Chapter Text
Mino woke up naked in a hotel room, covered only by a thin sheet of a white blanket over his body. A beautiful woman was beside him—arms and legs clinging over his body. He moved slowly to sit on the bed making the woman drop her arms from his chest to his abdomen. Mino knew that she was just pretending to sleep. The trembling eyelids of the woman gave her away.
"Hey, will a wedding proceed without the pianist?" Mino asked without warning.
The woman, startled by Mino's voice, involuntarily opened her eyes and stretched her arms — still pretending she just woke up. She sat close to him, planting her bare breast on his arm while her fingers were playfully tracing the outline of the blue rose tattooed near his chest. Dodging his question, she commented in a sultry voice, "You ask the most random questions. I like it."
Mino, unamused by the woman's ploys, grabbed her hand tightly to make her stop caressing him and placed her hand firmly on her side—away from his body. He looked straight to her eyes and asked again in a commanding tone, "Just answer."
The woman flinched at his sudden dominating voice but his monolid eyes — swallowing her reason whole — were making her hypnotized. She liked him when he was drunk and liked him even more now that he was sober; hotter albeit a bit scary. She carefully answered, "Of course, it will. It's not like the wedding needs a pianist. They only need the groom and the bride. Plus the priest, of course."
Mino stopped for a moment, looking as if he was contemplating something deeply. When he had decided, he removed the blanket covering him and moved to the edge of the bed."Then I guess there's no use in staying here. Might as well go there and give my well-wishes," he declared.
"Where are you going?" the woman questioned as she sat up straight alone on the bed—disappointed from failing to seduce the charismatic young man.
"I'm going to get my heart broken," he replied while getting himself dressed in an expensive tuxedo.
"Why? You like the bride or something?" the woman asked, genuinely curious.
"No. The groom." Mino answered in a beat.
After what he said, he looked over the mirror to check himself and saw the woman's reaction at its reflection. He smirked as he saw her disgusted face that can't be hidden. She was no different. He had bedded a lot of women in the past and every time he revealed he liked someone of the same gender, they'd all look at him like he had some kind of mental problem. He didn't care about them anyway. They were just there to warm his lonely nights without him.
"Stop looking for bad guys and look for the guy who truly cared for you. You're more suited with the guy playing the sax last night. He's your soulmate."
Soulmates. It may sound like a cheesy line spoken in a cliché drama — only it was Mino being sincere with a dash of hidden agenda to keep the woman from clinging to him. He saw their connected red strings last night. The red string was only visible to him and was believed by legends to connect people that were destined for each other. If the woman made a move on the guy, they would surely hit it off. But it was still up to her if she would believe him.
People thought that to see the red string was a gift but to Mino, it was a curse. When he was a kid, he thought everyone could see them. And so, his innocent question, "Dad, why is your red string not connected with Mom?" broke their family apart. Since then, he never talked about his ability. He saw people fall in love with the wrong people and he always turned a blind eye. He let them be deceived by their own feelings. They were happy, why would he interfere?
However, he couldn't ignore his own destiny. He tried to fight it, having flings here and there. But he only struggled in vain — one look from his fated and he would be down on his knees. He realized it too late, only when his fated was going to belong to another did he knew that it was his heart not his strings that pulled him closer to him. He loves him. And that was all that mattered. He'd do everything to make him happy even if it meant letting him go.
Mino walked out of the hotel and wore his sunglasses. He stepped on the gas of his red Maserati and drove towards the place where the red string tied on his finger end. He was running late like he always did. It used to be because he was confident to play any tune but now it was his last selfish choice — wishing he'd be too late, too late to see his fated take a vow.