Well, he has to get out of here at some point. Might as well take that as an excuse to push through the crowd to see them before he heads out.
He packs up quickly, lest his red string start pulling him towards his soulmate. As always, he thanks his past self for having the foresight to only bring what was strictly necessary to do his work, which makes his work of cleaning up simple. Throwing his backpack over his shoulder, he glances down to the string tied to his hands. Invisible to everyone else but him and his soulmate, he can’t just hold his hand out and follow the string; the people around him would think him insane. Instead, he follows the path his string outlines for him with his eyes, before taking a deep breath and using that same hand to keep his bag on his shoulder.
Lukas sticks out like a sore thumb in the sea of black, mostly from the performance goers wearing their formal attire for the occasion. Good thing he didn’t actually attend; he hadn’t known that it was a formal event like this. With his hand holding onto his backpack, the red string extends from his shoulders towards his soulmate, a perfect guide in this crowd. If he’s taking the least efficient route to the main doors to the lobby, well, it’s just because there’s so many people in the way.
It’s astonishingly easy to make his way through the crowd. He doesn’t know if it’s because people here actually have some awareness of their surroundings, or if it’s because he looks like he’s trying to go somewhere, to someone.
“Hello?” he finds himself saying.
She’s wearing all black. Performance attire. Golden amber eyes. Dark hair bordering on black. It’s tied back. Violin case hanging from her shoulder. She holds his gaze, eyes widened imperceptibly, although Lukas couldn’t tell you how he knew. Even though he doesn’t have to look to see the red string, not when he could feel it there, he still looks. There’s a red string tied to her finger.
She’s his soulmate. The violinist he was listening to her practicing that one time. The performer on the stage he was eavesdropping just now. The one whose songs have been running through his head since the day he first came to this building. She’s short; no wonder he couldn’t see her over the crowd, or any other crowd on campus for that matter. Noticing her just for her height does a disservice to the presence she has, whether on the stage or in Lukas’ eyes. He doesn’t know how he could miss seeing her again.
When his eyes meet hers again, if he waited a moment longer, would he have seen his own eyes reflected in hers? Would he have the courage to ask something, her name, her year, how long she’s played, anything? Would she speak first, if he hadn’t? How many different possibilities did they have in that moment that can never be taken again? What should he do, now that he’s made it to this fateful moment?
“Hello…” she replies uncertainly. He won’t ever be able to forget that voice.
Lukas tears his eyes away and for all intents and purposes, runs.
It’s only after he leaves that he realizes the real reason why he didn’t leave before the performance ended. It wasn’t just because he hadn’t finished his problem set. The music he thought he was listening to through the walls had continued in his mind, so vividly that he could no longer tell it apart from music in the real world.
Having already found his soulmate, Lukas now doesn’t have any reason to work in the music hall anymore. In all fairness, he never had a real reason to work in the music hall to begin with—he wouldn’t count looking for his soulmate as a real reason—but now he still continues coming here to work out of habit. The music hall is still by far the easiest building on campus to find a place to sit down and work for a few hours, so he doesn’t see anything wrong with keeping up this habit. Plus, since he finally met his soulmate, if you could call that encounter a meeting, the red string on his hand isn’t proving to be a distraction anymore. If anything, the music hall has become the place where he’s the most productive, even more than working in the main campus library or in his own dorm.
He doesn’t try seeking her out again. As far as Lukas is concerned, there’s no real point. Sure, he’s rejected fate a couple of times by now, but fate isn’t something he can escape from forever, and fate is the very thing that ties them together. They’ll end up together one way or another, whether he’s ready or not, so there’s no point in him rushing the inevitable.
And as for the songs that he would get stuck in his head, since the performance, they’ve softened to the point that Lukas can forget that it’s still there, that the songs his soulmate plays aren’t playing in his head. Sometimes, he wonders what she’s practicing for this time, if she’s even practicing, now that it seems like one of her biggest performances has already passed.
The only real change that Lukas makes for himself is that he takes to working in the music library instead of the lobby. It’s a lot quieter there due to it being a library, and there are a lot fewer people wandering around in a music library than there are in a lobby. Occasionally, he’ll take a look at the books and magazines on the shelves, but since most of his exposure to music was through Mads and his drumwork, Lukas doubts he’s the target audience for anything he picks up. Still, it’s a welcome distraction from his work when he needs a break. (He isn’t going to forget the time he saw Hatsune Miku on the front cover of one of the very serious music magazines in the library.)
Days after meeting his soulmate turn into weeks. He won’t admit that he’s been counting, but he has. Lukas goes so regularly that he has his own spot in the corner of the library, just out of sight of the front desk thanks to all the shelves. The red string doesn’t tangle itself around the bookshelves; instead pointing him the way out of the library doors, but he interprets its variable tautness to be an indication of how close his soulmate is. The tighter the string is, the more it pulls him towards the library doors, the closer she is.
The first time she came to the library when he was working there, he almost fell out of his seat.
