❝In the tale of fate, the red string connects us all, but not every thread leads to a soulmate.❞
In a world where love is entwined with fate, an abandoned conductor escapes the confines of an unnatural train into a universe he's forgotten.
As he nav...
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The modern streets of Japan were cold that night, the wind cutting through the narrow alleyways as if chasing something long gone.
The old woman, near the lake, her eyes clouded with age but sharp with experience, sat hunched over by a deserted corner. To anyone passing by, she was just another homeless figure, lost in time. But there was something else about her—an awareness that clung to her like a well-worn coat. She watched everything, and nothing escaped her notice.
Not even the young man stumbling through the streets, frantic and confused.
The escaped conductor.
She had known the moment she saw him that he was a conductor on the Bound Line Express. How can she not? He resembled her.
She had watched as he boarded the train for the first time with the same desperate hope that clung to all of them—the hope of finding his soulmate.
And then she had watched as that hope slowly drained from his eyes, day by day, as the train rode on and his stop never came.
It was a rare sight to see anyone on the train for as long as the young man had been. The Bound Line was ruthless, merciless even, when it came to time. For some, their destination arrived within days. For others, it took months. But for him, his destination never came.
She remembered him well.
Isamu, his ticket read.
"Ticket, please. Hello, Mr. Isamu," she had once said, handing him his meal as he sat by the window, looking out into the void, waiting. Waiting for the day when his journey would end, and he would finally meet his soulmate.
But that day never came.
He had become one of them. A conductor, lost in time, stuck on the train, watching as others got on, and others got off. And he had remained there, part of the very system he had once sought to escape.
But now in the present, as she sat on the streets of 2024, she couldn't help but laugh. The irony wasn't lost on her—how the Bound Line had failed to contain him.
Her wrinkled lips curved into a grin as she muttered to herself, "The boy actually made it."
She remembered how it had been for her, all those years ago. The desperation, the longing, the hope that slowly eroded into dust as the train passed stop after stop. But unlike her, the man had found a way out. He had returned to his true timeline.
He had escaped the fate that had claimed her and countless others.
The Bound Line had lost this time, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it found another victim.
The train never stopped. It never truly let go. It always came back for those who had touched its world. There was a bittersweet satisfaction in knowing that one of them had broken the cycle. She would never see her family again, but he would. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough for her.
