Tie a Knot|| Blue Lock

Chapter 9

"Well, don't you look cheery?" Sae commented sarcastically as he watched [Name] absentmindedly click his plate with a fork. He'd been like that since the moment they arrived at the restaurant their parents agreed to meet up in.

"Huh?" [Name]'s eyes widened as he was brought out of his daze, his head instantly snapping in Sae's direction. Ever since his performance ended, he'd been moving on autopilot. If someone asked him what happened after he got off the stage, he wouldn't be able to answer them.

"I'd assume your performance didn't end well but with how your mom is acting..." Both of their eyes trailed off to where their mothers were seated beside each other. Fumiko held her phone up as she and Hana watched something on it.

Based on the slight audio they could hear from the device, [Name] instantly recognized it as a recording his mom must've taken during his performance earlier.

"It must be because of something else." Sae continued his sentence, his face blank as ever as he gave [Name] an expectant stare. While they haven't known each other that long, they've at least grown comfortable enough to be deemed as friends.

[Name] chewed on his lips as he thought of what to say. He can't exactly say he could see strings that connected people to their destined ones and that he was hung over and slightly heartbroken at seeing his previously stringless friend develop a thread right before his eyes. (It's simply because he thought he'd met someone else who didn't have a string like he did. That's all there was to it, he swears.)

"...Do you think that the string of fate is real? That everyone is connected to a person that was made just for them?" [Name] settled for that instead as he looked down, not wanting to see Sae's reaction to his words.

"Ha?" Sae gave a dumbfounded look as he raised an eyebrow. "That's just a dumb story people use to cope with the fact they'll be forever alone." While one would assume it was a thoughtless answer, the redhead fully believed in that opinion.

Given that he was a child who was allowed free access to the Internet, he wasn't privy to the fact that some people had more than one partner or people who lived and died without a lover beside them.

"Right, of course." [Name] gave an empty smile as he relaxed his body he didn't even realize became tense. He can't exactly argue with Sae for having that opinion, the widespread concept of the string of fate is that a person is connected to only one person.

The reality, however, is that the string of fate is a much more complicated thing. He's seen a doomed friendship of two people being connected to the same person, along with an elderly couple being settled with a person that wasn't their fated one.

He's come to realize that the connection doesn't exactly guarantee that someone is stuck with only one person or that they'll eventually meet. If that wasn't the case, then he wondered what use it was for only to realize that maybe that's the reason why no one else could see them.

But that also derived the question of, why him?

As he thought things over with a silent frown, Sae couldn't help but be put in his silent spiel. It seems like he realized the answer he gave was the wrong one, and he couldn't help but feel a bit bad for turning [Name]'s mood even worse.

"Have you ever thought of being an idol?" Sae suddenly sputtered as he grabbed the paper and pencils given by the restaurant to the kids. He then scooched closer to [Name] in their shared booth with the items on hand.

"An idol?" [Name] was once again snapped out of his thoughts. It seems like the confusion was enough to get him to stop thinking so hard, causing Sae to let out an internal sigh of relief.