It’s not that Lukas pays attention to the front desk, especially not when he’s actually working. Since the encounter with his soulmate and the song in his head quieting, it’s all too easy for him to get lost in his homework again, whether it be another linguistics problem set or some outline for a history paper. He knows he’s incredibly fortunate to be able to major in what he loves, so his homework is enjoyable to him, even if it gets a bit tedious sometimes. He purposely sits in the corner so that his view of the front desk, or anything else in the library for that matter, is blocked. He also sits facing the corner so that his back is facing the front desk. This setup has proven to be helpful for his concentration.
That being said, his red string had completely different ideas. He still isn’t quite sure of the details, but he remembers quite vividly that it pulled his hand back behind him with such force, he almost fell out of his chair. Thankfully, the corner he had taken up only had one table, so he was the only one there. Otherwise, it would’ve been embarrassing beyond words to be seen falling out of his chair.
When he finally managed to get his red string under control, or rather, get up on his feet so that he wouldn’t be falling if his red string decided to drag him somewhere again, Lukas followed it into the bookshelves so that he could get a glance at just why his red string was acting up this time. Peeking around the shelves, he froze when he saw that same face he had run from all that time ago.
Of course, who else could it be besides his soulmate?
This time, he had an actual reason not to disturb her, that being the fact that she clearly had business at the front desk. There was no socially acceptable reason for him to reach out to her when she was probably asking for a musical score or some records from the front desk. No matter how hard the string tried pulling him towards her, he wouldn’t let it drag him out of the shelves.
He didn’t linger in the shelves long enough to see her conclude whatever it was she was doing at the front desk, despite the sting of the red string tightening itself around his finger. Lukas didn’t even know it could do that, but he wasn’t about to meet her under these kinds of circumstances. From where he was, he couldn’t even see the hand her end of the string was tied to, so he couldn’t tell if it was doing the same thing to her, trying to bring them together when they were so close. He couldn’t even see her face.
Lukas had hoped that that would be the first and only time that such a thing would happen, but given the fact that he was working in the music library of all places, maybe it was too naive of him to think that he would be able to avoid an actual musician for longer than he had.
After the fifth time, sure, Lukas has gotten pretty good at not getting dragged out of his chair by his red string, but he’s already distracted to the point that working in the music library is no longer the productive experience he used to have. Trying to do your homework while also being vigilant of your red string isn’t exactly conducive to finishing said work, after all.
At least the song stuck in his head wasn’t affected by the close encounter. He’s taken to drowning it out with white noise generators which are easy enough to find online. It’s just that he hasn’t noticed how the song has slowed down in his head. If he knew the sonata format, he’d know that this would only be the calm before the storm.
The song now stuck in his head is quite frankly a stressful one to get stuck in his head.
Since he stopped working in the music library after the five times his red string dragged him or almost dragged him out of his chair, Lukas has been going out of his way to avoid the music building. It minimizes his chances of seeing his soulmate, but that’s a small price to pay for being able to do his homework relatively free of distractions. At least, that was what he had hoped when he first stopped going to the music building to do work, but he’s run into a couple complications.
For one, he hasn’t found a place yet that he can work in. Well, that’s not quite right. No matter where he goes, his dorm, the main library, the study lounges, he just isn’t used to working there, which puts a much larger dampener on his productivity than he had expected. Not to mention that it was a lot harder to find places to work unless he was in his own dorm, so he’d be spending more time looking for a seat or a table than he did before. As for his dorm, his roommate Berwald is also a pretty quiet person, so it’s not like Lukas would be distracted by him, but Lukas just doesn’t like working there. The last option, working at his friends’ dorms, would be unsustainable and also prove to be even less productive than working in the main campus library because they’ll just distract each other. (Not naming any names, but Mads certainly isn’t helpful in this respect.)
And two, he’s procrastinated on actually meeting his soulmate in a real, face-to-face interaction for so long, he thinks he can actually feel the pressure from fate to meet her. Lukas means it quite literally: there’s a building pressure in his chest urging him to go back to the music building for the slim chance that he can see her again, despite him knowing fully well that he has no heart problems, nor is it worth going back for that small chance. It’s not the worst thing he’s felt, but attributing this feeling to his own avoidance and rejection of fate only makes him feel worse.
Lukas is well aware that he’s being fickle and hypocritical. He previously thought that he’d be fine with fate doing its thing, that he’d be fine with just happening upon his soulmate and building a relationship from there. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right? Not entirely forced, but too good to be entirely coincidental. That’s how soulmates were supposed to be. The problem is that he went to the music building solely to find his soulmate, and now that he finally did, he’s using a flimsy excuse to avoid the place and his soulmate. Maybe he shouldn’t have tempted fate like that. Maybe he should’ve just let fate run its course like how he initially planned.
Seeing, or rather, hearing that the song in his head is so fast paced and filled with tension, he can only wonder if his soulmate is faring any better when it comes to the whole thing with soulmates. He did reach out to her just once before pretty much running away, so he hopes that he hasn’t soured her impression of the whole soulmates thing.
