No Strings Attached

6 : Ara

I saw a guy with ginger hair and green eyes like mine sitting by a table, sipping on a smoothie. He matched Van's description, so I walked towards him. And- I don't know, I guess all the anger that I had just bubbled up and I slapped him, hard.

"What the hell?!" He exclaimed.

Yeah, what the hell? How could I slap someone I barely know like that? What if he doesn't want to be with me now? Why did I slap him!?

"I-I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?" I stuttered.

He looked at me, raising an eyebrow.

"W-what?" I asked.

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not," he said, cocking his head sideways, "I mean, I don't even know you in the first place and then you just-" He looked at my hand.

"Oh. Wait, no! Can you please tell me who exactly you are? Please?"

"I'm your soulmate, I think," I said.

"But your sister-" he gasped. "She lied to me! What the-"

"Let's do a proper introduction and forget about Van. I'm Amara Swift. Nice to meet you," I put my hand forward, a sudden surge of confidence filling me.

"Uh- yeah, you too. I'm Mark. Mark Park."

I had to bite my lips to keep myself from laughing.

"It's okay, you can laugh, it's a funny name," he said, touching the back of his neck.

I sat down. No drink for me, I guess. "So... I guess we're kinda stuck with eachother, huh? By the way, nice eyes." I said.

"That's a bit conceited, don't think?" He asked. Soulmates had exactly the same irises, after all.

I shrugged, rolling my eyes. I was surprised by how comfortable I felt around him. I wasn't a stuttering mess anymore. I looked at his freckles, they were really cute.

I looked down and avoided eye contact at the right moment and was saved from an embarrassing remark from him accusing me of staring. Having a crush for as many years as me kinda made you an expert in that field. Wait a second, I couldn't see his string!

"Um. Mark, could you explain why I can't see your string right now? Are you actually even my soulmate..?"

A small bot came flying to our table. There were generally two types of bots: iris scanners and thermal sensors. The string had a slightly lower temperature than its surroundings and could be spotted with thermal sensors. They were cheaper than iris scanners, hence they were much more common. This one was a thermal bot.

Mark pointed the bot at his hands, and showed its screen to me. 

"See? I have a broken string too." I saw the broken string on the screen and sat back. 

"But why can't I see it?" I asked.

"I think it's because you lost the ability to see your soulmate's string when it broke," he said.

 The bot scanned us, but all it could see were the broken strings. It shifted in confusion, its program debating whether to consider us soulmates or not. Suddenly and to my surprise, Mark picked up his string! Like, actually touched it! But how?!

He picked up the broken end and held it joined in his fingers with mine. The bot whirred, scanning again and finally zooming away.

"Whew! Scared me..." I mumbled.

"Well technically, we are soulmates, right? Even if it reported us, iris scanners could prove it," he said.

"But wait! How did you even..."