our delicate string | 최범규

17: faithless love.

[ 📚 ]

day two.

AERA HADN'T COME to school today. Beomgyu's eyebrows ruffled as he texted her and rung her cell. she was perfectly fine yesterday on her birthday, but maybe she got sick. he sighed as he walked along the sidewalk.

maybe she needed time alone, he respected her wishes. he opened his umbrella and kept walking home in the heavy rain.

[ 📚 ]

the entirety of the raven haired girl's arms had gone completely transparent. it was no longer just her fingers. she panicked, sitting up in her bed. to avoid having to see anybody today, let alone her boyfriend, she convinced her mother she was sick. maybe that wasn't even a lie. though her mother didn't believe it, she knew Aera wouldn't lie for nothing. something was going on, but Aera refused to speak about it.

yesterday it was just her hands and when she woke up, the transparency went up to her arms. it didn't take Aera long to realize that every day, she was going to lose more and more of herself.

until she completely disappeared—and when would that be? and why was this happening to her? it felt as if the universe was completely against her, literally. as if she was made to dissolve until nobody could see her. she felt sick to her stomach, what was she supposed to do?

she sat completely emotionless— there were no more tears left in her eye sockets. however, she decided to conduct her own research, figure out how to save herself by herself.

she placed the mittens back on her hands. her arms were easier to cover up once she threw on her sweatshirt—but it hurt her heart so bad knowing why she had to do this? why did she have to do this?

Aera stood up, falling back to her mattress. her head felt like a cloud of air, the dizziness taking her over. her face was pale as the snow outside, her lips slightly grey. she reached for the water on her desk, downing nearly half of it.

"i'm going to get some fresh air, hopefully to help with the sinuses." Aera lied as her mother sat on the sofa with a confused expression.

"don't forget an umbrella."

Aera hadn't gotten much sleep yesterday. the dark circles under her eyes were slightly visible, yawning in response. she had cried most of last night, worried sick about what would happen to her. eventually, she realized that informing herself of her situation. she already knew about the red string of fate, but she didn't think it had any correlation to her disappearance. but it was worth a shot, right?

she stopped by the library nearby. reaching for the handle, she stepped her foot inside and the door chimed. she smiled at the librarians, walking up to the front desk.

"hi, do you guys carry any books on the red string tale, or anything along those lines?" she smiled at the woman.

the librarian hummed in response. "if we do, they should all be in the mythology section."

"thank you." Aera smiled and walked to through the many aisles of books. there weren't multiple floors to the library, but somehow, the one floor carried at least 50 aisles for shelves. the back of the library had reading stations where many people from her school would come in groups to study. thankfully, it was rather empty. nobody really went through the hassle of going anywhere when there was heavy rain.