He can’t hold out against fate forever. If not for the red string now consistently pulling him towards the music building, then for the pressure in his chest and his resulting shortness of breath. Berwald is understandably concerned about him and even more concerned about the fact that Lukas keeps brushing off the weight on his chest as something he can easily handle. Having a soulmate is such a personal, private thing, so Lukas doesn’t think he can admit to having a soulmate even to his roommate, let alone admit that it’s this soulmate thing that’s causing him problems.
So eventually, Lukas caves in. Now that the semester is ending, if he doesn’t seek her out now, he doesn’t want to find out what would happen to him and his red string and his fate if he didn’t. Luckily for him, he doesn’t have much in the way of final exams, just essays that he has already written and was just waiting to submit, so he has a lot of free time on his hands. It’s more than enough to pay a visit to the music hall again.
Out of habit, he takes his laptop in his backpack despite knowing fully well that he won’t be getting any work done. He doesn’t need it, but it’s almost comforting to have. As he enters the building, the string on his hand untangles itself, an obvious guide towards his soulmate. Just by being in the building isn’t enough to quiet the song in his head or relieve the pressure building up into an ache in his chest, but that’s alright. He knows what he has to do.
Despite him surely approaching closer to his soulmate, his red string hasn’t become more taut. He can tell it’s shortening because it doesn’t drag behind him as he walks, but it still continues to hang as loosely as it normally does the more he follows it. Is this because he isn’t trying to reject fate that it’s behaving nicely? Or was it that somehow, fate thought it apt to drag him towards his soulmate before? He shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Who could possibly understand the workings of fate?
Lukas stops when he notices the string goes under a door. He’s looked at the maps of the music building before, back when he was still trying to find his spot to work, so he can tell that this is a locked practice room, one assigned to students taking private lessons. She must be a serious musician if she’s taking private lessons, he muses, scanning the featureless door. The handle is right there, and he could easily open it just as he almost did that time, but this time, he’s at least aware of his surroundings and his situation. Lukas isn’t going to space out again at this critical moment.
He raises his hand, the one with the red string tied to it, to knock on the door gently.
The door opens before he can even touch it. The song in his head comes to an abrupt stop.
For a moment, he stands frozen, hand still in midair, as his eyes land on his soulmate once again. Green t-shirt and jeans, a far cry from the black gown he first saw her in, but her hair is up in the exact same way, pulled back into a ponytail. A breath later and those golden amber eyes are looking up at him, surprised just like last time. Off her shoulder hangs her violin case; she must have been getting ready to leave as he arrived.
“It’s you,” she says with all the certainty she lacked in their first meeting.
Her voice draws him out of his trance. Lukas waves at her with his hand still in midair. To anyone else, it would look like a typical greeting, but for them, it’s a show of the red string tied to his hand. He didn’t think this far, actually speaking to his soulmate, so he says the first thing he thinks of.
“I think I’m your soulmate.”
If she was surprised, she didn’t show it on her face. Her eyes glance between his face and his hand, now dropped down to his side. He swears that he could see the red string reflected in her eyes, but maybe that was just a trick of the bad lighting in this hallway or his nerves and his heart beating up a storm in his chest. Lukas knows that he was fully capable of bearing that ache in his chest from before he met his soulmate. He’s not sure if he can endure the sheer nerves he has just by being here with her.
“Come in.” It’s not an invitation.
As if that would quell the anxiety gnawing at him from the bottom of his heart.
She holds the door open for him. Never mind the fact that it was clear even to him that she was finished with her practice today and really shouldn’t be using the practice room for just a private conversation, this is his soulmate inviting him in to speak with her privately. He hadn’t thought at all of how this could go, should go, but he’s not sure if this was what he expected either. She ushers him into a seat and swings the violin case off her shoulder to set aside. After dragging another chair over, she sits down to face him with none of the grace she must have had the day she performed.
She gives him an expectant glance, but he doesn’t know what she’s looking for. All he was looking for was, well, her, so he says nothing and waits for her.
The silence is even heavier than the weight on his chest.
“I’m Phượng, a third year student majoring in biomedical engineering. I take private lessons here for violin and perform as part of a chamber ensemble.”
She quirks an eyebrow up at his reaction. His surprise at her major must have been plain on his face.
“Lukas,” he offers in return. “I’m also a third year, double majoring in history and linguistics with a concentration in Scandinavian studies.”
Phượng nods, a small smile on her face. Lukas looks down slightly and realizes that she’s been wrapping her end of the red string around her fingers, perhaps as a nervous habit or a way to fidget. It occurs to him then that he didn’t actually know if she could see the red string until now.
“With introductions out of the way, we have a lot to talk about. Do you have time?”
If Lukas didn’t have time, he wouldn’t be here. Instead of saying that, he only nods. He’s as ready as he’ll ever be for their first actual meeting.
“Where should we start?” he asks.
For the first time since he came to the music building, his head is finally silent. It had done its job bringing him to her.